For now, play it by ear …

2011 WSOP – Episode 25: Sit and Go Pro
A group of prolific tweeters play in a satellite to the FS+G Epic Poker League $1500 pro-am — a tournament series taking shape that few know what to make of yet. None other than Bluff correspondent Kevin Mathers shows up to provide a comparative assessment of what he just witnessed — as somehow Dan ends up winning, beating @Alcanthang, @JoeUgly, @Hollywood_Dave, and others with questionable play. A rather large rail developed to hear Kevmath laughing heartily on the inside. Whatev, says Dan, who won a seat, took home some cash, and now apparently thinks he’s a pro.

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For more episodes, visit the Tao of Pokerati archives or subscribe to the feed .

Ahh, now I get it! Concept behind Federated’s Epic Pro-Am series starting to make sense.

The DOJ’s virtual handcuffing of Full Tilt and PokerStars two weeks ago not only neutered two industry giants (who made billions in North America while others sat on the sidelines), but also supposedly leveled the playing field worldwide for US-abstainers who supposedly found it harder to compete in Europe or anywhere against companies benefitting from the vast liquidity American players provided.

Thus the inaugural iGaming North America conference in Las Vegas next week is kicking off their new-era industry confab with a special session called Assessing ‘Grey Friday’ and the Expected Fallout … get it? Black + White = Gray Grey.

Should be interesting to hear from gaming industry insiders who’ve never appeared on Poker After Dark or in Day 1 chip counts speaking about “the road to regulation”, as per the theme of @iGamNA‘s shindig.

Check out the lineup here. You’ll see both Stu and I are serving on panels. @GamingCounsel‘s gonna be schoolin’ about Canada …

… while I’m a panelist for the closing session:

There’s no live-stream as far as I know, but I’ll be sure to report back as influential industry experts (and a token blogger) assess the important questions moving forward … for me probably starting with, do I need to get a tie?

Proposed language wouldn’t exclude these offshore companies upfront, as Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s previous attempt at Internet gambling legalization would have done. Instead, any gambling operator can apply for a license in the Reid bill. And yet, proposed language would allow only operators of existing casinos or racetracks to obtain licenses in the two years after regulators issue the first Internet poker license.

This provision, one of the most controversial in the Reid bill, is a reasonable compromise, although it has upset poker players who view it as unfairly benefiting Nevada casino giants over their favored gambling websites, said Dan Michalski, founder and editor of Pokerati.com, a Las Vegas-based poker blog.

Some lawmakers and their constituents view these foreign companies as lawbreakers. And U.S. casino companies probably wouldn’t support an equal playing field for Web casino operators, given that the U.S. companies have waited on the sidelines for more than a decade for the chance to make money online, Michalski said.

“This kind of puts (the online operators) in the penalty box for a while and says, ‘We might let you in but you’re certainly not going to be the first in line.’ I think that was to be expected.”

Perhaps strangely perhaps not, I have little experience on either side of the bustout interview … but the ever-belletristic Marco from QuadJacks was on hand and presumably half-awake to discuss the finale of Detox Event #11, which saw Lev Serzhenko beat yours truly to claim the $5,184 first prize befitting the newest Pokerati (NLH/PLO) Champion.

Final hand, btw: No-Limit Hold’em, outchipped about 4:1 … I check-raise all-in when my Ace pairs the flop … Lev calls semi-quickly with open-ended straight and flush draws, and makes runner-runner trips FTW! (Dammit.)

$230 NL Holdem w/ 1 rebuy $50,000 Guarantee

Event #10, $230 NL Holdem w/ 1 $200 rebuy drew a field of 122 players with 106 rebuys, falling short of the $50,000 guarantee by about $5,000. The final 18 players made the money, with the final table of nine returning this afternoon. Among the notables making the money included Event #1 winner Joe Tehan and 2010 November Niner Joseph “subiime” Cheong, each earning $650. Here’s how the final table looks when play resumes at 3:30pm with 45:45 left in level 14: 1,000/2,000 blinds and a 500 ante:

Seat 1: Steve Frederick 38,700
Seat 2: Amir Sandy 180,800
Seat 3: Jason Eldridge 81,400
Seat 4: Sam “Homeless” Bensinger 129,700
Seat 5: Warren Fraleigh 26,400
Seat 6: Bona Sar 85,500
Seat 7: Ari Engel 172,100
Seat 8: David Tuthill 47,500
Seat 9: Chris Lindh 43,000

Full results and pictures can be found at the Detox Poker site here.

