The highly anticipated debut of the Epic Poker League held their first $20,000 Main Event Tuesday afternoon at the Palms Casino in Las Vegas. The first day of the “rake-free” tournament ($400 of each buy-in went to the dealers) with $400,000 added ended with three of the hottest players in poker, Eugene Katchalov, Ben Lamb and Brian Rast the top three in chips.

The first EPL event featured plenty of notable names absent as Daniel Negreanu, most of Team Full Tilt, and Doyle Brunson deciding not to participate. Card-holding members need to enter at least one Main Event, Pro/Am and charity event each season to maintain their card.

In a radio interview last week, Phil Hellmuth wasn’t sure if he’d play in the first event. After making his “announcement” on Twitter Monday, he made his traditional late appearance, but was eliminated shortly after the dinner break.

The EPL will hold tournaments in a variety of no-limit hold’em formats, with the inaugural event played six-handed. Registration closed at the start of level 5, nearly 8 hours after play started. The tournament clock showed 137 players entered to create a $3,085,200 prize pool. The winner at the conclusion of play Friday will earn as the top 18 places make the money. The top 27 EPL money earners return February for the $1,000,000 League Championship freeroll.

Jason Mercier and Sean Getzwiller (a Pro/Am qualifier) are the other bracelet winners from this year’s WSOP among the 63 players returning Wednesday afternoon at 12pm PST to play another six levels.

Top ten chip counts:

Eugene Katchalov – 356,300
Ben Lamb – 287,200
Brian Rast – 260,500
Antonio Esfandiari – 248,100
Noah Schwartz – 220,200
McLean Karr – 191,800
Hoyt Corkins – 187,400
Isaac Baron – 167,700
Dan O’Brien – 163,300
Erik Seidel – 161,200

The full list of chip counts along with live updates, table draws, videos and more can be found at www.epicpoker.com

Pre-M.E. Festivities

Before the Main Event, the EPL kicked off over the weekend with The $1,500 Pro/Am tournament, offering nine Main Event seats, drew a combined field of 190 entrants as the final table was filmed for the Heartland Poker Tour. Steve O’Dwyer was the winner, earning $23,810 plus his EPL Main Event Seat. The only EPL-eligible player to snag a seat on the cheap was Andy Bloch, eventually finishing 3rd. Michael Craig recaps the final table.

While the Pro/Am final table was in action, 81 players put up $240 (plus a ton of $100 rebuys and add-ons) to raise over $50,000 for Operation USA, with the money earmarked for the victims of tornadoes in Joplin, Missouri. Plenty of goodies were given to all players with Zappos contributing $2,500 to the winner. Reigning World Poker Tour Player of the Year Andy Frankenberger won the title, donating the winnings to the charity.

Matt Savage

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OP-ED

My dedication to poker tournaments and the game itself is two decades old. Starting with my first foray into the role of tournament director in 1997 and through my founding of the Tournament Directors Association (TDA) with Linda Johnson, Jan Fisher, and Dave Lamb in 2001, I have worked tirelessly to standardize tournament rules and to make poker a better game for everyone involved.

This is the reason that we host the website www.PokerTDA.com, open the TDA to all interested parties, and make myself available on Twitter and other social media outlets. My passion for poker only grows when I share it with others.

The rule is not new, and does not ban table talk by any means … A recreational player may not understand, nor even care to know all the rules, but professionals who make a living at the game should.

During the 2011 World Series of Poker “nearly live” telecast from the Rio, I became aware of comments from Daniel Negreanu (@RealKidPoker) through my own Twitter feed (@SavagePoker). He said that the TDA created a “new” rule that banned table talk. This certainly is not the case and in hindsight, it was learned that he had received an incorrect ruling at the table that had nothing to do with TDA rules. Since social media has limited words with which to sufficiently explain the rule and its longtime existence, this clarification seems necessary.

