Here’s the chip counts when action kicks off again tonight with the blinds starting at 600,000/1,200,000 with an ante of 200,000:

Seat 1: Pius Heinz – 107,800,000
Seat 2: Ben Lamb – 55,400,000
Seat 3: Martin Staszko – 42,700,000

Hand for hand updates at PokerNews and WSOP.com. PokerNews also has a chat going off the ESPN broadcast here.

ESPN will start their 15-minutes delayed coverage at 6:00pm PT, 9:00 ET. Streaming will be available at www.watchespn.com as well as the WSOP.com site.

Some twitterers to follow tonight for live updating:

@taopauly, @oskargarcia @howardstutz @casekeefer @pokernews @jesswelman @bluffmagazine @pokerlistings @lance_bradley @eric_ramsey @donnie_peters @avpoker

Live blogging from Pauly while Shamus will be blogging a few minutes behind the coverage.

Expect Tao of Pokerati episodes throughout the night.

6:35pm UPDATE: Ben Lamb was eliminated on the 4th hand after Staszko doubled up on the first hand: 77 >KJ to become crippled. Lamb shoved with Q6 into Staszko’sJJ and didn’t improve to earn $4,021,138 as Staszko takes the chip lead.  Here’s what Lamb got shortly after being eliminated:

Ben Lamb gets punk'd (photo courtesy @BenbaLamb

6:50pm UPDATE: Heinz has dominated the early action heads-up to regain the lead with 132 million chips to Staszko’s 73 million.

7:40pm UPDATE: Staszko has gone on a rush as the blinds are now at 800,000/1,600,000/200,000 to retake the lead 110.65m – 95.25m

8:30pm UPDATE: Staszko gave up his lead, but turned up the aggression once again to hold a 113.6m – 92.3m chip lead. Heinz appears tired while Staszko has renewed confidence.

9:25pm UPDATE: The lead has now changed hands for a seventh time heads-up as Heinz wins several hands in a row to hold a 116.9m to 89m chip lead as the blinds go up to 1,000,000/2,000,000 with a 300,000 ante.

10:20 UPDATE: Now Staszko takes the lead once again as he wins several hands in a row as he now takes a commanding lead again: 146.6m to 59.3m.

11:30pm UPDATE: The poker media is getting restless as the heads-up battle rages on. Staszko had Heinz under 45m in chips, but the gap has been narrowed. Staszko leads 132.8m to 73.1m for Heinz.

12:00am UPDATE: Over 100 hands of heads-up play and not a single hand featured an all-in and call. That would change shortly after the blinds went up to 1,200,000/2,400,000 with an ante of 300,000. Heinz shoved with Ah Qh on a Ks Tc 7c flop. Staszko called with Qc 9c. The turn and river bricked out and Heinz now leads with 161.5m chips to Staszko’s 44.4m.

Episode numbering seems to be the only tricky thing … and maybe using the geo-locator toggle. But it didn’t seem to matter as we sought the best way to insta-podcast the exciting highlights “semi-live” as the November Nine whittled down to the three that ultimately would matter tonight, in a few hours, live from the Penn & Teller Theater, and “live” on ESPN and possibly in your pocket:

Nov. Nine – Giannetti Lives (Ep 5) by taopokerati

Dan and Pauly are ringside for a decisive hand between Matt Giannetti and Martin Staszko. Giannetti was crippled on the previous hand and moved all-in. Staszko called with a dominated hand. Dan and Pauly call the action….

Tao of Pokerati: Quad Lambs by Pokerati

Tao of Pokerati: Non-silence of the Lamb at Penn & Teller Theater by Pokerati

NOTE: this poll is semi-scientific at best, and like my first fake ID, “for entertainment purposes only.”

Phil Ivey recently dropped off ESPN’s admittedly subjective player rankings, The Nuts. ESPN’s was the last of such lists to still include the self-exiled Full Tilt Pro in their Top 10. (Homers.)

I found this out via PartTime Poker, which seems to be doing a pretty cool monthly bit over there — breaking down player standings across four different ranking systems, each with their own calculation biases and level of subjectivity in determining the best poker players in the world.

Perhaps surprisingly, I still recognize most at least half of the 21 names comprising the four different Top 10s … but I’ll bet the rest of the world surely doesn’t. There’s a reason, after all, Jason Mercier doesn’t even have a Q-score.

So with subjectivity in mind … best player, winningest player, field strength, skill measurement, tournament luck, run-good ratios, late position likability, backer’s credit score …

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.

The Rule
To begin with the basics, the TDA rule at the center of the recent discussion is the “No Disclosure” rule, which states:

Players are obligated to protect the other players in the tournament at all times. Therefore, players, whether in the hand or not, may not:

The one-player-to-a-hand rule will be enforced.