$230 Pokerati Game w/ 1 rebuy

Event #11, the $230 Pokerati Game w/ 1 $200 rebuy, consisting of 9 hands of NL Holdem followed by 9 hands of PLO, drew a field of 31 entrants, with the final five making the money. In what surely was a surprise to all involved, Pokerati.com founder Dan Michalski nearly won his own tournament, finishing 2nd to Lev Serzhenko in heads-up play. Serzhenko collects $5,184, along with sash for the win. Michalski earned $2,880 for the runner up finish with Darryl Dauenhauer (3rd $1,728), Aria poker room manager Adam Altwies (4th for $1,152) and Carol Kline ($576) completing the list of players making the money. More pictures of the winner and Michalski here.

Thursday’s tournament

One tournament takes place at 1pm this afternoon with another $350 NL Holdem event, with two $140 Mega Satellites scheduled for 5 and 9pm, each with 5 seats added for Friday and Saturday’s $550 NL Holdem – $200,000 Guarantee tournament. To watch the final table of the $50,000 guarantee, find more pictures from the Pokerati game and more stuff, be sure to hit www.detoxpoker.com.

More tales from Rio in the summertime … where 90 percent of all who enter are inherently destined to lose … making for an environ of compelling pathos and magnetic despair speckled with moments of joy, happiness, exuberance, and occasionally even redemption-via-bling … which is all it takes to keep people coming back despite the mathematical obstacles to anything more than flitting thrills, let alone life-long success. Oops, I think I mighta just given away the beginning, middle, and end of Pauly’s soon-to-be-released book, Lost Vegas. Meant to be writing about a mystery on-air kiss:

While recording an episode of his other podcast, The Poker Beat, in the Amazon hallway, Dan was interrupted by a phantom beauty kissing him on the forehead before she slipped into the Amazon poker fray. Dan’s not-so-good peripheral vision prevented him from properly IDing his fawning female admirer. During this episode of Tao of Pokerati, Pauly gives him advice on finding out the identity of the kissing bandit, who gave him false brief hope that he may some day find love and meaning — or at least quick-n-hot nookie — at the WSOP.

Dan has already noted the final table of the 50k Players’ Championship, scheduled to start at 3pm in front of the cameras for ESPN. While Benjo and Pauly were talking about the final table, Dan was at home, doing an interview with the 2+2 Pokercast (starting around the 1:23:00 mark) to talk about the new-and-improved Rio as well as stories about the NAPT-Venetian and Jeffrey Pollack’s move to the PBR. Don’t forget to check out the links over on the right hand side! He follows Phil Laak discussing his upcoming attempt to set a Guinness record for longest single poker session ever.

41 Left in Donkament

In what is scheduled to be the final day of the first $1,000 no-limit event, Drew Crawford is the chip leader at 800,000 when play resumes this afternoon at 3pm. Like last year’s $1,000 event, there may be a decision to hold the final table Wednesday afternoon if it play goes longer than expected this afternoon. Other notables remaining include Terry Fleisher (489,000), Eric Baldwin (479,000), and Champie Douglas (344,000). The complete list of players remaining is now online at PokerNews.

Omaha 8 down to 26

Day 3 of the $1,500 Omaha 8 or Better event starts at 3pm as well, with three tables remaining as they play down to a winner. Sasha Rosewood starts play as the leader, with 389,000 in chips. Familiar names also returning: Dan Heimiller (211,000), Ylon Schwartz (166,000), Jeff Madsen (148,000), David Bach (107,000) and Huck Seed (57,000). Team Pokerati pros Robert Goldfarb (29th) and Loudmouth Poker sponsor Tom Schneider (32nd) each earning $6,128. The full list of players remaining is at PokerNews.

$1,500 NL near the bubble

223 players remain in the $1,500 NL Holdem when play resumes at 2:30pm this afternoon. 216 will make the money, leading to what should be a short hand-for-hand session. Stephen Foutty leads the field with 207,400 in chips, followed closely by Dwyte Pilgrim (202,000)and Chris Moorman (161,400). Other notables: Praz Bansi (118,700), Lauren Kling (62,800), Shaun Deeb (58,200) and Dewey Tomko (44,900). The full list is also at PokerNews.

Tuesday’s Tournaments

Two tournaments scheduled today, at 12 noon is the $5,000 NL Holdem Shootout, with a cap of 2000 players but expecting just a field of around 300. Last year, Peter Traply won this event in a field of 280, winning nearly $350,000. He’s parlayed this success into appearing in the top 50 for this year’s WSOP Tournament of Champions.

