Klein leads PLO final table

Loren Klein (850,000) leads the $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha final table, which has 8 players remaining as they take their dinner break. Play will resume around 8:30pm, follow the hands as they’re played out at PokerNews.

Idema idolizing limit holdem bracelet

Seven players remain at the $10,000 Limit Holdem World Championship final table, with Daniel Idema holding the chip lead with 1,163,000 with seven players remaining. Michael Mizrachi finished in 8th place to move into a tie with James Dempsey for the WSOP Player of the Year lead, but Jameson Painter (3rd in chips with 953,000), moves past both of them with a win. Updates of the action on the table and at the rail is at wsop.com.

Gonzales leads 1500 NL

Christopher Gonzales (260,000) leads the field of 130 players remaining as they return from dinner break in the $1,500 No-Limit Holdem event. Six more levels of play are on tap for the field, see who goes deep and who goes home over at PokerNews.

Leary tall in the saddle in $1,500 HORSE

The $1,500 HORSE event has 100 remaining, with 80 making the money later this afternoon. Dustin Leary (132,000) holds the chip lead, followed by Jeff Shulman (125,000), Tom Dwan (66,000), Jason Mercier (61,000) and Robert Mizrachi (50,000). Wsop.com has all the mixed-game updates.

Benyamine leading 5k NL 6-max field

Day 1 of the $5,000 No-Limit Holdem 6-max event drew a smaller than expected field of 568, with a $2,100 tournament at the Venetian held at the same time. David Benyamine (80,000) holds the chip lead, followed by Dave Ulliot (65,000), Hevad Khan (62,000), Andrew Lichtenberger (55,000) and Isaac Haxton (53,000) among the early leaders. PokerNews will be following the action during the evening.

PLO/PLH event underway

The last tournament to start this afternoon was the $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha/Pot-Limit Holdem event. The early chip leader is Matt Vengrin with 26,000, followed by Chris Reslock (24,000), Daniel Negreanu (19,500), Layne Flack (17,000) and Vitaly Lunkin (16,200) among the notables. Follow wsop.com for more updates and chip counts.

This in from our Palms spy earlier today/yesterday:

Greetings,

Poker legend Phil Hellmuth dined at N9NE Steakhouse inside Palms Casino Resort Thursday night (11.12.09). Accompanied by three friends, Hellmuth enjoyed a rib eye and a beer.

That’s it, he was the only notable person there on Thursday. We can only imagine how disappointing it musta been for Phil to find no pro athletes or music stars to exchange cell phone numbers with. Things were different about three weeks ago (sorry, leftover sighting) when, according to our embed, “Matchbox 20 lead singer Rob Thomas was dining downstairs at N9NE, as were former Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer and “Glee” actor Mark Salling, who ordered lobster potstickers and a kobe burger.”

+Devilfish palling around with (aging) British boy-bander

That same night:

In Playboy Club English professional gambler and poker player David Ulliott (known by the nickname Devilfish), was joined by six guests including entertainer Matt Goss who arrived later in the evening with 15 other guests. The group was drinking Ketel One cocktails.

Devilfish’s mate (in the British sense) Matt Goss is, according to an LA Times blog, “the hottest Vegas act you haven’t heard of” … and the newest musician in residence at the Palms. (He sold nearly 20 million albums 20 years ago.)

In lieu of our semi-regular Friday Night Video(s), here’s Goss’ new single, which features writhing chicks in lingerie amidst plenty of poker action:

John Paul Kelly 2009: 2 bracelets, 2 continents.

The first event of the 2009 World Series of Poker Europe is completed and we have crowned the first champion. He ended Day 1 as the chipleader and finished the tournament in the same vein, step forward Mr JP Kelly.

The £1,000 entry-fee appealed to pros and amateurs alike, with Day 1a attracting 295 runners including the likes of Phil Hellmuth, Roland de Wolfe and Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliot with the former being eliminated very early on into proceedings.

After raising preflop, then calling a re-raise from Eddie Hearn, Hellmuth somehow managed to get all his chips in the middle holding 5h6h which gave him an open-ended straight draw. He definitely needed to hit as Hearn held pocket kings, but a 9s turn followed by a Qc river saw ‘The Poker Brat’ heading for the rail.

