10k Stud 8 Final Table Set

The final table of the $10,000 Stud 8 or Better final table has been set, with plenty of big names looking to take down a bracelet this evening. Here’s how the final table will look when play resumed at 9pm:

Seat 1: Jennifer Harman – 861,000
Seat 2: Steve Zolotow – 684,000
Seat 3: Frank Kassela – 800,000
Seat 4: John Juanda – 787,000
Seat 5: Vladimir Schmelev – 304,000
Seat 6: Kirill Rabtsov – 882,000
Seat 7: Allen Kessler – 467,000
Seat 8: Dario Minieri – 316,000

Follow the split-pot action at PokerNews.

Vance Still Best in $1k NL

Matt Vance remains the chip leader (1,100,000) with 19 remaining on day 3 of the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem event. David Baker, no relation to 50k Player’s Championship final tablist David “Bakes” Baker, has 990,000. It was hoped that they would play down to a finish, but that looks unlikely at this time, so they’ll stop when they reach the final 9. See what does happen by following over at PokerNews.

$1,500 NL 6-max Day 2

The $1,500 No-Limit Holdem 6-max has under 50 players remaining, with Michael Myers the current chip leader with 385,000. Other notables include Ray Henson (329,000), Jordan Morgan (240,000), and Mark Seif (200,000). Follow the updates and results over at wsop.com.

$5,000 NL Day 1

The only tournament to start this afternoon, the $5,000 No-Limit Holdem event drew a field of 792 players, up over 100 from last year’s edition. Under 500 remain after the dinner break at the end of level 6 with Amit Makhija currently in front with 83,000 in chips. Other notables near the top: Chino Rheem (60,000), Perry Friedman (55,000), Scott Fischman (53,000) and defending champion Brian Lemke (48,900). More updates and chip counts are available at wsop.com.

Yan Chen Lowball Winner

The $1,500 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball, Single Draw champion was Yan Chen, a cash game veteran defeated Mike Wattel heads-up to earn his first bracelet, along with $92,817. The full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report are online at wsop.com. Check out a brief documentary on Chen, which I believe appeared on Pokerati a while ago, here.

18 Left for Day 3 of 10k Stud 8

Day 2 of the $10,000 Seven Card Stud 8 or Better World Championship concluded with 18 players returning at 3:30 this afternoon, but only 16 will make the money. The current chip leader is Frank Kassela (515,000), followed by Sergey Altbregin (497,000) and Kirill Rabtsov (388,000). Other notables returning include John Juanda (368,000), Allen Kessler (316,000), Steve Zolotow (301,000) and Vladimir Schmelev (275,000). Here’s the full list of the remaining field.

Vance leads day 3 of $1,000 NL

Matt Vance (547,000) will lead the day 3 field of $1,000 No-Limit Holdem event with 56 players remaining. Other notables returning at 2:30 to maybe play down to a winner: Mats Gavatin (453,000), Carl Olson (325,000), Jared Hamby (217,000) and Ylon Schwartz (183,000). See the full list of chip counts here.

Teska Tops for Day 2 of $1,500 NL 6-max

The $1,500 No-Limit Holdem 6-Max event drew a field of 1,663 players, with the field making the money near the end of play. When the 146 players return at 2:30 this afternoon, Roger Teska (221,000) will start with the chip lead, with familiar names David Sands (117,800), JP Kelly (92,900), Mark Seif (70,300), and Bryan Micon (65,500). Event 16 chip counts here.

Tuesday’s Tournament

The only tournament starting today is at noon, the $5,000 No-Limit Holdem event should bring out a strong field of pros, both live and online. Last year’s event was won by Brian Lemke, cousin of Justin Shronk, for nearly $700,000. Follow all the action this afternoon at WSOP.com or PokerNews.

The $50,000 Players’ Championship reached the bubble earlier today with day 2 chip leader Kirk Morrison the unfortunate bubble boy, leaving 16 players guaranteed almost $100,000. At this time, Robert Mizrachi is the current chip lead with over 2.5m in chips, followed by John Juanda at 2.4m in 2nd. Michael Mizrachi is currently in 5th with nearly 1.7m while Nick Schulman, and Daniel Alaei have around 1m in chips with just 13 players remaining. The Mizrachi brothers are looking to be the first brothers to make the same final table since Ross and Barny Boatman performed the feat in 2002. (Thanks to a poster on 2+2 for that info).

1k Donkament Day 2

The $1,000 NL Holdem event reached the money within the first level this afternoon, and the pace has not slowed down, with under 200 players remaining at the end of level 14. The chip leader at the dinner break is Drew Crawford at 230,000. Play continues to the end of level 20 or the final table, whichever comes first.

Omaha 8 Day 2

Around 120 players remain in the $1,500 Omaha 8 or Better event as they head to their dinner break. Phil Ivey, Allen Kessler, David Bach, Brock Parker, Andrew Black and Team Pokerati’s own Tom Schneider are some of the familiar names looking to make the money bubble at 81 players and the eventual final table.

$1,500 NL Day 1

The $1,500 NL holdem event drew a field of 2,092, with 216 making the money and the winner getting over $500,000. 638 players will return after their 90-minute dinner break. The early leader appears to be online legend Shaun Deeb with 55,000 chips. Lauren Kling is unofficially in second with 45,000, while Antonio Esfandiari, Daniel Negreanu, Mark Seif and Joe Cada off to a fast start as well.

Be sure to check the links on the right to find more content, live updates, and other WSOP-related stuff.

Eric Baldwin
Lance Bradley – Editor at Bluff Magazine
Andrew Feldman – Poker Editor at ESPN.com
Chad Holloway – Poker Pro Magazine
Howard Lederer
Bernard Lee
Daniel Negreanu – Defending champion
Dennis Phillips
Steve “Chops” Preiss – Wicked Chops Poker
Mark Seif
Gavin Smith
Gary Wise

Each participant made eight picks in the draft and the handy chart below displays their selections by round:

A detailed analysis from Feldman on the selections can be found at www.espn.com/poker

Page 2 features how points are earned and my selections:

Here’s how points will be earned:

1st – 50
2nd – 40
3rd – 30
4th – 25
5th – 20
6th – 16
7th – 14
8th – 12
9th – 11
10th – 10
Top 20 – 5
Top 50 – 2
Cashing – 1

Bonus points:

Points are doubled for all $10k+ buy-in events
1 additional point awarded for every 100 players in the field, starting at 200

Last year I figured I could pick a better lineup than at least 6 of the “experts” out of players who weren’t selected. I didn’t do as well as hoped, but I’ll surely give it another try.

Here’s my 8 selections:

Christian Harder
Sam Stein
Andy Seth
Jon Turner
Gavin Griffin
David “Bakes” Baker
Noah Schwartz
Mike Sowers

I’ll update the standings weekly here at Pokerati, or when I remember to do it, whichever comes first.

Watch The Toke – Absolute Poker’s Mark Seif on RawVegas.tv

In response to some of Seif’s comments, Todd “Dan Druff” Witteles offered a response on RawVegas.tv a few days later.

Watch The Toke – Dan Druff on RawVegas.tv

Mark also discusses the scandal on ESPN.com’s Poker Edge podcast (starting at around 11:00), also available on Itunes.

Four left in $2k NL on ESPN360: 4 left, currently on dinner break until 9:40pm Anthony Harb and Peter Rho chip leaders.
Nine left in $10k Mixed Event: Doyle out 13th, Scott Dorin leader, Huck Seed 2nd, Todd Brunson 9th

81 left in $2.5k NL holdem, Alex Keating chip leader.
39 left in $2.5k Limit holdem 6-max, 36 get paid. Shawn Buchanan chip leader.

