What starts out as background talk between Eli Elezra and Patrik Antonius during the Poker After Dark cash game last week ends up getting Howard Lederer’s panties in a severe wad … not just when Antonius extols the greatness of being able to play online anonymously, but even more uncomfortably when Elezra (wearing a Full Tilt patch) confesses: “I have 17 accounts on Full Tilt.”

About 2:10 is where the relevant discourse starts:

Seriously, this is such an issue that online poker will eventually have to deal with in some way. Get the feeling if one of the online rooms launched a multi-accounting crackdown, they might lose half their players/avatars? It’s a rule the online sites have in place for the sake of security and game integrity, or at least as a component of legal disclaimer. And yet it’s counter-intuitive to one of the things that makes doing anything online, let alone poker — semi-anonymity — desirable.

The same issue is relevant at PokerStars … and for now, because both these operations, FTP and Stars, operate outside the (American) law*, the fates of players in violation of this unpopular rule — and the money in their accounts — is left to the discretion of an unregulated company, in an anything but an open forum.

* Not saying these are illegal businesses … just noting that they operate off-shore, and therefore fall outside American jurisdiction in most legal and business matters.

Will be curious to see if Elezra faces any sort of patch suspension for his “breakthrough” during poker therapy. Lederer has been super-diligent about protecting the integrity of “Play with the Pros” ever since Phil Hellmuth got called out for letting an amateur friend play as “Phil Hellmuth” on UB. But then again, perhaps Elezra has a solid defense: “just kidding … trying to put Howard on tilt in a cash game setting.”

Also curious if we’ll ever see the likes of Justin Bonomo consulting online sites the way reformed shoplifters get hired to advise retail corps on how to limit their losses from grift.

Link props: Wicked Chops

Click, and enjoy.™

From the always clickworthy good folks at RawVegas.TV

The smallest opening day field (1,158) since the WSOP was first held at the Rio in 2005 started play shortly after noon yesterday. The attendance for days 1c and 1d look to be much more encouraging, with at least 3,000 expected to play over the next two days. They’re going to need another 800 to sign up over the next couple of days to match last year’s total, and it looks to be a close call if that actually happens.

The 636 who made it through day 1a are now combined with the 615 who made it through the end of play earlier this morning to play July 8th at 12 noon. Ben Sarnoff is the day 1b leader with 177,500 in chips. Notable names near the top of the leaderboard: Robert Mizrachi, Erick Lindgren, Marc Karam, Thor Hansen, Hal Lubarsky, Hoyt Corkins, Patrik Antonius, John Duthie, and Victoria Cohen. You can see the other chip counts at the WSOP site here (or wait until later for some sort of list by seat assigment/alphabetical order).

Another 1,700+ souls descend on the Rio today to start their chance at WSOP glory shortly after 12, who knows what musical act/attraction will greet the nonplussed group.

More updates during the day…

The 4th of July holiday certainly put a damper on the size of day 1b, as a disappointing 1,158 showed up to play at noon today. Pauly notes that some country music singer did the Star Spangled Banner and some sort of flag ceremony was attempted that didn’t go as planned. The players are currently on their dinner break, with about 850 remaining. Among those whose dream is over: Kenny Tran, Ram Vaswani, Orel Hershiser, Jamie Gold, Greg Raymer, Tuan Le, Ted Forrest, Daniel Negreanu, among many others. The early chip leader appears to be Patrik Antonius, with Robert Mizrachi, Erick Lindgren, Vanessa Rousso, and 2007 ME final tablist Philip Hilm near the top of the leaderboard. Follow the progress when they return on the WSOP.com website here.

More updates as they warrant…

After much consideration and prospective gerrymandering, upon the next update of the WSOP World Standings, we’re gonna make some switches … regardless of what they put on their official WSOP registrations, David Benyamine is soon to become fully French and Shannon Shorr will be screamin’ “Roll Tide!”

With that said, is there anyone else we should be considering for statistical reclassification? For the most part, we’re gonna defer to the Hendon Mob db … but I can think of three that are close calls:

Gus Hansen — Denmark or Vegas?
Hoyt Corkins — Alabama or Vegas?
Patrik Antonius — Finland or Monaco?

photo: Steve Hall / Pokerfolio
Clonie Gowen, playing in the 2008 Pot Limit Hold’em World Championship.

Per an announcement and big whoop-tee-do on June 1st, Patrik Antonius joined Full Tilt Poker as one of their A-list pros. It was an obvious move and one that was probably a long time in the works.

According to the press release, he joins the following list of Full Tilt Pros:

Chris Ferguson, Phil Ivey, Howard Lederer, Jennifer Harman, Erick Lindgren, Erik Seidel, Andy Bloch, Phil Gordon, John Juanda, Mike Matusow, Gus Hansen, and Allen Cunningham

The thing is…there is one glaring omission in the official Full Tilt statement - Clonie Gowen. The website still lists her name and picture in the Full Tilt Pro section, though Patrik hasn’t been included there yet. Why the slight? If it is a hint, Clonie certainly doesn’t know anything about it. If it is a mistake and FTP just mistakenly left her out of the loop, that’s not good either.

See the full press release here:

More…

What’s going on at the WSOP as Pauly writes that the success of event #2 doesn’t mean all is well in the poker economy and the Poker Shrink opines that 2008 may be the year that poker reaches its peak.

The first final table is taking place right now, as Andy Bloch is dominating the final table at this time. Patrik Antonius (named a Team Full Tilt Pro in a press conference today) was an early casualty, while Kathy Liebert (on a final table deal with PokerStars) was hanging in there with 4 left.

Monday will be the first day with two tournaments starting the same day. Noon brings the $1,500 Pot-limit holdem event, while at 5, the $5,000 Mixed Holdem (half limit, half no-limit) will get started. Many pros surely will be double-dipping tomorrow if they get eliminated early in the day, as always Pokerati will be there to blog their little hearts out, God bless them.

I can already tell one of the top-quality media sources during the WSOP will be RawVegas.TV.

Check out how their red-carpet vid of a Bluff Magazine pre-WSOP kickoff party at Tao (the nightclub, not “of Poker“) gets a better interview about poker and the fun side of poker lifestyles than anything you see shot in the Amazon room hallways, and even probably what will end up on ESPN:

In this vid not only will guys like Ed get to see a boppity, cleavacious Jennifer Tilly talk about how and why poker players talk about quitting but don’t really mean it, but also they get to hear about Phil Laak’s freak-of-naturely impressive sperm count and how that may or may not lead to strategy-based pillow talk with a cougar.

I’ll also be interested in following RV’s WSOP video blogs from Patrik Antonius, David Williams, Phil Hellmuth, and Daniel Negreanu. These sorts of things have been tried before with moderate success (Negreanu’s were always good), and now that there’s one place where you can find a handful of them regularly with a little party-hearty mixed in — in high-quality video that always seems to work — how could this channel not become Must-See Internet for any serious poker geek following the World Series every summer? [via Wicked Chops]

Another day, another 2,000 players will be expected to start play in the first $1,500 NL event of the 2008 WSOP. When play starts shortly after 12pm PT today, the record for the largest field in WSOP preliminary event history will have been set, all that’s left to be answered is if it can break the magical 4,000 figure. Today’s field will match the progress of day 1a, playing eight 60-minute levels plus the first 16 minutes, 13 seconds of level 9.

Today will also have the first final table, as the $10,000 PL Holdem event finished up just before 5:00am, setting up a fantastic final table under the ESPN cameras. This final table has something for every section of the poker community. You have the young Internet stars (Mike Sowers and Amit Makhija), players wel-known to the mainstream audience (Phil Laak and Mike Sexton), a female player (Kathy Liebert), a math genius (Andy Bloch), international stars (Patrik Antonius and Nenad Medic) and a good ole boy from North Carolina (Chris Bell).

Here’s how the final table will be seated:
More…

What I’ve been doing while waiting anxiously for Jeffrey Pollack’s next blog post:

Day 1a of the $1,500 almost sold out, as over 2,000 started play. The play was fast and furiousEarlier this evening there was about 400 spots left for Sunday’s day 1b field, giving the appearance that the overall field will top 4,000 (beating the WSOP prelim record by over 800). The tournament went on its dinner break after level 6 about an hour ago; tournament staff decided play will end with either 225 left or 4 more levels whichever comes first. Contrary to what happened yesterday, someone did receive a 1-orbit penalty for CALLING with the nuts (recall yesterday a player checked down a royal flush and only got a warning).

Day 2 of the $10k PL Holdem event is in the hand-for-hand stage as there’s 37 left, with 36 hitting the pay window. Patrik Antonius, Eli Elezra, Phil Laak, Mike Sexton, Mark Newhouse and Dustin Woolf are among those still in the field at the time of posting.

8:20 Edit: Scratch Newhouse from that list, he finishes in 30th.
More from the rest of the Pokerati staff later tonight…

Yesterday, Short-Stacked Shamus took us to the quarterfinals of the 64-player Full Tilt Poker tournament.

Later in the evening, it was determined that the four players going to the semifinals would be:

David Singer v. Brian Hastings
Andy Bloch v. whitelime (Emil Patel)

When players returned to the action today, the matches were slow but solid. Patel took control of his match with Bloch and applied pressure until he took it down. Singer dominated Hastings throughout their match and finally claimed victory. That meant that the final round was:

David Singer v. whitelime (Emil Patel)

Both players started with 160K in chips and played 12-minute levels, beginning with a 75 ante and blinds at 300-600. (It was actually interesting to watch the virtual match with a little virtual audience in the background.) Singer jumped out to an early lead and never allowed Patel to gain any ground. In the end, Singer took it with pocket 8’s over Patel’s 10-3 off.

Final payouts:

1st - David Singer $560,000
2nd - Emil Patel $320,000
3rd - Brian Hastings $168,000
4th - Andy Bloch $168,000
5th - Patrik Antonius $96,000
6th - Dani Stern $96,000
7th - mischiefofmagic $96,000 (won a $535 satellite to enter)
8th - mastrblastr

It seems that Doyle Brunson has been called out - by buddy Patrik Antonius - to play a heads-up match.

Patrik told CardPlayer during an interview that he would play Doyle any game for any amount of money. Doyle seems a little irked in his recent blog post because he doesn’t like playing heads-up, and he seems to be a taken off guard that Patrik issued the challenge through a magazine article. Since they are friends, it seems that Patrik should have approached Doyle directly, wouldn’t you think?

I really like Patrik and I think he is a great player, but he cast the gauntlet and I’m prepared to do battle. So, I accept his challenge.

I think he made a mistake when he said, “I’ll play him any game for any amount.” I’ve got 7-10 different games, all of which I’ve played in Las Vegas casinos for high stakes, that I’m willing to commit to for at least a seven figure match. There will be no animosity between us; we are both pros who love a good gamble. It will be interesting if he accepts and I’m sure we will both have a great time playing.

Seven figures, huh? Can some math genius figure that out for me? That’s a lotta dough!

Before heading into autumn’s WSOP and WPT events we all have a moment to resurface for a deep breath of reality.

While there are plenty of pretty people in poker that are really, really good looking, a deep breath may be your reaction to this hot player getting naked. And no, it’s not Patrik Antonius who has some nice photos on his website here.

Head over to The Poker Biz for the nudest news.

Photo of not-a-poker-player Derek Zoolander.

LAS VEGAS - First things first…Congratulations to Tom on winning his second bracelet and for reaching his goal of three 2007 WSOP final tables! And congratulations to Dan for his 4th place finish at, the former WSOP stomping grounds, Binions.

I’m relaxing in writing from Summerlin with my three two children and husband who bought $100 worth of fireworks. If you see anything on the news regarding wild fires in West Vegas…

The S.H.O.E. event started at 5pm today and in the line up is Marcel Luske, David Levi, Chad Brown, James Van Alstyne and beauties Shannon Elizabeth and Lacey Jones.

Speaking of ladies…Anna Wroblewski has made the final table for event #47 2k NL Holdem.

Just when you thought this post was finished, there’s a bit more…John Duthie, a personal favorite and who coached Daniel Craig in the new James Bond film, is currently chip leader in today’s PLO with over 100k but lady favorite Patrik Antonius (who, according to WCP, should have the massage therapist paying him to rub his body) is close behind.

Oops, Patrik just made the pass (in the race not at a massage therapist).