Dallas tourney fave Gregg Merkow is kicking butt in the WSOP Circuit @ The Grand main event in Tunica — he’s second in chips the chip leader with 39 players left … three away from the money.

Gregg Merkow made it 10K from the small blind and Stan Weiss jacked him on up to 35K from the big. Gregg moved all-in and Stan called. Gregg held T9 suited and was trailing Stan’s A7. Board came 9 7 5 9 8 and Gregg made trips to bust Stan. “Boo-yah, Ship It!” said Gregg.

Ahh, the Suckout & Taunt … well-played! Dallas poker at its finest! Eat at Merkow’s!

photo: Jason Kirk / Spaceman

Merkow seems to do pretty well in Tunica. He won a $3,000 event at the Gold Strike World Poker Open one year ago tomorrow … which followed a 1st place across the parking lot in a $500/single-rebuy WSOP Circuit @ The Grand event 10 days earlier. And The Grand, of course, is where his career as a professional began in August 2005, after a half-million dollars payday.

Click here to follow his progress as Kaelaine tracks his chipstacks.

And here … for Spaceman’s coverage of his quest for another Mississippi ring.

Mmm, steak and seafood.

The first weekend of April will mark the beginning of new era in poker as team-play makes it’s Vegas/Television debut in the form of the US PokerBowl. The theory is that it’s supposed to add a completely new layer of strategy to our beloved game while bringing tournament poker bravado competition to a whole new level. Representing Dallas are TJ Cloutier, Tex Barch, Jeff Littlefield, and yours truly. Our team, the Dallas Kowboys, will fight it out in a televised, collusion-friendly free-for-all.

Opposing players include some of the best in the game, including hometown boys David Williams, Scott Levy, Gregg Merkow, and Webber Kang, who I hear have worked together to win a similarly structured local tournament in the recent past. Even Pokerati Invitational champ, Tom Schneider, has assembled a top tier posse for Phoenix. I’ll soon be tearing my own collusion hymen with my home game crew in Burleson when we adopt this intriguing format for our next regular home tournament. I actually predict that you will see a surge of local team tournaments over the next year. After all, where else can you win from the rail? Other than by fading me, of course.

The first thing certain readers might notice upon stepping inside Merkow’s are the two flat-screen TV’s hanging over the bar. No, this isn’t a sports bar, and in fact the HDTV’s are only a minor part of the decor. But they sure do look familiar … ah, right … these used to hang in The Lounge (2005-2006). In fact, when the TVs were yanked out in the spring of this year, it was a sign of things to come in the underground poker scene.

Without going into too many details, Gregg Merkow — the most successful Dallas pro at the 2006 WSOP (save for maybe TJ Cloutier and expat David Williams) — at some point decided that he was gonna stick to trying to make his money on the table; and he was gonna hedge his bets by moving those TVs into a business with a less predictable but more reliable rake. And considering he already had found great success with the Hurricane Grill, why not just step that up a notch … next door, at the site of the old Greenville Bar & Grill?

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LAS VEGAS–Phil Hellmuth is heads-up yet again for his 10th WSOP victory in a $1,000 NLH event. This time he’s not up against a no-name … he’s facing the anti-Phil in the form of the accomplished Juha Helppi.

(Get it? Helpy? Funny.)

I wonder how it’s going to turn out.

OK, I’m off to the Bodog party … at Tao in the Venetian. I have a bracelet and everything.
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LAS VEGAS–In yesterday’s $1,000 NLH with rebuys, Daniel Negreanu supposedly rebought 48 times. (How do you even have time to rebuy that often during the rebuy period?) Apparently, part of his strategy to put as many chips on his table as possible — without giving away any sorta tells in the process — entailed raising blind, and when reraised, moving all-in … still without looking at his cards.

With this strategy, Negreanu coulda made the final table and still lost money. But he did not make the final table. So instead of losing $2k, he loses the full $48/49k.

Gregg Merkow only had to rebuy six times. With 73 people left — out of 754 who started — he is in 11th chip position. And with the WSOP coming near its end … only three weeks left! … he is proving to be the Dallas player having the best Series. Four cashes so far, one final table, and a solid Bellagio tourney finish tossed in the mix.

UPDATE: Mike Matusow was in for 21 rebuys (which almost seems paltry now). He busted out just before the bubble. All this kinda makes you wonder who’s really the dead money in this game, no?