The North American Poker Tour at the Venetian is coming to its inevitable conclusion with the $5,000 main event final table, scheduled to start at 2pm PT today, with live streaming available at www.napt.com/tv. Here’s how the final table of 8 will look when play resumes:

Seat 1: Daniel Clemente (1,345,000)
Seat 2: Sam Stein (6,145,000)
Seat 3: Thomas Fuller (4,735,000)
Seat 4: “Miami” John Cernuto (1,300,000)
Seat 5: Yunus Jamal (3,940,000)
Seat 6: David Paredes (4,700,000)
Seat 7: Tom “kingsofcards” Marchese (2,370,000)
Seat 8: Eric Blair (1,690,000)

On Thursday, the final table of the $25,000 High Roller Bounty Invitational Shootout will play out, also scheduled to start at 2pm PT. Here’s the final table, with the number of $5,000 bounties each collected:

Scott Seiver (6)
Hoyt Corkins (4)
Faraz Jaka (4)
Joe Cassidy (4)
Brett Richey (3)
Peter Eastgate (2)
Ashton Griffin (2)

Each player earned $75,000 for winning their table, with the last man standing on Thursday pocketing $455,000 in the winner-take-all format. All seven players are also eligible to win an additional $100,000 from PokerStars.net for having the most bounties.

For those looking to follow the action, check out www.pokerstarsblog.com w/ ShortStack Shamus, Jennifer Newell and Otis, or the live reporting over at PokerNews.

The Fox series “Lie to Me*”, featuring favorite of Jennifer Newell Mekhi Phifer, prominently features the WSOP Main Event in the episode Nov. 16(?) at 9pm ET/8pm CT.

The episode, entitled “Fold Equity” has the following synopsis:

Lightman, Foster (Kelli Williams) and Reynolds (Mekhi Phifer) go to Las Vegas to help locate a missing finalist in the World Series of Poker. Lightman uses his skills to reach beyond the other finalists’ poker faces to figure out which one knows about the disappearance. Meanwhile, Loker (Brendan Hines) and Torres (Monica Raymund) analyze Loker’s new relationship and as a result get closer to each other.

For those who miss the episode, you can catch it on Fox’s site or over at Hulu.com on Tuesday.

CORRECTION: The WSOP episode airs next Monday, not tonight.

Jennifer Newell’s favorite person to stalk celebrity, Mekhi Phifer is still in the hunt to make the final table of the WPT Invitational at the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles. To see how well he does, along with the people you’ve never heard of and celebrities, check out the WPT updates for more info.

6:50pm Update: Mekhi is nursing a shortstack with 16 players left, only the final table of 6 gets paid in this tournament.

We love the guys at PokerListings more and more … not only do they bowl well and generally produce quality poker content, but also, they get it: They can buy a blogger’s affection by throwing freerolls with quality cash prizes at stake. Brilliant, as the British would say.

In the first go-round of the Run Good Challenge, the guys hosting the event dominated. Oops, not very hospitable. But they rolled the money over and then the ladies started winning, including Change100’s victory in the Grand Final. But in event #1 of Run Good Challenge 2: Electric Boogaloo, the one only semi-employed male in the field with firsthand memories of Bobby Riggs losing to Billie Jean King took it down — kudos to Dr. Tim for making a stand on behalf of chubby white bald men who, frankly, needed the inspiration to know, Yes We Can!

The Shrink won $600 for his Sunday-morning skills, fending off attacks from his writing partner Amy Calistri ($300) and longtime Pokerati fave Michele Lewis ($100).

California Jen, Liz Lieu, and Lacey Jones apparently missed the starting bell, but yours truly woke up to his PokerStars alarm this time — seriously, you get a rousing beep on the first hand if you register for the tourney pre-sleep and leave Stars running overnight — but couldn’t get his head fully in the game before pushing all-in with his Q3o vs. the eventual winner’s Q8s (on a flop of Q-8-x) … damn, finished 11th out of 14, which seems about right for how I played almost into Level 2.

A certain WSOP blogger turns what may or may not be the same age as the WSOP today. We, of course, couldn’t be more delighted to have her spend this day hunkered down for the start of the Main Event enjoying a well-earned day off from the rigors of Pokerati.

After all, it’s not like there’s not gonna be another Day 1 tomorrow, and the next day, and the next … I think you folks can survive for just a little bit. Probably can’t say as much for all the Day 1A players, but still …

Sorry for the lack of personal postage last week and presumably this one … I have gotten caught up in the housing crisis and am moving again over the next couple days … even though I don’t know where yet. Seriously, housing crisis is very real here — our friends at The Poker Atlas were forced to relocate due to the house they were renting going into foreclosure; Rounder Club West got evicted from their digs a couple weeks ago because their landlord decided to desperately sell. When this sorta thing happens to three homes in an isolated niche, it can’t just be coincidental.

Anyhow, so yes, content … sorry for the lack thereof and sorry for the blog-cliche post about being sorry. There’s still plenty going on out there that the poker-minded populace shouldmaybe care about, regardless of my personal battle against homelessness.

As we know, the US is currently trying to figure out how to enforce the UIGEA — the AMERICAN BANKS say they can’t really do it — so now, instead of rewriting our own bad laws, we are pressuring the UK to change theirs.

And here’s an article about EL PASO’S rich gambling history – underground or not — over the past 100+ years, starting with a mayor in 1895 known as “Poker Bob” Campbell.

A NEW BLOG (to me) I am now following semi-regularly: David Matthews’ Gambling in Space.

Through him, I learned about FRANK GAGLIARDI, a California Lottery winner who also likes to gamble and recently won his very relevant (to me and you) court case vs. the IRS:

If this case stands, then it could effectively rewrite tax law and make it easier for gamblers to report losses and more difficult for the IRS to go after gamblers.

BALLY TECHNOLOGY also won a pretty big case in court — against SHUFFLE MASTER, which up to this point has maintained an expensive stranglehold on the automatic shufflers you see in poker tables.

And CALIFORNIA JEN may have loved the poker mockumentary THE GRAND, but not everybody did.

Crap, that’s hardly everything, but I have to run …

It’s true … word just trickling in that Pokerati’s own Jennifer Newell, the self-proclaimed worst prop-bettor in the world (how else could she beat me in bowling and still end up losing money?) has broken her prop-bet cold streak by beating Change100 for a meal bill.

She’ll be giving a press conference with details about the feat shortly, I am sure.

California Jen is gonna be on the internet radio tonight — co-hosting Keep Flopping Aces with Lou Kreiger. They’re rolling live at 6 pm pacific on roundersradio.com.

Their topic for one hour will be the Absolute Poker cheating scandal — which isn’t going away, as much as a lot of folks probably wish it would. (Jen has been all over it for PPN.) Click on over to listen, or check RR’s archives after the fact.

Not to take any wind out of the sails of Beyond the Table, but I’m not on that one I have to plug another show.

I have been invited to be a guest on Lou Krieger’s Keep Flopping Aces radio show tomorrow to discuss the Absolute Poker Scandal. After having written a series of columns on the subject for Poker Player Newspaper, Lou seems to think I know what I’m taking about. For the entire hour, we’ll discuss the scandal, specifically the fact that Absolute Poker hasn’t mentioned it in months and the Kahnawake Gaming Commission has yet to release its final audit report (though it was promised weeks ago).

The show just moved from Hold’em Radio to Rounders Radio and will be live starting at 6pm PST (9pm EST).