They’re in the money at the National Heads-Up Championship. Everyone’s brackets have turned to shit — I’ll update that situation as soon as I put this post up here — and Jerry Yang’s crew is apparently rolling old-school Hevad Khan, getting all up in Jennifer Harman’s grill. (Jennifer of all people!)

Everyone left guaranteed at least $25k in pursuit of the $500k first prize.

The payout breakdown:

Champion $500,000
Runner-Up $250,000
3rd & 4th Place $125,000
5th – 8th Place $75,000
9th – 16th Place $25,000

Click here for how they got to this point. WSOP Main Event champs representing. Where’s Varkonyi!

Coming up:

Chris Moneymaker vs. Erik Seidel
Peter Eastgate vs. Jamie Gold

Phil Laak vs. Jason Mercier
Annie Duke vs. Paul Wasicka

By my count, that’s six Main Event champs, one Main Event-Europe champs, and one guy who thinks he was main event champ.

So I really nailed it when predicting the outcomes of the tournament itself … picked Joe Cada as the winner and declared Darvin Moon to be finishing in either 2nd or 4th.

However, I also said: “Seriously, I’m predicting ratings boom.”

Oops …

For Immediate Release
November 12, 2009

World Series of Poker Finale Draws 2.1 Million Viewers on ESPN

With 21-year-old Joe Cada of Michigan setting a record as the youngest champion ever, more than 2.1 million viewers watched ESPN’s same-day coverage of the World Series of Poker, presented by Jack Link’s Beef Jerky, from Las Vegas on Tuesday, Nov. 10. The telecast earned a 1.8 household coverage rating in an average of 1,806,113 households, a slight decrease from the 1.9 rating earned for the 2008 finale.

ESPN’s 15-week schedule of World Series of Poker coverage in 2009 included 31 telecasts averaging a 1.0 rating, even with last year. However, averages for households (1,024,901) and viewership (1,228,008) increased nine and seven percent, respectively, from 2008, and the important Male 25-54 demographic saw a 13 percent jump from 2008.

It only took one year for the record for youngest winner to be broken. Denmark’s Peter Eastgate was 22 when he captured the 2008 crown.

-30-

Click below for a more detailed breakdown and recent-history comparison of the ratings, courtesy of a ganked Poker Beat email from BJ.

Speaking of … don’t forget to tune in today to The Poker Beat, as we will be getting all-WSOPy like all get-out!

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The Main Event got underway today with Jack Link’s mascot Sasquatch grunting his way through the “Shuffle Up and Deal” with a field of 1,116 (down from last year’s 1,297) starting day 1a. Jeffrey Pollack’s vlog with Wicked Chops Poker, shown below, hopes to get 5,000 entrants, which would be about 25 precent below last year’s 6,844. The lower than expected numbers could also explain the decision to play only 4 two-hour levels on days 1 and 2.

At the moment, there’s about 4,000 registrants already signed up, most of which are on days 1c and 1d, so don’t be surprised if you hear rumors about Monday’s day 1d being “closed” for registrations to add some entrants to days 1b and 1c. Notables who have already been eliminated today include: Jerry Yang, Freddy Deeb, Orel Hershiser, John Phan, Gabe Kaplan, Davidi Kitai and 2009 EPT Grand Final winner Pieter de Korver. The unofficial chip leader is Dragan Galac at 110,000 in chips, followed by by 2006 EPT Grand Final winner Jeff Williams at 106,000.

Other notables with chips: Jason Alexander (84,500), Eli Elezra (84,300), Tom Schneider (57,000), Phil Laak (46,000) and Jimmy Fricke (45,000). Follow the last level of play at the WSOP site here. Chip counts should be available in the early morning hours, but if you want to see who decided to pay their $10,000 today, a list of Day 1a entrants can be found here. More stuff this weekend, so come back to Pokerati often.

Watch Jeffrey Pollack Vlog on Day 1A of the 2009 WSOP Main Event on RawVegas.tv

Pokerati player Jerry Randack is making a run at the Venetian HORSE final table today.