The TDA board, in conjunction with tournament directors and card room managers, has donated thousands of hours to standardize rules in the best interest of the game.  When well-known poker players like Negreanu and Phil Hellmuth choose to say on national television that “the TDA has it wrong” and “does not care about what the players want,” it becomes personal.

More…

The problem with the WSOP creeping up on us is that sometimes we tend to ignore the run up to the biggest tournament series of the year. March is a big month for poker tournaments, and it shows in the people that came out on top in this month’s winners. From Erik Seidel proving he needs to be in a $20k+ buy-in to win anything to a couple pros making back-to-back final tables, this was a big month for the tournament pro. And its not even June yet. As for the losers, well, I’ll admit I had to nit-pick this month for a couple of them, but others were just too easy. Lets see who was noteworthy this month.

Winners

• Erik Seidel (4): Seriously Erik, only play the Players’ Championship and the HU High Roller in this year’s WSOP. You’ll lock up two bracelets and you can sit out the main event knowing you may very well still win Player of the Year because you are winning damn near everything else. Erik impressed again in March by winning the NBC Heads-up Championship, a gimmicky made-for-TV tournament sure but its still against some of the best in the business. It’s funny that he is having this kind of sick run just a couple months removed from being inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame. It is almost as if he felt like he needed to prove he earned it. (Writers Note: Which admittedly in my head he did. In my series on the Hall of Fame voting, he made the cut but got the least number of votes from me.)

• Vivek Rajkumar (1): A LAPC 2nd place finish and a Bay 101 4th place finish makes for back-to-back final tables in WPT events. Pretty impressive considering these two tournaments are probably amongst the toughest the WPT can provide. Also, the fact the guy has a Computer Engineering degree on top of his millions of tournament earning is just icing on the cake for why he’s a winner this month. Yea, I’m bias, so what?

• Tim West (1): Not to be outdone, Tim West actually won the Wynn Poker Classic main event and then came runner-up in the WSOP-C Regional Championship in Rincon (aka San Diego). Now, he’s not huge on the radar (unless he’s an internet player and I don’t know it….paging @jesswelman) but that might change at the pace he is running.

• The Pokerstars (1)/Wynn Partnership: What Pokerstars put into Steve Wynn’s drink to get him to agree to this we will never know. But this is a complete 180 from his prior stance on the issue of online gambling, and the fact that Pokerstars “landed” this partnership could be nothing short of amazing. Will this mean anything in the short term? Don’t know, there is a Nevada bill out that legalizes online gambling, but it has about as much of a chance as New Jersey’s in this writer’s opinion. Still, Stars is probably looking for a way to get into the US market by getting all buddy-buddy with the brick-and-mortars, and this was one hell of a way to show it.

Losers

• The Full Tilt (-1) /Station Casino Owner Partnership: Conversely, however, Full Tilt’s partnership with Fertitta Interactive looks like a “oh crap that site we pretend doesn’t exist signed a deal…SCRAMBLE!” Yea, deals like this are usually talked about way in advance, but having the second announcement with a less flashy alternative is not impressive. In fact, I’d say it looks a little sloppy. Its worth mentioning that Fertitta and Station Casinos are completely separate, and while the UFC brand might help Full Tilt get new customers, it just doesn’t feel as good as the Stars/Wynn deal.

• Daniel Negreanu (-1): I am sorry Daniel, but you lost the Superstar Showdown, you did not tie no matter what the official tally may say. My co-host on my podcast “Rabbit Hunt” beat me to the punch but I can say it in far fewer words. Even if 5000 roughly 4000 hands is not enough to determine who is better and he ran woefully under EV, its still a pretty good indication he was outclassed…at least this time. I’ll give Daniel credit for his comeback in the second week, but this was in no way a “Clash of the Titans”. Daniel was not in the same realm as isildur1 and he might have wanted to have some more practice before trying to take him on.

