The attorney who filed the suit, David Chesnoff, is kinda a big deal. He’s the former law partner of Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, has been an ABC Legal News analyst, and recently secured walks for Bruno Mars and Paris Hilton on cocaine charges. Other celebrity clients have included Vince Neil, Jamie Foxx, Mike Tyson, the Jackson family, Leonardo DiCaprio, Shaquille O’neal, Andre Agassi, Martha Stewart, Suge Knight, Nate Dogg … the list goes on and on — mostly criminal cases, some civil. But beyond having an A-list media component to his practice, Chesnoff is also a semi-regular high stakes poker player in Las Vegas — no stranger to the banter in Bobby’s Room and thus the inner workings of the poker world — with a remarkably successful record, legally, against the Feds.

Chesnoff is the guy who helped Doyle Brunson beat the SEC on a $700 million WPT pump-and-dump rap … which may or may not have had anything to do with his getting an invite to the ’06 NBC National Heads-up Championship, where he finished 9th. He also helped Shawn Shiekhan avoid deportation in the face of charges from the Department of Homeland Security. His other big wins against state and federal prosecutors include an acquittal for a “Scarfo” mobster facing the death penalty; an acquittal for a dude busted with 15 tons of hashish in California on grounds of entrapment; and a hung jury in case against kingpins snared in a $6.9 billion cocaine seizure — the biggest drug bust in US history.

He also scored a huge win for Terence Watanabe, one of the biggest whales in Vegas history, who faced severe civil and criminal penalties for welching on nearly $15 million in casino markers, by getting Caesars (then Harrah’s) to drop their claims on the grounds that management at Caesars Palace and the Rio shouldn’t have gotten him so drunk.

Chesnoff’s success runs the gamut — in courtrooms from Clark County to the DOJ’s Southern District of New York — all in all the kinda guy you’d think a Full Tilt exec might wanna hire. But that, of course, is no longer an option with the Ivey suit.

Other Chesnoff poker clients have included Mike Matusow, Kenna James, Johnny Chan, Crispin Leyser, and Russ Hamilton.

We’ll see where the Ivey case goes, obv … and what other criminal and/or civil actions may or may not get wrapped up in it. But beyond seeking $150 million, Ivey vs. Full Tilt marks a huge rift in Full Tilt ranks and fits curiously with statements of intent from Chesnoff’s firm’s own web bio:

Chesnoff & Schonfeld have taken the most difficult of cases, developed new law and have set precedents in the fields of constitutional, criminal and forfeiture law.

“A major distinction between our firm and other law firms is we take cases with the understanding that we’re taking it to trial.”

Could be interesting to see what the advertisements during the broadcast are. If the network’s a bit slow in reacting it might be one of the last times we ever see a FullTilt or PokerStars advertisements on American airwaves. With the exception of a few WPT episodes in production or already in the can, it will almost certainly be one of the last times we see so many patches from the companies involved in Friday’s indictments on players.

The most troubling possibility is that it would not air at all. Sound ridiculous? Consider the following: Kevmath had a retweet late Saturday night in which @buckwild33 noted that a scheduled WSOP Main Event 2007 marathon was not airing and boxing was shown in its place.

While it would certainly be a stretch to try and correlate this change in broadcast schedule on ESPN in some way with the upcoming NHUPC broadcaston NBC, it certainly should not be dismissed outright. There will be several small milestones that come up periodically in the coming days, weeks, and months, and we who are most affected might want to pay attention to their outcomes.

The information that we may be able to get from these indicators could provide a significant portion of the information that comes our way as things progress. Both the sites and the DOJ are likely headed for a process that is going to go very slowly, and information will trickle out slowly.

Again, this is just the direction that my thought process brought me in, and I don’t claim to have any information that is unavailable to everyone else. I think the NHUPC is at least an interesting talking point and the first small event in a series of events that will eventually have effects on millions of people around the world. Now is the time to keep your eyes open.

On a side note, it’s interesting to see how the title sponsor of the NHUPC, GoDaddy, could be the least toxic element at this point in time. Who would have thought two weeks ago that Godaddy’s CEO’s elephant hunting fiasco would become old news so quickly.

Seat 1: Claudio Piceci – 4,460,000
Seat 2: Alexey Rybin – 1,890,000
Seat 3: Atanas Gueorguiev – 2,520,000
Seat 4: Jakob Carlsson – 13,525,000
Seat 5: Giuseppe Diep – 1,830,000
Seat 6: Liv Boeree – 3,440,000
Seat 7: Toni Pettersson – 5,035,000
Seat 8: Michael Piper – 4,600,000

Updates will be available over at PokerNews, along with live streaming video of the final table over at www.PokerStars.tv at 6am ET.

