To keep you entertained in the 15 minutes of interim before what’s going on here in the Penn and Teller Theater makes it into the WSOP cloud … enjoy the Brett Richey rap song about Ben Lamb, with a line inspired by Team Pokerati’s favorite crazy DonkeyBomber spouse, Julie Schneider, in “Stack ‘em to the Top”:

via DonkDown

UPDATE: Ben Lamb all-in on first hand! 35bb v 22bb … No suckout …

2011 WSOP – Episode 4: Team Pokerati Update and the Men the Master/Hollywood Dave’s Fracas (4:58) – Dan and Pauly hang out on the rail of Event #3 $1,500 Omaha 8 after the money bubble bursts. They discuss updates on Angry Julie, a member of Team Pokerati, along with detailing the highlights of argument that almost turned into a brawl when Men the Master (ironically) accused Hollywood Dave of being a cheater.

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

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!

Seidel leads after four levels of TOC

With several players in the WSOP Tournament of Champions involved with other bracelet events, it was decided to play four one-hour levels today, another four levels on Monday, then the remainder of the field returning on July 4th to determine a winner. When play resumes at 12pm, it’ll be Erik Seidel holding the lead with 72,075 in chips with 22 players remaining. In the random table draw, Daniel Negreanu and Annie Duke were seated next to each other at the feature table as both spent the day avoiding to look at each other, even when involved in hands together. Johnny Chan will start tomorrow second in chips with 71,325, followed by Mike Matusow in third with 70,575. The full list of chip counts is available over at wsop.com.

Odell leads 1500 NL final table

Kevin Odell (4,300,000) will hold a commanding chip lead at the $1,500 No-Limit Holdem final table when play resumes momentarily. In second is Brazilian Thiago Nishijima (1,775,000), with Ray Coburn (850,000) the most notable name remaining. Updates available at PokerNews.

Shak sharp in 5k Omaha 8

The start of day three of the $5,000 Omaha 8 or Better tournament was delayed as Erik Seidel was still involved in the Tournament of Champions, with play eventually underway after 4:30pm. Seidel started the day 20th out of 21 players, but he’s still in the field, although currently 9th with 10 players remaining. Dan Shak has moved into the chip lead with 815,000, followed by Leif Force (725,000), Perry Green (400,000), and Seidel (280,000) among the notables. Follow the action at PokerNews.

Seiver surges into lead in 2500 8-game

Another tournament that experienced a delay because of the TOC was the $2,500 Mixed Event as Daniel Negreanu, Jennifer Harman and Chris Ferguson still playing in that event. Approximately 70 players remain with their dinner break coming shortly. Scott Seiver holds the lead with 122,000 in chips. Other notables include David Steicke (86,000), Bill Chen (85,000), Michael Mizrachi (66,000), Steve Sung (54,000), Dario Minieri (45,000), Harman (41,000), Frank Kassela (39,000) and Ferguson (31,000). Team Pokerati’s Julie Schneider was one of the day 2 eliminations. Further updates and chip counts can be found at wsop.com.

Klier leading day 1b of 1k NL

Day 1b of the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem brought 1,369 players to the Rio this afternoon, around 400 remain as the field returns from their dinner break. The report chip leader appears to be Ben Klier with 54,000, followed by Mike Beasley (32,000), Faraz Jaka (28,000), Chris Moneymaker (23,000) and Jeff Madsen (13,200). A little over three levels of play are scheduled, unless the field falls under 200 before that point. More updates and chip counts at wsop.com.

Ole G Smith wins mixed holdem bracelet

Gavin Smith, one of the most popular players on the tournament circuit, finally won his first WSOP bracelet this morning, defeating Danny Hannawa heads-up to win the $2,500 Mixed Holdem event along with winning $268,238. Full results at wsop.com

Tournament of Champions starts today

The WSOP Tournament of Champions gets underway at 12pm today, as the 27 participants will play four one-hour levels today and Monday, with the survivors returning on July 4 to determine the winner. Besides being filmed to air on ESPN later this year, ESPN3 will be streaming a feature table both days. Here’s the feature table when play starts today:

Doyle Brunson
Daniel Negreanu
Annie Duke
Howard Lederer
Joe Hachem
T.J. Cloutier
Antonio Esfandiari
Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier
Scotty Nguyen

Trickett on top final day of $1,500 NL

Day three of the $1,500 No-Limit Holdem returns at 3:00pm with Sam Trickett (922,000) leading the 35 players remaining as they play down to a winner. Other notables in the hunt include: Dutch Boyd (619,000), Ray “ExitOnly” Rayburn (560,000), Paul Magriel (460,000), Alex Outhred (444,000), and Zachary Clark (176,000). Team Pokerati’s Tom Schneider finished 128th, good for $4,348. Full chip counts available at PokerNews.