Regarding Negreanu’s previous statements, the rule is not new, as it was enacted more than seven years ago. In addition, it does not ban table talk by any means.

He also stated that players should be able to “say whatever you want in a heads-up pot at any point of the tournament.” In theory, that sounds great for the television audience. But keep in mind that far less than one percent of all poker tournaments are televised! Thus, the rule that pertains to all poker players must apply to all tournaments, televised or not. Rules cannot be changed to help individual players or enhance a televised tournament.

A quote, brought to my attention by @GaryC101, from Neil Peart of Rush sums it up best: “Glittering prizes and endless compromises shatter the illusion of integrity.” OK, kind of a random quote but says a lot about the situation in my opinion and I consider integrity the most important trait of a good tournament director.

Personally, I would like to see Negreanu say anything he wants on television, as he is one of the most entertaining players to watch. His popularity and influence on the game of poker is immense. However, as a tournament director, I believe the integrity of the game is more important than the entertainment provided by a single event. I agree with his point that the rule is difficult to enforce but it needs to be there to provide a reason for TD’s to investigate possible collusion or soft play situations.

In-Depth Analysis
Let’s start with a purely hypothetical situation:

Player A is friends with Player B and backs him in a major tournament. Both have significant chips late in a tournament. They are seated at the same table and involved in a hand. Player B raises, and it folds around to Player A, who reraises and says, “I have aces.” Player B folds kings.

This obviously does not make for better poker. In fact, it could easily be considered “soft play” or collusion, and making this permissible only encourages such actions. I am not by any means suggesting that Negreanu is in favor of soft play or collusion, but this is just one of several very negative ramifications that can arise from what he says he believes players should be able to say at the table.

Moreover, tournament directors around the world cannot be expected to be aware of all friendships, relationships, and backing arrangements between players in a tournament. Therefore, the rules are established to enable enforcement for all players, regardless of their associations. And all are protected from any collusion or appearances of collusion.An interesting idea was proposed by Barry Greenstein, who believes the current TDA rule is not enforced. He suggested that a player should be able to discuss his/her hand when action is on that player and they are facing a bet.

I discussed this idea with Dave Lamb, and we recognized the flaws in that idea.

First, it is not acceptable to disclose the contents of your hand in a multi-way action pot.

Second, it is not acceptable to disclose the contents of your hand preflop when facing a bet.

Barry responded that it would be okay when facing a bet on the river if you were only going to call, not raise. However, that does not seem enforceable and only creates more confusion for tournament staff, dealers, and players.

The bottom line is that the TDA is never going to agree to a rule that not only allows, but legalizes soft play and collusion.

The most common question I’ve received of late is this: “If table talk is legal but players cannot disclose the contents of their hands, what can they say”? The answer is simply anything except information relating to the content of their own hand with action pending. Whether lying or telling the truth about the contents or the strength of a hand, it breaks the rule and may be penalized. There is not a blanket rule for when it is a penalty or not but with the “non disclosure” rule in place it gives the players the right to investigate possible situations.

Friends
The most difficult part of this situation has been responding to television sound bites with which friends like Negreanu have addressed this issue. Also the sudden urgency is perplexing considering the rule has been in place for more than seven years.

Greenstein and Negreanu were asked to attend the June 2011 TDA summit in Las Vegas, in the same Convention Center as the WSOP. There were more than 120 tournament directors and card room managers at the summit, and anyone was allowed to discuss any rule issues or concerns. However, at that conference, Greenstein asked about procedures for raising blinds when time expires in a current blind structure, and Negreanu brought up shorting limit bets. Neither chose to discuss the “no disclosure” rule.

Suddenly, however, Negreanu’s airing of his grievance on ESPN, as well as Hellmuth’s declaration on the same broadcast that he intends to change the rule, brought it to the forefront and forced me to address the issue.

The recreational poker tournament player may not understand every rule, or even care to know all of the rules, but professionals who make a living at the game should learn and study the entirety of the TDA rules.

Moreover, these rules are in place and enforced in order to create uniformity, as they are used by nearly every major tournament venue around the world. More than 1,500 tournament directors, card room managers, and their staffs are members of the TDA, and the rules are accepted and enforced globally.

That doesn’t mean the TDA isn’t open for discussions. However, the “no disclosure” rule has been in place for many years, and there has never been an issue with it until this incident. Airing grievances may make for good television, but it does not permit the detailed analysis necessary for drafting the most functional and fair poker tournament rules that protect the integrity of the game. There will be more opportunities in the future to revisit the “no disclosure” rule and it will most definitely come up at our next TDA Summit not yet planned.

I have received a ton of feedback on this issue some positive and some negative. I have also taken personal attacks for defending a rule hundreds have put in place, which I feel is really unfair. I have worked diligently in my career to further the great game of poker with the TDA and its members and despite accusations to the contrary we care deeply about the players, as the majority are players as well.