Clubs/Spades Bracket:
Erik Seidel beat Peter Eastgate
Scotty Nguyen beat Jason Mercier

Hearts/Diamonds Bracket:
Dennis Phillips beat Doyle Brunson
Annie Duke beat Jerry Yang

Semifinals:
Erik Seidel beat Scotty Nguyen
Annike Duke beat Dennis Phillips

The finals commenced with Duke (1-5 lifetime before this year’s event) taking on Seidel (0-5 lifetime at the NBCHU) in the best of three final. Duke won the first match, Seidel would tie it up in the second and held the lead in the deciding match, and had Duke all-in while holding the best hand, but his AdKd was no good for Duke’s Qd9d when she made two pair to take the lead. Duke eventually sealed the deal when her pocket nines turned a straight against Seidel’s A-2. Seidel was left with two outs to a chop, but the river was a blank, with the second place winnings of $250,000. Duke picks up $500,000 for the win, her first major win since her 2004 victory in the WSOP Tournament of Champions.

Everyone left guaranteed at least $25k in pursuit of the $500k first prize.

The payout breakdown:

Champion $500,000
Runner-Up $250,000
3rd & 4th Place $125,000
5th – 8th Place $75,000
9th – 16th Place $25,000

Click here for how they got to this point. WSOP Main Event champs representing. Where’s Varkonyi!

Coming up:

Chris Moneymaker vs. Erik Seidel
Peter Eastgate vs. Jamie Gold

Phil Laak vs. Jason Mercier
Annie Duke vs. Paul Wasicka

By my count, that’s six Main Event champs, one Main Event-Europe champs, and one guy who thinks he was main event champ.

Let the heads-up fun begin. Ali Nejad and Leann Tweeden called out the pairings at Pure in Caesars Palace last night. Here’s a print-outable PDF of the official bracket for the 2010 National Heads-Up Championship, which gets underway today at 1 pm pacific.

Make your own picks via Pokerati’s bracket-tracker to see how our various predictions compare. We’ve got about nine five hours to come up with some sort of contest … a T-shirt is always standard, but I have to admit we’re running low on Pokerati shirts for really-really large men.

Big ups to @JessWelman who kept us posted live on Twitter, and @BarryGreenstein who accidentally sent a private tweet to Phil Ivey for all the public to see. (Gavin Smith plays small-ball; should walk into Ivey’s wheelhouse.)

The matchups are below:

Clubs
Patrik Antonius vs. Chris Moneymaker
Leo Wolpert vs. Eric Baldwin
David Williams vs. Joe Cada
Erik Seidel vs. Huck Seed
Dan Ramirez (online qualifier) vs. Erick Lindgren
Peter Eastgate vs. Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier
Stephen Quinn (online qualifier) vs. Ted Forrest
Dario Minieri vs. Jamie Gold

Spades
Gavin Smith vs. Phil Ivey
Richard Edwards (Caesars qualifier) vs. Scotty Nguyen
Shawn Rice (Caesars qualifier) vs. Joe Hachem
Gabe Kaplan vs. Johnny Chan
Daniel Negreanu vs. Jason Mercier
Pieter de Korver vs. Mike Sexton
Phil Gordon vs. Tom Dwan
Phil Laak vs. John Juanda

Hearts
Jesper Hougaard vs. Allen Cunningham
Eli Elezra vs. Greg Mueller
Annette Dworski (online qualifier) vs. Chris Ferguson
Kara Scott vs. Dennis Phillips
Brock Parker vs. Doyle Brunson
JP Kelly vs. Don Cheadle
Howard Lederer vs. Phil Hellmuth
Annette Obrestad vs. Orel Hershiser

Diamonds
Barry Greenstein vs. Vanessa Rousso
Sam Farha vs. Antonio Esfandiari
Jennifer Harman vs. Jennifer Tilly
Jerry Yang vs. Mike Matusow
Darvin Moon vs. Bill Huntress (online qualifier)
Andy Bloch vs. Annie Duke
Andrew Wilson vs. Paul Wasicka
Gus Hansen vs. Greg Raymer

[via Bluff Magazine]

Totals:

Full Tilt – 21
PokerStars – 15
UB – 4
Victory Poker – 2
PartyPoker – 2
Doyle’s Room – 1
Bodog – 1
Betfair – 1
Expect – 1
bet365 – 1
Cake (Unabomber Poker) -1
Non-Poker (GoDaddy) -1
Unknown / Undecided / For Sale – 8

Should be interesting to see how at least a few of these unknowns end up. (Darvin Moon, for example, and Jamie Gold.) Click below for a breakdown by player …

The entire field (alphabetical order):

Patrik Antonius – Full Tilt
Eric Baldwin – UB
Andy Bloch – Full Tilt
Doyle Brunson – Doyle’s Room
Joe Cada – PokerStars
Johnny Chan – ???
Don Cheadle – Full Tilt
Allen Cunningham – Full Tilt
Pieter de Korver – PokerStars
Annie Duke – UB
Tom Dwan – Full Tilt
Peter Eastgate – PokerStars
Eli Elezra – Full Tilt
Antonio Esfandiari – Victory Poker
Sam Farha – ???
Chris Ferguson -Full Tilt
Ted Forrest – Full Tilt
Jamie Gold – ???
Phil Gordon – Full Tilt
Barry Greenstein – PokerStars
Bertrand Grospellier – PokerStars
Joe Hachem – PokerSTars
Gus Hansen – Full Tilt
Jennifer Harman – Full Tilt
Phil Hellmuth – UB
Orel Hershiser – PokerStars
Jesper Hougaard – bet365
Phil Ivey – Full Tilt
John Juanda – Full Tilt
Gabe Kaplan – ???
John Paul Kelly – PokerStars
Phil Laak – UnabomberPoker (Cake)
Howard Lederer – Full Tilt
Erick Lindgren – Full Tilt
Mike Matusow – Full Tilt
Jason Mercier – PokerStars
Dario Minieri – PokerStars
Chris Moneymaker – PokerStars
Darvin Moon – ???
Greg Mueller – Full Tilt
Daniel Negreanu – PokerStars
Scotty Nguyen – Expekt (?)
Annette Obrestad – Betfair
Brock Parker – ???
Dennis Phillips – PokerStars
Greg Raymer – PokerStars
Shawn Rice – UB
Vanessa Rousso – GoDaddy / PokerStars
Kara Scott – PartyPoker
Huck Seed – Full Tilt
Erik Seidel – Full Tilt
Mike Sexton – PartyPoker
Gavin Smith – Full Tilt
Jennifer Tilly – ???
Paul Wasicka – Victory Poker
David Williams – Bodog
Leo Wolpert – ???
Jerry Yang – Full Tilt
ONLINE QUALIFIERS (7)

(Looks like a hodgepadge of patches, including one non-poker website … presenting sponsor GoDaddy.com.)

Patrik Antonius
Eric Baldwin
Andy Bloch
Doyle Brunson
Joe Cada
Johnny Chan
Don Cheadle
Allen Cunningham
Pieter de Korver
Annie Duke
Tom Dwan
Peter Eastgate
Eli Elezra
Antonio Esfandiari
Sam Farha
Chris Ferguson
Ted Forrest
Jamie Gold
Phil Gordon
Barry Greenstein
Bertrand Grospellier
Joe Hachem
Gus Hansen
Jennifer Harman
Phil Hellmuth
Orel Hershiser
Jesper Hougaard
Phil Ivey
John Juanda
Gabe Kaplan
John Paul Kelly
Phil Laak
Howard Lederer
Erick Lindgren
Mike Matusow
Jason Mercier
Dario Minieri
Chris Moneymaker
Darvin Moon
Greg Mueller
Daniel Negreanu
Scotty Nguyen
Annette Obrestad
Brock Parker
Dennis Phillips
Greg Raymer
Shawn Rice (Caesars qualifier)
Vanessa Rousso
Kara Scott
Huck Seed
Erik Seidel
Mike Sexton
Gavin Smith
Jennifer Tilly
Paul Wasicka
David Williams
Leo Wolpert
Jerry Yang
ONLINE QUALIFIERS (6)

The first PokerStars.net NAPT event in the US got off to a roaring start on Saturday, with 872 players putting up $5,000 at the Venetian as part of their Deep Stack Extravaganza. 149 players started day 3 a few minutes ago, with 128 making the money. Hand for hand play has just begun, and the tournament staff is hoping to play down to 24. You can follow the action over at PokerNews, PokerStarsblog.com, or PokerListings. The winner when play ends on Thursday will collect $827,648.