The action was thick and fast due to the shallow starting stacks and hour long blinds and by the end of play only 41 players still had chips remaining!

Day 1b showed no signs of slowing down either, despite it been a more pro-heavy day with Phil Ivey, Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson, Annette Obrestad and 2008 WSOPE Main Event winner John Juanda taking to the tables. Out of the 313 that started, only 58 would return for Day 2.

JP Kelly was the overnight chipleader with 99,000 chips but Richard Kellet, Ian Frazer andFabian Dunlop were all hot on his heels with stacks around the 65,000 mark. Of the 89 remaining players, only 63 would make the money, meaning 26 unlucky players would be going home empty handed.

Robert Lim was the unlucky “bubble-boy”, after being eliminated by Raymond Rahme in 64th position. Rahme raised ‘Under The Gun’, a raise which Lim called on the button for almost one third of his stack. On a flop reading 6c9h7h Rahme open-shoved only to see Lim instantly call. Rahme showed a pair of nines for top set and was way in front of Lim’s pocket aces. No help arrived on the turn or river and Lim walked away with nothing but memories whilst the rest of the 63 players would be guaranteed £2,006.

One by one the players fell by the wayside and with each elimination the dream of a WSOP bracelet came closer to reality. Eventually the 89 players who started has been whittled down to just 10 and they all gathered for the unofficial final table to play ten-handed until the final table bubble burst.

That honour went to the extremely vocal Ganesh Bathmanathan who saw his push from the hijack with As7h called by Richard Allen’s AcKd. The board changed nothing and our final table was set, with Fabian Dunlop leading the way with 538,000 chips.

The remaining nine players returned to The Empire the following day but James Tomlin was soon leaving again after pushing his short-stack in the middle with Ac7s only to see William Martin re-shove and Thor Drexel call! Tomlin was in bad shape as both his opponents held Big Slick and when the board ran out JcKc4c4d8s, Tomlin was eliminated with £13,115 for his efforts.

Drexler was next to go when his queens lost a race with Adnan Alshamah’s Ace-king and he was quickly joined on the rail by William Martin who’s AsJs could not outrun Fabian Dunlop’s pocket sevens.

Dunlop then took his stack to 985,000 when his kings triumphed over Neil Suarez’s pair of fours but JP Kelly was trying his best to keep up with him when he eliminated Anthony Roux with a kings versus tens situation, all-in preflop. Play went from four-handed to heads-up in a remarkably short space of time, first Richard Allen’s Ace-four came up short against Kelly’s pocket nines and then Dunlop’s Ah8h turned an ace to beat Alshamah’s KhQs which had flopped a king.

JP Kelly started the heads-up battle with a 498,000 to 1,365,000 chip defecit but this was soon wiped out when both players were all-in preflop, Kelly holding AcTc against Dunlop’s Ad5d. A flop of Td8sJd brought something for both players but the 4s and Js fell to ship the pot to Kelly.

After cracking Kelly’s slowplayed aces, Dunlop then lost a huge pot when he and Kelly were all-in, both chasing diamond flush-draws, which hit on the turn but Kelly’s king-high flush was much better than Dunlop’s Jack-high version. This left Dunlop with just 19,000 chips, slightly over one big blind.

Obviously Dunlop was all in blind for the next couple of hands, winning them both but his luck soon ran out when his 4h9h was against Kelly’s QdJh on a board reading QhQcTc6sKs. Trip Queens more than enough to beat the nine-high of Dunlop and Britain had it’s first-ever WSOPE bracelet winner in JP Kelly.

This was Kelly’s second bracelet after he won a $1,500 Pot-limit Hold’em Event in Las Vegas earlier in the year. The £136,803 first prize here was enough to take his career winnings to over the $800,000 mark.

Click Here for WSOPE Live Updates.

WSOP Bracelet Touched by Angel

Angel Guillen picked up his first WSOP bracelet in the $2,000 NL Holdem event, defeating Mika Paasonen in a marathon heads up match to deny Finland a second WSOP bracelet. Guillen adds over $530,000 for first place, and throws his name into the Player of the Year race, as he had a 2nd place finish in the $2,500 NL Holdem event two weeks ago.