Starting at 5pm is the $2,500 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball event won last year by Abe Mosseri, and with Team Pokerati’s own Julie Schneider finishing in 3rd. If she and Daniel Negreanu meet up at the same table again, will there be a new Twitter controversy?

Eric Baldwin
Lance Bradley – Editor at Bluff Magazine
Andrew Feldman – Poker Editor at ESPN.com
Chad Holloway – Poker Pro Magazine
Howard Lederer
Bernard Lee
Daniel Negreanu – Defending champion
Dennis Phillips
Steve “Chops” Preiss – Wicked Chops Poker
Mark Seif
Gavin Smith
Gary Wise

Each participant made eight picks in the draft and the handy chart below displays their selections by round:

A detailed analysis from Feldman on the selections can be found at www.espn.com/poker

Page 2 features how points are earned and my selections:

Here’s how points will be earned:

1st – 50
2nd – 40
3rd – 30
4th – 25
5th – 20
6th – 16
7th – 14
8th – 12
9th – 11
10th – 10
Top 20 – 5
Top 50 – 2
Cashing – 1

Bonus points:

Points are doubled for all $10k+ buy-in events
1 additional point awarded for every 100 players in the field, starting at 200

Last year I figured I could pick a better lineup than at least 6 of the “experts” out of players who weren’t selected. I didn’t do as well as hoped, but I’ll surely give it another try.

Here’s my 8 selections:

Christian Harder
Sam Stein
Andy Seth
Jon Turner
Gavin Griffin
David “Bakes” Baker
Noah Schwartz
Mike Sowers

I’ll update the standings weekly here at Pokerati, or when I remember to do it, whichever comes first.

Big congrats to Team Tao of Pokerati, which just found out that their team took down the first place team honors! Lana, Pauly, and Dan will split the $33,017 cashola for outperforming every other team in the tournament (there were 122 of them), and the guys are still in it to win it individually as well. About 20 players remain…

UPDATE: Looks like Dan cashed in 17th place for double his individual buy-in. Congrats! @Pokerati just twittered… “17th place individual. 1st place team. This cashout cage area is pretty cool!”

UPDATE 2: Pauly finished in 13th place for nearly three times his buy-in. Per his twitter… “out in 13th place. my A7 lost to kenna james’ 6-6. boooooo!”

Congrats to the team on a great showing!

Doyle Done in 10k Stud 8

The remaining players in the $10,000 Stud Hi/Lo 8 or Better World Championship rolls along with 6 players remaining, as Doyle Brunson’s attempt at an 11th bracelet ended when he finished in 7th place. Farzard Rouhani, Abe Mosseri, and Jeff Lisandro are the three players over the 1 million chip mark. Yan Chen, Mike Wattel and Frank Mariani are the short stacks battling to stay alive as the limits are at 30k/60k, leaving the short stacks with under 10 big bets.

Meanwhile, at the Other Featured Table…

The $2,000 NL Holdem final table is down to three players, with Jordan Smith the current chip leader at 4,890,000. Laurence Grondin, a Canadian woman, is second at 4,120,000 with Swedish pro Ken Lenaard in third with 1,240,000. Grondin replaces Lika Gerasimova (5th in 5k NL Holdem) as the highest placing female in an open event at this year’s WSOP.

Obligatory Limit Holdem Mention

The $2,000 Limit Holdem event is down to 35 players with Eric Rivkin the current chip leader at 165,000 in chips. Rep Porter is 2nd at 138,000, with David Baker (the one from Texas — 106,000), Phil Hellmuth (100,000), Rafe Furst (73,000), and Daniel Negreanu (45,000) among the notables remaining hoping to reach the 3am deadline with a final table. It was just announced during the Stud 8 event that if Hellmuth makes the final table, they will stream that final table over at Bluff magazine’s website.

Donkament, Chapter Five

The fifth version of the $1,500 NL Holdem event drew a field of 2,715, of which 873 returned from their dinner break a short while ago. Unfortunately, an unofficial chip leader is hard to come by, but expect a chip leader to be revealed in my Sunday morning update.

PLO-wing Through $10,000

The $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha World Championship drew a field of 296, down over 80 entrants from last year’s edition. Freddy Deeb is the unofficial chip leader as he’s reporting over 60,000 in chips. Barry Greenstein, Joe Serock and Michael Binger appear in the unofficial top 5, while Daniel Negreanu, Michael Mizrachi, John Duthie, Nam Le and Isaac Haxton are already gone.

