Some various news stories while wondering what Darus Suharto’s doing right now…

Congrats to John Phan, who took down the WPT Legends of Poker main event at the Bike. That makes 2 WSOP bracelets and 2 WPT final tables since mid-June for the Razor.

The debacle at the $50,000 HORSE event appears to have affected the Scotty Nguyen Poker Challenge at the Cherokee Casino in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The page dedicated to the event appears to have changed a bit in the past week:

August 23rd version from Google’s cache

The same page on August 30.

An interview with Nolan Dalla, WSOP Media Director, on Lou Krieger’s Keep Flopping Aces podcast says to expect new rules regarding player behavior to be instituted in time possibly for the WSOP Circuit events in October.

Strangely enough, the current rules in place were able to disqualify a player who was misbehaving at the final table, even though said player had the chip lead.

The five remaining defendants from an arrest (and SWAT team raid) on a South Carolina home for playing poker back in April 2006 are still trying to get a trial, which may be over a year away.

The Asian Poker Tour drew a field of about 250 for their latest stop, Macau. They had two day 1’s to whittle down the field to 67 remaining. Notable names remaining: JJ Liu, Casey Kastle, and Mel Judah. Play starts again at midnight Eastern time, with updates available on the APT site and Pokernews.

Circle your calendars for Oct. 14, when the Real Deal poker game show (with host Paul Rodriguez) at the Venetian makes its debut. Tickets start at only $75, but audience members will be able to walk away with valuable prizes (imagine how hard it is to walk away with a plasma TV).

More exciting stuff later, maybe…

Mean Gene was on the scene when all was shaking down — and he’s got some great details about just how drinky a fete the $50k HORSE championship really was — for players, fans, and reporters alike — and the bad vibes all around that may or may not have come across on ESPN.

(I was wondering about that beer-bottle label, or lack thereof. Indeed, I can imagine how even the attempt to force someone to drink Milwaukee’s Best Light could spark a little tilt.)

Whether or not it was reality-TV editing that turned the Prince of Poker into the Puck of Poker during the $50k HORSE event … here’s an edited down version of the edited down version that compiles Scotty Nguyen’s drunken antics into a 10-minute YouTube vid.

Scotty Nguyen Belligerent Drunk Montage

Amazing to think that 10 minutes of mouth-off is all it takes to taint the public perception of one’s entire life. But hey, I’m sure Bill Clinton has had similar thoughts. Unless of course there weren’t two different Scottys in play, in which case then it was just a matter of time before the camera eventually captured, er, reality?

In a previous post, Dan mentioned Scotty Nguyen’s (bad) behavior as shown on the ESPN coverage of the 2008 WSOP $50K HORSE final table. His drunken/erratic/insulting antics and chatter at the table has been controversial, as some members of the media blame editing for making Scotty look a little mentally unstable moody, while many viewers were clearly shocked by his treatment of his opponents, cocktail servers, and chips.

Evidently, Scotty reads forums and blogs. As I was made aware by Short-Stacked Shamus in his analysis of the ESPN episode, Scotty posted an apology of sorts on the CardPlayer forums.

He expressed his “sincerest apology” for the disappointment caused by his behavior caught on camera, and though he felt that he beat his opponents fair and square (”I would never be sorry to beat those players”), he felt bad that the fans saw him in a bad light. Scotty admits that he was caught up in a range of emotions, as is human nature, but knows that his fans are his bread and butter and wouldn’t want to disappoint them.

The full forum post is as follows:

I would like to apologize to all my fans for the disappointment I have caused in the H.O.R.S.E. Event. For that I would like to express my sincerest apology.

I would like to ask for understanding of what really took place.

More…

A couple hot poker topics this week have been, of course, WinStar, and Scotty Nguyen’s less than stellar behavior and etiquette in the $50k WSOP HORSE event, as seen on ESPN. Pauly (who actually watched this final table live) assures me a lot of this persona came in the editing — yeah, he was drunk and rude for awhile, but then he sobered up and played like a winner — and indeed, I remember thinking similarly as the day progressed … was rooting for Nguyen … definitely didn’t want a newbie like Michael DeMichele to win $50k Friggin’ HORSE! But after watching the episode(s) this week, I gotta say … was totally rooting for DeMichele, even though I knew he probably didn’t stand a chance.