366 return from dinner break in $5k NL, starting field was 655, down about 80 from last year.
359 entries in 1.5k 7 Card Stud, Mark Seif and Tom Schneider among very early chip leaders.

More updates at www.worldseriesofpoker.com and Pokerati (maybe) during the evening.

Much to say about the WSOP Academy I attended last weekend at Caesar’s … about things I learned, how I performed, and, frankly, what kinda people are shelling out close to $2,000 for anything these days. For some of the 50-or-so poker players in attendance it was just a matter of a buy-in or two for the level they play at. And for others, it was more than half their annual poker budget in a way that doesn’t even account for flights to Las Vegas from Australia or Buffalo.

Prof. Seif: “He may think it’s the right move, but Dan stands to lose a stack of 20-dollar bills this big if he keeps playing that way.”

All in all it was a great class taught by Mark Seif, Mark Gregorich, Alex Outhred, and Michael Gracz — very engaging, informative, and often irreverent — didn’t feel like Saturday/Sunday detention at all. I lost pretty big in the one session of $1/$2 NL I’ve played since WSOP-Acad graduation … I guess they shoulda reminded us to take a nap after class, or they can only do so much with a guy who insists on misplaying KQ generally 8 out of 10 times. (Ah, the painful, humiliating schoolchild memories …) If I could just misplay the hand 4 out of 10 times, that would be some serious positive EV, saving me the theoretical cost of tuition in just a few orbits!

BTW, the next WSOP Academy is at WinStar, February 21-22 — a poker room near and dear to so many Texas player and longtime Pokeratizens. Outhred and Gracz will be part of the Thackerville faculty, along with Greg Raymer and Master Mindset (?) coach Sam Chauhan.

Click here for more info … and really, you should totally think about signing up. Your Pokerati-friendly friends will feed you and everything.

Supposedly all was going to be rectified and the event resurrected under new management … and then we didn’t hear from them for a while — televised poker is hard. But as Mathers points out, there’s a new video from October showing what a fun, different, crazy-but-still-true-pokery tournament the Poker Bowl really was, or could have been. You get to see Lacey Jones doing her thing, Mark Seif (and a happily drinky Scotty Nguyen) wearing an Absolute Poker uniform, and lots of moaning and dancing. Fun video. No audio though … gee, televised poker is hard … (or at least good televised poker apparently is).

Supposedly we’ll be seeing the PB (again) in 2009. But that was posted in October, right around the time financial realities were becoming uber-clear to potential backers, so … we’ll have to see if the Poker Bowl can live up to its promise. Meanwhile, the original creator of the event seems to have nothing to do with it — he’s busy taking in a few months worth of upper-middle-class living expenses while fantasy sports players screams “rip-off!”

Good times.

The player pools, tables, tourneys, etc. from Absolute Poker and Ultimate Bet magically merge today.

Trying to keep an open mind … because theoretically it is possible that the combination of two sites caught in the biggest cheating scandals in the nascent history of the online poker industry — having learned painful lessons firsthand — could become a paragon of integrity and security, a model for fully legal American online poker in the future.

But I just can’t help to think back to the Dallas underground … when a saturated market had rooms and games beginning to merge, two shady operators joining forces seldom led to anything good (save for some pretty juicy opening-weekend tourneys).

That’s my bias, I suppose … but with that in the back of my mind, I can’t help but think of how one of these sites seemed rotten at the core (with the exception of Mark Seif, I’ve yet to hear any former employee say anything good about Absolute), and the other … well, sure, they’ve changed management and have plenty of good peeps working for them (Annie Duke, Phil Hellmuth, Mean Gene, et al.) … but the top of the pyramid hasn’t really changed as far as we can tell. And with all due respect to those who are just trying to throw good poker times … the mysterious, closely-guarded nature of Tokwiro+Kahnawake+UB+Chief Joe operating on the protected lands of the Mohawk Nation (with offices in Costa Rica) … that’s the definition of shady! Sorry, it just is.