Check out more updates this evening at www.wsop.com, and Pokerati for more stuff going around the poker community as Michalski’s may be trying to find out some more about Richard Austin.

I feel compelled to explain that I am writing this post on my laptop, on the back patio of Risky’s Bar-B-Q in downtown Fort Worth, Texas, during possibly the most beautiful day that Spring will bring to my beloved city. I smile as I listen to one Australian tourist at the table behind me attempt to explain to his mates the American concept of “All-You-Can-Eat Ribs”.

How It Works
The Best Real-Money Poker Tournament
in Texas

Doc Fletcher: “It’s like trainin’ a horse. After a while you don’t have to keep whippin’em. They go where you want to go.”

Interview with Stephenville Tournament Director Doc Fletcher 6:58

Zoom up and out to a poetic blend of southern culture and urban bustle that has made my fair city of Fort Worth a Texas jewel, and the subject of 3.4 million Asian tourist photos. Somewhere a diminutive, fair skinned traveler points out the genitalia of the bovine shaped shrubbery (ala Scissorhands), and covers her mouth to giggle before turning and rushing off in very short, quick steps. And I order another Dos Equis.

A couple of blocks away is the ornate and grandiose Bass Hall. The Hall is big sister to the Maddox Muse Center, which was once slated to host, what was at the time to be, the largest poker tournament in the state of Texas; The Southwest Poker Invitational. Well,… Until the powers that be leaned on us, referencing an obscure liquor license, used for the occasional wedding reception, and shut us down and took tens of thousands of charitable dollars out of play. The call came on Friday; The tournament was scheduled for Sunday. Just like that 325 players and countless deserving beneficiaries of the charitable event were sucked out on at the river. I remember well, because it was my tournament. Go Texas!

Some of the more loyal Pokerati readers may recall a post I once penned, telling of my road-trip with Poker Legend, T.J. Cloutier, to a mammoth Texas tournament, held in an “undisclosed location”. While I received many comments and emails asking that I complete the multi-part recounting of the event, I eventually mucked my hand at the request of the Tournament Director, who was concerned about the attention that the post might bring so close to home. I was disappointed. I don’t post often, but when I do, I like to get it all out. And this was a great story about a great Texas tradition; Stephenville’s Annual Cowboy Capitol Poker Tournament, a $300+0 No-Limit Texas Hold’em event that I competed in last month.

For the last 5 years, the Cowboy Capitol Poker Tournament, affectionately referred in Texas poker circles simply as “Stephenville”, has exceeded expectations every year, making it the to-play event in the Lone Star State. This is quite an accomplishment when you are forced to fly slightly under the radar. I say “slightly” while remembering Dan Michalski and myself covertly interviewing chatting with a Sheriff’s Deputy who guarded the door in 2007. It’s even more impressive when you consider that every year this event has been operated as a self-deal tournament, operated entirely by volunteers and with absolutely NO RAKE! It couldn’t be said any better than this cut-n-paste from this year’s tournament invitation:

“It is our love of the game that drives us, friends that encourage us, and stupidity that allows us to take on such an endeavor.” – anonymous

Despite the “Don’t mess with success” mantra of the Capitol’s Tournament Director, “Doc”, this year’s tournament was a great contrast to prior years. To start, the group of volunteers came together to help form a Club. This allowed them to charge an annual club membership fee that would help account for the sizable operational expenses associated with operating an event of this size. In addition, as a Club Member, one would also receive two free meals during the Club’s primary meeting. Tipping and other forms of compensation were strictly prohibited, as proclaimed in the Club Declaration and Membership Application that was received via postal mail by the players of years past.

See, that’s what’s great about “Stephenville”. Once you’re in, you’re in. Speaking as the “city boy” that Doc reminds me I am, I will tell you that once you make your way past the veritable sea of Duallies and enter the steel-fab building in the middle of nowhere,… Much like the new motto of my fair city, “You get it when you get here.”

This year’s tournament was scheduled on what would be an unseasonably cold day in late March, where temperatures barely peaked 40℉. To make matters worse, the South end of the building hosting the event was open-air. A laundry line stretched from one side of the building to the other with huge flags draped to guard players from the elements. Propane fueled turbine heaters littered the floor. In any other tournament, this would have been an abomination. But anybody who’s ever played Stephenville knows that this is Good Ol’ Boy poker at it’s finest. Nobody’s making any money and nobody’s getting rich. Well… Maybe except for the Champion, who’ll pocket 20-30k in hard cash. But the rest of us know that we’re playing in a superbly run, no-rake, volunteer tournament that gives Texas players a chance to test themselves against a semi-major field, with major talent, at a minor price. Go Stephenville!

