While Jen was slaving away covering the WCOOP on the PokerStarsBlog this weekend, I was extremely busy playing in a $1,000 freeroll on PokerStars (12 players max). I’m sure it won’t make her extra-happy to know that I overslept for this special-invite tourney and logged in with an M < 1. But that's what it took to make the final table -- playing tighter than ever. My stats en route to finishing 9th:

During current Hold’em session you were dealt 122 hands and saw flop:
- 0 out of 21 times while in big blind (0%)
- 0 out of 22 times while in small blind (0%)
- 2 out of 79 times in other positions (2%)
- a total of 2 out of 122 (1%)
Pots won at showdown - 1 of 2 (50%)
Pots won without showdown - 0

The series of events is called The Run Good Challenge — mad props to our friends at PokerListings for putting it on. 10 independent typists and two professional bloggers from Listings … duking it out in a game of online hungry-hungry hippo for real American cash:

Event 1: NLHE, regular Stars Structure (Sept 6)
Event 2: NLHE, turbo structure (Sept 13)
Event 3: NLHE/PLO, regular structure (Sept 20)
Grand Final: NLHE Deep Stack structure (Sept 27)

For the three prelims the top three spots will pay: $600, $300, $100. Grand final will consist of top five performers from external bloggers plus best of Dan or myself and will pay all six spots: $1,000, $650, $400, $200, $150, $100.

Sweet, no? Be sure to click below for “live” chatlog coverage from the feature table — kinda interesting to see how entertaining poker can be when you eliminate the hands. (And gives you disturbing insight into the sick minds of bloggers competing in a tournament that couldn’t happen at the WSOP without the entire final table being sent to the penalty box.)

More…

The 2008 World Series has come and gone and will most likely, in a little less than three months, will come again. In the meantime, while cleaning out the computer(s) we’ve come across these “lost” episodes … recorded in the tail days of the main event. But this is everything … there’s no more, OK? At least not for now. So if you’d like to step back into the WSOP for just a few minutes at a time to the vocal stylings of yours truly and Dr. Pauly, by all means, have a listen/download. Some of it actually seems a little extra interesting with the benefit of a month-or-so of hindsight.

For the entire WSOP season click here.

The heretofore unheard old-new episodes, salvaged from the cut-and-pasting room floor:

Episode 30: The Cost of Donuts
Grubby joins the media to talk main event numbers and the price of trendy donuts in today’s oil economy. (3:19)

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Episode 31: Scotchy Poker
Dan+scotch early in the WSOP day=talk of Dario Minieri and Isabelle Mercier. (4:02)

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Episode 32: French Warfare
Benjo takes over the mic when Dan calls in drunk, and he and Pauly talk more about Isabelle Mercier live from the Day 2 killing fields. (5:14)

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Episode 33: New York & Texas
Michele Lewis joins in as Dan and Pauly break down the difference between Texas and New York humor, or at least the difference between Pauly and Dan. (2:40)

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Episode 34: Go Team!
Dallas’ Raj Kattamuri is going deep, and Pauly tracks down Dan in the poker kitchen to find out what it takes to be patched up on Team Pokerati. (2:37)

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Episode 35: No Wiener
Benjo is not his usual jovial self as the main event comes to a close and he bids farewell to his American friends in the penultimate WSOP episode of Tao of Pokerati. (4:41)

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Episode 36: Unhookered
The traditional late-late night poker-blogger farewell binge drinking at the Rio’s Hooker Bar, with guest appearances by Otis and Mean Gene. (3:29)

Hmm, as much sense as it makes to award bracelets only in open events, this sorta change apparently isn’t up for review, according to Michele (who played yesterday under the Queen of Hearts charity banner):

Last night at the Queens of Heart dinner, Jeffrey Pollack made two announcements:

1. As long as he is WSOP Commissioner there will be a Ladies Event awarding a bracelet
2. No man would be allowed to register for the Ladies Event today

Tom is was the chip leader in the $2k Omaha Hi-Lo. That’s pretty cool.

UPDATE: Tom is out. Not cool.

And that limit event he busted out of yesterday … Erick Lindgren just missed the final table, which is now set with some interesting players, including Teddy Munroe, Ali Eslami, and Vinny Vinh. (Teddy and I go way back — last year I’d be typing outside and “The Iceman” would fill me in on the $100-$200 cash action while taking a piss on the tournament tent air conditioners. “Makin’ money, baby!” he’d say before shaking himself dry and heading back to the table.)

