What’s happened today at the WSOP while I finally figure out what day it is in the Series.

The $1,500 Mixed Holdem event is down to its final 3 competitors with Jonathan Tamayo, Frank Gary and Nick Binger went on their dinner break. Binger, who at one point had over 1.6m in chips and had eliminated the first 6 players, lost his chip lead to Tamayo while Gray has been playing just enough to try and get into 2nd place. Follow their progress on the WSOP website here.

The $2,500 Limit 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball event is also on dinner break 3 handed. Shun Uchida, John Phan and Gioi Luong are remaining in what has been a very contentious final table. Luong and Phan had a verbal altercation after Luong attempted to change his discard, while Phan angrily accused him of angle shooting. Things have appeared to calm down, but in all the tension, Uchida has a commanding lead at this time. To see how that turns out, check the updates over at worldseriesofpoker.com here.

The other updates appear on the next page:

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Reviewing what happened last night…

In a final table that ESPN SHOULD be covering (instead of ESPN360), the final table of the $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha w/rebuys final table has been set for around 3pm.

Seat 1: John Juanda 694,800
Seat 2: Phil Hellmuth 119,000
Seat 3: David Benyamine 1,041,000
Seat 4: Kirill Gerasimov 558,000
Seat 5: Phil Galfond 1,393,000
Seat 6: Daniel Negreanu 460,000
Seat 7: Brian Rast 1,176,000
Seat 8: Adam Hourani 300,000
Seat 9: Johnny Chan 624,000

The three names that may not appear familiar to the poker fan, but those who follow the online scene know OMGClayAiken, tsarast and the_houdini very well.

Other action from last night after the jump:

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What’s happening this evening while watching Tiger Woods decide to wait until Monday to win his next major:

The $10,000 Heads-Up World Championship is down to the final 2, as Kenny Tran is taking on Eric Torelli in a best of 3 match for the bracelet. Vanessa Selbst would finish tied for 3rd in this event for the second straight year, but does move into 2nd place in the ESPN POY standings for the time being.

More at the jump:

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BREAKING NEWS: GSN does not exercise Season 7 option for GSN. Talks ongoing with GSN to possibly air “parts” of season 7. Press release from WPTE

Happenings from yesterday at the WSOP:

The other final table of yesterday concluded earlier this morning, as Jimmy Shultz took down Event #12 ($1,500 Limit Holdem), eventually beating Zac Flowers in a heads-up battle to win a bracelet along with just over $250,000. Upon his victory, he announced he was donating 25% of his win to the Charleston, SC Fire Department , who lost nine firefighters June 18, 2007. Vinny Vinh, along with his “associates” railing him, finished 3rd.

More info after the jump:
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Teddy “The Iceman” Munroe: Watch out for this guy. Tough to play against.

Tom is was the chip leader in the $2k Omaha Hi-Lo. That’s pretty cool.

UPDATE: Tom is out. Not cool.

And that limit event he busted out of yesterday … Erick Lindgren just missed the final table, which is now set with some interesting players, including Teddy Munroe, Ali Eslami, and Vinny Vinh. (Teddy and I go way back — last year I’d be typing outside and “The Iceman” would fill me in on the $100-$200 cash action while taking a piss on the tournament tent air conditioners. “Makin’ money, baby!” he’d say before shaking himself dry and heading back to the table.)

Even the $10k 7-Stud World Championship is getting interesting … with Doyle still alive and both Bob and Maureen Feduniak with the potential to become the first ever husband-wife presumably non-collusive team at the final table. Never mind. Since typing this, all the above-mentioned have been eliminated.

I learned about this 7-Stud shape-up from the a WSOP-TV vid. And though I tend to detest any lack of imbeddability, I gotta say I like a lot of what this ESPN/WSOP/Bluff (?) crew has got going here. For example, Harmonie Krieger does a basic feature video interview set on the different jobs people come to the WSOP from. Nice enough, right? — but very real when one of the guys she talks with is Jay Columbo, who ran the legendary Mayfair and Playstation poker clubs in New York City, legally questionable status notwithstanding.

And then, perhaps most shocking to me, I enjoyed Jean-Robert Bellande’s “Surviving the WSOP” — where the young, aspiring Eskimo Clark chronicles his ups and downs at the World Series while his video-podcast editors comment Pop-up Video-style — follow along as he hustles high-rollers for buy-ins.

Even learned something from Phil Ivey’s less exciting V-log … and that is that he’s playing so many big-field, low-buy-in donkfests because he has a lot of side action pending on whether or not he’ll win a bracelet this year. We’ll see if we can’t find out more about this.

Speaking of donkfests, the Ladies Event has already lost 2/3 of its starting field, and of those still remaining, at least three of them are Pokerati MySpace friends: Lacey Jones, Kathy Liebert, and Mandy Baker are looking strong and pretty much representing the spectrum of all that is good about women. Go girls! I mean chicks … er babes .. uh bitches?

UPDATE: Lacey is nursing a short stack. Poker Roadie Amanda Leatherman has come on strong, however, and picked up the aggressive pace. Michele Lewis, Tiffany Michele, and PokerNews editrix Haley Hintze are all out.

In the meantime, primarily because it is awesomely embeddable, check out the debut episode of The Degenerate Report, from Neverwin Poker:

Results are in from Event #1. For some reason I thought Medic was an Arizonan — but turns out he’s a Serb now living in Canada.

Regardless, who knew such amazing action was going on? I think ESPN gets a hit with their first episode … and I gotta say, even though it was apparently all going down a tequila-bottle’s throw from the press box, I am looking forward to seeing how Nenad beat such an impressive field:

Official Report
Event # 1
Pot-Limit Hold’em
Buy-In: $ 10,000
Number of Entries: 352
Total Net Prize Pool: $ 3,308,800
May 30-June 1, 2008

Final Results:

1 Nenad Medic $794,112.00 Niagara Falls Canada
2 Andy Bloch $488,048.00 Las Vegas Nevada
3 Kathy Liebert $306,064.00 Las Vegas Nevada
4 Mike Sexton $248,160.00 Las Vegas Nevada
5 Amit Makhija $198,528.00 Brookfield Wisconsin
6 Chris Bell $157,168.00 Raleigh North Carolina
7 Patrik Antonius $124,080.00 Helsinki Finland
8 Mike Sowers $99,264.00 Thomasville North Carolina
9 Phil Laak $74,448.00 Dublin Ireland

Nolan Dalla’s official report below:
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What’s going on at the WSOP as Pauly writes that the success of event #2 doesn’t mean all is well in the poker economy and the Poker Shrink opines that 2008 may be the year that poker reaches its peak.

The first final table is taking place right now, as Andy Bloch is dominating the final table at this time. Patrik Antonius (named a Team Full Tilt Pro in a press conference today) was an early casualty, while Kathy Liebert (on a final table deal with PokerStars) was hanging in there with 4 left.

Monday will be the first day with two tournaments starting the same day. Noon brings the $1,500 Pot-limit holdem event, while at 5, the $5,000 Mixed Holdem (half limit, half no-limit) will get started. Many pros surely will be double-dipping tomorrow if they get eliminated early in the day, as always Pokerati will be there to blog their little hearts out, God bless them.

It’s good to know business deals are still going down at the WSOP … even though the money isn’t flying willy-nilly to any kid with moderate online success or railbird floozie with prime hooter-estate as in past World Serieses. (Can I get some help on the plural of World Series here?)

Though I can’t quite tell if this is a temporary final table deal or a long-term investment based on future success, Kathy Liebert, oft-overlooked despite being arguably the most successful woman player in the history of poker, just signed with PokerStars as she makes her run for a bracelet in the $10k PLH Event. Am interested to know if this suggests online poker sites are looking for longevity over one-hit wonders in their sponsorship deals this year, or if it is simply a matter of still plastering televised final tables with logos on whatever body space is still available.

UPDATE: Just got confirmation that this is just a final table deal — she’s not Greg Rayer/Chris Moneymaker/Joe Hachem/Isabelle Mercier yet. So it seems winning the main event/being hot-and-young in France is still key when it comes to booking long-term sponsorship deals.

So new question: Will all these new “World Championships” really be perceived as such by the masses, and perhaps more important, the online-poker room payhandlers?

Click below to read the info sent from a Stars representative:

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Another day, another 2,000 players will be expected to start play in the first $1,500 NL event of the 2008 WSOP. When play starts shortly after 12pm PT today, the record for the largest field in WSOP preliminary event history will have been set, all that’s left to be answered is if it can break the magical 4,000 figure. Today’s field will match the progress of day 1a, playing eight 60-minute levels plus the first 16 minutes, 13 seconds of level 9.

Today will also have the first final table, as the $10,000 PL Holdem event finished up just before 5:00am, setting up a fantastic final table under the ESPN cameras. This final table has something for every section of the poker community. You have the young Internet stars (Mike Sowers and Amit Makhija), players wel-known to the mainstream audience (Phil Laak and Mike Sexton), a female player (Kathy Liebert), a math genius (Andy Bloch), international stars (Patrik Antonius and Nenad Medic) and a good ole boy from North Carolina (Chris Bell).

Here’s how the final table will be seated:
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A player in a hand against Kathy Liebert made a royal flush on the turn … he claims he didn’t realize it, which seems believable when he was last to act and checked on the river.

The player was issued a warning, because at the WSOP it’s against the rules to check the nuts when you’re last to act on the river.

(This rule is new to me … makes sense-ish. But am curious what happens if, say, I have the nuts, am first to act, bet, the next guy raises, and I just call. Will see if I can find out the answer to this in the next half hour month.)

Our favorite Donkey Bomber is back in Vegas … trying to score some bank at the Venetian’s NPL Vegas Open. He did OK in his first go — making another final table and finishing 3rd. It was a $2,500 NLH event, with 61 players. According to Tom via text:

6:40 pm: Down to 3 medium stak
7:59 pm: Out3rd qq vs a5 4 a lot of money

Kathy Liebert would go on to win this event, and the $55k first prize. Still, not a bad warm-up for the main event, which starts this coming Monday. It’s a $15,000 buy-in and should be a doozy.

Tom is making his desperate last-ditch effort to win CardPlayer’s Player of the Year, where he currently is ranked 6th. Though he has not been mathematically eliminated from contention, he basically needs to kick major ass while relying on Bill Edler, JC Tran, David Pham to seriously falter.