In the end, I choose the integrity of poker, which is good for the game, over good television every time.

Clearly poker is no women’s soccer, but still … those returns seem high enough that ESPN will probably do it again — though nothing in the ESPN press release assures as much — and low enough that next year ESPN and the WSOP will easily be able to report massive growth in whatever numbers prove most beneficial for them to deliver.

It’s hard to determine a success with a new type of coverage … but these numbers do set a certain bar, and at a minimum dohelp quantify the size of the true-poker-geek market. And thus, with results of the Pokerati love-it-or-hate-it poll, combined with the television numbers, I’m relatively convinced that if ESPN doesn’t expand their “live” poker coverage in the future … somebody else will.

(It really is all in the announcing.)

Read below for the official Nielsen data presented by Jack Link’s Beef Jerky, er … I mean:

ESPN’s Live WSOP Main Event Coverage Sees Ratings and Viewership Gains in Dayparts

Ratings and viewership for ESPN’s first-ever daily live coverage of the World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event from July 14-19 was up double digits over every daypart on ESPN2 compared to July 2010, according to Nielsen. The 10 telecasts on ESPN2 averaged a 0.4 household coverage rating, 351,000 households and 415,000 viewers.

The biggest daypart gains were made during the early morning (1-5 a.m. ET) on ESPN2 when live WSOP coverage increased daypart average ratings by 136 percent and household impressions 125 percent.

In prime time, ESPN2 averaged a 0.4 rating, 401,000 households and 504,000 viewers, while the one prime time telecast on ESPN (July 19) delivered a 0.5 rating, 543,000 households and 646,000 viewers. Late night and early morning windows on ESPN2 delivered a 0.3 household coverage rating over six telecasts.

For the month to date, the WSOP delivered over 23 million total minutes consumed for ESPN3.com, a 106 percent increase on an average event to event basis compared to the same month last year.

WSOP Weekly Shows Start Tuesday at 8 p.m. ET on ESPN
ESPN’s coverage of the World Series of Poker presented by Jack Link’s Beef Jerky continues Tuesday, July 26, with WSOP “Grudge Matches” (8 p.m., ESPN), the first of ESPN’s weekly Tuesday night shows leading up to the WSOP Main Event final table on November 8. The telecast will relive two of the most famous heads-up duels in the WSOP’s 42-year history when Johnny Chan faces Phil Hellmuth in a rematch of 1989 WSOP in a one match format, and Sammy Farha plays Chris Moneymaker in a rematch of the 2003 event in a best-of-three format. The matchups were played at the Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas on June 2. Co-hosts Lon McEachern and Norman Chad will be joined by sideline reporter Kara Scott in the two-hour special which will include interviews with the players and footage from the original matchups.

– 30 –

While I think it’s been friggin awesome and indeed downright historic, a cadre of Pokerati commenters seem to have a vitriolic distaste for the live coverage that goes far beyond a typical poker whine. (I’m very disappointed in them, obv.) Not much in-between … it seems a love-it-or-hate-it affair.

So at Marvin in Bedford’s recommendation — though I did try to remove bias by not calling the live coverage “phony” — I put it to the readers of Pokerati with a simple multiple choice question asking your quick gun-to-the-head take on how ESPN has elected to bring us the 2011 WSOP:

2011 WSOP – Episode 34: Tent City (5:01) – Dan and Pauly went outside and wandered around tent city, where all of the ESPN live feed production trucks and Poker PROductions trailers were located. Pauly hasn’t seen much of the semi-live coverage on ESPN and Dan clues him in on what he’s been missing…

For more episodes, visit the Tao of Pokerati archives.

Anyhow, check out Adidas’s new ad campaign on display around the rails at the 2011 Women’s World Cup in Germany — targeting fans of international women’s soccer with phrasing that may or may not have been grifted from poker:

“adidas is all in”

BTW, go USA still, but really, seriously, gg Japan.

UPDATE: Apparently the “adidas is all in” campaign launched back in March. Click here to see the multimillion-dollar YouTube commercials wrapped around a distinctly poker phrase … as interpreted by the world of sports.

I’m watching the “Live” ESPN coverage and it sucks. It’s like it was before the cameras. Not only don’t we see all the hands, but we don’t know whether the better has the “Nuts” or is bluffing. Since they are afraid of people telling what the other players have, how about a one hand delay?

Marvin, Marvin, Marvin … c’mon, can’t you see the positives at all? This is semi-monumental … not the kinda Poker TV you see on Versus, ya know? Though not perfect yet, they gotta start somewhere, right? You bring up some good points that I’m sure they’ll consider in the future … but really, remember, while not necessarily “alpha” version of live coverage, it is rather “beta”.