As in prior years, more than a handful of friends accompanied me out to this year’s tournament, now as Members. Also like prior years, our crew met at IHOP in South Fort Worth at 6:30am to talk shit and negotiate pieces of each. This year’s agreed mutual was 2 percent, which adds up quick.

We fell one by one until only two remained; Myself, and Chris Miller. We broke through the money bubble and entered the final two tables of the 254-person tournament with $137k and $80k, respectively. We would soon both leave the tournament in 12 and 13th, also respectively, taking an average of $1,100 each.

Sixteen hours of tournament poker in a given day is a daunting task for anybody. But if you’re looking to sharpen your skills against a real field, with real players, for real cash… Set course for Stephenville during March of 2010. I’ll see you there with my Pokerati patch on, far from my beloved city and the legal reach of the sensibly challenged.

Congratulations to this year’s Cowboy Capitol Club, Texas Amateur Poker Champion, Sam Washburn of Glenrose!

While I still love Fort Worth, most notably Risky’s Bar-B-Q, I’m going to leave it to our friend Men Nguyen to best explain our Texas Poker appetites…

http://wordlust.blogspot.com/2009/04/politi-dude.html

Glad to see that all these years of compensating for my limited vocabulary with hyphens has finally paid off. High on the glory and power of being recognized for my creative typing by non-poker strangers, expect many failed attempts to repeat myself to ensue.

In the meantime, enjoy all sorts of useful yet unScrabbleable words here.

Some thoughts:

I assume Dan thinks Ilari “Ziigmund” Sahamies is some random Internet qualifier if he’s ranked lower than Jennifer Tilly.
Same goes for Bertrand “Elky” Grospelier, ranked lower than Phil Laak.
David Benyamine at #3?
Doyle Brunson at #5?
Clonie Gowen at #15? (Yes, she’s tied with Johnny Chan for the most PAD wins – 3).
Kenny Tran at #37? (Dan’s pick to win, and he admits this was too low).

In my humble opinion, I’d take players ranked 51-59 (with Jerry Yang and an online qualifier) over those ranked 21-29 (with Scott Fischman’s 4 NHUPC cashes).

But the thing with these rankings is to create debate, so let the debate begin!

The Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza (which I think ended yesterday or today!) and, coming up, Dream Team Poker.

You may recall a post a while back about the heated non-poker competition in the Michalski family, where I was proving my prowess as a no-spread football picker. Of course in the week right after that post, I totally tanked — dropping dramatically on the family leaderboard and several percentage points nationwide.

But as in poker and life, you’ve gotta play 60 minutes of football! … And with that (as well as the knowledge that I probably shouldn’t post about my non-poker greatness) I clawed my way back to the top. With a last-minute switch to the Pittsburgh Steelers yesterday, my end results for the 2008 NFL season:

Nationwide: 277th out of 145,498
For people playing through the LVRJ: 33rd out of 9,727
Michalski family: Tied for 1st out of 13

Total winners picked: 176 out of 266 (66 %)

So clearly, I need to develop a sports-betting habit in 2009 to make up for all my rivers that don’t hit in poker.

The lineup:

John Caldwell (formerly of Pokernews)
Gary Wise of ESPN and WisehandPoker.com
Matt Parvis of Bluff Magazine
Dan Michalski of Pokerati.com
BJ Nemeth of World Poker Tour
and Joe Stapleton of PokerRoad.com with some closing thoughts.

Topics will include the Obama and the UIGEA, the Durrr Challenge, and the L.A. Poker Classic.

I’m assuming Dan’s at the Golden Nugget watching the taping of day 1 of the latest season ofHigh Stakes Poker, but for those that want to know when it airs, Card Player is reporting that season 5 of HSP will air starting March 1 at 9pm ET on GSN. The network made a recent decision to make Sunday their “Poker Night”, with Season 6 of the World Poker Tour episodes at 6pm ET, and previous seasons of High Stakes Poker at 8pm ET. As mentioned before, the minimum buyin will be $200,000, with the blinds $400/$800 with a $200 ante. Last year’s taping of a $500,000 minimum buyin game last season appears to be gone, as it tightened up the play to the producers’ dismay.