Greetings, Pokerati faithful. I’m coming to you live from Foxwoods somewhere deep in the Connecticut wilderness. Today’s reunion of all nine members of the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event final table is the first of its kind in modern times. For the first time since the inception of the November Nine, the entire group has gotten together to play in the same event, along with 18 very lucky Foxwoods winners.

They’re playing a $15,000 freeroll, and its been rumored that there might be quite a bit more on the line for the November Niners. In order to keep things interesting and competitive, there are last longer bets and a few other interesting props that I’ll try to keep track of.

The tournament just got underway, and with 30 minute levels and a 10k starting stack, this freeroll looks like it will take quite some time.

Stay tuned for a couple of updates throughout the day here, as well as a comprehensive post of the Tuesday’s events coming up. To keep up to date with the action, as well as watch a live stream featuring Joseph Cheong, Michael Mizrachi, Matt Jarvis and Lon McEachern, head on over to Foxwoods Live.

A kinda cool shot of the Michael Mizrachi bustout press conference … on a day where seven, and later eight, poker players will think much about how close they came toward making a major step toward legendary status and the very most of the opportunity the poker gods put in front of them.

Podcasting action shots. Not quite worthy of video, but certainly would make for a good holographic Slurpee coin.

That’s the big news — major-extreme technological advancement, from the original producers of Pop music disguised as a poker podcast … after prolly more than 200 episodes that required actual clicking efforts for our listeners to hear, we now have it where a single click can get you Tao of Pokerati updates forever and ever.

Click here to subscribe, and enjoy the first episode, getting ready for this weekend’s big WSOP action … nice one out-the-gate, starting off by misidentifying Michael Mizrachi’s ethnic heritage as if I were the Sharron Angle of Poker:

N9 – Episode 1: Power Breakfast – Italian Cock and Eggs — Dan and Pauly recorded an episode at their favorite breakfast place after a power meeting to prep for the November Nine. They discussed a bit of pre-game strategy and what’s to come for upcoming coverage of their third November Nine and sixth WSOP Main Event final table. As per usual, Dan veered off topic and delved into a tangent about cocks again (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

For more episodes of the 2010 WSOP visit the Tao of Pokerati archives.

So there was a media conference call this morning and there were some interesting things to come out of the call:

• The pseudo-live coverage of the final table will be on ESPN3, which means if your ISP does not provide it (or you live outside the US) then its fairly likely you will not be able to watch the proceedings short of proxies/other hackery. Obviously it will not have hole cards (Ty mentioned that Nevada is more “conservative” than Europe in that regard), but it will have community cards and a video stream.
• James Hartigan will provide the play-by-play and pros will provide additional commentary (which means, basically, they are doing a very similar format to the EPT Live coverage, right down to the commentators).
• Mizrachi is on a lot of poker media member’s minds: including his tax issues. ESPN noted that while they are talking about it, but its not a big part and they are dealing with the “Year of the Mizrachis” angle, at least they had been until the final table.
• Some of the storylines of the final table: youth of the table + the experience of the players + the international flavor of the FT (even if the majority of players are American, some players were born elsewhere).
• The WSOP and ESPN are definitely enforcing the 3 player patch rule. Players were informed about the rule and they understand the situation. (One thing that didn’t get asked in the call was if players would essentially be able to swap patches with a non-patched player if a patched player is eliminated.)
• Walk-on music will combine with other aspects that will give the final table a more choreographed feel. (As Ty Stewart put it: “More pomp and circumstances this year.”)
• Changes to the Penn + Teller Theater: More seats to the public, fewer seats to friends and family.
• Editing the final table is pretty much a non-stop endeavor, and they actually record voiceovers for more hands than actually get shown depending on how the story of the final table plays out. Voicing gets finished while the 1st hour of the final table coverage is already on the air.
• The NGC, Harrah’s, and federal regulators feel like online poker is illegal, according to Ty Stewart (but for some reason have no problem taking ad dollars from said people).