First off, some props to some Pokerati peeps scoring in the Venetian Deeps Stacks. Today, Team Pokerati player Jerry Randack made it to Day 2 in the $500+50 HORSE. We’re trying to follow him on twitter today, but, you know … some people don’t quite get how that works yet.

Also, big kudos to La Sengphet and Chui Kim from Dallas. La took part in a three-way chop in a $300+30 last week that paid her $24k. Chui followed that up the next day with a 4th place finish for $17k.

The Venetian tournaments are setting record numbers — with field sizes ranging from 500+ players to more than 800 in both $300 and $500 NLHs. Not sure yet on the HORSE event …

Meanwhile, the competing smaller buy-in skill-based tourneys across Las Vegas Blvd. at Caesar’s — the MegaStacks — are seeing very different results. According to one of our spies on the ground, answering the question of how it’s going over there:

Horrible. They canceled their $1k on Sunday because of lack of entrants. A player at Venetian said he went over their first, and they had 9 entries as of 11:30, one of whom was Jerry Yang. I saw Yang sit down in the Venetian tourney as a late entry at about 1:15.

NOTE: Bellagio has also affected the non-WSOP summer tourney landscape, re-upping their nightly tourney buy-in to $1,000.

A few recaps while several tournaments are on their dinner breaks:

The 40th Annual $40,000 NL Holdem final table has 4 players remaining. Greg Raymer, Vitaly Lunkin, Isaac Haxton and Dani Stern make up the final four to take home nearly $2m and the first open gold bracelet of the WSOP. Ted Forrest, Noah Schwartz, Lex Veldhius, Alec Torelli and Justin Bonomo were eliminated earlier today from the final table.

Speaking of Raymer, the WSOP Champions Invitational got underway earlier this afternoon. 20 of the 25 surviving champions accepted their RSVPs to be filmed under the bright lights of the ESPN cameras. Within the first orbit, 2006 winner Jamie Gold was the first player eliminated, while 2003 winner Chris Moneymaker watched his 10,000 chip stack dwindle erode before he finally busted. Raymer was able to get a couple of hands in before returning to the $40k final table. Six more one-hour levels or until the final table of nine return Monday afternoon.

More recaps on the next page:
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One of the first “big” WSOP events will be the special, invitational Champions tourney … a non-bracelet freeroll for all previous main event champions, which will be one of only four televised ESPN events. This made-for-TV No-Limit Hold’em brouhaha — where players are competing for a shiny trophy and a red Corvette — should give the old-dog pros a chance to remind the 21st century WSOP millionaires who’s really boss … and the Varkonyis and Golds and Yangs a chance to say, “Hey, I didn’t just get lucky, Doyle Biznatch!”

27 players are eligible … and almost all have pre-registered. Bobby Baldwin ‘78 has RSVP’d in the negative. But there’s one interesting name on the list of non-confirmeds* — well actually there’re five, but one of these is not like the others … in fact, as a member of the WSOP PAC, he’s probably on Jeffrey Pollack’s speed dial:

Mansour Maltoubi ‘90
Hamid Dastmalchi ‘92
Russ Hamilton ‘94
Noel Furlong ‘99
Chris Ferguson ‘00

None of these are holdouts, from what we’re hearing … just MIA. (Though we’re not so sure the WSOP is looking that hard for Russ, because they could always give his invitation to Layne Flack.)

Wicked Chops is on the hunt for them here.

Crap, one of my final four picks is already out. Erik Seidel. I so almost went the other way with that one, too.

Otherwise, all is well in my bracket. Got the 4 3 other matches right — Farha d. Cunningham, Eastgate d. Bloch, Lindgren d. Lederer, Elezra d. Chan. Alas, we will not be seeing Gowen vs. Lederer deep, which Ali Nejad reminded us yesterday woulda been great for poker, because it probably woulda been followed on Court TV.

CORRECTION: I guess I changed my pick on Chan vs. Elezra / didn’t go with my gut. Of course Eli was gonna win.

If you wanna follow a little more play-by-play, take your pick:
CardPlayer.com
PokerNews.com
PokerListings.com

Flipchip for really good photos.
Audio stuff TK at PokerRoad.

And it’s still not too late to get in on the bracket-picking action … though points scored on matches already started won’t count in the end. We’re doing this with our forum friends at PokerRoad. Show who’s boss.