• Joe Sebok (-2)/Prahlad Friedman (-2)/Jon Aguiar (-1): Yea this wasnt going to miss my crosshairs in a million years. This whole saga was a mess from top to bottom, and I’m lumping the three of them together because all three of them failed miserably. Prahlad should have never played the John Racener card (“oh no I lost a lot of money against a known cheater time to call bullshit!”). Joe shouldn’t have sent a thinly veiled statement saying he had shit on Aguiar’s girl, then pseudo-apologize only to definitely suggest he has some real dirt on her. And finally, Jon shouldn’t have flown off the handle, posted the DM attempting to crowdsource some sympathy and justice, and then constantly bring up his girlfriend almost as if to call a bluff. The whole thing was a mess, and nobody looked particularly good at the end of the day.

• Mason Malmuth (-1): I’m totally content with getting personally blackballed from 2+2 for saying this: there is not a chance in hell that 2+2 is the poker community. Its like the people that aren’t members of 2+2 are suddenly alienated from existence. If that forum is the only poker community, then I’m glad to be an outsider…because the wise helpful 2+2 poster seems to be the exception rather than the rule. All Mason did was prove how big of an ego he has, and given the backlash regarding his statements…its unlikely too many people outside of “the poker community” approve of him being the mayor.

Coinflips

• Norm MacDonald (0): This has been a point of contention for some. Gabe Kaplan losing AJ Benza as someone to bounce his jokes off of made season 6′s commentary fall a little flat. Gabe’s replacement is either making people happy or disgusted, with very little room in between. Personally I don’t mind Norm taking Gabe’s place on the show, but I still think it would be a lot better if there was someone else in the book, and High Stakes Poker hasn’t seemed to figure that out yet.

• Anyone that played an April Fool’s Poker Media Gag (0): You wanna know why this didn’t come out on the 1st? Because I was going to originally write a WLC where UB was the Entity of the Month, isildur1 was the “Eff You” winner for beating down Daniel so hard, and whatever else I could have come up with. But instead I looked at the gags that were played rather than get creative and write my own. We were Fricke-rolled by The Micros (awesome), Pokerstars had its weird-as-fuck tournaments (not as fresh but still good), WSOP had “Strip Poker” introduced as an event (lame, plus my eyes will be glad that’s not true), and Pokernews tried telling us they were hiring a chip counter for every table (didn’t you read the media rules? gonna need 6 per table).

• 2+2 Posters (0): Nothing showed the signal-to-noise ratio more on 2+2 then the whole Sebok-Prahlad-Aguiar affair. While some people kept things civil, you know damn well people like Kevmath were working overtime to make sure the site didnt collapse under the weight of some of their poster’s shittiness. So props to the moderators and the intelligent posters, but not so much to the trolls.

The “Eff You, Sir/Madam” Award

• Mason Malmuth (-3): You thought I was going to go for the low-hanging fruit huh? Thought Sebok was an easy target for this months award for being an abject failure in the community? Well, here’s the thing, Sebok at least tried to come on and be reasonable. It wasn’t successful, although I don’t think anyone could have reasonably expected Joe to have any impact, but at least he tried. Mason, if he tried anything, it was to be a dick. In a very short time span, he proclaimed 2+2 as “the poker community”, which we’ve already touched on a little bit before. I get it, its Mason being Mason, but being a dick just because you happen to have a popular forum within the poker community does not make you God. Openly stating to Sebok that short of getting Paul on a moderated thread he’s got no reason to even be in the forum is…well…idiotic at best. At worst, well, it earns you the Fuck You award for March. Your forum isn’t the entire poker community Mason, because otherwise this post wouldn’t have passed moderation.

Entity of the Month

I don’t think anyone should be surprised by this but…

• Erik Seidel (2-time champ: 7): Yep, giving this one to Erik again because he’s really starting to show how much he can’t lose. He won the NBC heads up and for the most part won the Number 1 spot in ESPN’s Nuts segment, because Ivey was, is, and always will be a permanent fixture in the top spot for better or for worse. The guy is just playing absolutely amazing poker and his sense of humor (and guest appearances on shows like The Micros) keep him high on other people’s lists. If he can keep this up…well…there is no telling where he’ll end up. That said, he’s won “Entity of the Month” for two months out of the three…so there is a good chance we have a runaway winner for any potential “1st Annual WLC Awards”.

