Mean Gene was on the scene when all was shaking down — and he’s got some great details about just how drinky a fete the $50k HORSE championship really was — for players, fans, and reporters alike — and the bad vibes all around that may or may not have come across on ESPN.

(I was wondering about that beer-bottle label, or lack thereof. Indeed, I can imagine how even the attempt to force someone to drink Milwaukee’s Best Light could spark a little tilt.)

I swear this isn’t some sort of tribute to Pauly just because his heart recently skipped a few beats and his head may or may not be more messed than usual … his car accident just reminded me: Oh shit! I forgot to post the next podcast … um, I mean are you OK? Need anything? OK … yes, so WSOP … post podcast.

This time Dr.P and I take a leisurely stroll through the Amazon room while discussing bad t-shirts, sunglass technology, and the relationship between Milwaukee’s Best Light, the WSOP, college kids, and Annette_15.

Episode 11: Floorplay

I didn’t get to the Rio until way late yesterday — like 11:30 pm — so you’re getting yesterday’s episode today … which seems strangely appropriate considering in this episode Dr. Pauly and I are watching Vinny Vinh and his ever-encouraging railbirds at and around the final table in the $1,500 limit event from the Milwaukee’s Best Light No-Limit Lounge.

Episode 3: Milwaukee’s Best Vinny

Just thought a few hardworking bloggers/already-broke poker players might wanna know … free Foster’s at the Lucky Strike Lanes this evening from 6-9 pm. Not sure if you’re supposed to be there or not, but really, does it matter? No gambling/MBL required.

One thing that hasn’t changed in the halls of the Rio Convention Center is the plethora of inflated Milwaukee’s Best Light cans with little inflated feet. Those things are pure targets for people who want to stab, punch, kick, and otherwise creatively deflate them, though I believe this is officially discouraged.

Yesterday, as staff put the final touches on everything, the MBL cans were being inflated and positioned in the halls. I did catch one, however, that didn’t make it to inflation yet or was possibly defective. Maybe he had too much of himself already. Can down.

LAS VEGAS–Michele keeps reminding me that real players loathe talking to the media (or just about anyone for that matter) immediately after busting out of a tournament. But I wasn’t going to let good taste get in the way of good journalism a sponsor’s dream … so I nabbed the 2007 bubble boy within minutes of his exit to discuss the crowning moment of his disheartening WSOP adventure.

John Sigan (seen here with his wife, Diana) from the Cleveland area qualified for the main event by winning a series of freerolls on Milbestlight.com. And then, lo and behold, when he went out in 622nd place — one short of a $20,000 payday — he qualified for the Milwaukee’s Best Light Bubble Playoff … where he will be competing against 10 other invitees (they added two to make room for Ted Forrest) for a seat in next year’s main event.

Hear the interview below, (along with a tactless, failed attempt to get a promo spot for Beyond the Table):

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As a Pokerati commenter points out, it was none other than North Texas’s Vandy Krouch who delivered the decisive blow — making a calculated decision to kill one poker player for the sake of saving dozens (if not hundreds) of others.

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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.

OK, so maybe he isn’t the first amateur online qualifier, nor will he be the last … But he is the first Rounder Clubber to make accomplish such a feat, and that’s pretty cool. So big congrats to Chris Como, the most accomplished Lodge Amateur Poker graduate and Rounder Club alum. He invested $24+2 in a 336-player event on Full Tilt, where the top 25 qualified for a $200 event … where the top 9 out of 552 won a $12,000 main-event package.

(Sorry Como, can’t Google- hide your name any more … When you register for the WSOP, that becomes a matter of semi-public record.)

UPDATE: Numbers corrected above. Interestingly enough, the first tourney was the last super-satellite into the last WSOP-qualifying satellite on Full Tilt. Como played both events back-to-back, from about 6 pm to 1:30 am.

So out of however many hundreds of pros and thousands of amateurs in the main event, he is now someone whose progress Pokerati will be following — and we couldn’t be happier. Go Como! Make the final table and maybe we can get you a jersey.

In addition to him, below are other the players we care about might possibly be watching in a couple weeks:

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LAS VEGAS–Technical difficulties aside … I played in a big tourney yesterday (big for me). It was the third $1,500 NLH event of the WSOP, which drew 2,315 entries. CC over at PokerWorks was cool enough to follow my action while the Fresh Princess couldn’t. I just wish I could have given him and our new-best friends at Milwaukee’s Best Light — who are running online freerolls for main event seats here – a little-more-better to write/read about.

