photo: @cgowen

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

A $2,250 Mega-Sat for the $50k HORSE breaks out right in front of us, where suddenly the seasoned pros are kicking it old-school — playing with jovial intensity and the hope that their real poker dreams can be bought at a bargain. It’s the poker economy, the regular economy, and backer variance in play … with satellite sponsorship deals, backing syndicates, and a question about what kinda team Russian backers will deploy. Special appearances by Michael Mizrachi, Allan Kessler, Bill Chen, et many medium-higher-rolling al.

presented by:

Tao of Pokerati at the 40th WSOP
Las Vegas, NV

Episode 11.21: HORSE Hunting
4:09

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Episode 11.22: The Satellite Economy
5:06

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

There’s an interesting little mini tourney taking shape right in front of the press box … it’s the $2,250 HORSE Mega-satellite (for tomorrow’s big $50k event).

It doesn’t look too different from many satellites or second-chance tourneys that get started in the eve, except there are a few more chips in play, and a lot more recognizable players.

27 entrants so far … cards are already in the air … 28. Alan Kessler showed up early. He’s wearing a Doyle’s Room patch. Mike Mizrachi is trying to get Bill Chen in a lasts-longest … there’s Michael Binger (wearing UB, No-Limit Management, and Deep Stacks University … a few other players that I kinda-sorta recognize, but not really. One guy hovering around who I can assume is a backer, but not sure who he’s behind …

29 entrants. Low-key, relaxed, but serious. Will find out if this is their only stab.

A WSOP record 7 bracelet events were underway on Wednesday afternoon, three of them eventually reaching their conclusions. As noted in my report last night, Jason Mercier got some success in the US, taking home a bracelet in the $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha event, my report is up on PokerNews now. The $1,000 NL Holdem Stimulus Special was won by Steve Sung, taking home over $770,000 and his first WSOP bracelet. The very occasional PokerRoad blogger was under 1m in chips when play was 7-handed but went on a rush to take the chip lead in just under a blind level. Final table chip leader and occasional web page designer Dan Heimiller would finish in 6th place, one of many to succumb to Sung’s success. “Pete the Greek” Valindos was the final victim denied a chance at this 2nd WSOP bracelet, when his pocket eights weren’t good enough for Sung’s pocket kings, but Vilandos does have over $470,000 to cushion that blow. More details on how that final table went down will be up on PokerNews later today.

The $10,000 7 Card Stud World Championship was a battle of the ages, literally. In what appears to be a record for a non-senior event, Freddie Ellis (74) bested Eric Drache (66) to take down the title as Ellis becomes the sixth African-American (Phil Ivey, David Williams, Walter Smiley and Carolyn Gardener being the other five) to win a WSOP bracelet. As Nolan Dalla noted in his tournament report, the distinction all six players have is that they each have won a bracelet in seven card stud. Here’s a bonus piece by Benjo on Eric Drache, from the Tao of Poker site.

The $1,500 NL Holdem event wasn’t able to reach their final table, as 33 players were left at 3am. They get to return at 1pm today to play down to a final table. This final table was scheduled to be streamed later this afternoon at bluffmagazine.com, but that’s definitely not happening at the scheduled 2pm start time. Follow them on Twitter for the latest updates on that situation. Notable names remaining: Michael Martin, Francois Safieddine, and Jeremy Joseph.

One final table that is known is the $2,500 NL 2-7 Lowball Single Draw event. When play began Tuesday afternoon, there were several big names among the 35 remaining. Those players all fell by the wayside, except for Phil Ivey, here’s how the final table will look when they come back at 2pm today.

Seat 1: Raphael Zimmerman – 238,000
Seat 2: Eric Kesselman – 119,400
Seat 3: John Monnette – 259,000
Seat 4: Rodeen Talebi – 94,500
Seat 5: Yan Chen – 159,000
Seat 6: Elia Ahmadian – 136,900
Seat 7: Phil Ivey – 106,300

Today’s other events on the next page:
More…

There’s quite a heads-up battle going on right now between Justin Bonomo and the Grinder, Michael Mizrachi. Blogger Jon Katkin is on the rail and sends along these iPhone pics of the action:

Most recently: Bonomo’s won a couple monster pots and it could be over soon.

I still don’t know who won the WPT World Championship over at the Bellagio OK, now I do … I’m too caught up in the main event of the Venetian Deep Stacks … where it really is kinda interesting seeing seasoned pro Doug Lee (wow, remember when a WSOP Circuit event used to pay more than half a million? Me neither!) duking it out with relatively unknown tournament pro Eric Baldwin (”Basebaldy” online). They’ve been playing heads-up for nearly two four hours, with their stacks relatively even and each having more than 70 60 big blinds. Very real poker being played here … with an extra sigh of WSOP buy-in relief going to the winner. ($198k for 1st, $115k for second.)

Such a big game going on in the back corner of the Venetian poker room, and yet so few people seem to have a clue about the action taking place. (Floor staff gave up on calling the hand-for-hand action a couple hours ago.) Meanwhile, the nightly $120 (where Pokerati fave Adam Schacter is still alive with 6 remaining) has more railbirds.

A few interesting tidbits about the Deep Stacks main event:

– The underdog, Baldwin, has a bigger crowd watching, with 4 to 5 viewers, compared to Lee’s 0 to 1.

– Michael Skomac, the winner of February’s Venetian Deep Stacks main event, finished 4th.