In an ideal world — according to Pokerati — all cards and chips would be RFID’d worldwide and you could watch all poker anywhere in any place at any time, as live as possible as permissible by gaming jurisdiction, and decide for yourself whether or not you wanna see hole cards. (I tend to enjoy guessing sometimes.) With super-duper extra-HD All-360 technology, of course … on my iphone should I so choose. But we’re just not quite there yet!

From the Rio sportsbook: For people not glued to Twitter, "live enough" coverage is ... um ... not too different from reruns usually airing on screens in many sports bars.

Not sure how it would work with exposed hole cards and future "in-game betting" on the WSOP. (Seen at the sportsbook in the Palms, where you can't yet bet that way.)

And remember, one other factor complicating matters here is approval by Nevada Gaming. Even just allowing twitpics in casinos and cell phones in sports books is relatively new territory for them. And there are some people who don’t believe you should be able to know a players cards a half-hour later when your buddy — or even the players themselves — can find out if that key tell thy picked up goes along with the nuts or nothing.

Click the promo banner to watch things as live as we’re gonna get them for now.

2011 WSOP – Episode 5: Norman Invasion – Dan and Pauly try to hang out at the final table of the $25,000 Heads-Up Championship between Jake Cody and Yevgeniy “JovialGent” Timoshenko. However, they got stuck around a gaggle of drunken Brits supporting Jake Cody and then find themselves getting in the way of ESPN’s camera crew while they taped a stand-up for Lon McEachern and Norman Chad.

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

Though none of the eleven Season VI HPT Champs ran deep to the Six, many of them stuck around the extra night to sweat the final table including HPT POY Bryan Reisner, Las Vegas grinder Kimbo Ung, US Army Staff Sergeant Jason Fennel, aspiring American Idol singer Kurt Fraser, and an extremely personable Matt “MyTmase” Mason (who was diligently counting chipstacks all throughout Day 2.)

Here are the results:

HPT Soaring Eagle Season VI ->$1500 +$150 Main Event
1st: $176,865 Ahmed Harajli
2nd: $88,434 Joey Brown
3rd: $53,060 Jordan Rowan
4th: $41,269 Dean Hamrick
5th: $35,374 Bernard Lee
6th: $29,478 Chuck Earl

The taping of the final table lasted about 5 hours. Chuck Earl was the first to exit the taping area when Dean Hamrick’s big slick & ace-on-the-river combo beat Earl’s Queens.  Pros Dean Hamrick and Bernard Lee busted out 4th and 5th place, respectively.  Early on, Bernard went on a heater, shoving four consecutive times, while everyone folded and urged him to knock it off until on the last hand he showed kings.

Cowboys were not good to him in the endgame – he took a particularly nasty beat when his pockets fell short to 10s, when the case 10 hit the turn (another player revealed after the hand he was holding the other out), ending his tournament life.  Shortly thereafter, Hamrick ran his 33s into QQs, leaving him on the shortstack.  In the next hand, he pushed allin with K-rag vs. AQ, but it did not get there, and he left with fourth place money.

I happened upon the pair conversing during the break just after Lee’s shove-shove-shove-and-shove fest at the FT.

Here is the link to the interview where they discuss running deep together in the $1500 2010 WSOP Main Event where Hamrick won his first bracelet-> rungood.tv| ESPN Inside Deal Host Bernard Lee and Dean Hamrick Square Off at Heartland Poker Tour TV Table

Jordan Rowan cashed out soon after at 3rd, leaving headups to Joey Brown and Ahmed Harajli.  I’m interested to watch the broadcast of this matchup, because without seeing the hole cards, it still was more entertaining to me than watching the Duhamel-Racener matchup streaming on XBox Live. In the end, Joey went all in shortstacked with K5 against Ahmed 10s.  Ahmed’s hand held up, making him champ of the HPT Season VI Finale, surviving a field of 413 players.

Maria Ho and Tiffany Michelle, patched in UB, presented the Michigan native with his $176,865.  I overheard the floor saying that Ahmed, showing some real class, requested to donate a portion of his winnings to the Disabled American Veterans charity.

Tiffany Michelle was TV table “bubble girl”, eliminated by big stack Joey Brown, finishing 7th of 413 entrants and taking home $19,927.

Making the final six was ESPN Inside Deal host and poker pro Bernard Lee, who decided to enter in the tourney at the last minute. Another pro at the table, who has played Bernard previously, is WSOP 2008 Main Event bubble boy Dean Hamrick.  Dean won his first bracelet this year at a $1500 WSOP 2010 NLHE event, and cashed in two others.

