Due to your heroic author’s insistence that he can actually play poker as well as write about it, he decided to take a quick trip to Atlantic City to play a couple of Circuit events. That failed miserably, and also delayed the publishing of this article by more than a day. But here it is, a recap of what turned out to be a very busy week.

Erik Seidel Declares, “All Buy-In’s Over $25K Belong To Me”
2nd in the 2010 NBC Heads-Up Championship. 4th in the 2011 PCA $25,000 High Roller event. 3rd in the $100,000 High Roller and a win in the $250,000 Super High Roller at the 2011 Aussie Millions. And in the last week, a win in the $25,000 High Roller event at the LAPC and redemption with a win in the 2011 NBC Heads-Up Championship.

That’s a whole lot of words without a complete sentence, but it needs to stand alone due to the sheer impressiveness of one man accomplishing all of that in a calendar year. For a long time, Erik Seidel was known only as the man on the other end of Johnny Chan’s WSOP win, courtesy of the famous clip in the movie Rounders. Since his most infamous moment, Seidel has won 8 WSOP bracelets, but the last year has to be his crowning achievement. The total cash haul for all of this success? Over $4.5 million.

The path that Seidel took to the Head’s Up Championship was an impressive one. His first three victories were over fellow founding members of Team FullTilt, defeating Allen Cunningham in the first round, Jennifer Harman in the second round and Phil Gordon in the third. Seidel’s next two matches were against very different kinds of players, specifically of the online variety. One of the few people who’s been as hot as Seidel on the tournament trail is Vanessa Selbst, who has captured a few titles of her own in the last year. But she too fell to Seidel in the round of eight, setting up a match with Andrew Robl in the semifinals. Robl was no match for Seidel, who advanced to the finals and, wouldn’t you know it, a WSOP Main Event champion was waiting for him there. In a reversal of fortune it was Erik Seidel standing tall, claiming the $750,000 first place prize by beating what many would classify as a surprise finalist in Chris Moneymaker. Should make for some pretty good TV.

John Riordan Can’t Buy Booze, But He Can Rock a WSOP Circuit Ring
WSOP Circuit, West Palm Beach, Florida
The bad news for John Riordan is that because he can’t gamble in the state of Nevada, he misses out on the huge opportunity of the WSOP Championship, with $1 million in the prize pool. The good news is that he’s already got quite a few reasons not to be upset. About 210,810 reasons, to be specific, as he won the Main Event of the WSOP Circuit stop at the West Palm Beach Kennel Club last week.

Riordan took advantage of the fact that Florida is one of the few places in the United States in which you’re allowed to gamble at 18, so while he technically qualifies for the million dollar freeroll, he can’t legally play in Las Vegas, and thus forfeits this right to play. His spot will be occupied by an additional at-large qualifier, determined by overall point standings for the entirety of the 2010-2011 WSOPC season.

Gregory Brooks Owes Neighbor Free Drinks For Life After Convincing Him to Play LAPC Main Event
LA Poker Classic, Commerce, California
I don’t personally know what it’s like to be able to play or not play a $10k event on a whim, but for those who can, it can be a decision that can change their life. In the case of Gregory Brooks, that’s exactly what happened. After some disappointing results online, Brooks was ready to take a break from poker, but thanks to the advice of that sagely neighbor, he decided to squeeze in a trip to the Commerce Casino that would change his life.

After several grueling days, Brooks found himself in the final six of the LAPC Main Event with online legends Vivek Rajkumar and Steve Gross, as well as former WSOP Main Event champion and poker superstar Carlos Mortensen. But when the dust finally settled, it was Brooks that was the last man standing. Most people end up with a headache or a mysterious rash after doing something on a whim. Greg Brooks won $1.6 million and a seat to the $25,000 WPT Championship. Tough life.

In other action at the seemingly endless LAPC, David Kitai won the WPT Celebrity invitational. The final table of this event was delayed by a week to accommodate the WPT filming crew, which was already set up to film the Main Event. Kitai took home a $100,000 package, with $75,000 in cash and the other $25,000 wrapped up in a seat in the WPT Championship.

WSOPC in Atlantic City Becomes a 3-Ring Circus
WSOP Circuit – Caeser’s, Atlantic City
The WSOPC has been in Atlantic City for less than a week, and there’s already madness brewing. At the final table of Event #5, a bevy of borderline poker ettiquette issues were raised, from calling for cards in hands players weren’t involved in to high-fiving spectators, to running around the rather large tournament area causing a major scene. The instigator of this madness was Matthew Piccolo, who Nolan Dalla, in his recap of the event, called “an unshaven Chris Farley wearing an Oakland Raiders cap.” The hysterics overshadowed the victory of Jaeik Cho, who quietly collected the WSOPC ring and nearly $30,000.