Reality show star Trishelle Canatella made the final table of the WPT Celebrity Invitational, part of the LA Poker Classic currently running at the Commerce Casino. The final table will resume on March 3rd with this lineup:

Seat 1: Steve Elliott – 1,520,000
Seat 2: Thor Hansen – 1,480,000
Seat 3: Trishelle Cannatella – 1,540,000
Seat 4: Sean Urban – 2,090,000
Seat 5: Neev Baram – 1,900,000
Seat 6: LeRon Washington – 1,790,000

In other LAPC news, Al “Sugar Bear” Barbieri took down his 3rd preliminary event of this year’s LAPC, winning the $2,100 Ironman event, a tournament with no scheduled breaks. Barbieri pocketed almost $60,000 for the win, plus a seat to the $10,000 Main Event, which starts February 26th.

The NBC National Heads-Up Championship is just a few days away, with the draw party on March 4th at Pure at Caesars’ Palace, followed by the tournament from March 5-7. The full list of 64 participants hasn’t been announced yet, but over 20 players already received their invite through a series of criteria, including last year’s winner, Huck Seed. Other automatic invites include: Phil Ivey, Joe Cada, Vanessa Rousso, Darvin Moon, Jason Mercier, Eric Baldwin, Sammy Farha, Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier, and Barry Shulman. One invitee who had to decline: Jeff Lisandro, who has a prior commitment in Australia which prevents him from attending.

The EPT Copenhagen event, which drew 423 entries, concluded Sunday evening with Sweden’s Anton Wigg outlasting Italy’s Francesco de Vivo in a four-hour heads-up duel to win 3,675,000 Danish kroner ($6782,918). Other notables who cashed: Roberto Romanello, Peter Eastgate, Juha Helppi, and Bertrand Grospellier.

Fresh off her Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover advertorial, followed by her GoDaddy spokesmodel deal (and Danica Patrick commercial), followed by her impressive run to a $250k televised cash at the NHUPC final-final table … Vanessa Rousso is back at her old stomping grounds, doing a monthlong, seven-stop, three-casino run through Florida — with lectures, seminars, charity tourneys, and a “series of instructional workshops grounded in ‘Game Theory’ and Sun Tzu’s teachings about The Art of War”.

Ahh, now I see, her master plan kicked into gear with the PokerStars bikini shoot is all starting to make sense … she’s now got documented cred in looks, personality, skill … if only she could share her grasp of high-level contemporary mathematics and ancient eastern military philosophy with the troubled kids in her old hood!

(Isn’t 26 such a fun age?)

Click below for Vanessa’s Florida pokery homecoming itinerary:

· Friday, March 20th at the Jacksonville Orange Park Kennel Club, where she will play in a charity tournament for her newly launched anti-poverty foundation, The No Limit, No Profit Initiative, as well as several other charities.

· Saturday, March 21st at the Jacksonville Orange Park Kennel Club, Rousso returns for a short lecture on Game Theory and Poker tournament techniques. She will also play in an invitation-only tournament.

· Monday, March 23rd, Rousso will participate in the Pompano Beach’s Isle Casino ‘Battle at the Beach’ $300K guaranteed tournament. She will be available to sign autographs and take photographs during the tournament’s scheduled breaks.

· Saturday, March 28th at the Palm Beach Kennel Club, Rousso will give a short lecture on Game Theory and Poker and play in an invitation-only tournament.

· Sunday, April 5th at the Isle Casino in Pompano Beach, Rousso will launch her innovative poker instructional camp: ‘The Art of Poker—An Intro to Game Theory and Poker.’

· Saturday, April 11th at the Jacksonville Orange Park Kennel Club, Vanessa will teach another session of ‘The Art of Poker—An Intro to Game Theory and Poker.’

· Sunday, April 26th at the Palm Beach Kennel Club, Rousso will close out her Florida tour with one final opportunity for Florida poker players to attend her out-of-the-box boot camp, ‘The Art of Poker—An Intro to Game Theory and Poker.’

More details and registrations at BigSlickBootCamp.com

Listen live.

Eventually you’ll be able to find the podcast here.

Shorr wrote: “I will go on record (as I did after the 2006 calendar year) as saying I’m shocked that I don’t make the list. After very closely examining the list, Michael Binger, Nam Le, Sebastian Ruthenberg, Michael Martin, Vivek Rajkumar, Amit Makhija, Adam Geyer and Hevad Khan are probably somewhere wondering WTF! as well. No one in the poker tournament industry besides Nam Le, JC Tran, and David Pham has matched my consistency over the last 3 years on the tournament circuit and in that time I have NEVER been selected to play the NBCHUPC. As most of my readers know I’m pretty low-key and don’t exactly go looking for recognition, but I just feel like I deserve this.”