Some pretty important topics were addressed (how ESPN is going to deal with Mizrachi’s tax problems, how FTP is going to deal with its push to actually get a main event champ in the stable, etc.) and as the November Nine gets closer some of these may come more into focus.

In a time where buy-ins are dropping to accommodate a slumping economy, leave it to Monaco to make people feel poor again. Not content with the highest buy-in tournament to date being the $100,000 Aussie Millions High Rollers event, Casino Monte Carlo in junction with the IPPA (International Poker Player’s Association) is hosting a $250,000 buy-in shootout in late November. Before you ask, “who could afford this nonsense?”; evidently 14 pros have already signed up, with names ranging from Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan all the way to Robert and Michael Mizrachi. There are a few things with this tournament that help it stand out beyond the absurd high buy-in:

• It will be “limited” to 48 players total and played out in a shootout format, with $5 million guaranteed to first place. Which means that if this is a true guarantee and not just a projected prize if all 48 slots fill, mean that you would need 20 players minimum just to break even (sans rake, and only if it’s a winner-take-all tournament).
• The IPPA is not…well known, at least certainly not in the US. Their website is equally sparse in terms of action information, but they may be trying to put themselves on the map with a tournament of this size.
• There are satellites running in at least two confirmed places, Monte Carlo (naturally) and The Bicycle Casino in beautiful Bell Gardens, CA. How does one even satellite into this tournament? Think the step tournaments online, except the stakes are much, much higher. The Bike already ran $100, $1k and $9k satellites during the Legends of Poker tournament series, but their site does not have any results for the $1k and $9k satellites so its unknown how many takers they got.
• It will be a televised event, but with the field the way it is so far the IPPA and/or Monte Carlo hopefully will be pushing hard to get some whales in the game, or it may deter other pros from throwing their hat in the ring.

Still, the organizers have to cover their “overlay” first, which will be no small feat when pros are being asked to drop $250,000 in one go into a shark-filled tank. If this tournament happens it certainly will be an interesting sight, not just for the prize pool but the revival of a lingering question regarding how we keep score in poker. Already there has been talk of what “counts” on the all-time money list, so if someone like Ivey did win the $5 million for what amounts to a 48-person (or less) SnG it could lead to some gripping from a few pros (quite possibly including the #2 man on that list…who could become a distant #2 or 3 after this tournament).

Getting caught up and back in the swing of things — slowly but surely — so what better way than to listen to the most recent episode of The Poker Beat?

The Poker Beat: July 22, 2010

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Rookie twitterer @GaryWise1 took his turn in Capt. Huff’s chair as @BJNemeth and @JessWelman panel-bantered about:

• The pre-markup hearing in DC with Annie Duke
• Make-up of the 2010 November Nine
• The value, if any, of poker agents — and how the WSOP accommodates them during the main event
• BJ’s philosophical non-dilemma over coverage of Matt Affleck’s emotional bustout *
• The difference between poker media and poker journalism
• The Year of Mizrachi and the accidental WTF? of the current WSOP Player of the Year scoring system
• Annette Obrestad’s B- performance
• The 3-headed Monster of Team WSOP without @JeffreyPollack
• WSOP numbers and final table times

* great explanation, BJ. But question … Is there any discernable line where the “field of play” in poker begins, and ends?

Other episode-relevant links:

The Redemption of Matt Affleck by Gary Wise
The Long, Lonely Walk of Matt Affleck by Howard Swains (with photos by Joe Giron)

Next ep coming tomorrow. Play along in the PokerRoad forums.