Mueller Musters a Bracelet

The $10,000 Limit Holdem World Championship ended with a 1-2 finish for Canada, as Greg “FBT” Mueller passed Pat Pezzin to win his first WSOP bracelet. Mueller, a former hockey player, mentioned he was inspired by the Stanley Cup making an appearance at the WSOP on Wednesday, saying it was his destiny to win after having made several WSOP final tables, and two second place finishes in previous attempts.

Klausen Claims Day 3 Chip Lead

The $1,500 NL Holdem event heads to its conclusion at 1pm today with 21 players remaining, and Dane Jonas Klausen holding the lead with 939,000 in chips. Swede Martin Jacobson starts in second (806,000) with Roland de Wolfe, (644,000), Eric Baldwin (610,000), Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier (414,000) and Young Phan (211,000) among the notables remaining. When they eventually make the final table, it’ll be streamed over the Internet at www.bluffmagazine.com/live and wsop.pkr.com.

Hougaard Adds to Dane Domination

Another Dane, Jesper Hougaard will lead the 64 returning players who resume at 2pm in the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha event with 208,500 in chips. Sorel Mizzi (177,000), Jeff Lisandro (162,500), Sandra Naujoks (157,000), David “Devilfish” Ulliott (140,000) and John Kabbaj (95,700) are some of the notables looking to make the money, which will be reached when 36 players remain.

Thursday’s Tournaments and Projections

Two tournaments kick off on Thursday, starting with the $2,000 NL Holdem event at 12pm, which was won last year by Alexandre Gomes in a field of 2,317. The $10,000 Stud Eight or Better World Championship commences at 5pm, which was won last year by Sebastian Ruthenberg in a field of 261 when the buyin was $5,000. The WSOP Staff Guide projects a field of 2,549 for the $2,000 NL (expect a field of 2,100), while the $10,000 Stud 8 World Championship field is projected at 150 (take slightly under, 135).

Come back to Pokerati during the day for more WSOP stories, and follow the live updates at www.wsop.com starting at 12pm today.

With special appearances by Devilfish (trying to position himself as the Zac Efron of Poker?) and Change100.

Tao of Pokerati at the 40th WSOP
Las Vegas, NV

Episode 11.3: High School Musical
2:50

Episode 11.4: Getting Pissy
3:19

For a more verbose explanation of any and all WSOP shenanigans, don’t forget to get your daily fill of Dr. Pauly at Tao of Poker.

JC Tran takes his name off of the “Best player to never win a bracelet” list, taking down the $1,500 NL Holdem event against Danish pro Rasmus Nielsen. JC, at one point down 3-1 headsup, chipped away at Rasmus until he eventually took the chip lead, winning when his KQ nipped the Dane’s QJ on a Q-high flop. Tran takes home over $631,000 plus 100 WSOP POY points, moving him into 6th in the race with 1 event remaining. Nielsen will be consoled with almost $390,000 to take back to Denmark.

Other tournament happenings on the next page:

The $1,500 HORSE event reached the money bubble just before they took their dinner break, they still have 70 more players to eliminate before making their final table. Chad Brown is the chip leader, other notable names remaining: Keith Sexton, Victor Ramdin, Phil Hellmuth, Joe Hachem, and Allen Cunningham. Follow all the HORSE-ing around at the WSOP website for updates here.

The $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha World Championship just reached the money at 36 Josh Arieh’s the current chip leader, other notables remaining: Michael Mizrachi, Kido Pham, Nikolay Evdakov (his 10th cash of the Series), Dario Alioto, and bracelet winners David Singer and Rob Hollink. The potting and re-potting action can be spotted here.

The last $1,500 NL Holdem event drew a field of 2,693, with about 600 returning from their dinner break. Notable names still in action: Vanessa Rousso, Jacobo Fernandez (looking to retake the WSOP POY lead), “Devilfish” Ulliot, Mimi Tran and Erica Schoenberg. See who survives the donkament here.

More updates from me tomrrow…

The $10,000 Limit Holdem World Championship is closing in on the money with about 45 left. Current chip leader is two-time bracelet winner Eric Froehlich. Others near the top include Hoyt Corkins, Michael Mizrachi, and JC Tran. The $3,000 NL event is currently on dinner break with 30 left. Alex Zaslavsky is chip leader, with new father David Singer in 2nd.

