Papola denies the Master bracelet #8

Jeffrey Papola defeated Men Nguyen in the $5,000 No-Limit Holdem 6-max event, earning $667,443 and his first career bracelet. Nguyen earned $412,746 for the second-place finish, moving into a three-way tie for first in the WSOP Player of the Year race with Michael Mizrachi and James Dempsey. Erick Lindgren finished sixth for $82,303. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report are available at wsop.com.

Velador slams the door on his second bracelet

Luis Velador took down the $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha/Pot-Limit Holdem title as he defeated David Chiu heads-up, good for $260,517 and his second career WSOP bracelet. Chiu earned $160,902 for the second place finish, moving into a tie for 6th in the WSOP Player of the Year race. Full results and Dalla’s tournament report can be found at wsop.com.

10k NL Heads-Up down to an Elite 8

The final day of the $10,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Holdem Championship resumes at 3pm with these matchups:

Jason Somerville vs. Kido Pham
Faraz Jaka vs. Ayaz Mahmood
Alexander Kostritsyn vs. Ludovic Lacay
Ernst Schmejkal vs. Vanessa Rousso

The matches will be single-elimination until the finals, a best of three match. Follow the action at PokerNews.

Minetti leads Seniors’ event, Schneider among final 23

Day 3 of the $1,000 Seniors’ No-Limit Holdem Championship resumes at 2:30pm with Michael Minetti leading the final 23 players with 1,038,000 in chips. Other notables returning include Michael Woo (523,000), Jack Ward (519,000), and Team Pokerati/Loudmouth Poker pro Tom Schneider (284,000). The full list of chip counts is at PokerNews.

Montgomery leads day 1a of 1k NL

Original November Niner Scott Montgomery (75,200) led the day 1a survivors in the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem event as the field played halfway through level 9 to get down to 286 players. Other notables: Neil Channing (64,500), Michael Gracz (52,700), Fabrice Soulier (39,125), Liv Boeree (24,275) and Leo Margets (22,875). The full list of chip counts is available at wsop.com.

Siegel super at day 1 of 3k HORSE

Day two of the $3,000 HORSE resumes at 3pm with Jordan Siegel leading the 207 players who remain with 66,900 in chips. Other recognizable names include: Darus Suharto (55,100), Dan Heimiller (52,100), Howard Lederer (44,400), Chau Giang (36,400) and Eugene Katchalov (29,900). The full list of chip counts is available at wsop.com.

Sunday’s tournaments

12pm is day 1b of the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem event, with a field of at least 1,000 expected. The 5pm tournament is the $10,000 Pot-Limit Holdem Championship, won last year by John Kabbaj in a field of 275 for $633,335.

Lindgren and Nguyen highlight 5k 6-max FT

Six players remain at the $5,000 No-Limit Holdem 6-max final table with Jeffrey Papola (2,340,000) leading when play resumed at 9pm. The rest of the final table is made up of Erick Lindgren (1,670,000), Men Nguyen (1,505,000), Orlando Delacruz (1,100,000), Bruno Launais (1,003,000) and Mark Radoja (480,000). Follow the action at PokerNews.

Velador vibrant at PLO/PLH FT

Eight players remain in the $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha/Pot-Limit Holdem final table with Jose Luis Velador (985,000) holding the chip lead. Kevin MacPhee (631,000), David Chiu (437,000), Rob Hollink (323,000), and Victor Ramdin (200,000) are the notable names remaining, follow the action at PokerNews.

10k NL HU at Round 4

The $10,000 No-Limit Holdem Heads-Up Championship is currently at round 4 with players now in the money. Among the round 4 winners: Faraz Jaka, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Brian Rast, Kido Pham, Ludovic Lacay and Jason Somerville. One more round is scheduled for 11pm tonight, with the 8 survivors playing to a winner Sunday afternoon. See who else moves on at wsop.com.

Seniors’ sauntering along at day 2

Less than 150 players remain as play continues on day 2 of the $1,000 Seniors’ No-Limit Holdem Championship with Duane Gerleman (210,000) reported as the chip leader. Other notables in the hunt: Team Pokerati/Loudmouth Poker pro Tom Schneider (181,000), Berry Johnston (110,000), Susie Isaacs (60,000) and John Spadavecchia (55,000). Find more info over at wsop.com.