Luke Vrabel Takes Home $670K and a Lambo In 5th Anniversary of PokerStars’ Sunday Million
Its rare to see a tournament eclipse 10,000 players online. It’s nearly impossible to imagine almost 60,000 players in an event, and it hits that mark when the buy-in is $215. But that’s just what happened this past weekend in the PokerStars Sunday Million, where they guaranteed a $5 million prize pool for their 5th anniversary and reached more than double that mark. As play reached the final table, the structure became a bit too fast for the remaining players, who each agreed to chop out part of the prize pool and guarantee themselves almost $300,000. The biggest winner of them all was Luke “Bdbeatslayer” Vrabel, who took home $670,000 as well as a brand new Lamborghini Gallardo. Not bad for 16 hours of work.

Greg Pohler Becomes Most Famous Sibling Since Frank Stallone with LAPC Win; James Carroll, Elky Lead Final 2 Events
LA Poker Classic, Commerce, California

The LA Poker Classic is finally winding down, but the last few days should be quite a cap to what has already been a very exciting series. 681 players turned out for the $10,000 LAPC Main Event, which is down from last year but that can be attributed directly to Full Tilt not running direct satellites to the tournament. The winner will probably not be complaining though, as the top prize in this event is over $1.6 million. At last check, there were 34 players left, with James Carroll leading and David “Bakes” Baker not far behind. Other notables still in the field include Allen Cunningham, Joe Hachem, Jason Senti, Kathy Liebert and Lauren Kling. If you’ve got a second, be sure to check out the live video stream from the Commerce Casino. 5 players are left at the $25K high roller event final table, with Elky leading the pack.

There’s some debate as to whether or not Greg Pohler is the brother of Parks and Recreation star and SNL alum Amy Poehler, but thanks to a Google search, movies.yahoo.com says that she has a brother named Gregory, so I’m gonna run with that (despite the fact that they’re spelled differently). Pohler won almost $30,000 in Event #46 at the LAPC, but the most interesting result from that tournament may be the 17th place finisher. I haven’t heard the phrase “Parts Unknown” since I watched WWF back in the early 1990s.

One of the more impressive final tables has to be the $5,100 No Limit Hold’em event that took place last week. Randy Dorfman topped an impressive final table that included Shannon Shorr, Nick Binger, Jon Turner and French Pro Nicholas Levi. Dorfman took home $163,270 for this win, one of the biggest prizes awarded at this year’s LAPC.

The last of the unique events that Matt Savage runs at the LAPC was the double-elimination format Heads-Up tournament. The $5K tournament got 48 players, and the six making the money were an impressive group. John Racener, Erik Seidel, Justin Young and Fabrice Soulier all found their way to the money. The final match was between Nicholas Rampone and Scott Seiver, with Rampone coming out of the Loser’s Bracket against Seiver, who had not lost a match on the way to the finals. Rampone had to beat Seiver twice to capture the title, which is exactly what he did. He got $81,480 and a $10,000 seat to the Main Event, which was added to this tournament as well as a handful of others during the LAPC.

A Pair of Swedes Invade To Denmark, One Captures (EPT) Crown
EPT Copenhagen – Copenhagen, Denmark

Another week, another €500K first prize on the EPT. After playing down from a final eight that included Juha Helppi and American online wiz Kevin Iacofano, two Swedish pros battled it out for the EPT Copenhagen title. Michael Tureniec and Per Linde battled for more than three-and-a-half hours heads-up, with Tureniec vindicating himself following a previous second place finish on the EPT by capturing this title. Tureniec won €496,271 for this effort, but no word on how Scandinavian relations are following this brash invasion.

Former Corrections Officer Lays Down the Law, Becomes First Female Poker Champion in Florida History
WSOP Circuit, Palm Beach Kennel Club – West Palm Beach, Florida

The young history of tournament poker means that we’ll be seeing a lot of first-time events in the coming years. This past week at Florida saw the first woman crowned as champion of a major event. June Amer, a retired corrections officer in Dade County, won the biggest prize of this circuit stop to date, banking over $65,000 in a $550 event with 664 entries. After cashing in Event #2, Amer overcame what looked to be an insurmountable chip lead in this tournament to lock up the Circuit ring, as well as put herself in position to contend for player of the series.