The only tournament to start today was the $2,500 NL 6-handed event, which started with a field of 1,012 already down to 190 at the dinner break. Notables in the top 10 include “Devilfish” Ulliot, Max Pescatori, Kenna James and Dario Minieri.

More from me tomorrow with final results, and the Tuesday preview.

• Event #3 – $2,500 NLHE – 247 entrants, Dutch Boyd won $237,685
• Event #6 – $1,500 NLHE – 508 entrants, Chris McCormack won $239,590
• Event #7 – $2,000 NLHE – 362 entrants, Roy Winston won $230,365
• Event #8 – $2,500 NLHE – 319 entrants, David Pham won $279,845
• Event #12 – $5,000 NLHE – 307 entrants, JC Tran won $523,075

It should be noted that Tom Schneider came in fourth place in Event #3, and Courtney Harrington of PocketFives and PokerRoad made two final tables. Sully Erna, lead singer of Godsmack, came in second to JC in Event #12. Other notables who made final tables included Theo Tran, Kevin Saul, Jared Hamby, Nick Binger, Amnon Filippi, Dan Alspach, Marco Johnson, Shannon Shorr, and David Williams.

David Pham also sealed his status as the CardPlayer Player of the Year.

Next up was the $15,000 WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic main event. The total number of players was 664, and the prize pool was $9,661,200 – the biggest prize pool ever outside of the WSOP main event and WPT World Championship.

Hopes were high that several big names would make the final table, but many of them just couldn’t get there. Phil Ivey was the Day 1 and Day 2 chip leader but imploded on Day 3 to be eliminated. Gus Hansen was doing well for days until he busted in 22nd place, and Daniel Negreanu took a chip lead into Day 5 but was sent home in 14th. Other bustouts included Erick Lindgren in 10th, Jimmy Tran in 8th, and Raymond Davis in 7th.

Five Diamond Final Table – Courtesy of the World Poker Tour

The best known player at the final table was David “Devilfish” Ulliott, Ryan Daut is a young player who won a WPT title in January, and Jordan Rich and Eugene Katchalov are young pro players. Ken Rosen is a virtual unknown, and Ted Kearly is a 75-year old former college football coach.

In the fastest WPT final table on record, Eugene Katchalov took his final table chip lead to victory for a $2,482,605 payday. All of the action was summed up here.

So that left most of us doing what you were doing … following some rather exciting coverage of a relatively unexciting, straightforward final table on PokerNews while listening to play-by-play on Bluff Radio (which was being piped into the media room) while watching live-camera coverage on a flat-screen monitor.

The media room, anytime there was an all-in and a call. CardPlayer decides not to run with the hedline: ESPN blogger violates Rio chair-standing policy

Actually, large-scale LCD screens were sprinkled throughout the hallways and the Amazon itself, so we could watch the overhead cam pretty much anywhere we went. We just couldn’t camp out for more than a few minutes near the real action. But that was fine by me, because we’ll all get to see The Jerry Yang Show soon enough on TV, and the World Series really is about so much more than just poker. As it turned out, there was lots of fun stuff going on away from the table that provided a little insight into how the poker industry really works …

Removal of non-final tables and chairs, for example. Operational logistics can be a hefty load.

And the dismantling of the controversial “poker superstructure.”

I stumbled into these guys while wandering through a back hallway. Oops, sorry about that. Didn’t realize you were filming. Hey, no guns this year?!? Interesting. OK, right, shush, “Take 2!”

The WSOP gift shop was bumpin’ … Lots of merch to get rid of and a clearance sale to boot!

To help facilitate consumer demand, an extra storefront was set up inside the Amazon room. As seems to be WSOP tradition, it feels multiple degrees colder inside on the final day, and sales of hoodies go way up!

Oliver Tse was hard at work throughout the main event. Tom Schneider may have been the 2007 WSOP Player of the Year, but Oliver was clearly the 2007 WSOP Playa of the Year. In his first year as an agent, he had three clients at the final table. Here, two of them are heads-up: [Imagine Oliver voice] “Jerry Yang raises under the gun and Alexander Kravchenko moves all-in from the big blind with pocket threes. Yang calls with KING-QUEEN OFF-SUIT. Flop is eight-clubs, three-hearts, two-spades. Kravchenko flops a set with no straight or flush threats. Yang is drawing dead. Kravchenko doubles up through Yang to eighteen million four hundred thousand tournament chips.”