Even the $10k 7-Stud World Championship is getting interesting … with Doyle still alive and both Bob and Maureen Feduniak with the potential to become the first ever husband-wife presumably non-collusive team at the final table. Never mind. Since typing this, all the above-mentioned have been eliminated.

I learned about this 7-Stud shape-up from the a WSOP-TV vid. And though I tend to detest any lack of imbeddability, I gotta say I like a lot of what this ESPN/WSOP/Bluff (?) crew has got going here. For example, Harmonie Krieger does a basic feature video interview set on the different jobs people come to the WSOP from. Nice enough, right? — but very real when one of the guys she talks with is Jay Columbo, who ran the legendary Mayfair and Playstation poker clubs in New York City, legally questionable status notwithstanding.

And then, perhaps most shocking to me, I enjoyed Jean-Robert Bellande’s “Surviving the WSOP” — where the young, aspiring Eskimo Clark chronicles his ups and downs at the World Series while his video-podcast editors comment Pop-up Video-style — follow along as he hustles high-rollers for buy-ins.

Even learned something from Phil Ivey’s less exciting V-log … and that is that he’s playing so many big-field, low-buy-in donkfests because he has a lot of side action pending on whether or not he’ll win a bracelet this year. We’ll see if we can’t find out more about this.

Speaking of donkfests, the Ladies Event has already lost 2/3 of its starting field, and of those still remaining, at least three of them are Pokerati MySpace friends: Lacey Jones, Kathy Liebert, and Mandy Baker are looking strong and pretty much representing the spectrum of all that is good about women. Go girls! I mean chicks … er babes .. uh bitches?

UPDATE: Lacey is nursing a short stack. Poker Roadie Amanda Leatherman has come on strong, however, and picked up the aggressive pace. Michele Lewis, Tiffany Michele, and PokerNews editrix Haley Hintze are all out.

In the meantime, primarily because it is awesomely embeddable, check out the debut episode of The Degenerate Report, from Neverwin Poker:

Tomorrow is the ladies event … and in honor of the heavily anticipated hot cleavage vs. bulldyke action, Wicked Chops has been kind enough to share a picture of Lacey Jones, who arguably boasts the best hotness-to-smartness ratio in poker, wearing nothing but paint.

Seriously, I sometimes find it hard to believe she even talks to me, let alone hugs/accepts me as a MySpace friend.

Yesterday was an easy Day 1 of the 2008 WSOP. Well, in truth, it would’ve been easier had I not been hung over short-tempered out of sorts. But some solid sleep, quiet time at home last night to catch up on articles, and attitude adjustment have done wonders. I’m here with bells on for Day 2.

The empty Amazon Room had a more exciting vibe this morning than yesterday. Before players were allowed in, dealers settled in, and semi-funky tunes were blasted over the intercom system. Michele Lewis did a little running-man demonstration on the media perch, and I did a little chair boogie. Lighter mood to start the day…

And then the players were allowed into the Amazon Room for the first $1500 NLHE event. Yikes! The music kept going as everyone found their seats and got ready for the biggest tournament of the WSOP outside of the main event. Today is maxed out with players in the satellite room and two areas all the way inside the Rio casino. Though a little overwhelming, this is what the World Series is all about. Certainly more amateurs in this field than pros, but it makes for an anything-goes kind of day.

Even though the music stopped once the cards were dealt, there is still some excitement in the air. (Sorry, the poker geek in me is showing.)

6:25pm Edit: Unfortunately Tom’s out, he took AcKc against 3s3c and the board ran out 7 high.

9:20 Edit: Current chip leader is Tony LiCastro. He took down a huge pot with 10-10 v AA and KK to take his stack to over 310k. When he was last seen at the WPT Foxwoods in 2006, finishing 2nd to Nick Shulman, his standard play was to move all-in (which is more difficult in pot-limit) expect him either to keep building his stack or busting short of the money.

Here’s some links from around the WSOP, wishing I had a whiff of Tom’s POY banner:

Daniel Negreanu’s provided his own live updates, including news that Phil Ivey’s offering was offering 1.8-1 odds to anyone interested that he’ll win a bracelet this year.
More…

Check it out … Fresh Princess sits down with The Commish (he’s got a new post up on the official WSOP “blog,” btw) and tries to get the biggest suit in poker to loosen up his tie … only to find out he’s not wearing one! A sample of her tête-à-tête with Jeffrey Pollack:

ML: I liked the tent.
JP: You liked the tent. [Knowingly]
ML: I think it would be best for satellites or cash games where people are not there for long and or have the option to get up.
JP: [nodding in agreement] we may do that. Or maybe we’ll have some other temporary structure, a log cabin, I don’t know, an igloo.
[...]
ML: “Games, Girls and Gear,” will the Gaming Life Expo keep this name for next year and if so could we have some male strippers for the ladies…possibly, some of the Chippendale dancers?
JP: If the GLE comes back next year I suspect it would just be “Games and Gear” based on this year’s experience. Some elements of that show were not The Rio’s prouder moments.
[...]
ML: So no more strippers?
JP: No, they won’t be back.
ML: No Chippendales? [Disappointed]
JP: No. Not my style…not my….No.

