Yes, folks, the 2008 World Series of Poker kicks off in one week! On Friday, May 30th, the masses will begin to descend upon the Rio Convention Center for the first tournament, the $10,000 World Championship Pot Limit Hold’em. The very next day will be the first of several $1,500 no limit hold’em events. There will be 55 tournaments in all, for your bankroll-draining pleasure.

(If you look to the right of this column, just under the photos, there is a link to the 2008 WSOP schedule for your convenience.)

For those arriving early, the WSOP area of the Rio will open on the 28th for satellite players, and no doubt the cash games will be revving up as well.

I am leaving the comfort of my Los Angeles apartment tomorrow to drive out to Vegas for a nearly two-month stay in Sin City. I will be helping Dan and the crew bring you the sights and sounds of the World Series, along with writing regular daily full-on articles for PokerWorks. For those of you making the trek (or already living in Vegas), I hope to see you there!

Got $15,000?

If so, you can spend a weekend with Daniel Negreanu.

The weekend in August is limited to 18 people who will be picked up from the airport in a limo and put up at the Venetian. Participants will be allowed to hang with Daniel for a BBQ at his home in Las Vegas, receive catered meals, get VIP service at a nightclub, and participate in two days of poker seminars and workshops, culminating in a private poker tournament.

“If you’re a serious poker player looking to improve your game, I invite you to join us for ‘A Weekend with Daniel Negreanu”, said Daniel. “Not only will you leave a better player, but you will have a great time and live the life of a high stakes poker player”.

Here’s a question: If someone has $15k or $20k set aside as “poker” money, is it good bankroll management to spend it all on one weekend of instruction and good times?

If you think so, check out the website for more information.

After being snowed in at DFW for a night, a contingent of Batfaces is en route to Vegas — presenting the biggest threat to my bankroll since setting up camp in the Valley. A lot of these guys and other friends/sisters have wanted to know how I am doing out here in cards/women. Here is the answer, for Dec 30-Mar 7:

North Texas fireworks kingpin Ran Nelson brought his tight-aggressive Dallas game recently to the Mandalay Bay.

Though I haven’t been writing much about anything it, I have been hitting the tables here in Vegas. Have sampled a handful of rooms and action … spreading the lore of the Hammer and the Sang all along the way, of course, as I seek to replace the competitive camaraderie of the Batface home game perhaps with something akin to Jackie’s back in the (Dallas underground hey)day.

That came easier than usual this week, when TBR-bro-in-law Patrick came to town. He was staying at the Luxor, so we met up at Cathouse for a drink. (Cathouse is basically like the Lodge without the nipples, and Celeb-chef Kerry Simon in place of Jose Luis.) A couple Lagavulins later, we walked over to Mandalay Bay, where we took two seats together at a $2/$4 no-limit table. This was bigger stakes than either of us had been playing, but hey, we were feelin’ half-drinky good, and it seemed a better option than waiting, as the room was totally full and festive on a Thursday night. A familiar face was seated with us – Ran Nelson, a very good Dallas player whom I hadn’t seen since the days of Jackie’s – what a delight. He had a new cardmarker, a square block of acrylic with his little Stuey guy inside of it, surrounded by chips from the various important poker rooms to Ran, including WinStar in Oklahoma and the old Sixth Street in Dallas.

I was playing great – more-than-doubled up in about an hour by trapping a well-stacked opponent in classic Dan-style … but then was back to square 1 a few hands later when I got unlucky on the turn … and back to square 0 when I don’t remember what I did but I am pretty sure it was stupid, starting with playing the likes of [cards]qs 4s[/cards].

Mandalay Bay
$2/$4 NLH
Buy-in: $300
Cash out: $0
Food: starved
Drinks: $28
Net: -$328

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From the looks of the press release that just came in, all is well in WPTville. At first glance I thought I was gonna have to do an, “Oops, we were wrong!” post … but then I realized this is simply announcing the TV schedule for Season 6 — on GSN instead of the Travel Channel — and not anything about upcoming events for Season 7.

Will be interesting to see what effect the move to GSN has on WPT ratings and revenues … and can only guess that the bosses at WPT are thinking the same thing. At a minimum they have made it easy to compare, as last year’s sked seems rather robust:

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Not sure what Monte Carlo has to do with President’s Day, but I suppose it’s coincidental that that holiday falls on the soonest possible day MGM/Mirage could re-open their gaming tables and other cash-revenue generators at the Strip casino that briefly looked like it might burn to the ground three weeks ago.

Click below to read the full release.

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The World Poker Tour will be announcing its Season 7 schedule next week, and according to some recent banter around the high-stakes tournament tables, at least two (not-so?) major events will be, er, disappeared — the WPT Mandalay Bay Poker Championship and the WPT Mirage Poker Showdown.

A company spokeswoman could neither confirm nor deny, but did say that WPT Enterprises has “really looked at the market and listened closely to feedback from players.” So I suppose we’ll see next week when the official press release comes out.