Seat Assignments/Chip Counts
Seat 1: Dean Hamrick 715,000
Seat 2: Joey Brown 2,020,000
Seat 3: Bernard Lee 680,000
Seat 4: Chuck Earl 450,000
Seat 5: Jordan Rowan 850,000
Seat 6: Ahmed Harajli 1,520,000

Payouts
1st: $176, 865
2nd: $88,434
3rd: $53,060
4th: $41,269
5th: $35,374
6th: $29,478

Blinds will be set according to the *secret* HPT TV Table magic formula (??) and will last 40 minutes. Cards will be in the air shortly at approximately 6:45p EST/3:45p Vegas.

Follow me @scarlet_lv today for live-tweets from the rail.

There were five notable pros playing the Main, who attending the PPA-sponsored charity bounty tourney benefiting the Disabled American Veterans on Thursday.

Tiffany Michelle & Maria Ho = future USO?

@TheScottyNguyen was the first of them to fall on D1, with his aces cracked in Level 6 (see rungood.tv|bustout interview vid.)  Darvin Moon’s 99′s pre-flop shortshack jam fell to 77′s set late in Level 11.  @TiffnyMichelle and ESPN Poker’s @BernardLeePoker are healthy; @MariaHo has just over 10BBs.

Play for D2 resumes shortly after 10a EST/7a Vegas today at L13 (40 min levels), playing to 6.  The final TV table of the “HPT Six” is scheduled to begin taping @ 5p EST/2p Vegas.

POI (person-o-interest) Chip Counts:

Tiffany Michelle: 162.5k
Brandon Dosch: (HPT Champ & POY Contender): 162.5k
Matt Alexander: (HPT Champ & POY Contender): 136.5k
Bernard Lee: 118k
Maria Ho: 68.5k

Average Stack = 103,250
Big Stack ~ 230k

Day 2 -> L13 Antes/Blinds = 500/3k/6k

Cash bubble @ 41 players today, and the winner will take down an estimated ~ $177k. (hey, I’m not @KevMath y’all, even *inside* the tourney room.)

Follow @TiffnyMichelle, @BernardLeePoker, @MariaHo for table-twitfeed.
Follow me @scarlet_lv today for live-tweets from the rail.

• Andrew Feldman of ESPN Poker has a Final Table Blog/Chat going on where you can chat and ask him questions as he live blogs the Final table. The live chat also has the twitter feed for all the players on the table along with some other pros, so should be a fun feed to follow throughout the day (ESPN Poker Live Blog).

• Bluff gives the low down on the patches. With FTP coming into the day with 7 sponsored players and only 3 allowed to wear the FTP logo everyone was speculating what they would do. They definitely came up with a creative answer (Bluff Magazine).

• Pauly over at Tao of Poker lets you know what happens during the break at the Main Event final table in his Semi-Live Blog (Tao of Poker).

Now in some non-November 9 News but definitely a good read:

• Amy Calistri and Tim Lavalli took a deeper look back in 2006 into where 2 million extra chips came after they noticed a discrepancy at the end of Day Seven of the Main Event. They take a look at possible staff error to even the possibility of cheating between staff and players. (AimlesslyChasingAmy)

• The pseudo-live coverage of the final table will be on ESPN3, which means if your ISP does not provide it (or you live outside the US) then its fairly likely you will not be able to watch the proceedings short of proxies/other hackery. Obviously it will not have hole cards (Ty mentioned that Nevada is more “conservative” than Europe in that regard), but it will have community cards and a video stream.
• James Hartigan will provide the play-by-play and pros will provide additional commentary (which means, basically, they are doing a very similar format to the EPT Live coverage, right down to the commentators).
• Mizrachi is on a lot of poker media member’s minds: including his tax issues. ESPN noted that while they are talking about it, but its not a big part and they are dealing with the “Year of the Mizrachis” angle, at least they had been until the final table.
• Some of the storylines of the final table: youth of the table + the experience of the players + the international flavor of the FT (even if the majority of players are American, some players were born elsewhere).
• The WSOP and ESPN are definitely enforcing the 3 player patch rule. Players were informed about the rule and they understand the situation. (One thing that didn’t get asked in the call was if players would essentially be able to swap patches with a non-patched player if a patched player is eliminated.)
• Walk-on music will combine with other aspects that will give the final table a more choreographed feel. (As Ty Stewart put it: “More pomp and circumstances this year.”)
• Changes to the Penn + Teller Theater: More seats to the public, fewer seats to friends and family.
• Editing the final table is pretty much a non-stop endeavor, and they actually record voiceovers for more hands than actually get shown depending on how the story of the final table plays out. Voicing gets finished while the 1st hour of the final table coverage is already on the air.
• The NGC, Harrah’s, and federal regulators feel like online poker is illegal, according to Ty Stewart (but for some reason have no problem taking ad dollars from said people).