Your 2010 WSOP final table players and chip counts:

Jonathan Duhamel — 65,975,000 — Boucherville QC

John Dolan – 46,250,000 – Bonita Springs FL

Joseph Cheong – 23,525,000 — La Mirada CA

John Racener – 19,050,000 – Port Richey FL

Matthew Jarvis – 16,700,000 – Surrey BC

Filippo Candio – 16,400,000 – Cagliari  IT

Michael Mizrachi — 14,450,000 – Miami FL

Soi Nguyen –9,650,000 – Santa Ana  CA

Jason Senti – 7,625,000 – St. Louis Park MN

I’d say see ya’ll in November, but I think we all know we’ll be talking about lotsa things before then. Click below for the Nolan’s early write-up from WSOP.com:

More…

The Main Event will resume around 8:30pm with 42 players remaining, playing down to 27. The chip leader is Cuong Nguyen, who won the biggest pot of the tournament so far off of Theo Jorgensen on the last hand before the break when his Kh-Jc outflopped Jorgensen’s Ac-3c when it came down Kc-5h-9c to take the lead with 19,520,000 in chips. Joseph “subiime” Cheong is 2nd with 14,000,000 in chips. Play resumes at 8:30 with the start of level 29 with the blinds at 50/100/10k, follow the updates over at wsop.com

Notables:
William Thorson – 12,290,000
John Racener – 9,275,000
Bryn Kenney – 7,400,000
Matt Affleck – 5,535,000
Adam Levy – 5,180,000
Scott Clements – 4,200,000
Michael Mizrachi – 3,655,000
Johnny Lodden – 3,495,000
David Baker – 2,960,000
Theo Jorgensen 2,300,000
Hasan Habib – 520,000

Notable Eliminations:
Jacobo Fernandez
Tony Dunst
Alexander Kostritsyn
Peter Jetten
David Benyamine
Eric Baldwin
Jean-Robert Bellande

Day 7 Table Draw

Theo Jorgensen will lead the remaining 78 players of the WSOP Main Event when play resumes at the Amazon room shortly after 12pm today. Jorgensen starts the day with 9,300,000 in chips followed by Michael Mizrachi with 7,535,000 and John Racener with 7,200,000 with play starting today on level 26, 25,000/50,000 blinds with a 5,000 ante. Play will continue until 27 players remain, then return Saturday to play down to the November Nine.

Other notables returning today:

William Thorson – 6,525,000
Alexander Kostritsyn – 5,715,000
Matt Affleck – 5,315,000
Bryn Kenney – 3,830,000
Eric Baldwin – 2,135,000
Johnny Lodden – 2,105,000
Adam Levy – 1,685,000
David Baker – 1,635,000
Tony Dunst – 1,550,000
David Baker – 1,540,000
Hasan Habib – 1,165,000
Scott Clements – 1,085,000
Jean-Robert Bellande – 700,000
Peter Jetten – 675,000

Notable eliminations from last report:
Juha Helppi
Todd Witteles
Fokke Beukers
Christian Harder

Full results here, and follow the updates over at wsop.com.

Bellagio Cup VI results

Moritz Kranich, a previous winner on the European Poker Tour, added a WPT title by defeating Justin “Boosted J” Smith heads-up to win the Bellagio Cup VI Main Event for $875,150. Smith earned $594,755 for the runner-up finish, with Phil Ivey finishing third for $363,650. Full results can be found here.

Just 103 players remain as the field in the Main Event takes their dinner break, returning with the blinds at 15k/30k/4k. The plan is to play another two levels or down to 81 players, whichever comes first.

The chip leader is John Racener with 6,260,000 in chips. Other notables:

Michael Mizrachi 5,654,000
Alexander Kostritsyn 4,834,000
Bryn Kenney 4,300,000
Matt Affleck 3,750,000
Scott Clements 2,200,000
Adam “Roothlus” Levy 1,600,000

Notable eliminations:

Johnny Chan
Phil Galfond
Breeze Zuckerman
JP Kelly
Robert Mizrachi
Matt Keikoan

Full results so far here, chip counts and other updates at wsop.com.

The Main Event resumes shortly with 293 players remaining as they play three more hours, two hours at 6/12k/2k and one hour at 8/16/2k . The current leader is Saguhyon Cheong with 2,870,000 in chips. Some other notables returning from dinner break include:

Jesper Hougaard – 2,700,000
Alexander Kostritsyn – 1,990,000
Jean-Robert Bellande – 1,520,000
Phil Galfond – 1,345,000
Johnny Chan – 1,115,000
Michael Mizrachi – 735,000
Robert Mizrachi – 675,000

Notables eliminated during the day:

Hoyt Corkins
Danny Mizrachi
Adam Schoenfeld
Jason Mercier
Dwyte Pilgrim
Evelyn Ng
Mori Eskandani
Eric Morris

Full results so far can be found here and follow the updates over at wsop.com.