The Poker Edge:

The guys from The Poker Edge are back this week with Daniel Negreanu in tow. First on topic is Erik Seidel’s recent run to the top of the all time money list and how the super high roller events are altering how he looks at the list. The discussion shortly turns to the SuperStar Showdown where Negreanu discusses his game plan against Isildur1. Negreanu also discusses the recent notNAPT event that was held at the Bike and PokerStars moving into poker regulation. You can listen to the entire podcast on ESPN.com, or download it directly via iTunes.

Poker Road Radio:

Are you looking for on the road radio with stops at most of the major tournament stops then you should be listening to Poker Road Radio. These guys have been at the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star tournament the past week and have had guest such as Dwyte Pilgrim, The Royal Flush Girls, and final table player Mike Sexton. The highlight of the week was the show from March 15th where Joe Sebok discusses the recent Friedman/Haxton issues that have come to the forefront on Cerus network. Check out the show on the Poker Road Radio site or subscribe via iTunes.

Jess And BJ Show:

This show speaks for itself, Jessica Welman and BJ Nemeth from the award winning The Poker Beat join forces at all the US World Poker Tour events to record the Jess and BJ show. If you do not watch these shows you definitely should.

Dig’em.

Is it wrong to care more about the results of this matchup than Daniel Negreanu vs. Isildur1?

DonkDown Radio:

The guys over at DonkDown are known for their pursuit in getting to the bottom of things in the UB Poker scandal. This weeks show gets off to an unexpected start when Travis Makar calls into the show. For those not familiar with Travis he was linked to the scandal in the report put together by our friends over at Wicked Chops. Travis makes mention of the missing hand histories and recordings that are being used in a federal case. For those that are interested in just the UB part of the show should skip ahead to the 30:30 mark and enjoy the ride for around the next hour. You can listen to the show at the DonkDown site or subscribe and download it via iTunes.

Two Plus Two Pokercast:

This week the guys have one of the new team PokerStars members, Andrew Brokos, on the show but the main feature of the show is Eugene Katchalov. Eugene comes on and discusses his move to the US and some day trading before getting into the SuperStar Showdown that did not got his way. Eugene talks about how he prepared for the match by playing against Daniel Negreanu and then how the match actually went. Finally he discusses his Super High Roller win from the PCA. Listen to the show at the Two Plus Two Pokercast site or download it on iTunes.

PocketFives Podcast:

After giving you guys two podcast that have run times of over two hour each here is one that just eclipses the thirty minute mark. The guys over at PocketFives are joined by Lauren Kling this week to discuss her recent success, along with how she got started playing poker. Lauren also discusses how trying to make it in the poker world as a female can be difficult due to guys not wanting to give her the credit. Overall it is a good and short interview full of information from Lauren, check out the PocketFives Podcast on their site or via iTunes.

Gah, another juicy newsbriefable thingy to speculate wildly on with little information or context when we all could just make a phone call or send an email to find out what’s up) … yet no Poker Beat to break it down.

Anyhow, check it out and decide with minimal information for yourself … Daniel Negreanu, “caught” on webcam via screencap … playing on a site that isn’t PokerStars?

It’s something new called PokerView — which looks like just about any other online poker site except instead of avatars you have webcam video. Very tell-revealing you might think in straight-up play. And Negreanu obviously isn’t making any effort to hide his identity any more than he’s actively trying to promote this new endeavor.