Anyhow, point being … just wondering if a (bad) performance like Scotty’s could jeopardize his relationship with the Cherokee Casino in Tulsa, where he has hosted the biggest events in North-North Texas prior to the current River tourney at WinStar. “I am like a god in Oklahoma,” he has said. “They have my picture on billboard.”

Not saying one incident will — but wondering if it might. Because after all, there was a reason they chose him back in the day … because everyone loves Scotty Nguyen, baby! But now that’s clearly not the case.

Jen, I was just doing a little research on the upcoming Red River Roundup — recently retitled to the Winstar World Championship Series / The River — and I noticed that Annie Duke is one of the hosts (along with Greg Raymer and Norm Hitzges) … and in their promotional stuff, she’s not wearing any UB.

I’m sure she has almost nothing to do with this — most likely Greg told her it was a good tourney, she was happy to accept a check to show up, and the Winstar’s web people ganked an old PR image off the internet — but still, just found it interesting to see her out of UB uniform. Also interesting to see a Kahnawake squaw working with the Chickasaw. Historically these two nations never battled, but I don’t think you would ever see a Cherokee dude like Scotty Nguyen make the tribal crossover.

Happenings at the WSOP while the 2008-08 WSOP Circuit schedule was announced:

As the Day 2a field is on their dinner break, about 700 remain to play a couple more 2 hour levels before the survivors get the day off and return on Thursday. The current chip leader appears to be Brian Schaedlich, with about 500,000 in chips. With such a large field, exact chip counts are hard to come by, but notable players towards the top include David “Chino” Rheem, Brandon Adams, Keith “The Camel” Hawkins, John Hennigan, Mark Vos, Hasan Habib and Kido Pham. Notables who don’t need to worry about coming back in November: Paul Wasicka, Robert Varkonyi, 2007 ME final tablist Philip Hilm, Greg Mueller and Scotty Nguyen.

More updates later…

It might seem at first glance that Full Tilt and PokerStars fought it out - in the monetary offerings sense - to get Scotty Nguyen to sign some sort of deal. Full Tilt got him for the $50K HORSE final table, and PokerStars got him for the rest of the WSOP, at the very minimum.

An inside source says that Full Tilt reportedly dropped him just after the HORSE win because of his sometimes rude (for lack of a better word) behavior during the final table. Because of the way he acted for a good portion of the play-down, Full Tilt decided they didn’t want him on the team. Soon after, PokerStars picked him up.

However, another source had a bit of an alternate take on it. This version of the story noted that PokerStars had a deal brewing with Scotty for the HORSE final table but dropped the ball and allowed Full Tilt to come in. Since the Full Tilt deal was a one-time table sponsorship, PokerStars was able to get back in with Scotty after HORSE.

It boils down to the fact that the online poker sponsorship business is a cut-throat industry. And it’s only going to get more interesting as the main event final table approaches…

2008 HORSE Champion Scotty Nguyen is playing on the ESPN feature table … in a different uniform. The VietPrince of Poker was decked out in Full Tilt gear last week. This week it’s PokerStars …

He’s not an actual Team PokerStars member (yet) … but considering Star’s intense focus on the Asian market in the coming years, he’s gotta be on their short list for something, as we know Nguyen has already fully captured the Northern Oklahoma market.

We take you into Tao of Pokerati studios on a random Sunday evening bustling with action. Pauly and I look at Kiddie Table HORSE and discuss how a new player-of-the-year point system — with Scotty Nguyen and Erick Lindgren at the Big Dog HORSE final table — presents real possibilities for a WSOP Triple Crown. Special appearances by Isabelle Mercier, David Benyamine, Donkey Bomber, Jerry Buss, Cyndy Violette, Richard Brodie, and Chris Ferguson.