Good stuff! (Except for maybe the no more strippers part, depending who asks.) Click here to read the full interview.

LAS VEGAS–We’re coming to the tail end of WSOP Part I. And seeing the opening salvo of WSOP Part II — the parties, the Expo, the main event, yadda yadda.

The biggest deal today is HOWARD AND SUZIE LEDERER’S barbecue (w/ STEPHEN Z) the final table of the $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha World Championship … with DOYLE BRUNSON looking to put the screws to Phil Hellmuth:

Seat 1 - Doyle Brunson - 510,000
Seat 2 - Patrik Antonius - 650,000
Seat 3 - Marco Traniello - 420,000
Seat 4 - Rene Mouritsen - 775,000
Seat 5 - Tommy Ly - 1,895,000
Seat 6 - Jonas Flug-Entin - 445,000
Seat 7 - Steve Sung - 175,000
Seat 8 - Stephen Ladowski - 360,000
Seat 9 - Robert Mizrachi - 1,090,000

Click here to follow the Best of Omaha, semi-live.

If you want to follow it closer-to-live, it’s being video broadcast today. Mean Gene tells me word is that the event won’t be sequestered … instead it will be broadcast without the hour delay, but no hole cards visible.

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Meanwhile, at the secondary final table of $1,000 SHOE, PAT POELS (above) looks to reclaim the ARIZONA POSSE bracelet lead as he is gunning for his third. He was chip leader for most of the day yesterday, but took a big hit right at the end.

The Final Table:

Seat 1: Vladimir Shchemelev - 168,000
Seat 2: Chip Jett - 40,000
Seat 3: Dao Bac - 266,000
Seat 4: Imre Leibold - 250,000
Seat 5: Patrick Poels - 53,000
Seat 6: Raymond Davis - 235,000
Seat 7: Adam Geyer - 293,000
Seat 8: Michael Craig - 161,000

Click here to follow today’s most important mixed-games action.

Mad props to fellow Andy Beal stalker blogger MICHAEL CRAIG (left), who has made his second final table of the WSOP (and also has some ARIZONA roots apparently). CHIP JETT (right), who I believe hails from Arizona originally, is fighting to hang.

Tomorrow he and his wife KARINA are hosting an party at a Las Vegas strip club, by the way:

Another player to watch … RAYMOND DAVIS (left — not from Arizona) has also been kicking butt this year, and seems due for big score. LUCKY LIU (right) just missed the final table. He is STEVE WONG’S poker mentor. Shout out … nice go, LL!

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Both TOM SCHNEIDER and MICHELE LEWIS are competing in the $1,500 Limit Hold’em Shootout today. Tom made the final table in this event last year, and Michele made a final table in Limit Hold’em, and cashed in a No-Limit shootout.

Since shootouts dictate that only one in 10 move on, Pokerati swears we don’t want to see them at the same table for the sake of PHOTOGRAPHIC CONVENIENCE.

DONKEY BOMBER wants to cash really bad in this — the deeper the better — to lock up Milwaukee’s Best Light Player of the Year. He’s trying to hold off JEFF LISANDRO, who is well-chipped going into Day 2 of the $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em w/ Rebuys event. Interestingly enough, these two have a pending $5,000 bet — not on who will finish higher in the POY standings, but over the NUMBER OF ENTRANTS into the main event. Tom has the under on 5,850.

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If you have an opinion about the rightness of Ladies events, JENNIFER NEWELL has an interesting article — and new perspective on tournaments lacking a Y chromosome.

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A different view of the POKER TENT you hear so much about:

Looks like something out of E.T., no?

This presumably has something to do with why a fourth Day 1 for the main event was added. Really would be unfair to any players who had to start in the “poker superstructure.”

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Totally unrelated to poker but by a WSOP-conscious poker player … If you want to know what little things you can do in your everyday life without doing anything extra to preserve the environment, be sure to check out Lisa’s blog here.

