I like to tell any newbie interested in working the WSOP that the key is simply to show up. As for how to survive the WSOP, on certain days the key is to not show up. One of these days, both Pauly and Benjo will get it. Until then, they’re both consistently hanging around the action, to keep me you within earshot of all that is important going down. You’ll also see why, all things considered, I’m clearly getting the best of any three-way deals.

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Episode 10: Even-Days Dan (w Benjo)

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Rare Michalski sighting at the WSOP, so Benjo and Pauly ambush Dan the moment that he steps into the press box. Benjo gets compliments for filling in during for Michalski during the important 50K final table. He also reveals how you certain qualified people can win a piece of Pokerati.com.

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Episode 11: Laser Show Promotions (w Benjo)

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After two years of cameos and being a special guest, Benjo finally convinces Michalski and Pauly to give him his own key to the castle. Well, not exactly to the entire castle, just a couple of rooms. In this episode, we discuss Benjo’s new and lucrative deal as a partner in Tao of Pokerati, Inc.

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You can catch up with any and all old episodes you mighta missed in the complete show archives here.

Woman Poker Player Magazine has some special awards — The Poker Maven Awards — that have nothing to do with online training and fauxhawks, but do show the love for those who have made some sort of special difference in the women’s sector of the poker world during the first half of 2010.

It’s a voting thing (give your email address to everyone!) … and you can cast your vote online here.

Special props and encouraged ballot-stuffing on behalf of former Pokerati contrib Jen Newell and current Poker Beat cohort Gary Wise, who is the only male nominee in the whole contest. (How pissed must BJ be to not get that nod?) They are duking it out in the Favorite Blogger or Author category, while our pals at LuvinPoker and CardRunners are also facing off for the Most Encouraging Poker Forum Award.

Click below for more deets about the honours — what, no special Courage Award for Clonie? — and a full list of contenders in what some might call a great big catfight on behalf of poker grace.

More…

Everybody’s favorite angry Frenchman arrives on site, so he and Pauly can express their heterosexual fondness for each other during the $50k Players Championship. In words lifted from Pauly himself, they kill time in the press box late on Day 2 by watching lesbian kissing videos on YouTube. The two offer up analysis and play-by-play while pondering a future as professional lesbian kissing video commentators. But there was a sudden and unexpected twist at the end of one of the videos that left everyone in the press box aghast.

Episode 5: Lesbian Kisses (feat. Benjo)

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The bracket for Brunson Beer Pong came out Wednesday evening, and a few hours later, text messages began flying between players believing they might be witnessing some serious malfeasance in the pairings.

@JimShipley wrote:

How rigged was the beer pong seeding you fuck! You’re in the effin ladies bracket. Fuller and I play last yrs champion if we win?

From there the evidence was mounting. 2+2 posters did a statistical analysis and noticed discrepancies that stretched far beyond the realm of variance:

Facing all these allegations and (screams for a life-ban from poker), @Pokerati admitted “Indeed, there absolutely was no random draw involved! But I’m not sorry … I’d do it again!” In the meantime Beer Pong officials and Pokerati Corporate have invited the Kahnawake Gaming Commission to investigate.

Perhaps pressuring me into this ethical compromise, John Katkin had to back out as my partner, and that left me with untested PokerNews young-gun Drew Flynn as his replacement. though I think my team actually improves with the addition of a player under 30, I just couldn’t trust the results in this situation to a truly fair and honest game.

As details of the scandal have come to light, doctored pairings revealed:

More…

Poker was exploding. On April 20, 2004 (420, dooood!) Pokerati.com went live. WTF was I thinking? Happy birthday to us. The concept was simple, and reflected in our subtitle: “Are you thinking about poker?” I was. A lot. And so were my friends.

We of course weren’t the only ones. Another new site also went live that same week … FullTiltPoker.com. Their launch was the subject of our first post. Huh … it’s been quite a ride to say the least — I’m not sure Durrrr was even born yet! What I do know is that I had a lot more hair back then.

Now, six years since, I actually think poker is about to implode.

I know I’m in the minority amongst the well-informed and so-called poker media on this … but gather round folks … we’ve seen implosions in Vegas before, and they always make for a good show. You’ll hear and feel the charges — boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom … and then there’s a pause before the support beams fall and moments later what once stood gloriously is collapsing on top of itself leaving behind jagged piles of rubble and a spectacular cloud of dust. It’s all part of clearing the way to build something even more fantastic than anyone previously conceived.