UPDATE: Yang defeats Gowen! Boo Jerry Yang! Makin’ us rankers eat it!

There’s been much talk online and off- about the long-awaited 60 Minutes story on the AP/UB cheating scandals — which we now know will air Sunday, to be seen by some 15 million viewers, far more than the 1.9 million who tuned in to see Peter Eastgate follow in Jerry Yang’s footsteps.

The generally spot-on Wicked Chops, for example, have been calling it a “hatchet job”. Well-informed poker-biz insiders have told me privately it’s going to be “terrible for poker”. I’ve even heard some say the WSOP’s cooperating with CBS will prove to be “Jeffrey Pollack’s downfall”.

I respectfully and wholeheartedly disagree.

The fear, of course, is that the piece will end up condemning the entire industry. But look, 60 Minutes doesn’t exactly have a history of botching stories in its 41 years on the air. They typically get pretty darn close to The Truth. There may be some short-term backlash to the not-so-pretty sides of online poker being revealed, but in the long run, we WANT the non-poker public to understand our dilemmas … and, assuming we really are on the right side of the UIGEA, some might argue we need them to.

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In an effort to raise money for Eldorado Habitat for Humanity:

A related online auction will begin on Saturday, 25 October, on eBay, and will conclude on the day of the event. Items for bid may be viewed at http://donations.ebay.com/charity/charity.jsp?NP_ID=27688 and will include poker coaching sessions donated by 2007 World Series of Poker (WSOP) main event champion Jerry Yang, World Poker Tour (WPT) & WSOP bracelet winner J.C. Tran, WSOP bracelet winner and WPT’s first lady of poker Linda Johnson, WPT champion JJ Liu, and WPT Ladies Poker Party champion Kelli Griggs.

Donation products and services can be added to the eBay online auction with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the El Dorado County Habitat for Humanity.

OK, first thing to remember is that patience is important. And then when you find yourself way behind, the best strategy is to pray for runner-runner. Basically, you see, you want to get your chips in the middle when God is listening and rooting for you …

Some of us may have gotten a bit sloppy with the development of the final table yesterday — look, I was going on about 5 hours of sleep over the previous three days, and was so hopped up on caffeine and energy drinks that my urethra had constricted to near the size of a coffee stir. Peeing wasn’t painful, but it did take some extra time … and you readers were already in bed on that final day of 2008 WSOP Summer Camp, and I may have been in a rush to the Hooker Bar farewell when deducing that almost all the final tableists were in their 20s and from California, so … not making excuses, just sayin’ … the process of gathering news on the fly can be a bit messy sometimes.

So here is a more accurate recount of who’s really left in the 2008 WSOP main event:

Interestingly enough, Pokerati readers picked a “middle aged white American male” as most likely to win the main event (we discounted a last-minute surge of Jerry Yang votes after he had been eliminated) — and yet 40somethings were completely shut out of the November Nine. (Ask Tom, Pokerati’s resident 40something, I tell him all the time: it’s a lot easier to win when you make the final table.) New era, it seems.

I can only speculate on all the stuff that is going on at the WSOP regarding the discussion of changing the final table format, but here are my thoughts on what has already been discussed.

Given the same payout structure, would you rather make a final table last year or this year? If you say last year, STOP! PROCEED DIRECTLY TO THE BOTTOM OF THIS POST. Think about this. How many people outside of poker know Jerry Yang? Answer = 0. How many people outside of poker know the guy who finished 7th? 0! Did someone actually come in 7th? I don’t remember.

Can you imagine making the final table under this potential change? Many people outside of poker will recognize all the players that make the final table. Before the final table takes place, all players are the same. In essence, all of them are winners, and why shouldn’t they be? They beat 6,000 players. This is amazing. It really is too bad that we only have one winner out of 6,000. A final table at the main event is one of the most impressive accomplishments in poker.

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A recent player bashing discussion has evolved on the 2+2 forums regarding tipping dealers and tournament staff upon winning a major event. Specifically, this is in reference to Brandon Cantu’s recent World Poker Tour $1 million win at the Bay 101 Shooting Stars tournament.