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As the WSOP rolls on, the cash games are getting bigger and bigger — but where are the pros? Follow coverage of the LIVE ACTION at PokerWorks.

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Dallas Dealer BETH LAIRD, seen here with ALLEN CUNNINGHAM and STEVEN Z(olotow) in the $1,000 2-7 Triple Draw w/ Rebuys.

RAFI AMIT won that event in the early Monday a.m. As they tend to do in mixed games, the ARIZONA POSSE represented … with DANNY FUHS just missing the final table, but still scoring a POSITIVE EV cash.

LAS VEGAS–So wow, quite a day … I actually watched some poker today, which happened to be the biggest single-day tournament turnout in history.

(All this while being educated and re-re-educated by Oliver Tse on the Asian Online Futures market).

Michele made it into the money in the $1,000 “World Championship” Ladies No Limit Texas Hold’em, and will be fighting to go deep at 2 pm Vegas time tomorrow — 66 players remain. Tourney info here. And a Day 1 recap here.

Tom made it into the money in $2,500 HORSE and is in strong chip position to seek another final table — 24 players left. Tourney info here.

Karridy ended up sticking around in Vegas another day. New episode of Beyond the Table here.

And lo and behold, Pokerati/Batface friend Rick Fuller is the chip leader at the final table in $1,500 NLH. Right behind him is Phil Hellmuth. Tourney info here.

Go People!

LAS VEGAS–Meanwhile, Tom is hanging on in the $2,500 HORSE event. There are 50 players left (out of 382) and 40 get paid. The Donkey Bomber He has about 25k in chips, with the average stack about 38k. I think he’s the last man standing from his Arizona Posse, but can’t be sure, as “Big Robert” Goldfarb is sometimes hard to see.

CORRECTION: Goldfarb is still alive and well, as the AZP continues to represent.

UPDATE: Schneider is on break. Lewis (Michele) is at hand-for-hand. 101 100 players left. She must’ve successfully stolen some blinds, because she’s got roughly the same 24k.

JC Tran, playing a few tables away in the $5,000 limit hold’em event is taking a peculiar interest in the Fresh Princess’ play.

UPDATE: The bubble has burst and Michele is still alive (still with 24k in chips). She’s in the money — congrats! — and now she moves into phase 2 of her game. All the other ladies are hooting and hollering and crying and hugging. Fresh P is returning the smiles politely but is clearly focussed on what comes next. Nice job, Michele!

Meanwhile, Tom is at the bona fide bubble in his tourney, about six tables away. 41 left. He is about an average stack. Maybe a little smaller after having just folded in a 7-stud pot that started with his raising. (Or is it completing?)

LAS VEGAS–They’re coloring up the green chips now in the Ladies event … and should be right at the bubble with 130ish players left. But for some unknown reason, only 99 of this 1,286-player field will get paid. Michele is at 31k, similar to Barbara Enright Susie Isaacs, who is also at her table. [NOTE: Husbands do not make the best reporters.] This puts them both at about 15th in chips — pretty much the bottom of the top. Below that, everyone else is pretty short … and getting desperate.

For the longest time, the ladies were not given a clock telling them how much time is left or giving them the necessary info to calculate the average stack. A few Gen-X babes were talking about lodging a formal complaint if the situation wasn’t fixed. But Susie Isaacs, being the grand dame of poker she is, reportedly took care of the matter with floor personnel before it got to that … and the big-screen clock was up and running with about 140 players left.

UPDATE: 130 left, Michele is 8th in chips, and the Ladies event clock is not running anymore. (But all floor people supposedly have synchronized handheld timing devices.)

UPDATE UPDATE: Pokerati friend Suzanne Carpenter just busted out. She got crippled when her Kings lost to “that [beyotch] who keeps getting queens.” The generally jovial Suzanne (right) is not a happy camper right now, having played all day and night to finish 122nd. “It really sucks to be in the top 10 percent and not get paid, you know?”

UPDATE and ANSWER: Michele has lost half her stack … she’s got about 15k with blinds at 600/1200 + 100. The reason this tourney payout structure is different than the rest? According to one of the assistant floor supervisors, “This is a LIPS event, not really a WSOP event. I mean it is a WSOP bracelet. But LIPS sets the structures.”

POSSIBLE UPDATE: According to her husband, she has at least 24k. Garrr!

115 players left. Again, 99 out of 1,286 get paid.

BETTER ANSWER: According to the floor supervisor, why the payout is less than 10 percent … “I’d like to know myself.” He said it had nothing to do with LIPS, and went on to explain that the 6-handed NLH event also paid out similar to the ladies event. “So my bullshit answer is that it’s because it’s only a $1,000 event — the only one, I think. That’s my guess … Let me know if you hear anything different.”