So many stories potentially in play here. Is Negreanu going the way of Hellmuth, Duke, Raymer, and Maven … seeking a new poker home? Does this new site have any connection to PokerStars (the biggest online poker company in the world, save for maybe Zynga)? Could this technology be a major step forward in TOS security, giving a real-time glimpse of who’s really playing and what else might be going on in their seat. Could you mix it with Rush Poker to create online poker’s version of chat roulette? And with that in mind, serious question … how long before people start showing their junk and contend it’s merely a strategic maneuver if your schlong got the other guy to fold?

ALT HED: Show Me Your Nuts

(Thanks, DL, for the tip!) (Shame on you, DL, for trying to play me a chump!)

CONFIRMED: Not a real Daniel Negreanu endeavor.

The format that seemed to work so well in describing the action at the 2010 WSOP November Nine is going to get the full treatment now (and because I think the daggers that Dan has been sending me with his eyes have finally worked and I need to write something.)

A word about the “scoring system”: This year I want to keep track of how well (or poorly) a player is doing in a given year. +1 point for being a winner, -1 for being a loser, -3 if you have the misfortunate of winning my Screw You award, +3 for being my Player of the Month, and nothing for getting a coinflip. That’s what happens when you have a 50/50 chance. In the long run you just break even.

Winners

• Daniel Negreanu (1): My feelings about the All-time Money List aside, Daniel has hit the ground running in 2011 with his second place finish in the $100k Super High Roller 6-table SnG at the PCA. Pocketing a cool million a few days into the year has got to make you feel good.
• Erik Seidel (1): Sure, it’s aided by a $2.5 million score in an obscene $250,000 buy-in event, but Seidel won even more money than Daniel, $3.4 million for the month of January.
• Hendon Mob (1): For acknowledging the All-Time Money List is kind of turning into a farce and doing something about it by having options to remove Super High Roller SnGs and restricted tournaments.

Losers

• Viktor Blom (-1): If this guy actually owes $149 MILLION dollars to Swedish tax authorities, it will be safe to say that signing with Pokerstars was the worst thing to happen in his life. Going 2-1 in his Superstar Showdowns isn’t gonna be enough to cover that bill.
• Prahlad Friedman (-1): A man has got to pay the bills, I’m not going to get into a “is he a sellout?” conversation. That said, the fact that the forums and media are ablaze about his decision to join UB is probably not a good sign for him. His “brand” is likely to have taken a hit and his words about not joining the man have certainly come back to haunt him.
• The All-Time Money List (-1): Pretty much everyone has been dumping on this lately with the increase in buy-ins reaching astronomically stupid levels. Hendon Mob addressed this and that’s why they are one of the winners, but the list itself still seems like a wasted statistic.

Coinflips

• Annie Duke/Jeffery Pollack: I like the idea of a new Professional Poker League, but I am soooooo skeptical as to whether they can even pull it off. Also, not letting online play count in your formula looks to me more like laziness than anything else, and removes any player that is in the current generation of contenders.
• Phil Hellmuth: For someone that’s got to be the biggest free agent in poker by a country mile, his lack of a sponsorship had better be a calculated decision. Or its just that Phil isn’t as marketable as people thought? OK…that’s a stretch.
• Results from the Bluff Reader’s Choice Awards: Congratulations are in order for The Poker Beat winning its second consecutive RCA, this time in the “Best Web Based Poker Show” category. Still, would be nice to have Pokerati win Best Poker Blog and Cardrunners win Best Poker Resource. Ah well, there is always next year.

The “Eff You, Sir/Madam” Award

Every month there is bound to be at least one player/entity/whatever that deserves special mention for being an idiot for a particular month. It doesn’t have to be rational, its likely to get some flak, and is going to definitely almost always be a mindless rant. So without further adieu, the winner (loser?) is:

• Russ Hamilton (-3…not including negative karma): This month, I’m going for the low hanging fruit and giving this to Russ Hamilton. In fact, I’m tempted to name the award after him. He made the news earlier this month for flying off the handle at a Florida poker room as he was getting jeered about how bad he was when he couldn’t see the hole cards. He then proceeded to call his opponents “fucking dicks” and that “You do not know what you are talking about; you were not there. You just read about it and think you know.” No, Russ, they do know what they are talking about, because everyone from UB to the poker media to 60 FUCKING MINUTES said that you did it. And you did. So the fact that you grace us with your presence at a poker table anywhere on this Earth should come with the caveat that you are going to get verbally abused. And you should just take it or quit. No one remembers you for your WSOP win, they remember you for being the “fucking dick” who screwed people out of $20 million, and just maybe also for receiving the inaugural Pokerati “Fuck You” award. Maybe.