Some pretty important topics were addressed (how ESPN is going to deal with Mizrachi’s tax problems, how FTP is going to deal with its push to actually get a main event champ in the stable, etc.) and as the November Nine gets closer some of these may come more into focus.

Tao of Pokerati
Episode 64: Big Head Randy and the Min-Cashers – Dan and Pauly hang out at the Bad Beat bar and wonder if they are coolers? Or if the Big Randy had busted out because he was not wearing a Pokerati patch. Yes, the Big Randy busted before the money bubble. The discussion shifts to the bubble strategy for PokerStars qualifiers who also have a PCA package riding on the line along with the min-cash.

Fortunately, team captain Tom didn’t disappoint (anyone but himself and his family). Schneider showed up on ESPN this week, playing the main event on the outermost feature table, and for a surprisingly funny bit with him and fellow Team Pokerati-er Julie Schneider, as Norman Chad tries to learn about cooking and/or what makes a poker marriage work:

Be sure to check out Pauly’s post about this episode — scroll down to Day in the Life of the DonkeyBomber and Pancakes with Angry Julie — for some decidedly Tao take on Tom and his Loudmouth living.

Incidentally, you’ll notice in the clip that both he and Julie were patched up with Full Tilt. Tilt was not the only one interested in that space … when ESPN shot it (during Week 1 of the WSOP), Loudmouth didn’t have their patches yet. But, you may be surprised to learn, in the 3-way bidding war for premium ESPN real estate on the Schneider family clavicles … Pokerati actually came in second, with an offer larger than the one from PokerStars.

Click here to see more of the Pokerati patch in action, er, I mean Tom on ESPN pimpin’ the short stack on the tertiary featured table … holy shit his hand holds up!

When Danny Egelhoff was a “multimedia producer” for CardPlayer in 2007, he quickly realized, “we needed a way to make watching poker more interesting. Events were edited down to boring bare essentials, and viewers were force-fed what they had to watch.”

Fast-forward to the 2010 WSOP … Egelhoff, 31, and his partner, Rob Gusman, 34, are founders of All 360 Media, an upstart video company launching what some are saying could be the most significant technological advancement in poker since the hole-card cam.

For the past six weeks, these friends of 10+ years have camped out in a makeshift bunker across the hall from the Amazon room. In addition to powerful computers, video equipment and an all-in-one printer/copier/fax, there’s an air mattress, mini-fridge, and 4-cup coffee-maker — all of which have played a role in bringing their vision to fruition. This is Egelhoff’s fifth Series, Gusman’s first. Taped to the wall by one of their monitors is a letter from the Nevada Gaming Control Board, approving All 360 Media to record limited casino action with these strange cameras the GCB had never before seen.

The device looks something like a studio boom-mike outfitted with a Magic 8-ball at its end. It’s actually a special camera (they have two of them) with 11 different lenses all pointing in different directions, packed into a small black orb, and digitally stitched together to provide a seamless view of an entire poker area. The set-up is so new it doesn’t yet have a name. But it uses the same basic technology that Google Earth deployed to map out the planet … upgraded and customized for watching poker.

All 360 began recording non-televised final tables at the start of the Series. ESPN.com began sporadically featuring the interactive, hyper-panoramic footage online a few weeks ago. For the main event, they’ve had one 360-cam affixed to a truss above ESPN’s main feature table, while “table hopping” with the other.

(You can find a permanent archive of these and other recorded tables from the 2010 WSOP on the recently launched website All360Poker.com.)

The cameras act like a robotic eye-in-the-sky, essentially creating a dome of visibility above and around a table, with individual internet viewers able to shift the camera’s direction and zoom at will. Viewers can zero in on the felt, cards, specific players, even fans behind them, to see exactly they want to look at however closely.

Anyone can play All 360′s footage on the web. But PC users can maximize the experience by downloading a special (free) video player, which provides higher resolution images with smoother rendering. This software add-on can even split the screen multiple times so you can watch separate, customizable views simultaneously … as many windows as your RAM can handle! See two players head on, even when they’re facing off from across the table, say a 3-seat vs. a 7-seat, for example, with a third window focused on the flop … all while watching another player shuffle chips in a distinct way when he thinks no one is looking.

The 360-cam first appeared over a poker table in April, during the WPT World Championship at Bellagio. It was a dry run essentially, in preparation for the WSOP, with All 360 allowed to video anything up to the Final 6.

Perhaps by stroke of luck, Phil Hellmuth busted in 7th place, on the TV bubble. After seeing his theatrical performance (in 360 degrees of glory) for the first time, he was more than impressed. “You can watch the dealer, watch the betting action, watch the crowd,” Hellmuth explained, “or zoom in for a closeup up of the player’s face in the middle of a hand!”