Day 1a of 1k NL underway

A field of 2,485 1,987 started day 1a of the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem with around 550 players remaining, scheduled to play 10 levels or down to about 360 players, whichever comes first. Notables who’ve grown their 3,000-chip stack: Scott Montgomery (25,000), Liv Boeree (24,700), Neil Channing (18,000) and Lee Childs (11,000). More updates and chip counts can be found at PokerNews.

3k HORSE field saddles up

The 5pm tournament today, $3,000 HORSE, drew a field of 478 entrants with the top 48 making the money, with the winner earning $329,840. The early leader is Robert Willamson III with 16,000 in chips, followed by Andre Akkari (13,000), Shaun Deeb (12,500), Matt Savage (11,700) and Scotty Nguyen (10,500). More updates as eight levels of play is scheduled at PokerNews.

Considering that Texas poker players helped build the third-largest friggin’ casino in the world (literally under a tent in Thackerville, OK) we can take some pleasure in knowing a bunch of Texans kicked butt in The River tourney this weekend and will be sending back home some riches made in El Norte.

WinStar reportedly threw in a $580,000 overlay to make their $3 million guarantee. Not sure about the buy-in details — I think they upped it to $2k? — nor overall results. The best “coverage” has come via 2+2 here, mixed in with some Facebook, Twitter, and direct txt msg buzz. (Thanks KevMath and Harris, as always, for the info!)

1,210 players overall.

The winner: Bobby Hempkins, aka “Shooter” in the Dallas poker boom days. (And now your source for residential real estate in the North Texas area.) $710k win. Nice!

5th place finisher Brian @ZBTHorton provided regular updates from the final table, such as:

8 left, these people suck (4pm)

Apparently tax issues may or may not have complicated chop discussions — though sounds to me that the Chickasaw nation is under similar corporate-legal restrictions as the WSOP.

7th place reportedly went to a guy named Lance. Paid $95k. Sounds like a nice prize distribution (at the final table, at least). Not too flat, not too steep.

Blind structure was supposedly relatively fast, however.

Pros who made the trek for this event included: Clonie Gowen, TJ Cloutier, Michael Mizrachi, Eric Mizrachi, Kido Pham, Terrence Chan, Michael Binger, Men the Master, Allen Kessler, and Dmitri Nobles. The real @EskimoClark was also supposedly milling around.

pic: @EWeE420

Donkey Bomber, btw, went into Day 2 with 8,000 chips (they started with 45k) … and is still hanging on, now with 20k.

200 players left. Average stack is about 110k. BTW, field size this year was 497, compared to 664 last year. But by no means does there seem to be a shortage of any periphery play at Bellagio.

Click here to follow the tournament action.

UPDATE: Tom is out.

Also, a WPT video update, where we learn it snowed in Las Vegas today (or at least in Summerlin), Daniel Negreanu doesn’t like to tip valet parkers, and apparently now he drinks again (didn’t he go straight-edge at some point?):

The event takes place at the Westin City Center. Glad to see it. If they successfully pull off this event, it will be good to see charity poker getting back to what it could/should/used to be in Texas — though it does seem a little strange for a charity event to be going on in Dallas that doesn’t have anything to do with Pokerati or Clonie.

Fortunately, I will be able to follow the action on HoldEmRadio.com.

One other really interesting thing about this event: the support it’s getting from the Choctaw Nation. They’re running single-table satellites to this event 24/7 between now and then. And as a show of appreciation for helping out their friend Vlad, the pros slated to be in Dallas on Saturday will be in Oklahoma for Choctaw’s Friday night tourney, reportedly playing with bounties on their heads.

Click below to see the flyer and get more details about signing up:

The people remaining that you may or may not care about:

Tiffany Michelle (Go MySpace friends!)
Mike Matusow (Go MySpace friends!)
Brandon Cantu (Go Jen’s MySpace friend!)
Gert Andersen
Kido Pham (Go Dallas Poker/MySpace friends!)