Player of the Month
The Player of the Month is taken straight from the winners list, and is given a coveted 3 points instead of 1 toward becoming the 2011 Pokerati Winners, Losers, Coinflips player of the year. I suppose. We haven’t really worked out all the details yet.

• Erik Seidel (3): Anyone that manages to wade through shark infested high roller waters not once but three times and cashes every single time more than deserves to be named Player of the Month. It was a nice progression too, from going 4th in the PCA SHR to 3rd in the Aussie Millions SHR to winning the “Full Tilt proving they can have a bigger buy-in than Stars” event. Very well deserved, and we’ll see if Erik can keep up the momentum in the coming months. If he is not ranking in ESPN’s “The Nuts segment I’d be pretty shocked. (EDIT: He has, just barely. Erik is ranked 10th this month.)

Wicked Chops Podcast:

With no TWIP this week the entities over at Wicked Chops come together to discuss all things that are not the Reid Bill. Possible Rounders 2 story-lines were discussed followed by Chops admitting to trying to pick up the ladies years ago by impersonating Ben Folds (judge on The Sing-Off). After a lengthy discussion on their love of American Idol they move onto The Walking Dead. Listen to the show on the Wicked Chops site or download it on iTunes.

The Poker Edge:

Phil Gordon and Andrew Feldman break down the top stories of 2010 and take a look into 2011 after they discuss the possibility of Phil Helmuth on Dancing with the Stars. 2010 was the year of the Mizrachi’s will 2011 be the year of Durrr? You can listen to the entire podcast on ESPN.com, or download it directly via iTunes.

The Hardcore Poker Show:

The guys come together for their last show of the year and start off discussing the battle between Full Tilt and PokerStars on High Stakes Poker. After a brief discussion on Rounders 2 Pokerati’s own Scarlet_LV comes on to discuss the Reid bill and where thing with poker legislation go from here. Fresh off his final table at APPT Sydney Daniel Negreanu joins the show discussing the High Stakes Poker feud. You can listen weekly on Sirius Satellite Radio channel 98 every Wednesday from 8-9pm ET or you can download it via iTunes.

The Micros – Holiday Special:

Following up on the Pilot episode The Micros come with their Holiday Special with a special cameo from Erik Seidel.

WSOP-eBay

Gold is currently selling for $1,390 an ounce, just short of what Eskimo would need for his next WSOP buy-in.

I’m back in action because I thought I was going to be up this morning spending my Pokerati paycheck on an Eskimo Clark bracelet — there’s one for sale on Ebay right now, in an auction that closes in about an hour. But holy meltdown, they’re up to 15 bids already, from six different bidders, and $4,050! That’s already more than TJ Cloutier got for his pawned-off WSOP hardware nearly a year ago, and puts Eskimo’s jewels way out of my league unless someone wants to give me a raise by infinity. Can you say, “Going once, going twice … going in your pants at the table?”

The auction closes today at 10 am PT.Get in before this “pre-owned” 1999 $1,500 Razz beauty is gone. (Replace the word Razz with “Dodge Neon” and that’s what my last boyfriend used to say to initiate foreplay.)