Quite a few familiar faces showed up to play at this WSOP circuit stop, including Team Pokerati member Tom “DonkeyBomber” Schneider. He found his way to the final table of an Omaha 8/b event, but with less than one small bet when the final table began, Schneider could not improve his position and finished 9th. Also at this final table was “Captain Tom” Franklin, but he too fell short of this title, finishing in 5th place. The winner of the event was Timothy Burt, a veteran who served for three years in Iraq, who knotches his second WSOP circuit ring, the first coming in a HORSE event in Biloxi last November.

Mark Benasa Wins Record Red Dragon in Macau; Hannibal Lector Unavailable for Comment
Macau Poker Cup, Grand Casino Lisboa – Lisboa, Macau

509 players turned out over two days of the Macau Poker Cup Main Event. Known as the “Red Dragon”, this tournament shattered the previous record of 321 players, and created a prize pool of over HKD $5,090,000. Mark Benasa won the title, becoming the first Filipino player in the tournament’s history to do so. Benasa took home a first place prize of HKD $1,100,000 ($140,000) and now leads the APOY race, with a one-year sponsorship from PokerStars Macau on the line.

Swim Instructor Sinks Competition To Win HPT Title
HPT, Downstream Casino Resort, Quapaw, Oklahoma

27-year-old Michael Jensen is a part-time poker pro, but definitely someone who has his priorities in order. In an interview before the final table at Downstream Casino, Jensen said, “Whether I finish sixth or first, I’m teaching swimming lessons to little kids tomorrow afternoon.” If I were Jensen, I would be pulling a Scrooge McDuck following those lessons, as his $100K payday for first place could definitely fill a pool full of coins to swim in.

Have I just missed this timing connection for all these years? The LAPC and the WPT Celebrity Invitational coinciding with the Oscars? Hmm, it seems like good timing, especially when a few big names going deep are Tilly, DeNiro, and Salomon.

After a presumably successful near-WSOP-length run, the LAPC is coming to close … you know you’re finally at the “main event” whenever Jess & BJ arrive — even if we’re only talking about a $100k first prize. Regardless that’s when I start paying attention in just about all things WPT. Their show gives me about as much as I need, too, for coverage of this whole Oscars thing that seems to go down every year. (Couldn’t even tell you who won … but I think Charlie Sheen has been big buzz maybe?)

I don’t really consider myself as a critic of film criticism … but I do think we all can tell that BJ would really play to his strengths if he were doing red-carpet fashion critique and Jess stuck to sports.

Computer crashes, flight delays and internet inconsistencies successfully delayed this column once again, but even those pitfalls couldn’t keep this column down for more than a day. I may have failed to put myself in position to appear in this column again, but others won big at the WSOPC’s inaugural trip to Florida, which got underway this week. There was also some serious action in Brazil and a crescendo in the action at the LAPC.

Largest Field in Florida History Fails To Prolong “Year of the Media”
Palm Beach Kennel Club – West Palm Beach, Florida

It’s become increasingly clear that all of the media’s run-good has been usued up for the foreseeable future, as my own personal attempts to cash in on the year of the media have once again failed. I was one of 877 entries over two starting days at the inaugural event of the World Series of Poker event at the Palm Beach Kennel club this week. The $345 event brought together the largest field for a poker tournament in the history of the state of Florida, generating a prize pool of over $250,000 and awarding almost $50,000 to the winner. The biggest names to go deep in this event were former WSOP ME final tablist John Spadavecchia, and Ronnie Bardah, who bubbled the final table in 10th place.

24-year-old Reed Zhao was crowned the champion, the first winner of a circuit ring in the state of Florida. The Lexington, Kentucky native is a high-stakes online cash game grinder, but he’ll likely be playing some more tournaments in the coming weeks to challenge for player of the series and a spot in the Million Dollar Freeroll. Zhao is currently joined atop this list by James Giraldo, who won a $545 event for $43,000 in his first major live tournament, and “Tampa Bay” Ray Del Cueto, who won $28,800 in Ring Event #3.