Evidently, unlike many tournaments on the circuit, Bay 101 didn’t take anything from the buy-ins to tip the staff, but Brandon was unaware of this. CardPlayer has done an interesting two-part article, which includes some words from Brandon and TD Matt Savage.

Click here for Part 1.
Click here for Part 2.

So many interesting questions arise from this discussion, as they did when Jerry Yang won the 2007 WSOP main event.

Should the players be told up-front about the tipping policy at that particular venue?
Is it the players’ responsibility to find out or that of the tournament director to inform everyone?
If a tip is taken from the buy-ins, should players still tip on top of that?
Do only the winners tip? Or should everyone at the final table tip?
What is the correct percentage to tip?

This is a subject that should be discussed in length. I’d love for some tournament pros to weigh in on this.

Battle of the Podcast Stars.

The 64-player field competing for $500,000 (on a $20k buy-in) this weekend has been set (up) — with pairings drawn last night at a kick-off party at Pure.

Click here to see the full bracket and make your picks. (This bracket-maker is kinda new to me, so not sure whether or not you can see my predictions here.)

Some of the more interesting pairings to me:

Tom Schneider vs. Gavin Smith
Clonie Gowen vs. Jennifer Tilly
Sammy Farha vs. Doyle Brunson
Hooman Nikzad vs. Greg Raymer
Chris Ferguson vs. John Juanda
Chris Moneymaker vs. Jerry Yang
Jean Robert Bellande vs. Sam Grizzle

Though I’m not sure how official these are, some odds on who’s gonna win the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship (Feb. 29) are out … and Tom Schneider is listed in the middle of the pack at 45:1 — the same as David Williams, Jennifer Harman, Huck seed, and TJ Cloutier. Duuude. Not bad. Clonie, after all, is 80:1, which is almost as good as Jerry Yang’s 60:1.

Click below to see the full list … and while doing that, think how funny it is that this sorta poker ink comes from marijuana.com. (And Tom says I do nothing for him …)

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It’s that time of year again. The NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship is on the horizon, and many players have already confirmed that they’ll pay the $20k to get some camera time compete in the event. Sixty players have been announced, leaving four open seats for qualifiers yet to be announced.

Festivities will begin on February 28th at Pure Nightclub at Caesars in Vegas with the drawing party to determine the match-ups. The following day brings the first matches, and a winner will be determined and get his/her $500k on March 2.

Previous champs Paul Wasicka, Ted Forrest, and Phil Hellmuth will be playing, as well as numerous first-time players like David Singer, Bill Edler, Scott Clements, Jerry Yang, Brian Townsend, Tom Dwan, celebrities Jason Alexander and Brad Garrett, MLB player Orel Hershiser, and the 2007 CardPlayer favorite WSOP Player of the Year Tom Schneider.

Click below for the list of players:

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LAS VEGAS–Just like old times … I’ve got so many super-fascinating browser tabs open I can’t keep up with them all. So please, allow me to unload:

The major tournament action underway is the LEGENDS of POKER at the BIKE in CALIFORNIA. Perhaps we’ll swing by …

MIKE MATUSOW, with his second-place finish in the main event of the BELLAGIO CUP III, is no longer broke. Apparently his $670k payday left him with 50 grand all to himself. In the real world this means he now qualifies for a loan. In the poker world it means he no longer does, unless he goes broke again.

DANIEL NEGREANU’s got a pretty good skill column this week, talking about manipulating table image to better reap the rewards of shifting gears. Hmm, something to think about?

From the Dept. of: Awesome … PHIL HELLMUTH will appear on The Surreal Life. Might an ass-kicking be inevitable, as he moves into a house with RANDY “Macho Man” SAVAGE, MISS CLEO, NANCY MCKIBBEN (who?), DABNEY COLEMAN, and the uber-pumped CARROT TOP.

BILL RINI, whom I consider an expert in matters of online cheating, has up a video that I thought was informational warning about a new form of MARKED CARDS circulating. But upon closer look, turns out to be just an ad hawking the illicit poker gear (compliments of GOOGLE).

Interesting (biased?) article here on what Google supposedly does to keep online poker seekers away from the bad poker sites.