LAS VEGAS–The Fresh Princess is on dinner break in the $1,000 “World Championship” Ladies NLH event … and she’s standing strong as they’re nearing the bubble — with $30k in chips. This is a particularly important event for her to cash in, because she is playing backed by another player. (She made me promise not to reveal his name yet, but I can tell you that he’s on Todd’s Batface fantasy team, not on her fantasy team, and Tom thinks this guy is the very best player in the world right now.)

Click here to follow Michele’s progress — though the official WSOP website isn’t being all that well updated for this event, she is near the chip lead as they are under 200 players. (1286 started, 99 get paid.)

Go Fresh P!

Meanwhile, Tom Schneider somehow stayed alive in the $2,500 HORSE event. It wasn’t looking good when I took off for dinner, but when I returned, he had about 25,000 in chips … against a tougher and tougher remaining field. Click here to follow his action.

382 entries in this field … not sure how many are left — 100ish maybe? His stack seems somewhere between slightly below average and slightly above. And this comes after a huge grumble: “I just lost a huge [amount] with rolled-up fives. Rolled-up fives! Can you believe it?!?”

UPDATE: 80 players left. 40 get paid. He now has about 19k … a little below average but not overly threatening.

Um, no Tom, I cannot. I also cannot believe that the chip counters had no clue who you were until Pauly corrected the situation about 10 minutes ago. Geesh, you’d think Rodney Dangerfield Donkey Bomber would get a little more respect having won a bracelet. Don’t they know how insecure he is about this sort of thing?

Speaking of … there’s a new episode of Beyond the Table up. Check out the player to the right or right-click here to hear Tom talk about how much he hates Stud and Hi-Lo events … before he won a bracelet in them.

LAS VEGAS–Yes, I know you are all jealous that I will be playing poker with a bunch of hot chicks today. You should be…you will be missing out on cleavage, cat fights and maybe even a few soft hair mustaches.

Ok, let’s take a moment to be serious. I have always had a great time in these events and have actually made some great friends. The women are funny, nice and the room smells better. It’s just…the cat fight thing makes for a better story for all of you drama addicts.

Among the favorites today will be defending champ Mary Jones, Clonie (who needs not a last name) Jen Tilly, Jennicide, Vanessa Rousso and Isabelle Mercier who will be playing on the Queen of Hearts Team. Veteran player Karina Jett will be playing on the feminine felt, while Annie Duke will be skipping out on the gender game, making her way to the Amazon Room for this afternoon’s $5k Limit Championship. Annie, I’m jealous.

I’m sure Wicked Chops Poker will have a lot of cleavage photos because those guys are a bunch of perverts. I only name-call because I was unsuccessful in my attempt to persuade any of them to register into this event. How funny would it be to see two guys at the final table of the ladies event? And the winner of this year’s ladies event is John Doe!

BTW…I covered the WSOP Ladies Academy this past weekend, which was awesome. More to come on that gig.

LAS VEGAS–I’m Michele Lewis, reporting for PokerNews.com: OK, not really, but I play one on TV.

Check it out, the Fresh Princess talking to Thor Hansen about Omaha Hi Lo and $5k 7-stud and, briefly, the WPT’s single-dimensional approach to poker. But the best part is the second half, where they rehash the terror of the “Poker SuperStructure” (Jeff Pollack’s words, not mine) … which succumbed to a fierce Vegas windstorm.

It really was funny/scary. Early in the $1,500 Omaha Hi Lo, Jim Meehan (seated at Michele’s table) was setting an over-under on when the hardwall tent would fall. It was kinda sorta a joke at first, but as the windspeeds picked up and things began shaking almost violently, a few folks were starting to wonder if the WSOP didn’t have a Great White situation developing, not to mention a chip-counting nightmare. Shortly before dinner break, things began snapping, and power on the flat-panel tournament info boards went out. That’s when the highest level suits were called in. And to their credit, they relocated the overflow tables inside the brick-and-mortar poker room (the players and dealers, not the tables themselves).

Just in time … A gaggle of us were at the Masquerade bar at the other end of the Rio celebrating Tom’s bracelet when word came in via text message: One of the walls gave way. Wow. Serious disaster averted. Though Thor suggests maybe not so much.

By the way, these winds, which reached 65 mph in Las Vegas, happen to be fanning wildfires, including one just on the other side of the Red Rock Mountains, the range that marks the Western edge of the Las Vegas metropolitan area.