Altbregin ascends to 5k PLO 8 lead

Day 3 of the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha 8 or Better resumes at 3pm with Sergey Altbregin (486,000) holding the chip lead with 21 players remaining. Other notables returning: David “Devilfish” Ulliott (415,000), Perry Green (367,000), Dan Shak (331,000), Dan Heimiller (247,000), Allen Kessler (117,000), Andy Black (100,000) and Erik Seidel (65,000). Full chip counts and updates available at http://www.pokernews.com/live-reporting/2010-wsop/event-46/“>PokerNews.

Brickner blasts his way into day 1a 1k NL lead

The next to last $1,000 No-Limit Holdem event of the WSOP drew a field of 1,759 entries for day 1a Saturday afternoon. That field was whittled down to around 300 players when they return on Monday afternoon, and the reported leader is Justin Brickner with 86,000 in chips. Other notables include Antonio Esfandiari (35,000), Scott Montgomery (30,000), Matt Glantz (28,000) and Carter King (17,000). Full chip counts along with updates for Sunday’s day 1b action available at wsop.com.

Jaffee leading $2,500 8-Game

Day one of the $2,500 Mixed Event brought 453 players to the Rio Saturday afternoon, with 162 returning at 4:10pm today. The reported chip leader is Jared Jaffee with 71,125. Some of the notables returning include: Justin “Boosted J” Smith (58,225), Michael Mizrachi (56,875), Brandon Cantu (41,000), Scott Seiver (37,350), Dario Minieri (32,175) and Gavin Griffin (29,150). Team Pokerati’s Julie Schneider returns with 18,975 in chips. Other chip counts and updates at wsop.com.

Hellmuth falls short in quest 12th bracelet

The $1,500 NL Holdem event that started on Wednesday is down to the final table of ten, but Phil Hellmuth is not among them, finishing in 15th for $25,472. The final 10 when they return from their dinner break are:

Pascal LeFrancois – 4,000,000
Kevin Howe – 1,780,000
David Aue- 1,300,000
Max Steinberg – 900,000
Saar Wilf – 855,000
James Andersen – 665,000
Kurt Disessa – 651,000
Jose Gatmaitan – 640,000
Josh Brikis – 375,000
Daniel Wjuniski – 350,000

Follow all the final table action over at PokerNews.

Day 2 of 10k Stud W.C.

Less than 50 remain in the $10,000 Seven Card Stud World Championship with Ray Dehkharghani the current chip leader at 275,000. 2009 November Niner Eric Buchman holds down 2nd place with 270,000, while 50k Players’ Championship runner up Vladimir Schmelev is in 3rd with 230,000. Other notables: 50k Players’ Championship winner Michael Mizrachi (165,000), Men Nguyen (155,000), and Brandon Adams (120,000). Six more levels of play awaits the field or the final table of eight, whichever comes first. You can follow the progress of this event over at wsop.com.

Pot-Limit Bubble Pops

The $1,500 Pot-Limit Holdem event burst its bubble early on day 2, with the field now down to just 25 players. James “Flushy” Dempsey is the current chip leader at 290,000. Other notables: Joe Serock (140,000), JJ Liu (100,000), Melissa Hayden (95,000), and Christian Harder (75,000). Play will end when the final table of nine is established or at the end of ten levels of play. Team Pokerati’s Tom Schneider earned $3,352 for his 52nd place finish, his second cash (in three tries) at the WSOP.

$1,500 NL Day 1

A field of 2,563 started at noon in the third $1,500 No-Limit Holdem bracelet event. Less than 800 remain in action at the moment, with Tom Dwan the unofficial chip leader with 56,000. Other notables with healthy stacks include Blair Hinkle (43,000), Shaun Deeb (36,000), Annette Obrestad (25,000), and Liv Boeree (23,000). Less than four levels of play remain for day 1, with the top 270 players cashing, with the winner taking down an impressive $614,248. For the Team Pokerati fanbase, Pat Poels was the lone entry for this event.