Episode 18: Triple Crown-and-Coke

Through 49 events …

After Scotty Nguyen’s big HORSE win, looks like winning the Mainer is California’s only hope of claiming the Poker Capitol crown, which Nevada clearly has a solid grasp on at this point — even after player transfers.

World Standings newcomers over the past few events:
Malaysia
Chile

Regional moves of note:
Vermont – the WSOP latecomer scored its ITM finish, a final table no less, moving it past Hawaii (21 cashes), Washington DC (5 cashes), and Belarus (4 cashes) in the money grab.

Speaking of money … we’ve also continued to fix a few bugs, make corrections, and recalculate on the pirated version of Bank Street Writer that powers these standings, and in doing so have reduced the margin of error to 1.88 times e to the 6th power percent … whatever that means. But overall, in tracking nearly $106.5 million in payouts, we’ve got the dollars totally accurate, give or take 100 bucks.

Full list of WSOP results by country, state, and in some cases protectorate here.

Easycure points out that Antarctica is the only continent thus far shut out from the WSOP money.

Methinks it is out of control.

It is a given that Harrah’s is always open for sponsors to buy their way into some Rio Convention Center space and a spot on the ESPN stage. That is the nature of business and the corporate world. Therefore, the 2008 WSOP has sponsors/partners like CardRunners, Bluff, and PokerNews, which are obvious choices. Everest Poker squeaked in there to get its name on every table felt and around the inner ring of the ESPN final table. There are even others like Hertz rental cars, Planters nuts, and Gamma-O testosterone booster. *chuckle*

The booth for All In Energy Drinks was not a surprise, and their push to sell their drinks in exchange for a “freeroll” tournament was nothing out of the ordinary, though questionable in its possibility for financial success. But a few weeks into the WSOP, the cocktail servers inside the tournament area began donning red All In shirts. And they were serving All In bottled water and energy drinks. Wonder how much it cost to take over the servers?

And the final table of the $50K HORSE surprised even me. At first, those final table players – competing center stage for a couple mil – were told that they couldn’t have anything but All In drinks during play because they were on camera. Huh? At the obvious protest of Scotty Nguyen, who wanted/needed his Michelob bottles, the staff finally agreed to bring him his drink of choice but to plaster tape around the labels so it looked like some generic, unlabeled brand. Really? Of course, I understand sponsorships, but it seemed like they tried to take it too far.

With that said, I’m headed to the All In Energy Drink party tonight at the Palms. Yep, color me a hypocrite if you like, except that I have nothing against the drinks or the company, only with their attempt to monopolize the drinking public at the WSOP. Dan, on the other hand, may be looking to buy stock in the company, if his newfound All In root beer addiction is any indication.

Recapping last night’s action, with an eye on what’s going on today:

As noted below, Scotty Nguyen takes down the $50,000 HORSE event, taking down almost $2,000,000, his 5th bracelet, and the first to have won the WSOP Main Event and the $50k HORSE event. Erick Lindgren’s 3rd place moves him into first in the Milwaukee’s Best WSOP Player of the Year race with just 2 tournaments left.

The $1,500 NL Holdem final table has been set, scheduled to start at 3pm. The two most notable names are two WPT winners, JC Tran and Joe Pelton, here’s how the rest of the table will look like:

Seat 1: Christoph Kohnen 293,000
Seat 2: Joe Pelton 1,093,000
Seat 3: Jesper Hoog 320,000
Seat 4: John Conroy 501,000
Seat 5: Robert Kalb 456,000
Seat 6: J.C. Tran 1,438,000 (his 3rd final table of the Series)
Seat 7: Chad Siu 185,000
Seat 8: Peter Nguyen 870,000
Seat 9: Rasmus Nielsen 2,998,000

Other tournament stuff on the next page:
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Scotty Nguyen is the 2008 World Series of Poker $50K H.O.R.S.E. champion!

First things first…
3rd place - Erick Lindgren - $781,440 (This occurred at approximately 4:30am after a valiant fight with a pesky short stack. Fine job, Erick. Seriously.)
2nd place - Michael DeMichele - $1,243,200 (An amazing feat for a young, up-and-coming player.)