Pokerati Post #2 still might apply, unironically:

Kristy, Amanda, and Gloria better watch out … a new generation of on-camera floor reporters is rising through the ranks … check out Katie, arguably the best poker interviewer in middle school. This adorable underage YouTube reporter tracked down legendary Louisville hoops coach and NCAA Hall of Famer Denny Crum during a March Madness charity tourney to talk a little poker:

Though technically the hand he recalls may not be a bad beat considering the unfortunate player got it all-in after the flop, it really is a pretty rough way to go out, first hand of the WSOP main event … and Katie’s ability to assess the situation and multiply by 10,000 makes her a nominee for Top Poker Reporter in the Under-12 division.

H/T: @Jennicide

None other than KevMath stepped into a new dimension across the pond last week, appearing on The Poker Show with Jesse May. Our favorite 2+2 moderator — and arguably the second or third most mysterious man in poker — shares his refreshingly sober analytics from what May calls “the best AND worst journalism about poker”. Check it out … there’s a lot to be learned from the guy charged with shepherding ducks on NVG (and cleaning up their mess).

They also get into the personalities at the NBC Heads-Up Championship for a bit, and talk about the peculiar appeal of Luke Schwartz — what’s behind FullFlush’s rising star in the UK, and why is he more than just a 2+2 blowhard?

Really good stuff from a new (to audio) voice serving a necessary role in the poker world. He clearly does it all for the glamour:

KevMath on The Poker Show

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Also last week, kinda funny, I had just shown up in the tournament room at the Commerce when I was supposedly simultaneously in front of a computer, chatting in the LAPC livecam chat room:

(Thanks to all looking out for this site’s good name.)

6:54 pokerati: maybe we can get uyou involved somehow with some streams like this..
6:54 WhoJedi: Pokerati is Dan, is this Dan?
6:54 WhoJedi: That would be cool.
6:54 pokerati: nosir
6:55 pokerati: i did NOT no there was a pokerat that wud be cinfused
6:55 pokerati: i am NOT impostering
6:55 WhoJedi: lol
More…

Kevin Mathers — super-moderator at 2+2, valued contributor who likes to call me out on errors here at Pokerati, and Poker News fact-checker extraordinaire — speaks with Shamus about the uber-glamorous life as a poker forum moderator and gives some insight into how 2+2 ticks. Click here for more on the process from one of the most mysterious men in poker this side of Isildur.

This — a live cam from above the floor of the Commerce — is pretty cool. Would be extra-awesome if a fight were to breakout or some girl decided to go streaking. But whatever, anyhow, check it out, if you want to watch — at present — three or four tables of a super-satellite at the Commerce. (They just got back from break.)

I think the plan is to stream the final table of the $1k w rebuys event later tonight …

They don’t quite have play-by-play to make it a real show (yet), but there is a chat moderator to answer questions about what you’re looking at. This UStream thing … so much potential to be either really good or really bad. Jury still out … but interesting they have it … and the audio now in my background (have heard a few screams and stomps, calls for somebody named Sam, and lots of chip-clicking) is more compelling than the NBC analysts for pairs figure skating.

Webcam chat at Ustream

I don’t quite get what’s possible when they say, “You can send video here by putting the show’s hashtag, #veerob, in the title when you record! Enjoy!” Are they implying someone at the table could run video, too, and put it in the same thread?

I can see World Series coverage really changing in coming years if people can self-cover themselves on video similarly to reporting their chip counts via twitter.

Follow the goings-on at the Commerce a little less pathetically with @LAPokerClassic.

For those who missed it, on last week’s episode we bid farewell to co-host John Caldwell … then got to business discussing the PCA and the new breed of Tiger Beat PokerStars. And then we get into the first annual Poker Beat Awards … where the crew waxes gay about Phil Ivey and all his accomplishments or lack thereof in 2009. I woulda voted for him (maybe I did?) but he wasn’t even at the ceremony to accept his awards. What a jerk!

We also talk a little Clonie vs. Full Tilt lawsuit and say our goodbyes to those who left us in 2009.

on PokerRoad

The Poker Beat
1/14/10

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The entire world got a reminder about life, death, and nature this week … the Haiti earthquake gave us all at least a bit of pause to find ourselves, at least momentarily, caring about people we didn’t think we cared about.

We know how charitable poker players can be — it’s our one saving grace — and I’m sure at least a few of you have made donations already toward some humanitarian relief. PokerStars has set up “dummy tournaments” and accounts where players can transfer money to help the cause … funds the online poker site will match and send to the Red Cross. Likewise, Calvin Ayre has issued a $1 million matching-donation challenge to the entire online gambling industry.