$1,500 Limit Holdem Day 1

A field of 625 took to the felt for the $1,500 Limit Holdem event, and around 550 remain as the field takes their dinner break shortly. The duo of Vanessa Rousso and Chad Brown are the unofficial top two with Rousso (10,800) holding a slight lead over brown (10,100). For the online poker community, Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke is third with 8,500 and other notables such as Jeff Madsen (6,250), Team Pokerati’s Tom Schneider (5,600), and Chris Ferguson (5,400). Team Pokerati also has Julie Schneider, Danny Noam, Robert Goldfarb entered in this event. The top 63 players make the money, with first place $189,870 along with a coveted bracelet, follow wsop.com for further updates and chip counts.

Grinder chews up competition in 50k

Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi overcame a 3-1 chip deficit during heads-up to defeat Vladimir Schemelev and win his first WSOP bracelet along with $1,500,000 in the $50,000 Players’ Championship . Schemelev collects over $960,000 with his runner-up finish. David Oppenheim, who was chip leader when the remaining five players took their dinner break, finished third for $603,348. John Juanda ($436,865) and Robert Mizrachi ($341,429) finished fourth and fifth respectively. You can read Nolan Dalla’s tournament report here.

Chow Main Man in Omaha 8

The other bracelet awarded this morning was the $1,500 Omaha 8 or Better event, won by Michael Chow, defeating long-time pro Dan Heimiller in heads-up action. Chow picks up $237,140 for the win, while Heimiller adds $146,505 to his long list of cashes. Full results for this event along with Nolan’s tournament report can be found over at wsop.com.

Final table set in $1,000 NL

The $1,000 No-Limit Holdem is down to a final table, resuming at 2:30pm after plans to play to a finish this morning were scuttled. The final table almost had the first father and son to play the same final table, but Irving Rice’s elimination in 10th place meant his son Richard would take up the charge to win a bracelet. Here’s how the final table will be seated, you can follow the live updates this afternoon at PokerNews.com:

Seat 1: Dash Dudley — 1,355,000
Seat 2: Bart Davis — 1,355,000
Seat 3: Nicholas Mitchell — 1,280,000
Seat 4: Deepak Bhatti — 400,000
Seat 5: Gabe Costner — 1,830,000
Seat 6: Richard Rice — 700,000
Seat 7: Aadam Daya — 2,855,000
Seat 8: Isaac Settle — 970,000
Seat 9: Cory Brown — 2,315,000

$1,500 NL down to 23 for Day 3

The $1,500 No-Limit Holdem event has 23 players remaining when play resumes at 2:30pm this afternoon, playing down to a winner. The chip leader is Vincent Jacques with 1,498,000. Notables remaining include Praz Bansi (616,000), online stars David Sands (628,000) and Yuval Bronshtein (498,000), along with three-time WSOP Circuit ring winner Dwyte Pilgrim (209,000). The full list of remaining players is available at wsop.com.

Shootout Day 2

36 players, each guaranteed $16,607, remain in the $5,000 No-Limit Holdem Shootout when play resumes at 2:30 today. The remaining players will be seated at six six-handed tables. Those winners return Thursday for the final table, with the winner earning $441,692. Among the notables who won their table yesterday: Chris Ferguson, John Duthie, Chad Brown, Tom Dwan, Christian Harder, Blair Hinkle and Justin “Boosted J” Smith. The list of survivors can be found here.

Hanna Leads Lowball Enthusiasts

The $2,500 2-7 Triple Draw drew a field of 291 entrants for a 5pm start. After ten levels thet field was reduced to 87, with Salim Hanna the chip leader with 65,400 when play resumes Wednesday at 3pm. Plenty of big names remain including Hoyt Corkins, Allen Kessler, Jeff Lisandro, Scott Seiver, Ted Forrest, Barry Greenstein, and Archie Karas. For Team Pokerati followers, Tom Schneider finished 12th with 43,200 in chips, Pat Poels was 46th with 21,000, while Julie Schneider was eliminated on day 1. A full list of chip counts will be available soon at wsop.com.

More No-Limit On Tap

Wednesday has just one event starting today, the second $1,500 No-Limit Holdem event of the WSOP, with a 12pm start. The second $1,500 of the 2009 WSOP was won by Pete “The Greek” Vilandos, winning over $600,000 in a field of 2,506. PokerNews will have constant updates available throughout the day as the field plays ten one-hour levels.