Speaking of cheating … has anyone heard word of who might have been the high-stakes players allegedly swindled in major cheating scam at the BORGATA? Famed cheating consultant STEVE FORTE, of course, was one of the guys busted, even though he uses the journalist’s beloved excuse of “I was just working on a story!” Suddenly scary: the notion of tapping into hole-card cams.

Suddenly needed: a big-time poker security accreditation system?

Check it out … DUGGLEBOGEY is back to his old tricks sticks:

Glad to see the return of some more friendly faces.

Here’s a great article on the rise and fall of an ONLINE PRO — how you can go from $10k to $1.5 million and back down again. It coincides with a semi-related story about KaiBuxxe / RealAndyBeal — a 22-year-old Austrian and former MAGIC player who is tearing up the world of POT-LIMIT OMAHA.

And BRIAN TOWNSEND (aka “sbrugby”) — an online superstar turning to live games — is in the midst of a $3 million downswing. This according to his own blog. [via PokerKingBlog]

Dude, tell me about it … I’ve been running similarly bad:

POKER IS HARD!

Looks kinda like a PARTYGAMING stock chart, no?

SHANNON ELIZABETH was unable to play in the Victoria Poker Championships in AUSTRALIA … because she got carded at the door and didn’t have her ID. The male contingent of Pokerati has always wondered why ladies go anywhere without their license/passport/prescription.

Speaking of Australia, it may have slipped under your radar that the AUSSIES, along with CANADA and MACAU, have joined the WTO dispute against the UNITED STATES over the UIGEA. The beef started by ANTIGUA and BARBUDA seems to be growing some teeth, as others fighting against the chief enemy of AL QAEDA include COSTA RICA, INDIA, and … the EUROPEAN UNION. Think this fight isn’t about the future of international online economies as much as it is about poker?

A group called IMEGA continues to challenge the controversial internet law in court, and have their fingers crossed that a federal judge in New Jersey will issue a TEMPORARY RESTRAINING ORDER in September.

Speaking of lawsuits and court actions in September, attorney and PPA representative LEE ROUSSO has a hearing set for his suit, which challenges the Constitutionality of WASHINGTON STATE’s law that makes playing online poker a felony on par with CHILD MOLESTATION.

A CARIBBEAN BUSINESS CONGLOMERATE will be entertaining a bunch of AMERICAN CONGRESSPEOPLE in November to explain Antigua’s WTO stance, among other things. In attendance will be CHARLIE RANGEL (D-NY-Taxes) and BENNIE THOMPSON (D-MS-Homeland Security),

AMERICA ONLINE wants in on online poker. Or at least online SPORTS BETTING, as AOL has entered into an internet bookmaking contract with a GERMAN company, FLUXX, which will target punters in the UK.

A good article from the BRITISH PRESS here — describing the UIGEA as a “TROJAN HORSE” given to the European gambling industry.

Meanwhile, British online gaming company WILLIAM HILL says they are having a hard time keeping poker players, because the EUROS really want to take on the AMERICANS (at Bodog, for example).

Over in the PHILLIPINES, they have (finally) opened up a bar-and-grille with amateur Texas Hold’em tourneys (scroll down near the bottom).

The nightly non-wager Hold ‘Em tournaments at the Player’s Den hope to further sharpen the skills of the Pinoys in this ultimate mind game where we can eventually excel worldwide.

Mabuhay!!! Be proud to be a Filipino.

You may notice a lot of linkage today from this PokerKing guy. He has a lot of good stuff to read, including this article on why JERRY YANG is bad for ONLINE poker. Maybe maybe not, but I tend to agree with the wisdom of LOU KRIEGER, who recognizes that poker is a long-term game, and Yang couldn’t have come at a better time.

Here’s one of the more balanced takes on the JERRY YANG FOR PRESIDENT campaign.