With all the donating options out there — and the ever-present uncertainty over the difference between efficient humanitarian aid and exploitive charitable graft — I just wanted to weigh in and give a thumbs-up to one specific Haitian charity that I personally know does meaningful work AND has a little poker in its blood.

It’s called Project Medishare. They’re a bunch of doctors and volunteers who since 1995 have provided medical services, equipment, and training to some of the poorest villages in Haiti. Currently, they’re flying in trauma surgeons while helping coordinate relief with Haitian officials. And their chief blogger chronicling these efforts and helping drive online donations got her web-media start in poker.

More…

It’s been a busy year for Pokerati — so much effed up poker news to chatter at, presumably at the expense of workplace productivity. Final year-end stats are in …

Unique visitors: 492,404
Visits: 1,119,809
Page views: 5,353,853
Avg. Visit: 7min 13sec
Bandwidth: 1.176 Terabytes

Damn, sounds like a lot … but fuggit, let’s double that shit for 2010; I don’t care how many terabytes it takes!

Shouts out to our top referrers in 2009. Our best friends of the year, in order, are:

Wicked Chops
2+2
Tao of Poker
Twitter
Poker Grump
LasVegasVegas
Facebook
Pocket Fives
Poker Road
Benjo
Hardboiled Poker
Youtube

Also, some notable newcomers, whom we hope to see still lurking around these parts of the internet even more in 2010:

Pokernews
Bluffmagazine
PoliticalWire
BigSoccer
Bartcop

And, of course, we wouldn’t want to forget our foreign-lingual pals … without whom we couldn’t spread our loose-aggressive reporting worldwide as if it might actually be fact:

http://www.pokeritieto.fi
http://tiltkontrolle.blogspot.com
http://www.pokerisivut.com
http://forum.pokerzysta.pl
http://poker.deluxe.hu

Good year. Go readers, skimmers, and clickers!

Unconfirmed … but that’s the word we’re spreading, based on possibly drinky information from a semi-reliable source, a presumably reliable source, and a plausibly reliable source.

The status of PokerPages has been up in the air ever since they announced they’d be closing up shop effective Oct. 31. That day passed and they still kept publishing — and even sent two reporters to cover the November Nine. But no original content has been put up on the site since Dec. 3. Everyone was expecting some sort of sale, and now that has apparently gone through.

PokerPages, of course, is one of the oldest poker information sites on the internet – having reported on tournaments since 2000 … and having built a massive tourney/player/results database in the process.

What PokerStars plans to do with a site they haven’t yet told many people they’ve bought (or intend to buy) remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, the transition from NeverwinPoker to Donkdown seems complete — with the old NWP forums successfully transfered over to their new home. Donkdown is now a Bryan Micon and Todd Witteles (aka “Dan Druff”) joint, with no more Tony G or Dustin Woolf, who is now the lone face for his namesake site.

Speaking of forums … 2+2 honcho Mason Malmuth has sued Dutch Boyd (and a guy named Anthony Scocozza) over domain squatting issues.

Oh, and our once-superbeloved PokerBlog.com … yeah, they’re apparently gone. For at least the past week, visiting the site gives you this message:

Fatal error: Table ‘./pokerblog/cache’ is marked as crashed and should be repaired query: SELECT data, created, headers FROM cache WHERE cid = ‘variables’ in /home/pokerblogcom/public_html/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 66

R.I.P. Yeah, seems kinda appropriate. PokerBlog was/is a PartyPoker operation … but now they seem to be focussing blogging efforts on their more official company blog.

UPDATE: PokerBlog is back. Looks like we can expect some WPT coverage there.

NeverwinPoker.com, the filthiest, most offensive poker site on the internet — filled with racist, sexist, drug-addled degeneracy and perverse nudity that provided a voice for a notably vile, socially maladjusted segment of the poker world — is no longer, or at least no longer what it used to be.

Tony G and the semi-corporate interests at PokerNews, who bought a controlling interest in the “gossip site” two years ago, have turned off the infamously uncensored forum. It simply wasn’t “converting” supposedly.

But don’t expect thousands of black-cock refugees to suddenly flood 2+2. Neverwin pioneer Bryan Micon is launching a new site for his toxic flock of angry outcasts at www.donkdown.com.

Meanwhile, PokerPages is somehow staying afloat — producing semi-regular new poker articles — despite declarations that they’d be fully out of business by the end of October.