And first place goes to Scotty Nguyen…baby.

After a seemingly kind and understanding conversation with the runner-up, Scotty took in the win. He hugged some friends in the audience (like Layne Flack and David “Devilfish” Ulliott), then looked to his wife whom he embraced and lip-locked for quite some time. The emotion from both of them was obvious. He thanked the audience who was still there after 5am to take in the history. Scotty did an interview with ESPN and proceeded to the presentation platform where Jeffrey Pollack presented him with the Chip Reese trophy. Scotty was quite overcome with emotion and stood with his face in his hands for several moments before wiping the tears and accepting the trophy. He held it up and thanked Chip Reese with an eye to the sky, thanked his fans and friends, most importantly his wife, and was subsequently awarded the WSOP bracelet.

It was an emotional victory for the long-time pro, and the importance of the victory was not lost on Scotty Nguyen. The hard-fought battle took more than 12 hours but ended with a very grateful and deserving champion. Congratulations, Scotty!

Click below for some photos from the $50K H.O.R.S.E. victory…

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It has taken over three hours to see three players hit the door in the $50K HORSE. It has seemed slow at times, but the intensity at the table dictates that this could be a long night.

8th place - Patrick Bueno - $230,880
He was the short stack with less than 700K upon sitting down today, so it was only a matter of time before he would make a move. He did it against Lyle Berman and lost. The French businessman bid adieu to the table.

7th place - Huck Seed - $284,160
Huck never has much to say, and neither do I.

6th place - Barry Greenstein - $355,200
Though he’s not the kind of guy most people would want at a fun dinner party, Barry’s story at the WSOP, especially in this event, would have been a great one. He is the only player to have cashed in each of the three years that the $50K HORSE has been played, and this was his second year in a row for a final table in it. He already won a WSOP bracelet a few weeks ago in seven-card razz, but he couldn’t pull of the big one with his short stack. (That just sounded wrong, I know.) He did earn his sixth cash of the WSOP, though. Not a bad showing for the Bear this year so far.

After 75 hands, Michael DeMichele has taken the chip lead. Lookie here for the PokerNews chip counts:

Michael DeMichele - 3,700,000
Erick Lindgren - 3,400,000
Scotty Nguyen - 3,300,000
Lyle Berman - 2,200,000
Matt Glantz - 2,150,000

Finishing the action from last night, with the Sunday preview that’s not really a preview:

The HORSE final table is now set for 3pm to be under the really hot lights of the ESPN cameras. Here’s how this stacked lineup will be seated at that table:

Seat 1: Matt Glantz (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) — 1,445,000
Seat 2: Huck Seed (Las Vegas, Nevada) — 1,200,000
Seat 3: Patrick Bueno (Paris, France) — 695,000
Seat 4: Lyle Berman (Minneapolis, Minnesota) — 1,430,000
Seat 5: Scotty Nguyen (Las Vegas, Nevada) — 3,535,000
Seat 6: Barry Greenstein (Rancho Palos Verdes, California) — 1,955,000
Seat 7: Michael DeMichele (Las Vegas, Nevada) — 905,000
Seat 8: Erick Lindgren (Las Vegas, Nevada) — 3,680,000

The other final table for today the $2,000 NL Holdem event, will be held in some corner of the Amazon room at 3pm, but here’s what that final table will look like:

Seat 1: Dan Rome 650,000
Seat 2: Ryan D’Angelo 520,000
Seat 3: Marco Johnson 2,135,000
Seat 4: Kirill Gerasimov 1,145,000
Seat 5: Robert Brewer 1,050,000
Seat 6: Gabe Costner 1,475,000
Seat 7: Alan Cutter 535,000
Seat 8: Alexandre Gomes 1,075,000
Seat 9: Sverre Sundbo 685,000

The $5,000 NL Holdem 6-handed final table finally ended after 6 hours of heads up play when Joe Commisso finally eliminated Richard Lyndaker to take down the bracelet and just over $911,000. Commisso had to be wondering if he’d ever win after having Lyndaker dominated 7-1 on 3 separate occasions, only for Lyndaker to claw back into contention and take the chip lead. Between the two of them there was almost a dozen all in confrontations where the smaller stack would win, which turned out to be a one in 600-something possibility.