UPDATE: Kido rode a tournament roller coaster extremely deep, but in the end he got flung in 41st place, also for $154,400 — about the size of a big-ass pot in the 25/50 PLO game at the old Red Man’s in Dallas.

Here’s how the final 79 players will be seated (seat arrangements from Pokernews):

(Table 1)
Seat 1: Bob Whalen – 1,382,000
Seat 2: Paul Snead – 1,572,000
Seat 3: Christopher Zapf – 297,000
Seat 4: Brian Tatum – 780,000
Seat 5: Aaron Gordon – 3,369,000
Seat 6: Jason Glass – 629,000
Seat 7: David Rheem – 2,586,000
Seat 8: Thomas Keller – 245,000
Seat 9: Garrett Beckman – 1,860,000

(Table 2)
Seat 1: Chris Klodnicki – 2,496,000
Seat 2: Kido Pham – 1,600,000
Seat 3: Aaron Keay – 990,000
Seat 4: Anthony Scherer – 2,245,000
Seat 5: Alfredo Fernandez – 3,053,000
Seat 6: Peter Eastgate – 2,629,000
Seat 7: Judet Christian – 3,031,000
Seat 8: Scott Montgomery – 1,669,000
Seat 9: Mauro Lupo – 2,261,000

(Table 3)
Seat 1: Greg Byard – 1,189,000
Seat 2: Jonathan Plens – 1,870,000
Seat 3: Nhan Le – 2,190,000
Seat 4: Justin Sadauskas – 2,000,000
Seat 5: Keith Hawkins – 636,000
Seat 6: Eric Bamer – 479,000
Seat 7: Cristian Dragomir – 2,372,000
Seat 8: Dean Hamrick – 1,905,000
Seat 9: Joe Bishop – 1,570,000

(Table 4)
Seat 1: Geert Jans – 1,633,000
Seat 2: Justin Scott – 1,971,000
Seat 3: Alan Gould – 1,838,000
Seat 4: Daniel Buzgon – 876,000
Seat 5: Alex Outhred – 699,000
Seat 6: Albert Kim – 3,734,000
Seat 7: David Saab – 1,705,000
Seat 8: Nikolay Losev – 4,058,000
Seat 9: Matt Matros – 766,000

(Table 5)
Seat 1: Jeremy Joseph – 3,100,000
Seat 2: Mark Ketteringham – 5,800,000
Seat 3: Gert Andersen – 1,447,000
Seat 4: Brandon Cantu – 2,288,000
Seat 5: David Benefield – 2,490,000
Seat 6: Dennis Phillips – 3,436,000
Seat 7: Sean Davis – 861,000
Seat 8: Michael Carroll – 957,000
Seat 9: Mark Owens – 595,000

(Table 6)
Seat 1: Rafael Caiaffa – 1,338,000
Seat 2: Steve Lade – 3,225,000
Seat 3: Ivan Demidov – 2,185,000
Seat 4: Phi Nguyen – 1,540,000
Seat 5: Adam Levy – 767,000
Seat 6: Nicholas Sliwinski – 2,236,000
Seat 7: Suresh Prabhu – 1,175,000
Seat 8: Ylon Schwartz – 816,000
Seat 9: Victor Ramdin – 795,000

(Table 7)
Seat 1: James McManus – 2,434,000
Seat 2: Tim Loecke – 996,000
Seat 3: Phil Hellmuth – 721,000
Seat 4: Allen Kennedy – 1,153,000
Seat 5: Kelly Kim – 2,425,000
Seat 6: Larry Wright – 1,502,000
Seat 7: Jason Riesenberg – 2,217,000
Seat 8: Andrew Rosskamm – 1,593,000
Seat 9: Clint Schafer – 1,123,000

(Table 8 )
Seat 1: Chris Crilly – 1,183,000
Seat 2: Craig Marquis – 1,748,000
Seat 3: Felix Osterland – 786,000
Seat 4: Jamal Sawaqdeh – 888,000
Seat 5: Jamal Kunbuz – 3,327,000
Seat 7: Mike Matusow – 1,169,000
Seat 8: Tiffany Michelle – 3,438,000
Seat 9: Jeremy Gaubert – 578,000