Still, with $22 million in refunds, the action’s gotta be good.

Vivek was surrounded by his group of internet young-gunnish friends like Gobboboy and Devo, and the support probably didn’t hurt as he came to the table as the chip leader and went into heads-up play with a massive 16.8 million to 3.9 million lead over Sang Kim. That HU part of the event took only one hand, and Vivek was the latest to win a WPT title. Oh, and he won $1,424,500 to get a good haircut go along with the bracelet and the victory.

The final table results were as follows:

6th place: Andrew Knee ($237,500)
5th place: Mark Seif ($287,500)
4th place: Jason Strochak ($337,500)
3rd place: Dan Heimiller ($387,500)
2nd place: Sang Kim ($750,000)
1st place: Vivek Rajkumar ($1,424,500)

Photo courtesy of World Poker Tour, where WPT Live Updates detailed all of the final table action.

Some kidding aside, maybe a tournament with only 373 players is a bit of a downer from the massive tournaments at the WSOP this summer. And it should be noted that last year’s attendance at the WPT Legends main event was 485, which makes for a pretty significant drop-off in just one year. Sure, there were a few players who are on their way to Macau for the APT and APPT but not enough to make up the difference. Maybe people are just flat-ass broke from the WSOP.

The vibe at the Bicycle Casino was a positive one, though, as the big names rolled in and seemed genuinely happy to see each other. As Bryan Devonshire said, “It’s like a class reunion!” Most players seemed in good spirits, but more due to the juicy cash games going on at Commerce and possibly Hustler casinos. Freddy Deeb told me that the games were so good at Commerce that he’s been in L.A. for three weeks playing them and hesitated to even come over to the Bike for Legends. (He busted on Day 2 and was excited to get back to his deuce-to-seven single draw game.)

Going into Day 3 today, Adam Weinraub leads the pack of 79 players, after also leading after Day 1A. The name might sound familiar, as he took down the WPT Invitational two years ago at Commerce. He owns a company here in Orange County so doesn’t play on the circuit regularly, but he does like to get in a tournament in L.A. or Vegas when he can. And, I must say, that he is a fantastically friendly and humble guy. Go Adam!

Other big names in the top ten today include Matt Keikoan, Max Pescatori, Mark Seif, and Marco Johnson. Players will hit the money today – top 36 players get paid – and they should be down to 27 by the end of the night.

The $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha Eight or Better event is down to it’s last 3 with Casey Kastle, Martin Klaser, and Michael Fetter remaining. Kastle currently holds the chip lead, Erik Seidel was eliminated in 4th in his attempt at winning his 9th bracelet.

The $5,000 NL Holdem 6-handed event have returned from their dinner break with 280 out of a starting field of 805 to return. Notable names near the top include Alex Jacob, Mark Vos, Gavin Griffin, and Hevad Khan.

Other tournament action is available by clicking on the more thingy:

The $50,000 HORSE event is moving along on Day 2, with 109 remaining as the eliminations are happening a bit quicker today. Notable names near the top include Doyle Brunson, Lyle Berman, Isabelle Mercier, Erick Lindgren and Tom Dwan. Tom Schneider’s still in the middle of the pack at 131,000 in chips

The $1,500 Stud Eight or Better event drew a field of approximately 544, of which 460 are remaining. Notables at the top of the leaderboard: Bryan Micon, David Sklansky, Annie Duke, EPT winner Tim Vance and John Phan.

The $1,000 NL Holdem w/rebuys even is down to 26, as they make their way to a final table tomorrow. Scott Freeman is the current chip leader, other names you may have heard of still in the field: Mark Seif, Joe Tehan, JC Tran, Gioi Luong and Eric Froehlich.