A Pair of Ladies Hold WPT Invitational in Check
Los Angeles, California
As the longest tournament series outside of the World Series of Poker inches toward its ending, two of the more unique events that the LA Poker Classic has to offer took place. The WPT Celebrity Invitational tournament got underway this week, with boatloads of LA celebrities and poker players rubbing shoulders and doing their thing the red carpet. After playing down to the final six, the two biggest pros remaining are Dan Heimiller and David Kitai, but the story of this table is a pair of chess masters that also happen to be women. Almira Skripchenko and Dinara Khaziyeva are each vying for a top prize of $100,000, which includes a seat to the $25,500 WPT Championship. The final table will be played out on March 2nd, so it can be filmed back-to-back with the $10,000 WPT event.

The other unique event at the LAPC this week was the annual Ironman event, where no breaks are given and the tournament is played straight from beginning to end. 68 players signed up for this twisted idea from the mind of Matt Savage, and pro Nikolay Evdakov emerged victorious (and tired). He won $60,630 and a seat in the main event for his victory, which was his second LAPC victory of the week after winning the six-handed Pot Limit Omaha following a three-way chop for almost $35,000. Evdakov is one of four people to own two or more titles at this year’s LAPC and he has thrust himself into the player of the series race there.

Another notable player found victory this week as Owen “owcrowe” Crowe, who won a $1,065 event for over $37,000 in an event that saw Matt Savage’s personal punching bag for the LAPC, Matt Affleck, cash. On several occasions during this series Savage, who is an infamous needler and may or may not have sent yours truly a text message during the AFC Championship game when the Jets were down three touchdowns, has brought up the monster pot that Affleck lost at this year’s WSOP Main Event, once playing it on a giant projector screen for the entire tournament field.

Power Outages Can’t Stop First Chilean LAPT Champion
LAPT Brazil – Sao Paolo, Brazil
Brazilians comprised 60% of the 536 players in this record-breaking LAPT event, and the hometown crowd was hungry to crown the first Brazilian champion in the history of the Latin American Poker Tour on their own turf. They had quite an edge heading into the final table as well, with 5 of the 8 players at the final table coming from Brazil. In fact, all 8 players were from Latin America, and a Latin American nation crowned their first champion, but it was Chilean Alex Manzano emerging as the champion. Manzano satellited in online and turned that small investment into R$ 615,840, roughly $370,000.

With the biggest gambling holiday of the year just days away, it seems appropriate that the world has gone poker crazy. We have reached a crescendo to the post-PCA madness, as big events wrapped up in Australia, France, and down in Mississippi. We also have a report from India, as well as some action in Los Angeles, Atlantic City and Hollywood (Florida, that is).

Aussie Millions (Melbourne, Australia)

What was originally planned as an 8-man, winner-take-all $250,000 sit-n-go ballooned into a 20-player turbo with a $5 million prize pool. The top three players would get paid, with $AUD 2.5 million for the biggest degenerate winner. Tom Dwan, Roland de Wolfe, John Juanda, Annette “annette_15″ Obrestad, Chris Ferguson and some guy named Phil Ivey were amongst those to lose a quarter of a million dollars in one day. While Dwan and Ivey are probably used to that on any given Tuesday, it was probably enough to ruin a few peoples’ weeks.

It seems like a wealth of riches was reserved to quite an exclusive group. David Benyamine cashed for $AUD 1 million for his third place finish, leaving a heads-up battle between two players who had very good January’s. Erik Seidel finished fourth in the $10K High Roller at PCA, while Sam Trickett won the “regular” $AUD 100K Super High Roller event less than a week before this tournament. Trickett entered the heads-up match with the chip lead, but failed to finish the impressive back-to-back performance, as Erik Seidel was victorious, taking home $AUD 2.5 million for his efforts.[PokerNews]

Then there’s the matter of the Aussie Millions Main Event, which somehow managed to take a back seat to this event, despite the $AUD 7 million prize pool. Among the final eight, the biggest name by far was Patrik Antonius. His stay at the final table was not a long one, as he had his pocket kings cracked early on in the day to go out in eighth. The last man standing was local tournament pro David Gorr, who took home $AUD 2 million for the win. This was Gorr’s biggest score, having toured the greater-Australia tournament scene since 1998. [Poker News]

WPT Southern Poker Championship (Biloxi, Mississippi)

An interesting collection of six made up this WPT final table at the Beau Rivage. Former champion Allen Carter was trying to become the first person in the history of the World Poker Tour to win the same event twice. Also among the six was Alabama native Shannon Shorr, with over $3.4 million in lifetime cashes, and Leif Force, whose deep run in the 2006 WSOP Main Event was one of the more memorable stories of that year.

