Congrats to John Phan, who took down the WPT Legends of Poker main event at the Bike. That makes 2 WSOP bracelets and 2 WPT final tables since mid-June for the Razor.

The debacle at the $50,000 HORSE event appears to have affected the Scotty Nguyen Poker Challenge at the Cherokee Casino in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The page dedicated to the event appears to have changed a bit in the past week:

August 23rd version from Google’s cache

The same page on August 30.

An interview with Nolan Dalla, WSOP Media Director, on Lou Krieger’s Keep Flopping Aces podcast says to expect new rules regarding player behavior to be instituted in time possibly for the WSOP Circuit events in October.

Strangely enough, the current rules in place were able to disqualify a player who was misbehaving at the final table, even though said player had the chip lead.

The five remaining defendants from an arrest (and SWAT team raid) on a South Carolina home for playing poker back in April 2006 are still trying to get a trial, which may be over a year away.

The Asian Poker Tour drew a field of about 250 for their latest stop, Macau. They had two day 1′s to whittle down the field to 67 remaining. Notable names remaining: JJ Liu, Casey Kastle, and Mel Judah. Play starts again at midnight Eastern time, with updates available on the APT site and Pokernews.

Circle your calendars for Oct. 14, when the Real Deal poker game show (with host Paul Rodriguez) at the Venetian makes its debut. Tickets start at only $75, but audience members will be able to walk away with valuable prizes (imagine how hard it is to walk away with a plasma TV).

More exciting stuff later, maybe…

I’m sure she has almost nothing to do with this — most likely Greg told her it was a good tourney, she was happy to accept a check to show up, and the Winstar’s web people ganked an old PR image off the internet — but still, just found it interesting to see her out of UB uniform. Also interesting to see a Kahnawake squaw working with the Chickasaw. Historically these two nations never battled, but I don’t think you would ever see a Cherokee dude like Scotty Nguyen make the tribal crossover.

He defeated Houstonian Ray Henson, whom you may recall went deep in the 2007 WSOP main event — the last Texan standing, finishing in 12th place before being knocked out by, interestingly enough, Scotty Nguyen.

124 players bought in to this $5,000 NLHE event, including a handful of names and faces you may recognize from tables around North Texas and elsewhere:

TJ Cloutier, Richardson, 1st place — $241k
Ray Henson, Houston, 2nd place — $138k
Brant Hale, Norman, 3rd place — $72k
Gavin Smith, Las Vegas, 4th place — $42k
Noah Nodine, Norman, 5th place — $33k
Daniel Robertson, Alma, AR, 6th place — $27k
Gil George, Dallas, 7th place — $21k
Scotty Nguyen, Las Vegas, 8th place — $15k
Bill Edler, Las Vegas, 9th place — $12k

Whit Blanton, Dallas, 15th place

Whit: “I think I did really well to represent the guys from Dallas. It was the toughest field I have ever played against.”

Todd Brunson, Las Vegas, 16th place
Berry Johnston, Las Vegas, 19th place
Gregg Merkow, Dallas, 20th place

At the river with the board showing T 4 5 4 K, Gregg Merkow moved all in and was quickly called by TJ Cloutier. Gregg tabled pocket 7s and was crushed by TJ’s pocket Queens. As Gregg gathered his things to leave, he said “I didn’t believe him.” [via pokerpages]

Keith Lehr, Dallas, 37th place
Amnon Filippi, New York, 43rd place
Capt. Tom Franklin, Las Vegas, 50something place
Mike Matusow, Las Vegas, out Day 1, with F-bomb penalties to boot

Also playing: Brandon Cantu, Layne Flack, Tex Barch, Eric Crain and Steve Boyle (winners of smaller big Cherokee events), and Kido Pham (defending Scotty Nguyen Poker Classic Champion).

ALT HED: Her Poker Is Her Temple

Thea started out playing a $200+30 Ladies limit hold’em event, in which she took 3rd … winning her $3k. Then the next day she competed in the $200+30 Ladies no-limit hold’em event and won it … for a $5,904 payout. Together, that won her the “Ladies Series Best All-Around Player Award” — resulting in an extra $1,200 and a trophy awarded by Kathy Liebert (center).

Congratulations again. Very well done. Much better than I could’ve done in those events, for sure.

DID YOU KNOW: Thea’s college English professor was Howard Lederer’s dad.