Excited about the potential of what he was seeing, Hellmuth asked Egelhoff how he might be able to help. Before long, Hellmuth became an active partner in All 360, where his role, beyond endorsing the product, has included helping open certain doors in the industry, advising on start-up business strategies, and providing back-office support. “This technology is absolutely the future of watching poker. I’m proud to be involved with it,” Hellmuth says.

To bring 360-degrees of tournament coverage from idea to prototype, Egelhoff worked with people from Immersion Media, a key company behind Google Earth, to take what they did with still cameras atop Google’s funny looking mapping cars and customize a video version for poker environs. They first had to figure out how to mount the device upside-down. Then they had to adjust focal lengths by replacing lenses designed to shoot 60 feet out (to infinity) with something better suited for capturing live action just a few feet away. From there they had to rewrite software, and would later have to re-rewrite it to make it compatible with other websites, such as ESPN.com.

Egelhoff and Gusman formed their company in January, but Hellmuth was the one who helped them get their cameras in front of the right people at Harrah’s and ESPN. They’d all finalize a deal for this WSOP in mid-May, two weeks before the first shuffle-up-and-deal. (ESPN gets to air All 360′s footage from WSOP tables first, but All 360 retains the video rights thereafter).

“People assume [Phil] just gave us money, but that’s not it at all,” Egelhoff insists, saying that plenty have approached him at the WSOP with offers of partnership, several of which have proved frivolous, and others they might consider after the Series. Until then, Egelhoff says, “the real value Phil’s given us is full access to his own company’s resources, including his lawyers and CFO. Their support has been invaluable.”

360 degrees of separation: Egelhoff went from CardPlayer A/V grunt to running his own company; yet he still finds himself hunkered down at the Rio into the wee hours during the WSOP.

If the cameras at the WPT Championship were version 1.0, the WSOP has seen version 1.5, Egelhoff says. They’ve increased resolution, added a light shield, and have continued to improve back-end software and their video player.

While some TV stations have begun to experiment with the same technology — NBC did an episode of the Today Show where viewers could move around the stage, and a Canadian sports station has tried it at hockey games — poker is one area where the cameras seem to have immediate applications, and thus a market where developers are focussing much of their creative and technical energy.

All 360′s cameras already work for watching players at a table. But so much more can theoretically be added with relative ease — allowing viewers to get more information about whatever it is they’re mousing over, for example, whether that be additional player stats or interactions with a table advertiser.

One of the most obvious and immediate uses is in poker is training. While players have studied poker on TV like old-fashioned game films for several years now, the search for tells just hit a new level with this technology.

Online training site Deep Stacks Live recorded and streamed a live cash-game session earlier this month at the Hard Rock, with Mike Matusow leading the instruction. “This technology gives our students unparalleled individualized access to the classroom,” says Chris Torina, CEO of DeepStacks Live. Deep Stacks will be recording and streaming another live training session later this month, July 25.

As cameras inevitably get smaller and processing power gets faster, it’s only a matter of time before new interactive (and presumably monetizable) features get added. Hence the growing belief that 360 coverage has a long and promising future in poker … even if few at the moment are exactly sure how.

Signs point to yes: Look into the new 360-cams showing up over poker tables and ask if you are seeing the future. Phil Hellmuth thinks you are.

That day may be a while off. The cameras All 360 is currently using cost more than $100,000 each. But supposedly they are almost ready — a few months from testing — with completely redesigned hardware that requires fewer lenses (6 instead of 11), is smaller and lighter, produces better quality video, and, as things tend to go with high technology, costs less.

Meanwhile, Egelhoff has been contemplating the software necessary to link multiple 360-cams together to expand their coverage area beyond a single table, to entire regions of a poker room.

Current agreements with individual patent holders give All 360 exclusive rights in casinos and gaming environments. That leaves open a myriad of possibilities beyond the poker table. Security is an obvious future application to explore, and the cameras have already proven a hit for concerts, allowing online audiences to vicariously step onto the stage. Hellmuth brought the All 360-cam to his Main Event “Sky Suite” at Aria, showing its potential use for casino room tours. Recording nightclub activity and pool parties 360-style would likely appeal to thousands, if not millions of Vegas voyeurs.

More immediately though, their next challenge is live-streaming tournament tables. This will require not just further software tweaks, but also additional approval from Nevada gaming regulators. All 360 is currently in active discussions about how this all might work for the 2011 WSOP, while also talking with the WSOP-Circuit and a few international poker tours eager to take the technology worldwide.

According to Egelhoff, “This World Series has been everything we were hoping it would be, and then some.”

For most of us, $50,000 is a whole lot of money. It’s a year’s salary. A new car. A down payment on a new house. Our savings.