Sorting through the list of remaining players, the surnames with the most players still in contention to win the main event hardly come as surprise, based pretty much on world population.

Mathematically, a Chan or Nguyen is still probably your best bet, and the Johnsons and Changs have kinda disappointed their global families. But one name stands out as being a bit different than all the rest, thus highlighting the uniqueness of four brothers going deep.

More…

Yesterday was the beginning of the real tournament, with all players converged into a single field, just with different starting stacks determining how hard a fight they might face, and how much bad-beat insurance they were carrying.

Today is the money bubble day, arguably the most intense day of big-field poker you can find. 7,319 started last week, 1,203 remain … 747 make the money. Tomorrow it will be about who gets to play for “real money”.

Here’s everyone who still has a dream, some more desperate than others, sortable by name, chip count, or table assignment:

2010 WSOP Main Event Day 4 Seat Assignments, Chip Counts

Lots of people worth watching … tons of big-name pros, plenty of rising stars, but the only not-so-pokery celeb being Hank Azaria, of The Simpsons and the voices of Chief Wiggum, Moe, and Apu. Follow the action throughout the day here.

Team Pokerati has just one remaining player, The Big Randy, who went out last year three hands into Day 4, before getting a chance to fight through the money bubble.

• The average chip count should be about 182,500
• Brown has 140,100
• That puts him at 632nd out of the 1,203 remaining players, and 4th out of 4 remaining Browns
• Blinds start tomorrow at 1200/2400 + 300
• That leaves our player with 58 big blinds and an M=22

TBR’s starting table tomorrow has a fellow Texan from Arlington and the shortest-stacked of all remaining Mizrachis. Next to the Grinder is Chris Bjorn … overall looks to be not a bad seat draw, with the biggest stack (5th overall in the tournament) two to TBR’s right:

Table 277, by seat

1. Brian Fite (Arlington, TX) — 151,600
2. John Brown (Dallas, TX) — 140,100
3. James Czarnecki (Edgewater, MD) – 88,400
4. Jan Boye (Harrow, GB) — 213,600
5. Chris Bjorin (London, GB) — 132,200
6. Michael Mizrachi (Miami, FL) — 91,700
7. Samuel Edwards (Las Vegas, NV) — 131,000
8. Jose Tavares (Commerce, CA) — 48,300
9. Max Casal (Burbank, CA) — 687,200

An overview of the rest of Wednesday night’s action with two more bracelet winners

Warga wins second bracelet, makes history

The $1,500 Stud Hi/Lo 8 or Better winner is David Warga, becoming the first player win the Casino Employees bracelet (in 2002) and win another WSOP bracelet. Warga defeated Maxwell Troy heads-up, winning $208,862 while Troy pockets $129,253. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report are available at wsop.com.

Haydon hacks his way to 2500 6-max bracelet

William Haydon defeated Jeffrey Pappola heads-up to take down the $2,500 No-Limit Holdem 6-max title, earning $630,031. Pappola’s runner-up finish was good for $391,068, the full list of results and Dalla’s report can be found here.

Proulx on precipice of Omaha prize

Miguel Proulx (877,000) leads the remaining 12 players when day 3 of the $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha resumes at 3pm. Among the notables who cashed: Adam Junglen, Chau Giang, Christian Harder, Tad Jurgens (now leading with 5 cashes), TJ Cloutier and Michael Binger. Get the chip counts and follow live updates at PokerNews.

Ray leads final 13 in 10k limit holdem

Another event resuming at 3pm is day 3 of the $10,000 Limit Holdem World Championship, with Kyle Ray leading the field with 643,000 in chips. Other notables: Dave “Not Bakes” Baker (543,000), Matt Keikoan (418,000), Brock Parker (351,000), Michael Mizrachi (256,000) and David Chiu (144,000). Chip counts and updates available at PokerNews.