Shorr would end up in fourth, while Carter’s run at history would fall short in third place. Alexander Kuzmin, who made a final table at this past WSOP, went head-to-head with Force, and it was the pesky Russian Kuzmin taking the crown, along with the $601,469 prize and a seat in the WPT Championship later on this year. [WPT]

EPT Deauville (Deauville, France)

The EPT got back underway with its first post-PCA event in Deauville. 891 players ponied up €5,000, with the winner taking home €880,000. The final table saw players from six different countries, but the biggest story was about a local Frenchman by the name of Lucien Cohen. The Paris native runs a pest control company and used a small rubber rat as a card protector. Lucien Cohen was “The Exterminator” on this evening, taking home the EPT Deauville Main Event and nearly €900K. [PokerStars Blog]

Making some noise for the first time since his WSOP win in November, Jonathan Duhamel won the €10,000 High Roller event in Deauville. [PokerStars Blog]

India Poker Series (Goa, India

A few weeks ago, the fourth in a series of poker tournaments was held at Casino Royale Goa in India. Three events were held; a 5,000 rupee rebuy event, a 10,000 rupee freezeout and a 5,000 rupee freeeout. Players from around the world, including the USA, UK and Sweden, participated in the tournaments, which each got at least 90 players. Congratulations to Anand Patil, Lawrence Sanjay and Pulkit Kalia for their victories at IPS Chapter 4. [India Poker Series]

LA Poker Classic (Commerce, California)

Action continued this week with more than a dozen tournaments. The biggest news of the week, however, might have been an appearance from a wild and crazy guy. No, not Matt Savage, but the OG wild and crazy guy, Steve Martin! For updates on everything going on at LAPC, head elsewhere on that blog and check out the amazing work that veeRob is doing over there. That guy never sleeps.

Borgata Winter Poker Open (Atlantic City, New Jersey)

At last check, there were just over 100 players left in the $3k main event. First place in this tournament is over $500,000, and you can check out updates as they happen here.

Photos courtesy of PokerStarsBlog.com & WPT.com

We all know there’s lots of chit-chat on blind structures, always, and there should be. They are important. In the early days of the poker boom, a lot of tourney directors didn’t really know what they were doing and surely didn’t understand the nuances of stack sizes deep into tournaments with bigger-than-expected fields. Then the Venetian came along with their Deep Stack concept, kinda-sorta revolutionizing the way smaller-stakes tournaments were played … at which point everyone started copying it and multiplying … and eventually trying to apply a bajillion starting chips concept to higher buy-in, big-time poker.

That’s when TDA honcho Matt Savage stepped up to say, wait a minute, let’s take a look beyond the first few levels, maybe these perceived Deep Stacks in a lot of instances aren’t all everyone says they’re supposed to be. Just about any educated “outsider” I’ve talked to who has taken a close look at the prevalent blind structures of the day contend that, indeed, while the non-bastardized Venetian Deep Stacks set-up is good, Savage’s not-so-deep-stacks structure as seen at the LAPC are indeed some of the best in the business — a model for other tourney directors to emulate.

After Day 1 of the WPT-Commerce main event, Daniel Negreanu agrees. Read more as he explains a bit why.

NOTE: I learned a good rule of thumb about antes from Negreanu, and where they fit in to breed action in “slower” events.

Also last week, kinda funny, I had just shown up in the tournament room at the Commerce when I was supposedly simultaneously in front of a computer, chatting in the LAPC livecam chat room:

(Thanks to all looking out for this site’s good name.)

6:54 pokerati: maybe we can get uyou involved somehow with some streams like this..
6:54 WhoJedi: Pokerati is Dan, is this Dan?
6:54 WhoJedi: That would be cool.
6:54 pokerati: nosir
6:55 pokerati: i did NOT no there was a pokerat that wud be cinfused
6:55 pokerati: i am NOT impostering
6:55 WhoJedi: lol
More…

The LAPC main event is fixin’ to get underway … Friday at noon, and Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Jason Mercier, and a few others got together to hold a $5,000 fantasy draft for the main event of California’s version of the WSOP.

More to come as the field takes shape tomorrow/today Friday. Last stretch of satellites going on now.

I’ve been following this event multimedially via the 147 emails a day they send me and via the official LAPC blog.

I’m still alive, but Pauly’s out. Before bringing our Hollywood poker weekend to a close, we decide we should get a firsthand taste of the real Commerce degen experience, so Pauly escorts me to the ATM to make good on an a charitable WPT rebuy acquired-at-the-table debt before he jets off to Uruguay.