This event, btw, is going on right now … Daniel Negreanu Steve Zolotow is the chip leader, and our own Crazy Julie is 16th 25th in chips with 270 198 out of 291 remaining … (this is the event she final-tabled last year). Don’t trust the chip counts though, until we get deeper. Right now, with 198 remaining, Crazy Julie’s husband Tom is supposedly alive and in 208th? That’s why we try not to pay attention to these things until at least Day 2. There’s generally more to report in the parking lot.

Here’s his latest instructional vid, teaching Kristy Arnett how to play everybody’s favorite 13-card game:

Down to his last 1.12 million, the 2007 World Series of Poker Player of the Year Tom Schneider pushed all in from middle position, and got a caller in Marc Etienne McLaughlin from the small blind.

McLaughlin turned over [cards]9s 9d[/cards] and Schneider tabled [cards]Ah 7d[/cards] . The flop came [cards]5d 6s ks[/cards] and the turn the [cards]7c[/cards] . Schneider was down to his last card, looking for another seven or an ace.

The river brought the [cards]kc[/cards] , and Schneider is out in 52nd place. He gets $138,568, and a big hug from his supportive wife, Julie.

McLaughlin now has 3.6 million.

Nice run, Tommy-boy, and as testament to the significance of the main event, this score likely moves him from last to first in the unofficial Team Pokerati Net-Results Challenge.

From Tao:

3:15pm… B-52… DonkeyBomber Eliminated in 52nd Place

Chip Leaders: Billy Kopp, Darvin Moon. Phil Ivey, Ludovic Lacay
Recent Eliminations: DonkeyBomber
Players Remaining: 49

DonkeyBomber lost a couple of pots before the break. AngryJulie went to fetch him a pizza so he could snack on his break. The railbirds are an integral part of the team in some cases, like a Nascar pit crew.

Bomber was short and made a stand with A-7. A French-Canuck called with 9-9. AngryJulie stood on the rail with an obstructed view and could not see the hands. “Do you have the pair or A-7?” she shouted.

“I have the Ace,” mumbled DonkeyBomber.

“That’s OK. I like it.”

The flop missed DonkeyBomber but he turned a seven to pick up a few outs. His Main Event came to an official close when he whiffed on the river. The DonkeyBomber was nevermore. A dejected AngryJulie fought back cheers as she joined in with a shower of applause. DonkeyBomber somberly walked over to the payout desk as his named was announced over the PA system, “The 2007 Player of the Year Tom Schneider from Scottsdale, Arizona was eliminated in 52nd place.”

“I’m proud of you!” shouted AngryJulie.

The two were followed by a camera crew as they walked through the vast emptiness of the Amazon Ballroom. At one point, they stopped and embarced for several seconds amidst the dimly lit room as a delicate clattering of chips echoed in the background. He disappeared into the crowd $138,568 richer, but he’ll tell you that this is the worst day of his life.

Seat 1: Clayton Newman – 244,000
Seat 2: Prahlad Friedman – 715,000
Seat 3: Tom Schneider – 3,168,000
Seat 4: Scott Eskenazi – 270,000
Seat 5: Paul Johnson – 1,606,000
Seat 6: Miika Puumalainen – 2,894,000
Seat 7: Scott Sitron – 778,000
Seat 8: Dwayne Stacey – 410,000
Seat 9: Michael Jansen – 852,000

Julie Schneider is in the front row supporting Tom, after having had a great series of her own with a third place finish in the $2,500 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball event about two weeks ago.

Go Team Pokerati/PokerStars/Schneider!

UPDATE: Tom now sitting in third place on leaderboard. From Karridy: @DonkeyBomber busts 2 players at the featured table and is now over 4 Million in chips in the WSOP Main Event. Appx 125 players left.

(Woot! Congrats, Julie!)