Other tournament action on the next page:
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Since returning from dinner break, the players in the $50K HORSE have been in slow motion, barely trotting here. So much is on the line, so I don’t blame them… The railbirds aren’t getting tired, though. They’re still packed in there like wide-eyed sardines, snapping photos and hoping to get a wink or a nod from a pro. Entertaining to watch…for a few minutes at a time.

In the past three hours, only two players have busted.

13th place: Daniel Negreanu - $142,080
If Daniel had won this tournament, the prize money would have catapulted him into the position of top tournament money earner of all time, surpassing Jamie Gold. Well, that ain’t happenin’ in this tournament, sad to say.

12th place: Phil Ivey - $159,840
Not the most entertaining player at the table, but definitely a fan favorite and one of the best out there. Much to the dismay of the standing-room audience, he had to nod goodbye.

Erick Lindgren has jumped out to a dominating lead here, as it stands at 1am. He has 3.25 million, and the next closest stack belongs to Scotty Nguyen with 2.7 million. I smell a good final table. (And I smell a poker player who needs a shower, but that’s not relevant here.)

UPDATE:
11th place: David Bach - $159,840
10th place: Raymond Davis - $177,600
9th place: Ralph Perry - $177,600
Final table set! Seat assignments and accurate chip counts to be posted when announced…

Wrapping up yesterday’s action, with a preview of today’s tournament (with a moment of silence for John Bonetti):

The $5,000 NL Holdem 6-handed event finally reached their final table at around 5:30am, now they have to attempt to get some rest before returning in front of the watchful eye of the ESPN360 cameras at 2pm with this sextet:

Seat 4: Richard Lyndaker 2,345,000
Seat 3: Joe Commisso 1,961,000
Seat 5: Tom Lutz 1,493,000
Seat 1: Samuel Trickett 1,045,000
Seat 6: Edward Ochana 928,000
Seat 2: Davidi Kitai 298,000

The $1,500 Stud Eight or Better stopped play with 13 players remaining as they play down to a winner starting at 3pm. Here’s the approximate chip counts of the baker’s dozen (chip counts and seats to be rearranged later):

(Table 14)
Seat 1: Ryan Hughes 73,000
Seat 4: Margaret Macre 173,000
Seat 5: James Richburg 274,000
Seat 6: Ron Long 33,000
Seat 7: David Brooker 45,000
Seat 8: Daniel Nicewander 41,000

(Table 15)
Seat 1: Mike Hefer 71,000
Seat 2: Tim D’Alessandro 82,000
Seat 3: David Sklansky 110,000
Seat 4: Thomas Hunt III 101,000
Seat 6: Alessio Isaia 172,000
Seat 7: Joshua Feldman 121,000
Seat 8: Jonas Klausen 346,000

Other tournament action (plus the final 24 in the $50k HORSE) on page 2:
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Though it’s not unusual for pros to show up late for WSOP tourneys, something was amiss during one of the last 1500s when Scotty Nguyen didn’t show up til well into the 100/200 level …

Apparently Scotty lost one of his capuchin monkeys. The fire department was still trying to get the the pesky little primate out of a tree when Scotty decided he just had to go. Not sure what the status is of said monkey, but one thing that is interesting is how the floor handled his depleted stack.

From Adanthar:

Naturally, Scotty was unhappy about that and asked the dealer why he didn’t have 3K. But at the WSOP, only late registrations get their full 3K chips (and get seated in Seat 10); everyone else gets a regular seat and then gets blinded off if they’re late, which is normal. Scotty, though, obviously didn’t like the idea of starting out with a 9 bet stack, said “I’m not playing”, and went off to find the tournament director. I think he just wanted to be allowed to unregister, but instead, a couple of minutes later, the floor showed up with a full stack and gave it to him. On the one hand, this is pretty much blatant cheating - it’s a free 1200 chips that nobody not named Scotty Nguyen would ever get;

Murmur?

(Thanks, Shamus, for the link.)

What’s happened tonight while preferring to watch the Pokerati Bowling Series over PBS every time:

The $3,000 NL Holdem event is down to headsup play with John Phan and Johnny Neckar. There’s been some controversy over where the action has taken place. First, David Singer had an issue with the lighting in the area and requested to be moved to another location. The table they were moved to was in the center of the tournament floor, and the crowd of players in other tournaments, fans, and media were too much for the players. The floor staff would eventually rope off the area to give the combatants some breathing room. Singer eventually finished in 5th place, chip leader Matthew Vengrin would be eliminated in 3rd.

More after the leap:

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Tom Schneider’s memorable 2007 is coming to an end — WSOP Player of the Year, 7th in CardPlayer’s POY, 96th in Bluff’s — oy, now he gets to start all over. But before he does, we get a sense of where this semi-regular blogger’s accomplishments fit into the bigger word beyond poker (or, as Scotty Nguyen says, “Poker Beyond!”) … as Tom has been chosen as a finalist — and poker’s only representative — for ESPN’s 2007 All-SportsNation Team.

Click here to vote, preferably for Tom.

The Top 5 get the Espy honors. Currently the leaders are Randy Couture, Floyd Mayweather, Jr., Tom Brady, Alex Rodriguez, and Brett Favre … with Tiger Woods following just a single percentage point behind. Yikes, tough competition for Tom — dare I say tougher than any he has seen at the poker table? — but kinda cool that he’s (at the time of this posting) right ahead of Dirk Nowitzki and tied with Kaká.

Seriously, click on over … for the sake of poker players everywhere to further boost the ego of everyone’s second-favorite Beyond the Table cohost.

CORRECTION: Tom is ranked 96th overall for the past two years by Bluff. For 2007 he finished 158th, compared to 76th in 2006.

We probably shoulda mentioned this earlier, but there’s been a pretty big series of tournaments going on at the Cherokee Casino in Upper Oklahoma. The main event of the Scotty Nguyen Classic IV just finished up … another quarter-million first-place payout from our good friends north of the Red River … and TJ Cloutier won it, avenging the two-outer that cost him the top spot in WinStar’s big-daddy event.

He defeated Houstonian Ray Henson, whom you may recall went deep in the 2007 WSOP main event — the last Texan standing, finishing in 12th place before being knocked out by, interestingly enough, Scotty Nguyen.

124 players bought in to this $5,000 NLHE event, including a handful of names and faces you may recognize from tables around North Texas and elsewhere:

TJ Cloutier, Richardson, 1st place — $241k
Ray Henson, Houston, 2nd place — $138k
Brant Hale, Norman, 3rd place — $72k
Gavin Smith, Las Vegas, 4th place — $42k
Noah Nodine, Norman, 5th place — $33k
Daniel Robertson, Alma, AR, 6th place — $27k
Gil George, Dallas, 7th place — $21k
Scotty Nguyen, Las Vegas, 8th place — $15k
Bill Edler, Las Vegas, 9th place — $12k

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LAS VEGAS–It’s been a crazy up-and-down day for the Donkey Bomber in $1,000 7-Stud Hi Lo. He’s come back from almost nothing at least three times, and briefly assumed the chip lead. I was thinking at that point he should basically sit on his chips for a while. But what do I know about this game? He told his daughter at dinner break that this was when he really needed to put the pressure on.

With 13 players left — 8 make the final table — Tom is the shortest stack with 34,000. Scotty Nguyen is second in chips with 150k. Tony Ma is 10th with 70,000. Tommy Hang, a highly respected player in high-stakes mixed action, is to Tom’s right, while a goofy guy who appears to be a total 7-stud donkey is to his right … with a ton of chips and a plastic riding crop thingy that is amusing Scotty Nguyen — “High five [for spanking]!” Scotty said. Seven-stud Hi Lo bracelet winner Pat Poels explained to me on the rail that position probably matters less in this game than any other, save for maybe Chinese poker.