(Table 9)
Seat 1: Craig Stein – 440,000
Seat 2: Niklas Flisberg – 1,264,000
Seat 3: Mark Wilds – 485,000
Seat 4: Andrew Brokos – Did Not Report (approx. 4,080,000)
Seat 6: Lisa Parsons – 581,000
Seat 7: Peter Neff – 1,275,000
Seat 8: Darus Suharto – 1,057,000
Seat 9: Owen Crowe – 1,050,000

As the Day 2a field is on their dinner break, about 700 remain to play a couple more 2 hour levels before the survivors get the day off and return on Thursday. The current chip leader appears to be Brian Schaedlich, with about 500,000 in chips. With such a large field, exact chip counts are hard to come by, but notable players towards the top include David “Chino” Rheem, Brandon Adams, Keith “The Camel” Hawkins, John Hennigan, Mark Vos, Hasan Habib and Kido Pham. Notables who don’t need to worry about coming back in November: Paul Wasicka, Robert Varkonyi, 2007 ME final tablist Philip Hilm, Greg Mueller and Scotty Nguyen.

More updates later…

Other players of note making it through to Day 2 include:

Click below to see the complete list (the same as the one in the previous post) sorted by stack size:

Among those that won’t have to worry about making the November Nine: Raymond Rahme, Tuan Lam, Roy Winston, Tom “Durrr” Dwan, Vanessa Selbst, Eli Elezra, Katja Thater, Phil Galfond, Bob and Maureen Feduniak, Chad Brown, Lyle Berman, Dan Harrington, Jason Alexander, and plenty of other names (known and unknown). The current chip leader going into the dinner break is David “Chino” Rheem, who is currently at 103,000 in chips. Other recognizable names: Blair Hinkle, Svetlana Gromenkova, Kido Pham, Noah Boeken, Anna Wroblewski, Mekhi Phifer, Maya Antonius and plenty of others. Follow the updates during the evening at the WSOP.com site here. Play starts again shortly, as they play two more 2-hour levels, then the survivors get to return on July 8 for day 2a.

More updates during the rest of the evening…

The $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha final table has been set, this group of 9 faces the hot lights of the ESPN cameras:

Seat 1: Kido Pham 1,080,000
Seat 2: Brandon Moran 1,286,000
Seat 3: Peter Jetten 492,000
Seat 4: Michael Mizrachi 1,767,000
Seat 5: Billy Argyros 729,000
Seat 6: Greg Hurst 637,000
Seat 7: Tom Hanlon 192,000
Seat 8: Marty Smyth 1,068,000
Seat 9: Richard Harroch 372,000

The other final table scheduled for today and the other tournament action on the next page:

The $1,500 HORSE event stopped play with 21 players left as they return to play down to a winner at 3pm today. Phil Hellmuth is the current chip leader, Victor Ramdin, Randy Holland, Keith Sexton and Jens Voertmann are some of the known names remaining in the field. If the PLO event ends early, and Hellmuth makes the final table, expect that table to be moved to the TV table as well.

The $1,500 NL Holdem event made the money late last night, with 233 returning at 2pm as they play down to their final table. Notable names still in the hunt for a bracelet: Mimi Tran, Matt Matros, Chris Gregorian, Dan Heimiller and Nath Pizzolatto.

Besides the $500k All-In “freeroll”, the last bracelet tournament before the Main Event starts at noon today with the $1,500 Limit Holdem Shootout. Last year, Hendon Mob member Ram Vaswani took down the bracelet in a field of 720.

More updates during the day, and surely a tournament report from Dan on the All-In clusterfuck…

JC Tran takes his name off of the “Best player to never win a bracelet” list, taking down the $1,500 NL Holdem event against Danish pro Rasmus Nielsen. JC, at one point down 3-1 headsup, chipped away at Rasmus until he eventually took the chip lead, winning when his KQ nipped the Dane’s QJ on a Q-high flop. Tran takes home over $631,000 plus 100 WSOP POY points, moving him into 6th in the race with 1 event remaining. Nielsen will be consoled with almost $390,000 to take back to Denmark.