That put Shane “Shaniac” Schleger on reality-tilt and prompted a blog post entitled, “Seriously? AKA: The Award For Most Delusional Poker Player Goes To…” Though Shaniac tried to soften the blow of his words by saying that he liked Shorr personally, the post went on to list the reasons that Shorr was not invited to the NHUPC.

In part, he wrote: “Shannon, get a grip. You should be ashamed for putting yourself in the same sentence as Le, Tran, and Pham, who essentially dwarf the entire poker tour community with consistency and moneymaking.

I think you have to make up your mind if you want to go back to college or try to become a studly poker superstar. And your results are nowhere near the other players you named in the above passage.”

Evidently, Shorr didn’t take that criticism as well as hoped, but Shaniac finally posted a response that sums it all up nicely with a video created for the occasion. It takes good-natured jabs at both and can be seen by going to Shaniac’s post here. (If anyone would like to send the embed code for that video, feel free to help a sista out.)

And goodish times had by PokerRoadies and Pokeratizens who competitively made their bracket picks … swag headed various people’s ways. Here’s how it all turned out:

(I’m keeping up with results on my own time at PokerNews, btw.)

I ranked her 55th. Overall, the ESPN panel put her 49th. But hey, just goes to show you, anyone can get an easy draw. The laughable field the newest GoDaddy spokesmodel had to beat, in order: Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey, 2007 NHUPC champ Paul Wasicka, Daniel Negreanu, and online wunderkind Bertrand Grospellier, aka ‘Elky’. Hmm. Wow.

Meanwhile, my bracket’s turned to shit. Of the 96 players in on PokerRoad/Pokerati’s fun, eight people picked Vanessa Selbst to win it all, yet no one … as in ZERO! … picked Vanessa Rousso.

Of the final four, here’s how many people picked them to win it all:

Vanessa Rousso – 0
Sammy Farha – 0
Huck Seed – 5
Elky – 9

CORRECTION: Technically Mike Matusow is GoDaddy’s newest spokesboy. He went out in Round 1.

Pollack and Miller are supposedly longtime pals … and with the WSOP’s contract with ESPN expiring next year, the two sure did seem extra-chummy. And though I’m not sure who would be courting whom, at least one well-informed, scotch-drinking little birdie tells me there’s more going on between the two of them than just a casual one-night hook-up at a Vegas club.

Here they are on the red carpet with what some might say look like bedroom eyes for each other as the two discuss what makes for good poker on TV:

And here (starting at 2:04):

Here are tomorrow’s match-ups:

Don Cheadle vs. Paul Wasicka
Phil Ivey vs. Vanessa Rousso
Scotty Nguyen vs. Ted Forrest
Daniel Negreanu vs. Dario Minieri

Gabe Kaplan vs. John Juanda
Zigmund vs. Elky
Jeffrey Ishbia vs. Phil Hellmuth
Tom Dwan vs. Barry Greenstein

Eli Elezra vs. Erick Lindgren
David Williams vs. Scott Fischman
John Phan vs. Jerry Yang
Sammy Farha vs. Peter Eastgate

Kenny Tran vs. Jennifer Harman
Phil Laak vs. Layne Flack David Oppenheim
Gus Hansen vs. Huck Seed
Glen Chorny vs. Brad Garrett

Click here to see the complete PokerRoad/Pokerati bracket standings after Day 1.

(Mathers is 10th, I’m 26th, TBR is 46th. And even though both Shronk and “Stapes” are both tied for 53rd, overall the PRR forumers are kicking Pokeratizen ass.)

We’ve got some 80 people competing in the PokerRoadRadio/Pokerati bracket game. With half of Round 1 complete, here are the leaders:

UPDATE: Join the fun and see how your predictions compare by filling out a bracket here.

UPDATE 2: With so many people getting in on our bracket action, we’re going to offer a prize to the winner. Not 100 percent sure what it is yet, nor what the rules are for winning — hey, this is kinda new to us — but you can feel pretty confident someone other than myself is getting a Pokerati T-shirt and/or a Pokerati cut card.

P.S. Action is just about to get underway. All players have been through make-up and have been called to the set. Others have complained that it’s starting some 90 minutes later than planned, to which I say, “Clearly you are not very experienced in these televised poker productions, and therefore you don’t stand a chance of winning.”