– “Known” pros in the money today included Sam Grizzle (23rd) and Michael Mizrachi (16th).

– The (plenty drinky) crew sweating Baldwin includes Cody Slaubaugh (on a tear of late), Adam Geyer from Austin, Justin Young (who finished 8th in the WPT World Championship this weekend), and Shannon Shorr (who finished 5th in the WPT Championship today). Needless to say, these guys are all having a good weekend and month … with nearly $1 million in winnings amongst them … probably more if you include their online tournament results.

What happened last night, as we finish the preliminary events of the Series today before the Main Event begins tomorrow:

Phil Hellmuth was unable to take down the $1,500 HORSE event for his 12th bracelet, as he finished in 3rd place. James Schaaf, from Torrance, California takes down the bracelet in what also appears to be his first tournament cash. Tommy Hang follows up on his 3rd in the $10,000 Limit Holdem World Championship by finishing in 2nd.

The $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha World Championship was won by Irishman Marty Smyth who eliminated Canadian Peter Jetten in one of the more exciting final hands of the Series. Both players flopped a straight when all the money went in, but Smyth was freerolling to a club flush. The turn was a brick, but when the 6 of clubs appeared on the river, the Irish part of the crowd exploded with delight while the Canadian contingent groaned in despair at Jetten’s turn of events. Smyth takes down almost $860,000 with the bracelet, while Jetten is consoled with the fact of winning $528,000 for second place. Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi ground to a halt in 3rd.

The last two tournaments conclude today, the ESPN360 table and the WSOP POY on page 2:
More…

What’s been happening at the WSOP since last night, while Dan Michalski anxiously awaits his attempt to make good on his $300 All-In “investment”:

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:
More…

What’s happening tonight at the WSOP, while Wicked Chops Poker is celebrating the good news.

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:
More…

Recapping last night’s action, with an eye on what’s going on today:

As noted below, Scotty Nguyen takes down the $50,000 HORSE event, taking down almost $2,000,000, his 5th bracelet, and the first to have won the WSOP Main Event and the $50k HORSE event. Erick Lindgren’s 3rd place moves him into first in the Milwaukee’s Best WSOP Player of the Year race with just 2 tournaments left.

The $1,500 NL Holdem final table has been set, scheduled to start at 3pm. The two most notable names are two WPT winners, JC Tran and Joe Pelton, here’s how the rest of the table will look like:

Seat 1: Christoph Kohnen 293,000
Seat 2: Joe Pelton 1,093,000
Seat 3: Jesper Hoog 320,000
Seat 4: John Conroy 501,000
Seat 5: Robert Kalb 456,000
Seat 6: J.C. Tran 1,438,000 (his 3rd final table of the Series)
Seat 7: Chad Siu 185,000
Seat 8: Peter Nguyen 870,000
Seat 9: Rasmus Nielsen 2,998,000

Other tournament stuff on the next page:
More…

Wrapping up yesterday’s action, with a preview of today’s tournament (with a moment of silence for John Bonetti):

The $5,000 NL Holdem 6-handed event finally reached their final table at around 5:30am, now they have to attempt to get some rest before returning in front of the watchful eye of the ESPN360 cameras at 2pm with this sextet:

Seat 4: Richard Lyndaker 2,345,000
Seat 3: Joe Commisso 1,961,000
Seat 5: Tom Lutz 1,493,000
Seat 1: Samuel Trickett 1,045,000
Seat 6: Edward Ochana 928,000
Seat 2: Davidi Kitai 298,000

The $1,500 Stud Eight or Better stopped play with 13 players remaining as they play down to a winner starting at 3pm. Here’s the approximate chip counts of the baker’s dozen (chip counts and seats to be rearranged later):

(Table 14)
Seat 1: Ryan Hughes 73,000
Seat 4: Margaret Macre 173,000
Seat 5: James Richburg 274,000
Seat 6: Ron Long 33,000
Seat 7: David Brooker 45,000
Seat 8: Daniel Nicewander 41,000

(Table 15)
Seat 1: Mike Hefer 71,000
Seat 2: Tim D’Alessandro 82,000
Seat 3: David Sklansky 110,000
Seat 4: Thomas Hunt III 101,000
Seat 6: Alessio Isaia 172,000
Seat 7: Joshua Feldman 121,000
Seat 8: Jonas Klausen 346,000

Other tournament action (plus the final 24 in the $50k HORSE) on page 2:
More…

Ya gotta love poker history – those great moments that are more than just statistics but interesting stories. Okay, you don’t have to love it, but can you at least be mildly amused?

Tonight, Blair Hinkle won Event 23 at the WSOP, the $2K NLHE tournament. Less than two weeks ago, Grant Hinkle won Event 2, the $1,500 NLHE. You guessed it – they are brothers. Their mother was in the audience for both victories. The only other brothers in the history of the WSOP to each win bracelets were Puggy Pearson and J.C. Pearson, but theirs were 21 years apart. The Hinkle bros were the first to ever do it in the same year.

In other brother news, Robert and Michael Mizrachi tried to both advance to the “elite eight” round tonight in the World Championship of Heads-Up NLHE, and though Robert defeated his opponent, Michael was unable to squash Vanessa Selbst and wasn’t able to move on. While ESPN and other media outlets were disappointed at the outcome, the focus of the night is now solely on the bracelet-winning Hinkle brothers.

Congratulations to the Hinkle family… Momma Hinkle, you’re next!