According to Julie, men don’t know what it’s like to have to dodge tilt at a final table on a heavy-flow day … but she didn’t let that get in the way of her finding success. With just the main event left to play — making it still anybody’s game, but statistically unlikely that anyone passes her — here’s the breakdown of the top women in the WSOP POY standings:

1. Julie Schneider – 65 pts
2. Vanessa Rousso – 60 pts
3. Millie Shiu – 60 pts
4. Annie Duke – 40 pts
5. Jennifer Harman – 37 pts

Julie Schneider played a remarkably clean tournament right from the start of play on Day 1. She quickly proved to her male competitors that she was more than just a pretty face at the table, picking off one opponent after another with her well-timed bets (and a few favorable draws). Her deep run comes to an end in third place, good for $66,285 and a big hug from husband Tom

Though we still need to run the calculations and wait for the main event to finalize, as of now, it looks like Mrs. @DonkeyBomber will win the Team Pokerati Net Results Challenge — and though not quite enough for Tom to quit his job and become a stay-at-home dad, it should be enough to keep the Schneiders out of indentured servitude. (Phew!)

What? You didn’t know the Team Pokerati Net Results Challenge existed? Either did we, but hey we swear it might be disastrous cool … tallying up not just winnings, but winnings-minus-buy-ins to see who’s really tearing it up at the WSOP.

Unofficial standings in that department:

1. Julie Schneider
2. Pat Poels
3. Gregg Merkow
4. Cliff Fisher
5. John Harris
6. Robert Goldfarb
7. Shoegal
8. Karridy Askenasy
9. Whit Blanton
10. Tom Schneider

A lot’s on the line with this, of course … not only is this the second-to-last non-main-event chance for a woman to win, but also it may make the difference on whether or not the Schneiders can save the family farm.

They’re on dinner break now … and she’s got some work to do.

Abe Mosseri – 1,012,000
Masayoshi Tanaka – 399,000
John Juanda – 366,000
Julie Schneider – 163,000

You can follow the event here, and Julie-centric coverage via @DonkeyBomber.

Brad Libson – 432,000 6th place
Blair Rodman – 418,000 5th place
Abe Mosseri – 342,000
Masayoshi Tanaka – 325,000
John Juanda – 220,000
Julie Schneider – 207,000

Follow the updates at www.wsop.com here.

$50k HORSE Final Table, It Keeps Going, and Going, and Going…

It’s 9:15am PT, but the final table of the $50,000 HORSE is still going with David Bach and John Hanson playing heads-up with Bach holding a slim chip lead. Erik Sagstrom finished in 3rd, Vitaly Lunkin was eliminated in 4th, Huck Seed finished in 5th and Ville Wahlbeck finished in 6th place. Unless Wahlbeck makes a deep run in the Main Event, Jeff Lisandro appears to have locked up the WSOP Player of the Year with Wahlbeck a close second. For those of you who have followed the nearly 17-hour final table from beginning to end, God bless you.

“Whackjob Surprise” Goes Deep in $2,500 2-7 Triple Draw

Nine players remain in the $2,500 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball when play resumes at 2pm. Here’s how the remaining players will be seated:

Seat 1: Hertzel Zalewski – 111000
Seat 2: Nam Le – 95000
Seat 3: Masayoshi Tanaka – 345000
Seat 5: Brad Libson – 146000

Seat 1: Kris Lord – 87000
Seat 2: Julie Schneider – 163000
Seat 3: John Juanda – 182000
Seat 4: Blair Rodman – 358000
Seat 6: Abe Mosseri – 447000

The reason for the title of this section is that it was a comment made regarding Julie Schneider by Daniel Negreanu on his Twitter. He would later add the following upon finding out she read his Twitter: “Apparently the lady reads my twitter. Oops lol. Oh well, when I sat down I swore she was a little off or slow. My bad!”. Negreanu eventually finished in 16th.

Halpern Lawyers Up in Stud 8

New Orleans attorney David Halpern defeated William Kohler heads-up to take down the $1,500 Stud Hi/Lo 8 or Better picking up his first WSOP bracelet along with $159,048.

Piesert Gets Bracelet for Dessert

The country of Germany gets its second WSOP bracelet winner with Jorg Piesert taking down the $3,000 Triple Chance NL Holdem title along with $506,800, defeating Jason DeWitt in heads-up play. After going 50 events without a win, Germany wins on consecutive days, following Carsten Joh’s win in the $1,500 NL event Monday night.

Final Day of Final $1,500 NL

Sergey Konkin, who may also be Sergey Pomerantsev as Konkin’s name didn’t appear on the Day 1 chip counts, is the chip leader (1,400,000) with 28 players remaining in the $1,500 NL Holdem Spectacular when play resumes at 1pm. The most notable name of the remaining 28 is Vivek Rajkumar at just 216,000.

