Argh, it’s getting frustrating … so much stuff going on that it’s hard to keep up, let alone post about it. So here’s a bit of everything:

6,844 entrants in the 2008 WSOP main event.

I jut had a wonderful discussion with WPT honcho Steve Lipscomb. He didn’t laugh when I asked him if he was looking for a job with the WSOP.

Team Pokerati updates:

Tom Schneider is hurting. Like 7k in chips last we checked.

Donkey texts in (we’re still getting his CSR set up) — “Back down to 20k after 2nd level.. Thought Micon was playing AK. he had 77. I had 66. Cost 4k to see river”

Damn, that sucks. And oh yeah, Donkey is playing with Micon from Neverwin two or three seats to his left, and Beth Shak on the other end of the table. (Donkey doesn’t know who she is — but he is aware that she is all patched up.

Jerry Randack was doing fine last I checked. Saw him skillfully (albeit a bit cautiously) play Ace-rag with an ace on the flop, and build a nice pot to the point that he got a really nice call by the time he rivered the nut flush.

No report on Robert Goldfarb. Serves him right for not wearing his patch. But he is texting in his status on breaks.

The Big Randy looks to be playing very comfortably … with about 26k in chips.

More TK, of course. The big buzz of the day wasn’t about Phil Hellmuth’s pro wrestling-esque army-tank entrance … it was about the presence of Ultimate Fighters, including Chuck Liddell and Forest Griffin, who won a big fight just last night.

Um, go poker!

UPDATE: There was a rumor about some smaller agents being shaken down by a bigger one. It didn’t check out, however, on first call … but there’s gotta be something to it — the agent battles are getting harsh as all compete for a piece of nine heretofore unknown needles in a a haystack of 6,844.

What’s happening tonight at the WSOP:

Jen and Dan are taking care of the HORSE event, so I don’t need to duplicate their work, but they’re about to return from dinner break 5-handed.

The $2,000 NL Holdem event was won by Brazilian Alexandre Gomes, the first for that country, moving them up big time in the World Standings. Gomes takes home just over $770,000 while Marco Johnson won’t be feeling super with his 2nd place earnings of just over $491,000.

The $1,500 NL Holdem event is down to 40 as they play down to their final table. Among the notables remaining: JC Tran, Men Nguyen, Andy Black, Joe Pelton, Hevad Kahn. Follow their action on the World Series of Poker website here.

Other tournament action, following the leap:
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What’s doing tonight at the WSOP while I welcome Tuscaloosa Johnny to the Pokerati fold:

The $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha Eight or Better event is down to it’s last 3 with Casey Kastle, Martin Klaser, and Michael Fetter remaining. Kastle currently holds the chip lead, Erik Seidel was eliminated in 4th in his attempt at winning his 9th bracelet.

The $5,000 NL Holdem 6-handed event have returned from their dinner break with 280 out of a starting field of 805 to return. Notable names near the top include Alex Jacob, Mark Vos, Gavin Griffin, and Hevad Khan.

Other tournament action is available by clicking on the more thingy:

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Teddy “The Iceman” Munroe: Watch out for this guy. Tough to play against.

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:

I feel a sincere need to speak on this.

For the first time, I listened to the NWP Radio show last night because it was a tribute to Brandi Hawbaker. Her suicide has deeply affected me, and I hoped to hear some interesting perspective on her life and death. Almost two hours into the show, I did hear those things from Brandi’s ex-boyfriend Brandon and friend Jenn, though they were abruptly cut off in the midst of a very interesting discussion at the show’s end.

Dan Druff, who I know didn’t mean his comments in any sort of malicious way, exemplified many of the opinions I’ve heard since the news of Brandi’s suicide became public. People who have no personal, family, or friend history with mental illness have a rather narrow-minded and simplistic view of most types of mental difficulties. Brandon and Jenn did their best to dispel myths and shed some light on the complexities of people inflicted with such a disease, but it seems to be very difficult for outsiders like Druff to comprehend it.

Over the past week, I’ve had numerous conversations with people in the poker community about Brandi’s suicide. Most of their comments are rooted in pure shock at the thought of someone taking her own life. “It’s the most selfish thing someone can do,” someone said. “She must have done it to get back at the people who were mean to her,” another commented. “How does life get so bad that you want to die?”

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