I knew I had no chance of scoring Peter Eastgate’s bracelet on eBay last week. His newer model fetched a whopping $147,500 after Interpoker got into a bidding war with Tony G, who made a play for the limelight by blog-bragging about plans to buy it for a collar for his dog. Inter stepped in to thwart him from making a “mockery” of the WSOP, but I’m not sure which is worse – seeing a WSOP bracelet on a dog or seeing it on eBay. But with the prize going to anonymous bidder “7***l”, it did raise a lot of money for UNICEF.

And check it out, Eastgate’s not done hawking his WSOP main event booty yet. Little Petey’s now got his “2008 WSOP Final Table Corum timepiece” for sale. The seller is “petereastgate” himself, making his first ever eBay posting. Asking price: $7,000. Money from that auction will go to UNICEF, too, but so far it has 0 bidders and closes on Friday.

Maybe I’ll use what I thought I’d spend on Eskimo to buy a couple Peter Eastgate 8x10s.

More…

@Kevmath laid down the gauntlet on Twitter this evening on the ever-popular “Words With Friends” app. Soon @RealKidPoker and @Mark_Gahagan were in on the action, offering up their WWF user names publicly on twitfeed. Now I’m three-tabling them all headups.

Negreanu just countered back after I triple-word scored on “SIZED”. Seems he’s playing from his new iPad from NAPT at the Bike.

@RealKidPoker: “34,575 end lvl 4. Nice little comeback reminiscent of my start in EPT Vienna. A bit tired, and playing words with friends to pass time.”

Gahagan may have just pulled ahead with his 57-pointer “VIEW” off my “QUIDS”, but I’m not drawing dead yet. As for Kevmath, I’m on the warpath after he used a questionable “ER” to position off a triple word score.

If HR2267 had already passed, I’d be looking to lay some cash on this tonight.

This week’s show included a lengthy interview with featured guest Mike Sexton, a cameo from Daniel Negreanu to discuss PokerVT, MAXIM Hometown Hottie finalist and WPT Royal Flush Girl Melanie Iglesias, and a discussion with Matt Parvis about Poker News and the role of poker media.

All that plus the Tina Fey of Poker Jess Welman delivers this week’s big poker headlines.

Detailed episode highlights at WCP.

In this third part of the series, its time we go through the last four pros that are up for the Poker Hall of Fame. There haven’t really been any misses in this group thus far, sure, a couple people that have no chance given the current roster of nominees, but no complete misses. That said, we haven’t completed the list yet, and parts one and two are available if you need a refresher of what has been said so far. Here are the top three thus far:

• Dan Harrington: 9
• Barry Greenstein: 7
• Phil Ivey: 6

But with 4 more people to go, none of these players are safe (well, three people need to get 10s in order to knock our Harrington, but you get the idea.) The last four are Tom McEvoy, Daniel Negreanu, Scotty Nguyen, and Erik Siedel.

More…

Giving the details of Thursday night’s WSOP, with another bracelet awarded a few hours ago:

Jason Dewitt performs magic against Trickett

After a lengthy heads-up battle, Jason Dewitt outlasted Sam Trickett to take down the $5,000 No-Limit Holdem bracelet, earning $818,959. Trickett picks up $505,725 for the runner-up finish, with Jeff Williams third, good for $328,762. The full list of results can be found at wsop.com.

Bakes leads packed final ten in 10k NL 2-7 Lowball

Ten remain when the $10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball World Championship resumes Friday afternoon with David “Bakes” Baker leading with 526,000 in chips. The rest of the field is full of big names, including Erik Seidel (280,000), John Monnette (238,000), John Juanda (225,000), Daniel Negreanu (223,000) and Andy Bloch (146,000). To follow the action and get chip count information, check out PokerNews.