For others, however, $50K is pocket money — a single pot in a $200/$400 game or a roll of the dice on the craps table. It’s also the cost of entry into the first marquee event of the 2010 WSOP, the $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship.

Over its short life, this tournament has undergone a variety of changes as it tries to cement its identity in the poker world. Starting out as the $50,000 HORSE event in 2006, the tournament quickly gained a reputation as the true players championship because of its hefty buy-in and mixed-game format. In that first year, 143 players ponied up $50K each for a shot at the title and the chance to play mixed games on ESPN.

The poker economy isn’t what it used to be. Players who wouldn’t have thought twice about dropping $50K two years ago are now looking at the cost of entry the same way many of us look at $1,500, $2,500 or $5,000 events.

Poor ratings forced a format change in 2007 and 2008, however, when ESPN agreed to broadcast the event only if the final tables were all No-Limit Hold ‘em — a game that’s much easier for the general viewing audience to follow. The change didn’t do much to affect the number of entrants, as 148 players registered for the tournament in both 2007 and 2008.

ESPN dropped the $50K HORSE event completely in 2009 and, it can be argued that the lack of potential TV time, combined with the beginning of the economic crisis, had a significant impact on the field as just 95 players competed in the event last year. Now, however, the $50K HORSE event is back on the air – renamed as the the $50,000 Player’s Championship and featuring an eight-game mix along with a TV-friendly NLH-only final table. Michael “the Grinder” Mizrachi took down the $1.5 million bracelet last night in what had to be good-for-TV fashion – with his brother and other well-known pros falling by the wayside before he ended up mano-y-mano against an interesting Russian high-roller.

While this event is certainly popular with a small – albeit influential – subset of players, real questions after five years are, is it successful and will it be back again in 2011. According to the WSOP’s PR Director, Seth Palansky, the answers are yes. Speaking recently on the new Wicked Chops podcast, Palansky said WSOP officials set the over/under on the number of players in this year’s event at 100, and were very pleased with the fact that 116 players registered for the tournament.

And, while 116 players is nothing to sneeze at, that number is significantly smaller than the one being bandied about on press row before the start of the event, when usually well informed sources said WSOP officials were expecting at least 130 players — still nearly 20 players shy of the tournament’s high water mark.

Is Palansky just trying to put the best face on a disappointing turnout? And, if so, does it matter?

What does seem clear is that the poker economy — like the overall US and world economies — isn’t what it used to be. Before the start of the WSOP, I had a chance to speak with a couple of well known and well respected pros whom you would expect to be playing in this year’s Player’s Championship. They certainly have the bankrolls to afford the game and the skills to be competitive. Yet, they decided to pass — all for similar reasons.

In each case, the players said that with the tourney’s high price point and loaded field, they just don’t see enough value to justify parting with $50,000, as nearly 90 percent of the entries are sure to do. Think about that for a second. With 116 entrants, the tournament is paying out 16 places, with a min-cash paying out just over $98,000. Eighth spot, which is the first to bust from the final TV table, earns a little more than $182,000 along with whatever bonus money is being offered by the player’s sponsor site — usually between five and six figures for players from sites like PokerStars and FTP. First place pays more than $1.5 million, plus bonuses.

It’s not that these players think the tournament, in and of itself, is too expensive or that the field is too tough. Instead, it’s a matter of simple bankroll management and the fact they believe that playing this event, in the greater scheme of the overall WSOP, doesn’t make financial sense. Players who wouldn’t have thought twice about dropping $50K two years ago are now looking at the cost of entry the same way many of us look at $1,500, $2,500 or $5,000 events.

Is this event worth the price? Is there better value somewhere else for less money?

When even the richest and most successful poker pros in the world are asking such questions before entering “big” tournaments, what does that mean for the casual players for whom a trip to the WSOP is a significant financial commitment? Will they show up? If so, will they play as many events as last year? Will they play events outside of the Rio? Will the overall number of players at this year’s WSOP drop for the first time in post-Moneymaker, Harrah’s-driven history?

For Palansky and Harrah’s executives, these are burning questions for the 2010 WSOP. Even though you won’t hear them say any specific number or benchmark really matters, they do. Field sizes, and the dollars associated with them, have to factor into any profit-minded corporation’s assessment of an event’s success, and how they consider the vibrance of an overall market.

So while 116 or any other number may not alter how things run this year, it has a lot to do with what kind of poker we’ll see in future WSOPs.

Here’s the full final table results, with the edited final table coverage on ESPN2 May 10th at 10pm ET:

1 – Vanessa Selbst, $750,000
2 – Mike Beasley, $428,000
3 – Mike Woods, $240,000
4 – Scott Seiver, $190,000
5 – Alistar Melville, $150,000
6 – Derek Raymond, $115,000
7 – Cliff Josephy, $85,000
8 – Jonathan Aguiar, $60,244