Other tournament happenings on the next page:

The $1,500 HORSE event reached the money bubble just before they took their dinner break, they still have 70 more players to eliminate before making their final table. Chad Brown is the chip leader, other notable names remaining: Keith Sexton, Victor Ramdin, Phil Hellmuth, Joe Hachem, and Allen Cunningham. Follow all the HORSE-ing around at the WSOP website for updates here.

The $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha World Championship just reached the money at 36 Josh Arieh’s the current chip leader, other notables remaining: Michael Mizrachi, Kido Pham, Nikolay Evdakov (his 10th cash of the Series), Dario Alioto, and bracelet winners David Singer and Rob Hollink. The potting and re-potting action can be spotted here.

The last $1,500 NL Holdem event drew a field of 2,693, with about 600 returning from their dinner break. Notable names still in action: Vanessa Rousso, Jacobo Fernandez (looking to retake the WSOP POY lead), “Devilfish” Ulliot, Mimi Tran and Erica Schoenberg. See who survives the donkament here.

More updates from me tomrrow…

Sorry dude.

Looks like it’s up to Josh, Troy, and/or TJ to do the Dallas gamers (whose names Pokerati knows) proud.

UPDATE: Troy “Darling” Phillips is out. He got pocket jacks on the button and raised. The ever-aggressive big blind pushed all-in … Troy called … and would learn the sad news that he was up against aces. Ouch!

50th place. $3,000. Still, nice job by the Batfaces favorite sugar daddy curly haired representative. It’s only a matter of time before he runs out of money makes another final table.

UPDATE: Josh Evans also appears to be out. Turned away for a second and his table was gone … and he couldn’t be found elsewhere in the field.

Interestingly enough, while Kido Pham and Greg Raymer were brought out here (and presumably bought in) by WinStar … TJ Cloutier simply showed up on his own and plunked down $1,100. Definitely not a charity event for him. And to think, they don’t even have craps in Oklahoma. Can we say positive EV?

With 45 players left and blinds at 4k/8k+500, Cloutier has about 165,000 chips. Average stack is 111,000.

UPDATE: Just learned that Cloutier was bought into this event by a heretofore unnamed military-ish backer in Dallas … who has 50 percent of the poker hall-of-famer.

THACKERVILLE, Okla.–Woo-hoo, it works! Yep, it took some sore thumbs and a little extra money to Cingular to make things happen, but I am blogcasting semi-live from my laptop in the WinStar poker room. Still have a few kinks to deal with … for example, it’s hard to find a power outlet in this giant tent. (Quick aside … the WSOP might want to consult with the Chickasaws when it comes to building super-big, functional, well air-conditioned poker tents.) Anyhow, it’s a bit longer of a walk to the WinStar casino entrance on a Saturday evening. Our unscientific license-plate spot-check of the parking-lot action north of the Red River:

Texas – 124
Oklahoma – 3
Louisiana – 1
Ontario (Canada) – 1
Missouri – 1
Illinois – 1

They’re getting near the bubble in Day 3-Day 1 of the Red River Roundup. Forty-six players remain, and today they’re playing down to 34. Greg Raymer and Kido Pham both went out early. No other “big names” remain … but we’re about to take a walk on the other side of the ropes to see if we don’t recognize anyone.

UPDATE: Nope, hardly recognize a remaining soul. Across the way in the cash games, however, is another story, where dealers and players alike look familiar … almost like an old higher-stakes Rounder Club tourney at the old P-room! I’m sure there are some good players left in the field, it will just take us a bit to learn who they are. (And hey, one of these days, the Chickasaws may even let us take pictures!)

Red River Roundup, Day 1 report:

- Event is sold out. 1,000 players. Double last year’s field.
- 333 played yesterday, of which 33 remain and will convene on the other side of the bubble on Sunday.
- Josh Evans and TJ Cloutier both advanced.
- So did Troy “Darling” Phillips. (Go Batfaces!)
- Marco Palacios went out near thw bubble.
- Avg. stack is 50k. Chip leader has about 150k.
- Media coverage is kinda new to WinStar. They haven’t figured out yet whether or not to allow photos.
- New poker room here is very nice.

Day 2-Day 1 has gotten underway. Favorites include Kido Pham and Randy “The Big Randy” Brown. Greg Raymer supposedly plays tomorrow.