In the meantime, here’s Pokerati’s super-undercover investigative reporter Tom Schneider with the report:

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A series of deep-stack tourneys just kicked off over at the Venetian yesterday — $300, $500, $1,000 buy-ins and the like — the 2008 Deep Stack Extravaganza I. It was apparently a pretty big deal … I heard two reports — one saying 600 people with 200 alternates. The other claiming 550 players, and yeah, um, lots of alternates it was crazy! I couldn’t make it, however, because I was engaged in an important face-to-face with the Axis of Evil and poker’s hottest new celebrity dictator, Kim Jong Il:

Apparently the North Korean leader was in town to denounce American political sanctions and play $1/$3 No Limit Hold’em at the Rio.

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It’s good to be back in Vegas. Was interesting being on the plane as someone “returning home” as opposed to heading out. The guy in front of me was 21 and heading to Vegas for his first time with an older man who I can only presume was his father. A hot blonde local was sitting in the window seat. She works in construction — and apparently it’s been a little slow around here this winter (the best time to build, weather-wise), so she was on her way back from a vacation to Puerta Vallarta.

Not sure who was behind me, but he had three little open airline liquor bottles on the middle tray — one of which was tipped over, as if a Smurf had passed out with it in his hand before falling over. It was enough to have me feelin’ a little pokery and ready to head to the Strip myself. It is Super Tuesday Mardi Gras, after all.

Tom went to San Diego for his Fat Tuesday. He’s goin’ for two final tables in a row at WSOP Circuit events, which would be a nice way to start the year, no? This is the $5,000 Harrah’s Rincon event. I’m quasi-following on the WSOP website. Looks to be a solid field full of pros still alive … all competing for a $TKK,000 first prize:

Time Stamp: Wednesday, February 06, 2008 12:51:35 AM
Player / Chip Count

Vanessa Rousso 72,000
Layne Flack 69,000
Bill Edler 60,800
Ted Lawson 57,000
Lee Watkinson 54,000
Theo Tran 47,800
Tom Schneider 35,000
Damien Oborne 34,000
Chad Brown 29,000
Jeff Madsen 28,600
Roy Winston 24,000
Erick Lindgren 23,000
Alex Jacob 21,025
Gavin Smith 15,500
Brandon Cantu 13,500
Allen Kessler 8,800
Jerry Buss 5,600
Anna Wroblewski 5,600

Peter ‘Nordberg’ Feldman 0
Jerry Yang 0

Here it is a little more closer to live, from PokerNews.

The Montel Williams Show will be ceasing production after 17 years — and so where does one go from there but to a downtown Vegas poker room? Ever since he took the chip lead on Day 1 of the 2007 WSOP main event, Montel seems to have gotten hooked … and lately he’s been hosting $1,000 sit-n-gos at the Golden Nugget poker room:

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As Pokerati slowly but surely gets settled in to our new Las Vegas digs, we’ve started thinking about the next Pokerati Invitational … and specifically how to keep it legal. Kinda funny, but that was pretty easy to do in Texas … just throw a tourney with no entry fee or any other sort of rake and it was all good — whether it was held at Adam’s house, the Lodge, Sadler & Carter, or the Platinum Room. Dealer tips and money that was taken out of the prize pool to be put back in in the form of a medieval battle helmet trophy or fancy sandwiches … well that may have been legally questionable … but we somehow managed to stay clean as I threw an event once a year for all my best poker friends/clients/colleagues and anyone else’s butt that may have needed kissing. Good times!

Anyhow, I’m trying to figure out what’s possible here in Nevada, where all things “gaming” seem to be heavily regulated. Like can I throw my own event, at a house, if I so choose? With my own dealers? Or if I go to a casino, do I have to take an entry fee?

These questions are semi-rhetorical for now, as I study up on how things work in the Silver State … where as far as I can tell it is still illegal to play online. (Who knew?!? I thought they changed that law, but apparently not. I was kicking ass on Full Tilt just yesterday!) You know what has me shaking my head is how I made a conscious choice way back when to ditch the Dallas underground in favor of the online world. Shortly thereafter, my bosses at PartyPoker were deemed serious criminals if they didn’t get out of Dodge by sundown. So now in an attempt to go totally legit, I have come to Las Vegas, where, heck, just about everything is legal … and lo and behold, there’s still a lot of gray areas — not to mention people who live and work in them.

Or at least I am drinking it (8 percent variety) … as I finish up my day and get ready for the night:

Not bad.

Semi-live video of the fire. (From earlier this morning.)

TV news report on the blaze, what may have caused it, immediate impact on the Strip and surrounding areas.

That was the word on the street at the Starbuck’s drive-thru … and sure enough, a look out the window at Pokerati headquarters semi-confirms that indeed, the Monte Carlo is on fire. A little follow-up confirms this is not just a little fire … the MC is burning down. To the ground remains to be seen.

UPDATE: Reportedly the fire started on the roof and worked its way down a few floors. But it is now under control. Traffic is a whole ‘nother story, however. Travel time from the airport to the convention center is two hours.

The WSOP is about 4 months away, so naturally people are starting to make plans — including PartyPoker. Two interesting things about their latest WSOP announcement: 1) win your way in early so you can buy your own plane tickets for cheap; and 2) Party continues to try and further embed themselves with Phil Hellmuth.

Party used to be the site that didn’t attach themselves to any pros other than Mike Sexton. And they used to pay for your travel when you won a satellite online. Now they are trying to put it in your head that it’s normal for the player to take care of that.

Click below for the full press release.

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