Episode 5: ATM Roulette

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This would be our last episode of the book on the 2010 WPT Celebrity Invitational. In the end, cards didn’t fall my way as I finished sans audio and had to twitter in my results:

@Pokerati Out to vince van fuckhead. All in preflop my AQ < 57s. I respect his play
12:55 AM Feb 21st via txt

As Pauly and I are prone to do whenever we get together, we couldn’t help ourselves from kicking into 3-minute-podcast mode in Los Angeles this weekend as we both got ready to take on the Hollywooded up field at the WPT Celebrity Invitational for the LAPC … and explore How-TF we got into the field in the first place.

Episode 1: Slumming It in Not-So-Beverly Hills

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BTW, if you want to hear a different side of Dr. Pauly, be sure to check out his Lost Vegas podcast episodes. A lot more sex and drugs in those.

This — a live cam from above the floor of the Commerce — is pretty cool. Would be extra-awesome if a fight were to breakout or some girl decided to go streaking. But whatever, anyhow, check it out, if you want to watch — at present — three or four tables of a super-satellite at the Commerce. (They just got back from break.)

I think the plan is to stream the final table of the $1k w rebuys event later tonight …

They don’t quite have play-by-play to make it a real show (yet), but there is a chat moderator to answer questions about what you’re looking at. This UStream thing … so much potential to be either really good or really bad. Jury still out … but interesting they have it … and the audio now in my background (have heard a few screams and stomps, calls for somebody named Sam, and lots of chip-clicking) is more compelling than the NBC analysts for pairs figure skating.

Webcam chat at Ustream

I don’t quite get what’s possible when they say, “You can send video here by putting the show’s hashtag, #veerob, in the title when you record! Enjoy!” Are they implying someone at the table could run video, too, and put it in the same thread?

I can see World Series coverage really changing in coming years if people can self-cover themselves on video similarly to reporting their chip counts via twitter.

Follow the goings-on at the Commerce a little less pathetically with @LAPokerClassic.

The LAPC recently featured 2 $230 mega satellites into their $1 million guaranteed $1000 re-buy tournament to give some lower stakes players a shot at a big payday in event that can get real expensive real fast. If you won a seat you also received a voucher that could be used for a re-buy or or an add-on.

The first of these mega satellites ended in a unique way with a player exhibiting some less than critical thinking. When they got down to the bubble of 18 players (17 seats were to be given away) play was on two tables of 9 players each and they were playing hand for hand to prevent either table from stalling. The first table finished their hand with one player being eliminated. While this was going on, a player at the other table was faced with an all in raise and was pondering his decision and called the floor-person over to ask the following question: “If I call and lose will I split 17th with the player at the other table who was just eliminated on this hand?” to which the floor-person accurately responded “yes.” He called the all in raise, lost the pot and split 17th place getting half a seat.

To some poker is all about winning pots…

Another good video from the LAPC … in this one Matt talks with Eric Baldwin (aka “Basebaldy), the 2009 CardPlayer Player of the Year. We, of course, got to know him as he was tearing through a Venetian Deep Stacks field prior to showing what he really was in town to do at the WSOP.

Anyhow, hate to make this all about the LAPC when tourneys are going on around the world — from Copenhagen to Tunica … but this gives a good glimpse at someone who is now a “big name” in poker though few have gotten to know him yet:

In the above video they talk about Baldwin’s efforts to snap his 0-fer history at the LAPC and where “taking it easy” fits in to the upcoming Ironman competition.

Since the last time we wrote about him he was keeling over at the table, it’s our pleasure to show a better, more-capacitated view of Miami John Cernuto — talking to Matt Savage after being the technical winner (he chopped) of the LAPC’s Event #28, $545 Limit Hold’em.

It was one of the few disappointing field sizes at the LAPC: 71 players, 9 paid.

In this winner’s video, Cernuto and 2nd place finisher Edwin Smith discuss not the $18,000 they split up, but limit vs. no-limit and whether or not you’ll see a resurgence (or the continued decline) of tournaments with far fewer all-ins:

Also: kudos to Tom Schneider for taking 6th and an $1,870 prize. That’s almost enough for a rebuy in a real 21st century poker event, lol.

I’ll Bet: This field probably provided fewer tweets from the felt than any other event at the LAPC.

She theoretically has my vote: