Surely it’s got to be, right? And maybe not just for main events … I wouldn’t be surprised if this represents the youngest final table ever — for any WSOP event in history! One of the youngest five, for sure, I’ll virtually guarantee.

Eight 20somethings and one Gen-Xer (who happens to be the second shortest stack):

FILIPPO CANDIO – 26
JOSEPH CHEONG – 24
JOHN DOLAN – 24
JONATHAN DUHAMEL – 22
MATTHEW JARVIS – 25
MICHAEL MIZRACHI – 29
CUONG “SOI” NGUYEN – 37
JOHN RACENER – 24
JASON SENTI – 25

It seems the most prescient pre-game analysis might have come from a non-poker media source … specifically Time Magazine’s Dan Kadlec, whose article (“World Series of Poker: Attack of the Math Brats“, 28 June 2010) is now up online for those of you who didn’t get to read it in full when it first came out.

The November Nine Class of ’10 includes only two players who were 21 or older when Chris Moneymaker did his thing at age 27.

New article in the Las Vegas Sun, looking at the WSOP and the Nevada Gaming Control Board’s comfort level with online poker sites that do and do not accept American players. No one’s wagging any fingers at the WSOP specifically, but the article does take a closer look at Full Tilt’s and PokerStars’ presence at the Rio (and a little bit UB’s) as well as partnerships these sites have with other casinos.

You get a subtle clue of what the implication might be directly from the article’s URL, as well as quotes from GCB’s chief enforcer of dot-net-dot-com issues:

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2010/jul/13/guilt-association/

After the [UIGEA] passed Congress, some sites left the U.S. market, fearing prosecution by federal regulators. Some sites, including PokerStars.com and Full Tilt Poker.com — whose .net logos adorn the clothing of many World Series of Poker players — continue to allow action from Americans, however. Those sites are “purposefully putting that product in the United States in disregard of Department of Justice interpretations of federal law and also Nevada law,” [GCB member Randall] Sayre says.

This closer look stemmed from what would become the rapid rise-and-fall of NAPT-Venetian. The Venetian does confirm in the Sun article, btw, that they have no current or future relationship with PokerStars … you know, despite appearances one might get from PokerStars.net and NAPT logos on 119 felts throughout this summer’s Deep Stack Series.

GCB makes it clear that they don’t like to see its licensees in bed with American friendly online poker sites, but they’re still not being clear on where they draw the lines for what might constitute just messing around. Even the regulators contend they can’t begin to tell people what they can and cannot wear on their bodies.

That, of course, begs the question, then why not just let people wear hats and shirts logo’d up with dot-coms?

Already realized a few others I forgot about … beyond the usual poker-media-world suspects you’re probably already following such as @ftrainpoker @writerjen @jakatkin et @alcanthang. I’ve also recently become a fan of @eric_ramsey’s micro-wit+info … and I think you know Pokerati’s diggage of @Tim00, even when he’s not just pimping his favorite 1/2 nl/plo game @hardrockpoker. And those are just in addition to the solid poker-twitter-media obvs @PokerListings and @CardPlayerMedia …

I really hope this attempt to share with you a few notable follows doesn’t turn into a cryfest amongst twitterpals I’ve yet to meet who have yet to buy even me a beer in real life … But a couple other twitters you might not know about but probably should:

@All360Poker — the guys who’ve brought those funky Google Earth cams into the Amazon. Plausibly revolutionary.

@BJsPocketGuide — brand new on twitter, but WSOP regulars love this annual mini-book. Very reliable guide on paper … curious to see what becomes of this account in the future.

@_otis_ and @genebromberg finally showed up in Vegas, too, so be following them for sure; don’t even get me started on all the Euros who just recently arrived.

And if only we could get Tony the Rio’s head security honcho tweeting … I’d betcha he’s got tweets to rival @LostVegasBook!

Gotta think the twitters are gonna be an important part of following the main event … from Days 1×4 all the way to the November Nine. We can presume, of course, you’re already following the essentials for play-by-play and more — @kevmath @pokerati @wickedchops @taopauly @bjnemeth @wsop @wsoptd @jesswelman (also doing @bluffmagazine) @espn_poker @matthewparvis @change100 @benjodimeo and @pokernews …

But a few others that you may wanna be sure to add for the main event and beyond include:

@Tom_Dwan — the real durrrr is now tweeting, and turns out he’s pretty good at keepin’ it real in 140 characters or less.

@JeffreyPollack — the former WSOP commish has resurfaced on the internet with warm wishes. Good to see him around WSOP parts again, albeit slightly removed.

@RioVegas — if the suits @Harrahs have done one thing right, it’s hire a good social media dude for The Rio who has proven surprisingly responsive and capable of putting smart tweeters in touch with the right people when necessary.

@TheRealAsianSpa — not sure if this is an alterego to the most vitriolic (but informed) poker hater on twitter or what … but either way, apparently @AsianSpa has taken the ways of @SamChauhan’s @PositiveReport to heart and can’t help but look at everything #WSOP as benefitting from a happy ending.

@GamingCounsel — was hoping others might not notice the Canadian attorney who’s proven a great source on the latest legal developments in the gambling world … but now my competitive colleagues all follow him, so if you care about poker laws, you should, too.

@TheGroupie — she’s just a poker fangirl who’s not in Vegas, but met this 20something poker-playing figure-skater PhD @riovegas just the other week, and for some reason couldn’t stop staring at her tweets.

@OskarGarcia — the AP’s Vegas-based reporter covering gaming is putting in some extra time at the WSOP.

@PUNTE — Josh Zerkle is a professional sports and social media-y kinda guy @WithLeather, and is keeping his WSOP micro-thoughts and observations here.

There … all those should do you extra-well. Feel free to leave any others @’s you think Pokeratizens and assorted poker fans might not wanna be missing this July in the comments.

Some more links to catch me up on keep you clued in about what else has been going on that may or may not be of interest to folks at the WSOP. Some of these stories vaguely connected to poker could actually turn out to be important:

First of all, for a succinct recap of what Week 3 really was all about, chock full of well-organized important details, be sure to check out BJ’s WSOP Report. [Tao of Poker]

The Shaun Deeb+Annie Duke vs. Daniel Negreanu+Linda Johnson WSOP-Ladies tourney brouhaha made national news in Philadelphia. [Philadelphia Inquirerer]

Attack of the Math Brats – a non-poker magazine’s take on “the aggressive new players whose pushy online style of play has put the old guard on the defensive”. [Time]

Speaking of defensive, the player-turned-shooter at the deadly poker robbery near Dallas has turned out to be a journalist — a cameraman for Channel 11. [Uncle Barky]

The EPT-Berlin robbers went on trial in Germany last week … and they’ve apparently admitted to everything about the heist. Only €4k unaccounted for. [BBC]

At 4 pm PT today, the second episode of Wicked Chops’ This Week in Poker will be streaming live, in a way where you can call in, or at least email and tweet. Guests to include Daniel Negreanu, Antonio Esfandiari, and Sara Underwood. [This Week in]

Despite what looks like increased entertainment traffic on the Vegas strip, Nevada’s jobless rate hit 14 percent — making it highest in the nation. [Las Vegas Sun]

The Silver State now officially kicks Michigan’s ass when it comes to macroeconomic destitution. [Christian Science Monitor]

But Paris Hilton is back in Vegas to party it up for the first time in a long while. [Twitpic]

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman has declared September 2010 “Poker Month”, to honor and support the charitable efforts of Mike Sexton, Linda Johnson, Jan Fisher, and Lisa Tenner. [PokerGives.org]

With poker and other table games opening up in Pennsylvania and Delaware, New Jersey casinos are getting hammered. [Wall Street Journal]

In an effort to turn things around (and bring higher rollers to town) the Atlantic City Hilton is turning to performances by political rock stars — including Glenn Beck, Bill O’Reilly, Bill Clinton, Dick Cheney, and a duet show with Ann Coulter and James Carville. Tickets range from $100-$350. [Press of Atlantic City]

Trump Taj Mahal is targeting a slightly different clientele, with Gay Bingo Night on Fridays. [Press of Atlantic City]

Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers there are calling for a sports-betting and online gambling “summit” — an effort to bring together competing interests currently fighting over whose online gambling bill gets to move forward, and discuss how they can all get on the same page(s). [Press of Atlantic City]

In Massachusetts, they want more gambling+poker, but the fight is also over which bill gets to move forward, Senate or House … and where the new casinos get to be located. [Boston Globe]

In Rhode Island, a casino measure that would include poker, breezed through the House and Senate, and now awaits to governor’s signature before being sent to the voters for a referendum. [Boston Globe]

In Connecticut — Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun specifically — the Indian tribes are making a concerted effort to court Asians. [Hartford Business Journal]

Is that Bernard Lee?

Harrah’s is apparently struggling to find a good buyer for the Rio — despite entertaining multiple offers; reportedy, negotiations have included deals that would allow the WSOP to stay at 3700 W. Flamingo, and contingency plans that would move the series to Caesar’s. [Las Vegas Sun]

The WSOP parent is looking to go public again, but maybe sooner than initially anticipated? [Las Vegas Review Journal]

The Wynn just cut 261 jobs — a move that allows the casino to restore wages and salaries for 3,700 employees that had to take pay cuts earlier this year. [Las Vegas Sun]

Sands (Venetian) CEO Sheldon Adelson is in Singapore, opening his $5.5 billion casino project — the Marina Bay Sands Resort –and is looking to India next. Despite being rebuffed by the Indian government in 2008, the man who once took a risk on The Real Deal, is making a second attempt at convincing the billion-bodies nation that they need tourism — and he’s the one who can bring it to them with a Vegas-style Strip. [The Economic Times]

MGM Resorts (no longer MGM/Mirage) is apparently salivating over India, too, with a letter of intent between them and Indian developers to begin plans for a Bellagio-Mumbai. [DNA India]

The Wappo indians in California are fighting over land in Wine Country, and seeking to restore their tribal status with eyes toward opening casinos in Napa and Sonoma. [Napa Valley Register]

A new bill — by U.S. Rep. Scott Murphy (D-NY) — intends to clarify the UIGEA … making it easier to use your credit cards to bet on horses online. [Times Union]

It’s here … the debate we all wanted in 2007, 2008, and 2009 is finally happening. And all signs point to good-for-poker. But we might wanna be careful what we wish for … not sure exactly how it’s gonna play out, but even if the laws we champion get passed post-haste it won’t be like we’re suddenly back in 2006, time-warped to an era when Jamie Gold was the only thing bad about poker. Ahh, the innocence …

Even as online gambling legislation that would effectively make online poker fully legal moves forward, so many different interests will be fighting to have things worded their way …

ABCNews.com gave today’s hearing in the House Ways and Means Committee some significant real estate … and in general the mainstream media has been chirping. Expect the chatter to increase as June 1 approaches. We’ll see if and when online gambling — and specifically poker — become something more than a side-snippet across the multiple channels of CableTalk TV.

Still, with this most recent movement on the McDermott bill — a little 2-hour committee hearing — we got one big step closer to the day when all those 10s of millions of Zynga poker players suddenly begin to play for real money.

I’ve been a fan of John Stossel, and his willingness to call bullshit on conventional wisdom, since the days I started noticing the difference between good journalism and bad. He has since moved from ABC News to Fox, where his libertarian shtick is a tea-party-friendly line of fiscal conservatism that challenges the moral contingent who want to impose on personal freedoms. Thus, the newest cause he’s taken up (at least for a week) is gambling … specifically online gambling.

Stossel outs himself as a recreational poker player in an episode of his namesake show on Fox Business that aired Thursday: Bans on Betting.

The show re-aired throughout the weekend, and will be on one more time tonight, Sunday, at 10 PM ET.

His efforts to bring the online gambling issue to the fore last week extended far beyond his own show. Here he is on The O’Reilly Factor:

More…

Check it out … from Forbes magazine:

Online Poker War Heats Up
The Department of Justice bags a Canadian payment processor in its fight against online poker. Are the big online firms next?

Interesting … these biz-media guys may not really get poker, but they do listen to The Poker Beat presumably understand a thing or two about multi-national finance and how putting rich white guys behind bars can be good for traffic circulation.

Generally, the poker world has always celebrated when the big online companies always got some mainstream media attention. But who knew there could even be a story without a press release from Full Tilt or PokerStars?

I know poker players sometimes forget there’s a whole non-poker world out there, but really there is … and one of the big stories in the big media these days is the nomination of Solicitor General Elena Kagan for US Supreme Court.

Turns out Kagan is known amongst her posse as something of a poker player. The only contemporary Kagan I could find in the Hendon Mob any player database is Matthew Kagan, from Cambridge, MA, who min-cashed in the 2005 WSOP main event. Definitely not her, but who knows, she’s got strong Harvard ties, maybe related … ?

From newsbusters.org:

Amongst the non-ideological superlatives: ABC’s Diane Sawyer trumpeted the “historic nomination” of the “five foot three inch powerhouse,” CBS’s Crawford insisted “her interests reflect her openness. She loves softball and poker” (poker reflects “openness”?) and NBC’s Pete Williams hailed her as an “accomplished poker player, opera lover.”

From CNN:

Kagan also plays poker and drinks beer, according to Litman, who described her as “someone who from early on has focused on the law’s impact on people’s lives.”

The Daily Show:

More…

Old news, but first time I’m seeing it … (thanks KevMath for the embed code) … a very positive-for-poker segment on Good Morning America, with George Stephanopolous playing a private Poker After Dark sunrise sit-n-go against Annie Duke, Phil Hellmuth, Jason Lee, and Steve Begleiter. George played admirably and finished 3rd, after getting it in with the best hand.

Nice. What I couldn’t help but notice:

• Sweet mini-gig for Ali Nejad, getting to host an event on Good Morning America.
• Duke, who understands a thing or two about Washington and proper patching up, wore no UB.
• Hellmuth did however — and not just UB.net, but dot-COM. Did Phil miss a memo or something?

Seriously, not to take away from the respectability of this sorta TV play … nice job by all, and hearing Stephanopolous declare his excitement about playing Ante Up for Africa-DC probably couldn’t have been a better result. But really … UB.COM? Notably either bold, ignorant, or inconsequential.

Apparently, some in the non-poker media recognize the historic nature of the first-ever UIGEA charges — and they’re not happy about it. Check out Reason Magazine’s jumping to the defense of Daniel Tzvetkoff, or at least being extremely of Department of Justice pursuits:

Getting Away With Poker
How is helping people play a card game like murder?

I find this article particularly interesting because of how it pairs politically with the recent story in The Hill about legalized online gambling creating jobs, according to a new study. Though jobs are appealing on both sides of the aisle, it’s clearly an issue the Dems are looking to own in coming months.

Meanwhile, Reason, a Libertarian magazine, speaks more to the Tea Party set. So regardless of what happens to Tzvetkoff, you gotta like the plausibly bipartisan sales pitch taking shape in the Beltway for whatever online poker bills may or may not come to fruition later this year.

More…

I honestly believe that 10 years from now, online gambling will be what saves newspaper journalism in America. Check it out …

Newspaper gambles on online gambling | Media Maverick – CNET News
news.cnet.com
Philadelphia Inquirer claims to be country’s first newspaper to venture into sports betting. Read this blog post by Greg Sandoval on Media Maverick.

So Philly.com is the pioneer, banking (finally?) on the UIGEA carveout for fantasy sports to offer real-money gambling. (Holy shit, like you actually get to use Paypal to fund your account!) Limits are small — right now the most you can lose in a day is $50, and the most you can win is $90 — and it’s not heavily promoted elsewhere on the site. Philly.com, the web home for both the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, has partnered with British company FanDuel.com to run their games.

How this pertains to poker is it gives a teensy glimpse of what the landscape could look like down the road. It might not be about PokerStars sending players to the WSOP, but rather the Des Moines Register hosting satellites. (And this could work within an intrastate framework, too!)

Editor & Publisher seems at least open to the possibility. At a minimum, poker stands to benefit from anything that has so many mainstream media big-wigs finally taking a closer look at the UIGEA.

ALT HED: PulitzerPoker.com?

A little self-promotion … check out the latest issue of Southwest Spirit magazine. The cover story is a feature on cruises. Scroll about 4/5 down the page; yours truly speaks as an expert on all things gambling … and give my tips to cruisers on how to enjoy the most bang for their ocean-gambling buck at not just Texas Hold’em, but also slots, blackjack, and roulette.

LOL, if only they really knew …

Pick up a copy in a Southwest Airlines seat back near you.

UPDATE: Cruisers beware of pirates.

First we had Kiplinger’s embracing the poker religion, and now Time Magazine is getting on board … with a story that probably will do more to change my game than 76 poker books:

From Time’s Health & Science department:

How Winning Can Mean Losing — in Poker and in Life

Doh!

It’s really a great article, looking at a Cornell University doctoral student’s sociological study of millions of online poker hands (via PokerTracker) to draw conclusions about the human propensity for risk in relation to rewards. In a nutshell, the more hands you win, the bigger loser you tend to be overall.

So what does this have to do with you if you don’t gamble? It’s the wrong question because, actually, you do. Investing, driving, buying a house and merely crossing the street are all acts that involve discernible risks and uncertain rewards. The more small returns you get from your small investments in stocks, the likelier you are to make — and lose — a big investment. The more times you get behind the wheel and speed a little bit, the likelier you are to speed a lot — with deadlier consequences.

“These kinds of calculations are made every day,” says Siler. “Adultery is another good example. People get away with it countless times but they get caught just once and they lose everything.”

Kiplinger’s, the DC-based publisher of business forecasts and personal finance advice, appears to have “gotten” poker. A senior editor there attended a WPT boot camp (for a compilation story on adult camps), and before long he started seeing the world of investing and finance as a poker player … and that spawned a three-part series relating poker to all things economic.

Check it out … they’re all good reads:

INVESTOR PSYCHOLOGY
How Poker Can Make You a Better Investor
Learn to avoid emotional traps by playing a little Texas hold ’em.

STOCKS & BONDS
How Texas Hold ‘Em Simulates Investing
Both are based on incomplete and unfolding information.

STOCKS & BONDS
How Deepak Chopra Helped Me Play Poker Better
A device featuring the wellness guru taught me to keep my emotions under control.

And then, to top it all off, in yet another article in the January issue, they quote Barry Greenstein about investment risk:

Barry Greenstein, for instance, is a poker player by profession, so you might think he’d be prone to gambling with his portfolio. Instead, Greenstein buys utility stocks and municipal bonds, and says he follows his father’s advice: “You can play poker, but don’t trade commodities.”

So in conclusion, if I am surmising this right, the key to personal financial success in 2010 is play more poker. OK, got it.

(This, btw, is probably a good-for-poker message to go out to Kiplinger’s subscribers.)