PokerNews finally has their Jerry Yang post-victory interview up on YouTube, thereby viewable by the click-lazy masses page-load averse. Good stuff, good guy, and praying to the porcelain god(s)? Check it out, for either the first time or second:

LAS VEGAS–Be sure to check out Tiffany Michelle’s interview with newly crowned WSOP champ Jerry Yang. I gotta say … seems like a great guy. In this vid, he spells out the details of his poker tithes — to Make-a-Wish, Feed the Children, and Ronald McDonald House — and about two minutes in, gives us some insight into what went really went down on those bathroom breaks. On your knees in front of the urinals? Sounds like a crazy prop bet you might see on RawVegas. Either that or those Full Tilt guys must play rough!

OK, seriously … I don’t think we could ask for a better WSOP main event champ/Miss America of Poker. “The Shadow” clearly knows poker, but doesn’t claim to have done anything beyond the basics at the table. Pretty cool that a guy like this can win … and looks to be a lovable ATM spokesman for the game.

LAS VEGAS–The WSOP dealers, as mentioned before, were wanting to see Jerry Yang win for the sake of a bigger tip. He couldn’t have had a reputation as a big tipper — because as a guy playing in his first WSOP and with no noted accomplishments high-stakes or otherwise, how could they know? Perhaps they saw him as a mark … an inexperienced player who had already committed 10 percent of his winnings to charity might be easily persuaded to “give a little back,” if you know what I’m sayin’.

Not sure what Yang’s intentions were as he walked into the payouts room … but Chris Ferguson reportedly joined him — not because he was invited, but because he was a Full Tilt guy looking after a Full Tilt player. When the payout ladies asked what he would like to leave for the dealers, Ferguson supposedly informed him that he had already given 2 percent. Nolan Dalla corrected him, saying, “Actually it’s 1.8 percent.” [Ed. Note: Inaccurate as originally reported. We regret/apologize for the error lazy journalism.]

At that point Ferguson pointed out what that came out to — $148,500 by my calculations, but not certain that’s the number he cited — and said, according to a mostly reliable source who was in the payouts room, “So I recommend zero.”

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LAS VEGAS–Remember how I was telling you that Full Tilt honchos henchmen weren’t too excited about the prospects of Jerry Yang winning? Well something must’ve changed by the time they got heads-up.

The players had just gone on break, and Jerry Yang had a 6:1 chip lead over Tuan Lam. An Asian guy in a suit grabbed Oliver Tse (who represents Yang for now, but is already trying to plan for the likelihood of bigger agencies wrestling his World Champion client away from him) and the two started walking away. Following not too far behind the was Yang, who was headed to the bathroom, with a small entourage following him.

That’s when the Full Tilt guys both, almost simultaneously, clapped their hands together and started rubbing their palms with wide eyes and grins on their faces. I let them go through the door in front of me, saying, “Please, you have serious business to attend to.”

“‘Wha…? I’ve just gotta go to the bathroom,” the smaller Full Tilt rep said.

“Like I said, serious business.”

They chuckled and kept walking briskly.

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LAS VEGAS–Tuan Lam moved all-in with AQ, got instacalled by 88.

Flop: 5-Q-9
Turn: 7
River: 6

LAS VEGAS–Raymond Rahme, the first ever African to make a main event final table, just went out (on a questionable play running a quasi-bluff with KK after an ace flopped) … so they’re heads-up now. “I made one mistake this whole tournament,” Rahme says.

The dealers are rooting for Jerry Yang. Not only is he apparently a very nice guy who reportedly plans to give a huge chunk of his winnings to the Make-a-Wish foundation, but also he is known as a very generous tipper. (Just confirmed — 10 percent of his winnings will go to three charities.)

A high-ranking source within Full Tilt, however, said (when Alex Kravchenko was still alive) that his people were pulling for Kravchenko over Yang, even though both signed on with Full Tilt upon making the final table. For starters, Yang has never before played online, and learned the game only two years ago. Not quite a “Play with the Pros” kinda guy. And as a family man who looks at pictures of his six kids throughout a hand and says prayers that praise the non-Chris Ferguson Jesus upon moving all-in … “Not exactly the style we’re looking for.”

NOTE: Rahme also has six kids. “Battle of the Brady Bunch x 2″ ESPN’s Howard David just dubbed it.

As for the people who have little stake in who wins between Tuan Lam and Jerry Yang, they are suddenly Yang fans just because that will lead to a quicker end.

Shame on them!