Lehmann leader in 1500 NL

Day 2 of the $1,500 No-Limit Holdem event will resume at 2:30pm with Markus Lehmann (135,200) leading the field with 261 players remaining. Other notables: Carlos Mortensen (108,500), Matt Stout (74,800), and Jean Gaspard (63,300). The full list of chip counts is available at PokerNews.

Reslock leads HORSE

Day 2 of the $1,500 HORSE resumes at 3pm with 246 players returning. The current chip leader is Ming Reslock with 50,000. Some of the notables returning: defending champion James Van Alstyne (40,900), Allen Kessler (36,900), Tom Dwan (34,900), Brandon Cantu (29,100), Andy Bloch (26,800), and Chip Jett (21,300). The full list of survivors is at PokerNews.

Thursday’s tournaments

Two tournaments yet again get underway at the WSOP. Starting at 12pm is the $5,000 No-Limit Holdem 6-max event, won last year by Matt Hawrilenko for just over $1,000,000 in besting a field of 928. The 5pm tournament is the $2,500 Pot-Limit Holdem/Pot-Limit Omaha event, with nine hands of each game played before switching. Last year’s winner was Rami Boukai, defeating a field of 453

A review of Tuesday’s tournament action at the WSOP, with 3 bracelets to be determined during today’s play:

1k NL final table set

The $1,000 No-Limit Holdem final table gets underway this afternoon at 2:30pm with this lineup:

Seat 1: Blake Kelso – 1,166,000
Seat 2: JD McNamara – 2,393,000
Seat 3: Kiet Tran – 2,311,000
Seat 4: Greg Pohler – 1,660,000
Seat 5: David Cai – 844,000
Seat 6: Michael Gross – 535,000
Seat 7: Denis Murphy – 789,999
Seat 8: Jeffrey Tebben – 466,000
Seat 9: John Tolbert – 925,000

Cowley leads final 15 in 2500 NL 6-max

Steve Cowley (1,279,000) leads the remaining 15 players in the $2,500 No-Limit 6-max event when they play down to a winner starting at 3pm. Among the notables with chips: Justin “Boosted J” Smith (641,000) and Erik Cajelais (345,000). The full list of chip counts is online at PokerNews.

Troy leads 1500 Stud 8 on final day

Maxwell Troy (430,000) leads the final 23 players who return at 3pm in the $1,500 Stud Hi/Lo 8 or Better event. Among the familiar names looking to get a WSOP bracelet in this event: David Levi (216,000), Karina Jett (187,000), Blair Rodman (117,000) and Brandon Cantu (50,000). The remaining field’s chip counts is online at PokerNews.

Klein leads 2500 PLO after day 1

A field of 596 players started the $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event Tuesday afternoon, with 102 returning at 2:30 today. The final 54 players make the money, with the winner collecting $315,311. The leader is Loren Klein with 187,300 in chips. Other notables on the leaderboard: Richard Ashby (137,700), Tex Barch (72,600), T.J. Cloutier (70,400), Chau Giang (59,800), and Scott Clements (58,200). A full list of the survivors will appear soon at wsop.com.

Lisandro leads 10k limit holdem

The $10,000 Limit Holdem World Championship drew a field of 171, with 102 remaining after ten levels of play. The leader is Jeff Lisandro with 130,900 in chips. Other names you’ve heard of: Brett Richey (113,800), Hoyt Corkins (109,900), Shaun Deeb (89,000), Michael Mizrachi (69,800), Doyle Brunson (65,300) and Jennifer Harman (46,300). The full chip counts are online at wsop.com.

Wednesday’s tournaments

Another two bracelet events get underway this afternoon, starting with the fourth full-ring $1,500 No-Limit Holdem starting at 12pm. The defending champion in this event is Eric Baldwin, defeating a field of 2,095 for $521,991. At 5pm it’s the $1,500 HORSE event, with James Van Alstyne defeating a field of 770, earning $247,033.