More updates later in the evening…

As of this moment, there are 85 players left — Anna Wroblewski just went out … she was looking strong all tourney long. Our best friend Tom Schneider is still alive with a slightly above average stack. (Notice he’s our best friend as opposed to just a friend or Pokerati contributor now that he’s secured the money. If he can make the final table, he’ll be our super-best-very-best friend … and I’m sure that’s what’s motivating him.)

Other names of note (to me) that are still live include Carlos Mortenson (defending champ), Rhynie Campbell (met him last night, he seems funny and cool), Mark Seif (who’s been keeping people posted about the condition of his wife’s cervix), Isabelle Mercier and Kristy Gazes (attractive women), Jared Hamby (Go Texas!), Tommy Le (one of my MySpace friends with a really cool name), Steve and Danny Wong (Go 2007 Fantasy Team!), and TJ Cloutier (Go same Dallas flight!)

In the other corner, we have Dan Druff, who is really Todd Witteles, an online poker pro who is part of the NeverWin Poker team. He met with Raw Vegas to record his rebuttal, saying that he has never accused Seif of anything, only presented the facts and asked that Seif come clean about his involvement or lack thereof.

So, who is the winner in this round? Could it be that this is only the beginning and the gloves haven’t come off yet?

Mark Seif, a former attorney with a stake in AP has taken on the role as spokesperson on his “blog” at Bluff, and a few days ago announced that Absolute was conducting its own audit in an attempt to reassure players that there was nothing to fear:

Specifically, Absolute Poker’s internal investigation determined that it is impossible for any person, device, program, script or other means to see hole cards.

See, right there, we know that’s not true. Because obviously the computer randomizing/dealing the cards knows … which is how they can send hand histories to each individual player. C’mon, AP … try again. While personally I may be reserving judgment until at least a little more evidence comes out, it ain’t looking pretty. The phrases being uttered (and not) by Absolute Poker remind me of the Catholic Church denying child sex abuse in the mid-’90s. Not to put online poker on par with priestly pedophilia, but as is often the case in “damage control” amid scandal, attempts to cover-up, redirect, and deny may work for a little bit, but can prove costly in the long run. As to corporate CYA, the general public has become quite adept at seeing through that sorta doublespeak, and poker players will eventually take their addiction dollars elsewhere! [/soapbox]

I wonder if anyone playing (or observing) on Absolute has had their chat privileges suspended or blocked for providing warnings to players. That would be really interesting to know.

Side note: Kimberly Lansing has been in better form during this tournament – no rapping or other embarrassing less-than-professional antics. And so far, Layla Kayleigh has stayed away from the video camera and Kimberly while she’s schmoozing flirting working.

The prop bets, while common amongst poker players, are normally silly but not life-threatening… until now. Sean McCabe willing to pal around with sharks, even entice them with “chum” to increase the danger level, is swimming in the danger zone. I think they’ve gone too far.

The first big bet recorded (thanks to BJ Nemeth) in Turks took place yesterday, during a day off before the WPT final table. Matt Gianetti, a player from Austin, TX, took a $15k bet that was based on being able to stand in the deep end of the pool for 12 straight hours. He came out severely pruned but alive and well. No harm, no foul.

The second bet didn’t take place… yet. But the details of it are a bit disturbing. Mark Seif challenged Sean McCabe to stand shoulder-deep in the ocean for 24 hours. The bet was supposed to be for $100,000, but after discussing the risk of sharks and other dangerous ocean creatures, Mark was willing to place odds at 2-1 if he could toss blood and fish guts in the water surrounding Sean. Sean claimed to have the upper hand as a certified rescue diver, but they were arranging for a local doctor to be on call during the bet because of the dangers of the situation.

The bet actually fell apart because Mark finally became concerned about the safety issues involved, though Sean claims he is willing to take the bet if someone will put up the money.

Boys, boys, boys. Putting lives in danger? I understand the appeal of the money, but are these guys so hungry for action that they’ll step over that line? I may sound like their mother telling them not to run with those scissors, but someone is going to come close to death (or actually die) in one of these prop bets, and then they’ll be sorry.