[display_podcast]
(recorded Dec. 2006)

Others were busy paying off prop bets. This guy would get about 50 feet inside the Amazon room before security chased him away.

Too bad he didn’t make it to the live webcast stage with Phil Gordon, Ali Nejad, and I’m not sure who the other guy is.

The action was down to four handed on dinner break ….

There was a special VIP shindig inside the Rio’s super-fancy Palazzo Suites.

Sitting around the coffee table with (left to right) Jamie Gold, Chris Ferguson, Devilfish date, Devilfish, and Marcel Luske.

Tom Schneider took advantage of the open bar (stocked with top-shelf liquors) and started pounding Milwaukee’s Best Light. “It’s really not bad,” he tells me. “I can drink this. I’d even say I like it.”

Ahh, so much more relaxed. Here Tom chats it up with Knych Keller, the communications director for Corum watches. “Do you like the bracelets,” she asks.

“I love them,” Tom says.

“How come you aren’t wearing them?”

“Uh, well, you know, I’m not really a jewelry kind of guy.”

“Ah-hah.”

Soon Jeffrey Pollack would join the conversation, at which point Tom, perhaps showing off his skills honed on Beyond the Table (?) would offer a rambly monologue about the greatness of the WSOP compared to the WPT.

The Commish then invites him to serve on the Players Advisory Committee.

“I’d be interested in that,” Tom says.

“Done!” says Pollack. “You’re going to make a fine Player of the Year.”

Then veteran sportscaster Howard David (left, with his wife, Phyllis) would invite Tom to sit in with Robert Williamson providing color commentary on the Bluff Radio broadcast of the final table.

“Done!” says Tom.

Gee, this poker business is easy, he thinks.

Important WSOP ladies Laura Hill, Angele Marshall, and Karen Williamson share a collective gasp: “Hey, who let that Pokerati guy in here?”

Meanwhile, around an outdoor bathtub, Michelle Lau discusses her and Marcel Luske’s new website endeavor with the man behind 3PiggsPoker, an online poker room exclusively for South Africans.

Raymond Rahme is still alive and trying to stay focussed on the task at hand as his friends wander around the private Palazzo Suite pool while draped in a South African flags.

After dinner, all head back to the table, where there is a special ceremony for Tom …

Robert Williamson and somebody really important from Miller Brewing (sorry, didn’t catch his name/title) presenting Tom with a cardboard representation of the $40,000 that goes with being the Milwaukee’s Best Light Player of the Year.

Cards get back in the air, and Donkey Bomber gets prepped for an interview for the live final table video webcast.

Um, Tom … eyes front. Too much glare when you’re looking down.

Apparently once you are on TV people want your autograph.

And Tom (wearing his Corum bracelets now) would begin hearing little voices in his head telling him to win more.

But as the night wore on and action heated up, spectators outside the “arena” were getting cold and tired.

Eventually the table would get to heads-up, featuring Tuan Lam, a short-stacked pro vs. Jerry Yang, chip-dominant amateur for $8.25 million.

By 4 am, Yang had won it all. An inspiration to many — proof that you too can become the World Champion of Poker with neither big-tournament experience nor an online poker account!

And with that, all the fun that was the 2007 WSOP comes to an end.

ALT HED: How I Spent My Summer Vocation

Can’t really tell you what Tom, Karridy, and I cover in this episode … mostly because I have yet to listen to it in full. However, I can assure you that you will get to hear:

• Devilfish expressing desires to bang people’s daughters while declaring us “his boys”
• Chau Giang working on his English-only
• Sean Sheikhan talking about “nappy ass players”

Beyond the Table – 4/18/07
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As always … awesome, right?

UPDATE: Oh yeah, right … in this episode we talk about Tom’s performance at the WPT 5-Star World Classic, Anna Wroblewski, Karridy’s early midlife crisis, crapping your pants while at the table, and calculating pot odds when it comes to giving a blow job. Hardcore intellect and aural pleasures to go.

And as if our Euro friends weren’t having enough fun, here’s a hidden message relayed by Roland de Wolfe as Phil Hellmuth was in the broadcast booth: