The final update before the Main Event for me, as it’s final table time in the $5,000 NL Holdem 6-max event. The final table is now four-handed consisting of Josh Brikis, Sean Keeton, Matt Hawrilenko, and Faraz Jaka. Jonas Wexler and Matthew Waxman finished 5th and 6th respectively. Live updates are available at www.wsop.com

Ante Up for Africa is being filmed now for ESPN, and it has plenty of Full Tilt Poker pros with Rafe Furst, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Phil Gordon, Erik Seidel, Jennifer Harman and John Hennigan appearing at the final table. Hopefully Dan and/or Jen will have more updates when there’s a result.

Friday afternoon starts the Main Event, and all the fun and chaos that brings to the Rio. Pokerati will be there to catch the action, so come back, please.

Cool event went down this week in Washington DC — a fundraiser for Put a Bad Beat on Cancer, where a bunch of politicos got together with Team Full Tilt Howard Lederer, Phil Gordon, and Rafe Furst to experience the joys of getting beginner poker lessons and playing in a terrible an exciting, luck-friendly blind-structure tournament (with rebuys!) … all for a good cause.

Check out the video coverage from Politico.com:

My observations:

• Had Rep. James McGovern (D-MA) read Joe Navarro, he’d know that we know he’s probably not being truthful when he says he’s happy to be there … unless, of course, that’s just his baseline response.
• Multiple politicians admit to experimenting with poker “when I was in college.”
• Barney Frank (D-MA) says he doesn’t play poker because he doesn’t enjoy it … but that doesn’t stop him from wanting to “repeal the foolish law that makes it illegal for people who want to gamble to gamble over the internet.” (So we can say “illegal” now?)
• Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) gets credited with having the best poker face … and I hope state legislators back home take note that even some gray-haired, vote-conscious conservatives are totally cool with poker.
• Nice closing line by Lederer about politics being just another form of poker.

No confirmation or details … but we are hearing our investigative internet detective robots are telling us that a room in Phil Gordon’s hometown of El Paso was robbed over the weekend or last week. More info as and if any comes in.

Without a doubt, as the poker bill gets argued in Texas this year, citizen safety will be a key issue. It’s just not right that police/hired guns aren’t allowed to protect a group of people gathering to play a game. Remember, to get this thing really going, we need a few hundred more emails reminding joe.straus@house.state.tx.us, jose.menendez@house.state.tx.us, tx@pokerplayersalliance.org, and Legalizeit@pokerati.com that you whole-heartedly support efforts to legitimize and protect the game of poker in Texas, and see it as a matter of sensible, responsible governance.

Chewed up, spit out? Clonie Gowen is challenging the most fearsome of Full Tilt avatars in Clark County Court.

We all knew something fishy was going on with Clonie and Full Tilt, right? And we’ve always wondered how exactly Full Tilt operates — seriously it’s kinda a mystery, even to people who work for them — and now, with Clonie Gowen suing four different companies connected to the game so many play with the pros, we should find out quite a bit of interesting info.

As far as I know, this is the first time any online poker biz that operates in the grayish world of processing money from American players (really really light gray, but still … ) will have to show its stuff publicly. Even Ultimate Bet/Absolute, with all the audits and investigations hasn’t really had to show anything it doesn’t want to to anyone outside its own semi-corporate family.

Um, hole-card cameras in the courtroom?

Official court docs here.

Gowen v. Tiltware LLC, et al.,
Plaintiff: Cycalona Gowen
Defendant: Full Tilt Poker, Tiltware LLC, Pocket Kings Ltd., Kolyma Corporation, A.V.V., Raymond J. Bitar, Howard Lederer, Andrew Bloch, Phillip Ivey, Christopher Ferguson, John Juanda, Phillip Gordon, Erick Lindgren, Erik Seidel, Jennifer Harman-Traniello, Michael Matusow, Allen Cunningham, Gus Hansen and Patrick Antonious

Case Number: 2:2008cv01581
Filed: November 14, 2008

Court: Nevada District Court
Office: Las Vegas Office [ Court Info ]
County: Clark
Presiding Judge: Judge Robert C. Jones
Referring Judge: Magistrate Judge Robert J. Johnston

Nature of Suit: Contract – Other Contract
Cause: 28:1332 Diversity-Other Contract
Jurisdiction: Diversity
Jury Demanded By: Plaintiff

They’re talking about it on 2+2, and the summary of her allegations below comes from the Hendon Mob:

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My hometown favorite is getting lots of publicity in St. Louis. Though he is originally from a small Illinois town across the river from the Lou, Dennis Phillips reps the STL with pride. With Midwest USA newspapers and magazines suddenly interested in poker, Dennis has gotten a lot of media attention, and while he seems to be getting more comfortable with the journalists and TV cameras, humble remains the word of the day.

One of the articles is from the Telegraph and gives a good insight into the WSOP final table chip leader, and the following video from the local NBC sports program shows that Dennis is a good representative for the game of poker. Note that in the video, he discusses the Bad Beat on Cancer patch that he wears on his shirt. Evidently, he is the only one of the nine finalists in the main event who signed up early on to donate 1% of his winnings to the Phil-Gordon-promoted charity. Who says he wouldn’t make for a great 2008 champion?

Click below to see the video interview (sorry, we can’t stop the autoplay).

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747 733 players survived to make the dinner break, trying not to crash eliminate themselves just short of the money at a devilish 666. Strangely, the current chip leader has less chips than the leader at the end of day 2 as Brian Schaedlich, who started with 801,000 in chips has gone under 300,000 in chips after Jeff Kimber flopped a set of queens to Brian’s AA in a 681,000 chip pot (he’s since recovered to be just under 500,000 in chips). However, the leader going into the dinner break is Jeremiah Smith, with 766,000 in chips. Kimber’s in 4th with the Satan-like 666,000, other notables with a pretty good stack include Victor Ramdin, prospective member of Team Pokerati Raja Kattamuri, Matt Matros, Adam “Roothlus” Levy, James McManus (not the author), Chip Jett, Brandon Cantu, and Steve Bilirakis. Notable players who won’t have to worry about the bubble: Chris Moneymaker, Phil Gordon, Tony Hachem, Andy Griggs, and Steve Zolotow. More updates can be found at the WSOP.com site here.

Once the players return from dinner break, there’s a couple more two-hour levels left for today, but the bubble will be looming in that first level, we’ll see if the tournament staff adds time back to that level and maybe stop play after it’s broken, depending on the time of course.

Phil Gordon is still alive and well in the main event — and because he clearly doesn’t have his podcast priorities straight, I got to sit in for him on ESPN’s The Poker Edge. This was new poker podcast territory for me, as co-host Andrew Feldman made me talk about actual poker players and chips — as if we were tracking some sort of athletic competition or something. But in doing so, we actually get down to the brass tax of it all, and break down what this field size, blind structure, and remaining-player make-up means for various stack sizes going into Day 3.

Click here to have a download/listen.
36:40

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Oh, by the way, ESPN also honors Raj Kattamuri as the 2008 WSOP Main Event-Day 2B Player of the Day. Go Dallas poker!

Rating: A-

This is one of the best comedies I’ve seen in a long time. I laughed myself to tears during several parts of the movie. I walked into the theater with low expectations and left thinking about seeing it again.

The casting was brilliant, as many of the actors are experienced improv comics and had no problem adding their own flavor and likely varying quite a bit from the original script. From Woody Harrelson to Ray Romano, from Richard Kind to Dennis Farina, and from David Cross to Chris Parnell, most everyone took their characters to the highest level. Even Cheryl Hines surprised me – only because I’m not terribly familiar with her work – in her deadpan scenes.

Numerous poker players were strewn throughout the film, like Doyle Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu, Phil Laak, and Antonio Esfandiari. Gabe Kaplan had a main role, which wasn’t tremendously impressive but an integral and sometimes funny role nonetheless. Phil Gordon played a recurring role throughout the movie as the tournament commentator, and he was fantastic. Some of his lines were the best of the movie.

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Day 2b has begun and the room is quiet with the exception of thousands of chips being shuffled. Players have on the game face to get some serious work done and the excitement of playing in the Main Event has worn off. Today marked yet another twist in poker with Vinnie Vinh showing up to a stack of chips (3200), the irony was that he left the tournament due to elimination. Lance Bradley at The Poker Biz caught up with Vinnie for some great quotes and summary of the summer.

Thor Hansen, who rocked this series, is playing today as well as Amnon Filippi (4th in H.O.R.S.E.), Allen Cunningham, Chad Brown, Carlos Mortenson, Chris Ferguson, Chip Jett, Humberto Brenes, JC Tran, looks mean but really a sweetie pie Eric Buchman has about 80k and George Costanza AKA Jason Alexander will get some main event action.

Recent eliminations include David Plastik, Phil Gordon, Joe Sebok, Evenlyn Ng, Tom Schneider, James Van Alstyne and Vicki Coren. No one seems to know if Jennicide played wearing lingerie, in fact, we’re not sure if she played the Main Event at all.

(Cross-posted from Chris Hanel at Expert Insight.)

Phil, Rafe, and Andy are playing today, and we’ll be updating everyone throughout the day on their progress.

12:22 PM - Cards are in the air. Rafe’s way back in the corner in table 2, away from spectators, and Phil’s on the exact opposite side of the room at table 121. Both are feeling upbeat and ready to play cards. Rafe’s gone to great lengths to assure he’s well rested and ready for today, so there’s an extra spring in his step. Expect good things from Team EI today. Still trying to track down Andy. After yesterday’s incident with David Singer, I’ve decided not to try tracking him down by calling him on the phone.

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