From the Lederer/Zolotow World Series of Barbecue at the Golden Nugget … after tearing it up on Guitar Hero, Jef Madsen challenged Phil Ivey’s cousin “Smokey” to a freestyle-rap “cuttin’ contest”. The words are hard to understand on this video — too bad RawVegas wasn’t there — but Madsen impressively held his own before succumbing to the three-toothed Old-Dirty-Bastard lookalike that had some of us white folks at the party saying, “Who is that? He’s a real rapper, right?” Evelyn Ng and Matt Savage looking on:

Also, who knew J-Mad had such dope skillz?

Lo and behold he’s been getting practice while videoblogging for PokerRoad. Click here to see/hear the 2006 WSOP Player of the Year giving tourney reports in rhyme.

What’s happened tonight at the WSOP:

The two final tables for today are both heads-up. First, the $5,000 NL Holdem 6-handed event is down to Joe Commisso and Richard Lyndaker, having played over 130 hands of heads-up action so far. Commisso at one point had a 7-1 chip lead before Lyndaker clawed his way to having his own chip lead. At this time Joe has retaken the lead, but it’s still going to be hard for him to close the deal.

The $1,500 Seven Card Stud Eight or Better tournament is was down to Ryan Hughes and Ron Long. At the moment, Hughes has a 2-1 chip lead, but the chips have been going back and forth quite a bit during heads-up play. Hughes finally defeats Long, taking home the bracelet and $183,000, while Long takes home just over $113,000. This is Hughes’ second bracelet, as he took down the $2,000 Stud Eight or Better event last year. The only other notable name at this final table was 2+2 author David Sklansky, who was the first out at the final table again, finishing in 8th.

Other tournament action on the next page:
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Happenings at the WSOP while JC Tran (and his spectacular breasts) make the final table.

Play ended shortly after 5am in the $10k Mixed Event World Championship. A tournament that had its share of controversy, from confusion over the structure to players threatening to go to 2+2 to express their dislike of having table redraws start at triple draw instead of going through the eight-game rotation. Here’s the final table, starting at 4pm:
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Update: Event #9 ($1,500 NL 6-handed) sold out just after play started at noon at 1,236 entrants.

What’s going on at the WSOP while I try to get an invite to Low Stakes Poker.

First the important news, Pokerati’s own Tom Schneider is chip leader at the end of day 1 of the $10k Mixed Event World Championship with ~140,000 in chips. 94 89 of the starting field of 192 in this inaugural event remain to play down to the final table of 8. 2006 WSOP POY Jeff Madsen is in 4th, while Gus Hansen, Johnny Chan, and Phil Ivey are all in contention. Play for them begins at 3pm.

More results from yesterday after the jump:
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OK, too funny … a year-by-year, larger-than-life gallery of WSOP Players of the Year. Defending champ Tom Schneider (’07) is literally nothing next to Jeff Madsen (’06):

Photo: Jen Newell

With 27 players remaining in the U.S. Poker Championship, held at the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, Louis Lee from Plano will start Day 4 tomorrow 4th in chips. Jeff Madsen is the fairly dominant chip leader, followed by his party pal Gavin Smithr. Other recognizable names still alive in this $10k event include Allen Kessler, Victor Ramdin, Cliff Josephy (aka JohnnyBax), and Bill Gazes.

Eighteen get paid, with first prize being a little more than $600,000. (164 players started — kinda small, no?)

PokerPages is the only outlet following the action semi-live …

CORRECTION: PokerListings is at the USPC tables, too.

Louis’ up-and-coming tournament history here.