Buchman, Matros at Limit Holdem FT

The final table of the $2,000 Limit Holdem final table features 2009 November Niner Eric Buchman is chip leader, which also has 2010 limit holdem bracelet winner Matt Matros as part of the 10-player final table. Here’s how they’ll be situated when play resumes at 2:30 this afternoon:

Seat 1: Matt Matros – 224,000
Seat 2: William Jensen – 326,000
Seat 3: Gary Bogdanski – 115,000
Seat 4: Eric Buchman – 453,000
Seat 5: Hansu Chu – 447,000
Seat 6: Flavio Ferrari – 373,000
Seat 7: Brent Courson – 240,000
Seat 8: Daniel Quach – 55,000
Seat 9: Steven Hustoft – 383,000
Seat 10: Matt Grapenthien – 254,000

Little looms large in PLO

Day 2 of the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha resumes at 2:30pm with Jonathan Little leading the 95 day 1 survivors holding the chip lead with 129,600. Some familiar names returning include Christian Harder (116,100), Nenad Medic (104,400), Peter Costa (70,400) and Scott Montgomery (57,000). The full list is available at PokerNews.

Seiver super in Seven Card Stud

After eight levels of play during day 1 of the $1,500 Seven Card Stud, Scott Seiver is the overwhelming chip leader (63,800) with 114 players returning at 3pm. The closest competitor is James Kadlec (40,500), with Carlos Mortensen (32,500), Chip Jett (27,000), Cory Zeidman (21,000) and Marco Traniello (19,000) some familiar foes also returning. The full list of chip counts will be online at PokerNews.

Friday’s Tournaments

Starting at noon today is the $1,000 Ladies’ No-Limit Holdem Championship. Last year, Lisa Hamilton defeated a field of 1,060 earning over $195,000 for the win. This event always leads to discussion about ladies’ events, from those who feel it helps get more women into poker, helping to grow the poker community. Those against the events feel it’s patronizing towards women and that it doesn’t really help grow the game, some prefer ladies’ only events instead of having to deal with the attitude some men have against female players. With the recent trend of men playing and winning ladies’ only events, as noted here and here, the question is if any men will try to enter this year’s event and be successful.

The $2,500 Limit Holdem 6-max, gets underway at 5pm. Last year’s winner was Brock Parker, who topped a field of 367, picking up $223,697.

A short recap of Thursday’s afternoon action, with congratulations going to Bertrand “ElKY” Grospellier, who won the one-table SNG for the final WSOP Tournament of Champions seat, defeating Michael Mizrachi heads-up.

DeWitt leads 5k NL final table

Jason Dewitt (2,600,000) holds a slight chip lead over Jeff Williams (2,550,000) with 8 players remaining in the $5,000 No-Limit Holdem final table. David Benefield (1,265,000) and Amit Makhija (720,000) are others looking to take down the title.

Brussard leading 2k limit holdem

The $2,000 Limit Holdem event is down to 48 players, with the money bubble burst when 45 remain. Andrew Brussard leads with 158,000 in chips, followed by Daniel Makowsky (140,000), Matt Matros (80,500), and Joe Serock (71,500) among the notables.

Danzer leads 10k 2-7 Lowball

George Danzer (200,000) leads the 34 remaining players in the $10,000 2-7 No-Limit Lowball World Championship. He’s followed by David “Bakes” Baker (187,000), Eric Cloutier (145,000), Billy Baxter (101,000) and Daniel Negreanu (97,100) among the recognized names returning shortly from dinner break.

$1,500 PLO Day 1

The $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event drew a field of 889, with the top 81 making the money, with a first place prize of $256,919. Half of the field has already been eliminated before the dinner break, with the unofficial chip leader Wade Townsend with 55,000. Jordan Morgan (44,500), Fabrice Soulier (40,000) and “Miami John” Cernuto (32,000) among the names you’ve heard of in the top 10. Four more levels of play are left, with a chance that the money bubble will be burst later tonight.

$1,500 Stud Day 1

A field of 408 started the $1,500 Seven Card Stud event this afternoon, with the last 40 remaining earning more than they paid. In early action, Sorel Mizzi is the unofficial leader with 10,000, followed by Cyndy Violette (8,000), Allen Kessler (7,000) and Humberto Brenes (6,100). The field will play eight levels before calling it a night.