Click here to see if he can hang in there.

UPDATE: 11 players remaining. Tom has 42k in chips.

UPDATE: Down to 9 players. Scotty Nguyen says, “That’s right baby! Spanky Spanky!” as the 7-stud doofus (he’s jogging around the table right now muttering “wubbawubbawubba”) smacks his plastic spanker on the table.

Tourney officials are going to move a player every 20 minutes to keep the 5-and-4 disparity “even.” Tom is at 78,000 now.

UPDATE: Ming Ly is one of about two dozen people sweating the action on the rail. Scotty Nguyen is more than a little drinky, and ordering beers for the table. Tom obliged, and thanked him as he tried to tip the waiter. “No no! I already tip him. Ten dollars. When I say I take care of it I take care of it.”

“You’re trying to get me drunk,” Tom joked upon taking a big swig, “so you can take advantage of me.”

UPDATE: Tom and Scotty’s table now has five players, instead of four, and Tom and Scotty are the ones drinking. Hang, meanwhile has said no more. “I’m happy to have another Bud [Milwaukee's Best] Light,” says Tom, “But I’m having a bathroom issue.”

Now Tom’s being moved to the other table, at which point Scotty says, “See you tomorrow, baby.”

UPDATE: One hand passes at the new table and an argument breaks out — two amateurs bitching at Tony Ma for exposing his cards when two other people were still in the hand. “That’s bullshit!” screamed Saundra Taylor. “Total bullshit. You’re a professional you should know better!” Tom made random comments like, “Gamble-time!” and “Beam me up, Scotty!” Brilliant, Schneider. Good work.

Tom now has 235k in chips … the player to his left, Mark Smyrski just went out … and Tom makes his third final table, with plenty of chips to play. Nice work, Tom!

LAS VEGAS–They’re down to 11 10 players in Event 5 - Omaha/7cs Hi Lo - $2,500, and Tom is still the chip leader, with more than a quarter of the chips in play — and a goofy hat that says “Beyond the Table” on one side and “Oops I Won Too Much Money” on the other. He’s got Annie Duke and Chris Ferguson to his left. Also still alive: Josh Arieh, Scotty Nguyen, John Phan, David Benyamine, and Chris Bell.

Damn.

While writing this post, Steve Hall, unaware of what I was doing and who Tom Schneider is, says, “That’s amazing. John Phan is almost at the final table in the 7-card-stud-Omaha event … You have to actually know poker for that … It looks to be an amazing final table.”

Indeed, Steve, it does. This final table only may or may not be televised. It will be up to ESPN whether to broadcast Tom’s game (is it premature to call it that?) or the $1,500 PL Hold’em final table, featuring Gavin Smith and Marco Traniello. Anyone know any lobbyists?

Also, Mr. Fresh Princess is alive and slightly above average in the $1,500 limit event, and Julie Schneider — Mrs. Donkey Bomber — is thriving in a second-chance tourney in the back of the room.

UPDATE: Tom made it … busted out Arieh to seal the final table deal … he’s got a third of all the chips in play. Mr. Fresh Princess is now hanging “by a thread.” And Julie got knocked out with Ace-Queen … but what’s really funny is how she plowed through the roped off area to tell Tom about it while he was in the middle of a hand.

If you happen to be online this lovely Saturday early eve/right now, you may want to tune in to Naughty Poker Angels, live right now on Hold’em Radio. Sharron and Angie will be interviewing Scotty Nguyen. If any of you happen to know two of the three principals involved, you’ll know what sorta good naughty trouble they are sure to get into.

NOTE: Scotty Nguyen has a new website. Click the lovely flash intro (nyuk nyuk!) and you’ll see he has trademarked his signatureâ„¢. So if you had any designs on stealing it … now you can’t. Damn. Or perhaps I should say Danmâ„¢?

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