$5,000 NL 6-max

Day 2 of the $5,000 NL Holdem 6-max event begins at 2pm with 160 players remaining, with 90 players making the money. Rory Mathews leads with 369,800 in chips. Others with chips: Faraz Jaka (294,500) , Davidi Kitai (166,300), Justin Bonomo (138,600), Raymond Davis (131,400), Shaun Deeb (114,800), Yevgeniy Timoshenko (107,100), Phil Hellmuth (101,200) and Kenna James (85,500).

More stuff from Pokerati during the day, and follow the live updates this morning for the HORSE event, as long as it’s still ongoing at www.wsop.com

Lunkin Leads Six Pack of HORSE Finalists

Six players remain in the 50k HORSE, when they return from their dinner break at around 9pm PT, with the players returning to limits of 80k/160k:

Vitaly Lunkin 3,760,000
Erik Sagstrom 3,395,000
John Hanson 3,075,000
Huck Seed 1,730,000
David Bach 1,185,000
Ville Wahlbeck 955,000

The final table is available on ESPN360, www.bluffmagazine.com/live and wsop.pkr.com

Peisert Looking to Give Germany Bracelet #2

Jorg Peisert leads the final six players at the final table of the $3,000 Triple Chance NL Holdem. Michael Katz, Jason DeWitt, Benjamin Gilbert, Michael Noda and Jason Somerville make up the remaining field.

Kohler Looking to Sink Halpern in Stud 8

William Kohler and David Halpernare headsup for a bracelet in the $1,500 Stud Hi/Lo 8 or Better with Halpern currently holding the lead. Congrats go to Matt Savage, who finished in 5th, and a belated congrats to Norman Chad, for his 32nd place finish earlier today.

Boivin Buoyant in $1,500 NL

Day 2 of the $1,500 NL Holdem has about 130 players remaining, trying to whittle the field down as much as they can before the 3am deadline, which will certainly create a long day 3 tomorrow. Don Boivin (401,000) appears to be the chip leader at this time, with Vivek Rajkumar (115,000), Alex Bolotin (88,000), Richard Lee (64,000), Raymond Rahme (54,000), some of the notables remaining.

Libson Looking Live in Triple Draw

Brad Libson (164,000) leads the remaining 33 players in the $2,500 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball, of which 24 will make the money. Notables remaining include: Abe Mosseri, John Juanda, Jerrod Ankenman, Hasan Habib, Allen Kessler and Julie Schneider. They’ll be playing down to the final 7 players or the 3am deadline, whichever comes first.

$5k NL Six-Handed

The final prelim of this year’s WSOP, the $5,000 NL Holdem Six-Handed event drew a field of 928 entries, of which 384 return from the dinner break. The winner will take down just over $1,000,000, which is the third largest first place prize of this year’s WSOP, following only the 40k NL and $50k HORSE.

Unfortunately, there’s no established chip leader, but if you head to www.wsop.com one may be better established during the evening. Also check out Pokerati to see if Dan will have some exciting news, like the Jack Link’s Stacked Jacks promotion.

Yeah. Uh-huh. That’s gotta be what it is … it’s clearly not possible that the deadest money on the table is someone who thinks they’re playing their A-game but isn’t compared to everyone else. In an effort to get a semi-retired Pokerati blogger and my best pro pal to consider shifting gears, I sent him the net-results rankings for everyone who has played in the 2009 WSOP under the Team Pokerati banner:

1. Gregg Merkow
2. Cliff Fisher
3. Robert Goldfarb
4. John Harris
5. Julie Schneider
6. Pat Poels
7. Shoegal
8. Tom Schneider

I then reminded him that the guy who picked him to be on his ESPN Fantasy Team (Gary Wise) is in dead last place. (Ha ha.)

You get the gist. The numbers don’t lie repeatedly. So while “playing some of the best poker of my life!” … not only is the DonkeyBomber something like 0-for-13 in cashing in tournaments, but also he hasn’t even made a Day 2. So before he finds himself trying to trade jewelry with Eskimo Clark for a satellite buy-in, he has decided to change his game says he will no longer be twittering until he bags chips for the first time in the 2009 WSOP. Good gameplan.

Click here to see the beginnings of a first-half WSOP fail regaled in increments of 140 characters or less. We’ll see if Tom returns with a vengeance or if his twitter account, along with his poker career, fades into oblivion.