In a nutshell, I just never got any traction. It was like riding a bull out of the gate — up and down and in control of my chips, but never firmly saddled. With my mind as clear as it could be after a morning pep talk with various yokels in web-server tech support … I got hit early when my two pair lost to a better two pair (my fault for playing A-8s) and then my “top top” lost to two pair played very passively, not giving much indication of what I was up against. But that’s OK, no panic — just shifting gears more often than I’d like. Would get down to the proverbial “chip and a chair” holding a single 500 chip in the second level. And then — call me an angle-shooter if you will — I pulled a tricky to stay alive:

Blinds were 50/100, and I had K-Js in middle position. UTG comes in for a raise to 300, and I decide this is the hand I gotta go with. I flip my chip into the pot (with a high arc) saying, “One chip!” Though I gave this overchip underraise about a 20 percent shot of working, the dealer took the bait.

“Sir, excuse me, but you did not say ‘raise.’ This is going to stand as a 300-dollar call.”

Oh, right. Sorry. Oops. I understand.

Everyone else folded, and it’s heads up as we see the flop. I couldn’t have missed more — not even runner-runner flush outs — and when the other player fires out, I fold, leaving me with two black chips change. In my mind I had doubled up, now with an M=0.667.

With this, I started to believe … just maybe possibly …it was my destiny to win. Yep, I’d be following in Tom’s bracelet-bound footsteps … doing Milwaukee’s Best Light, Put a Bad Beat on Cancer (decided to go with the official charity of the WSOP) and The Batfaces proud … all while providing inspiration for all of blog-kind! The belief continued to germinate as I climbed well out of the hole and started to get comfortable after winning a couple races.

While unable to post during the event, I was able to text-message some play-by-play to friends and colleagues. (And interestingly enough, Jack Effel announced specific rules at the start of the tourney relating to this ever-more-common practice for providing chip counts.) Here’s what my “top friends” got as Big Tourney Day progressed:

1:07 pm (pacific)
Hurt kinda early. Lost two pair to 2 pr twice.

1:08 pm
Down to 2 chips and a chair.

1:09 pm
Made it to level 2. M=5

1:33 pm
Literally down to chip and chair. But lasted longer than tom!
[Ed. Note: Tom Schneider and I had a $200 last longest bet, which he smartly hedged by saying we had to make it to Day 2 for either of us to collect.]

1:50 pm
Doubled up from 1 chip to 2. 500 to 200

2:12 pm
Oh boy. I went from 200 to 2250″ seated next to barry greenstein, whose advice i took last night.

2:21 pm
2250. Seated next to barry greenstein on 217. he said advice still good, but sometimes cards don’t cooperate.

2:26 pm
Turned my 200 into 2250. Did i already report this? I arguably shot an angle with an overchip underraise to stay alive.

2:29 pm
Walking back in room. I smell weed. Someone was clearly smoking on break.

3:04 pm
1900 left. Chips that is.

3:17 pm
Just got KOd. My 10-10 lost to AK on the river.

3:20 pm
If i win that hand i think i am good to win the tournament.

LAS VEGAS–Hmm, trouble … the man seen here at right is in my teammate’s Rob Mariano’s seat … but that’s not Rob. And whoever he is, he’s not wearing any Milwaukee’s Best Light apparel!

Upon further reporting, we have learned that Rob did indeed bust out of the $1,500 NLH event. Bummer. Especially from a Pokerati photography perspective. Of course, assuming Rob has further poker aspirations, he can always qualify for the main event via Milwaukee’s Best Light freeroll here. (In theory, at least.)

Fortunately, here at the World Series, you can always rely on ImageMasters to provide you with the shot you need. At least that’s what they tell us. But they didn’t get a shot of Mariano either … perhaps because Pokerati didn’t ask for them to take one, but still:

LAS VEGAS–One of the key themes emerging at the 2007 WSOP is the quest for corporate sponsorships — of the non-online-poker variety. These relationships were possibly neglected in previous years, because the PartyPoker/PokerStars/Full Tilt cash was so easy to come by. Now, not so much … and in the long run, it’s probably a good thing … if poker indeed wants to evolve into something more akin to NASCAR or the PGA.

With that said, Pokerati, you know, likes to sell out be on the journalistic front lines, and thus we’ve partnered up with Milwaukee’s Best Light. On our team of players we have one blogger (me), one pro (Robert Williamson), and one Hollywooder … Rob Mariano. Today is Rob’s day to play under an MBL banner … he’s in the Event #15 — $1,500 NLHE. We just had a little introductory get-together at the Rio Starbuck’s (seen here) because that’s how sponsorships roll.

“Boston Rob” reminds me a lot of Gonz. Except that he seems nice. Last Pokerati checked on him, his starting stack was unchanged, and he had folded a bunch of hands.

UPDATE: He has a few more chips than before, but still isn’t sitting in a way conducive to my “casually” capturing the MBL logo. But I did manage to get this shot in the interim: