Episode 67: Tempers Rising with Benjo DiMeo – An incensed Benjo goes off on an ESPN cameraman who tried to pick a fight with one of his French colleagues. As a six-year vet, Pauly shares a few of his run ins with the same surly cameraman who once nailed Mad Harper in the head. Yes, tempers are rising on Day 5 of the Main Event as the action on the tables and in the aisles heat up.
Episode 68: Fun with Names: Fokkin Bonkers with Benjo – After realizing that Dutch pro Fokke Beukers has the best name left in the Main Event, Benjo and Pauly search the remaining players list and attempt to pronounce the truly obscure and difficult ones.
Holy fugk, didn’t realize how many episodes behind I left all you over on this side of the internet pond. If Pauly, Benjo and I are supposed to be running in tandem as in a three-legged race, clearly I am the burlap sack. (Essential, but scratchy!) Be sure to catch up with whatever isn’t in your iTunes via the Tao of Pokerati complete archives.
And below are additional excellent and important episodes from the 2010 main event:
Episode 63: Day 4 Hypertension – With fewer than 1,000 players to go, Dan and Pauly wax on the tension inside the Amazon Ballroom along with the breakdown of the Pavilion. Pauly wonders if Team Pokerati’s last player standing, the Big Randy, in the Main Event is properly patched up as action approaches the money bubble.
Episode 64: Big Head Randy and the Min-Cashers – Dan and Pauly hang out at the Bad Beat bar and wonder if they are coolers? Or if the Big Randy had busted out because he was not wearing a Pokerati patch. Yes, the Big Randy busted before the money bubble. The discussion shifts to the bubble strategy for PokerStars qualifiers who also have a PCA package riding on the line along with the min-cash.
Episode 65: Boo Bubble – Dan was napping in his car as the bubble slowly approached. He woke up during the dinner break and wondered where everyone went. Pauly clued him in and Dan was bummed that he couldn’t record the players groaning in dissent. The Bubble is nigh.
Episode 66: Bubblicious – Pauly and Dan were hanging out in upper level of the Jack Links’ beef jerky lounge keep tabs on the entire Amazon Ballroom from the high ground when the bubble burst. They captured the announcement of Tim McDonald’s 748th place elimination thereby becoming this year’s Bubble Boy (and winning a consolation seat in the 2011 WSOP). They also recorded the jubilant celebration from the players who made the money in the 2010 Main Event.
Had plans with Pauly to be ready to record an episode of Tao of Pokerati while the bubble was bursting … the text alerts came in … “8 left” … “we’re h4h now” … when he got to “5 left” I headed over, knowing we might lose the necessary players in a matter of a few long hands, or we could be waiting an hour or more.
Alas, I arrived to an empty Amazon room — WTF? Couldn’t believe we mighta had the fastest bubble-break ever, and I wasn’t there to see/hear/record it. But tuned in to the twitters to discover that what I really missed was a roomful of BOOOOs, balking at the decision of @WSOPTD to go on a 90-minute dinner break four away from the money.
That woulda been the sound to record — the collective groan from a Jack Effel decision that will likely be debated for years to come. Two of the more civil tweets about it:
RT @WSOPTD @wsop ME plyrs, need time to prepare 4 the money bubble. Paying 747 places requires precise coordination. thx for understanding.
@AlCantHang @WSOPTD I don’t disagree with decision but I don’t agree with the explanation. The entire world saw the bubble looming except WSOP staff?
Episode 56: Beast Light Reunion – Pauly quizzes Dan about reconnecting with his ole teammates from Milwaukee’s Best Light (one of whom has also joined Team Pokerati) and wonders whatever happened to the inflatable beer cans that seemed ubiquitous at the WSOP just a few years ago.
Episode 57: Scents and Subtle Sounds of the Main Event with Snoopy – An impromptu episode (with our British colleague Snoopy) to further discuss odor emissions — stemming from loose bathing habits, flatulence, pungent reefer, and a growing desire for luck — as the main event progresses.
Episode 53: Porn Stars, Hookers, and Poker Players with Benjo – While sitting in the press box, Pauly and Benjo notice that their favorite massage girl is working today. The discussion veers off into running a hooker ring out of Europe to coincide with various poker tours.
Episode 54:Â Day 1D Pharmaceutical Report – Here’s Pauly’s solo report where he give a quick rundown of street prices for pharmies and other illicit narcotics.
Episode 55: 7,319 with Benjo - The official numbers for the Main Event were released: 7,319 runners. Benjo and Pauly discuss the origins of the increase in the player pool.
Is somebody winning the TOC? Do we care? Not saying I won’t be watching it once it gets edited down for TV, but I thought we were supposed to be at a final table by now, not down to 17 10. With more than a week of retrospective and a third of the field eliminated remaining, the preferable alternatives for the 2011 WSOP seem obvious:
a) Hold the TOC at the very beginning of the WSOP, under some premise like who’s gonna kick off the Series with a little extra freeroll juice?
b) Hold the TOC during the November Nine. Add a little Harrah’s-branded excitement to that week, ya know, and give top pros a reason to make sure they’re part of it all? Also would give some eligible winners a chance to qualify while their stock is hot …
With this and three other final tables going on today … WTF happened to that “day off” we were promised?
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Dan showed up to the Rio super early for a Sunday just in case the the DOJ decided to bust Full Tilt honchos Howard Lederer and Jesus Ferguson. Pauly compared his morbid fascination of the potential perp walk to watching a NASCAR race in order to see a big wreck.
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Dan and Pauly recap the brief events of Day 1 of the TOC, and the slight confusion surrounding the change in schedule.
More episodes coming your way … because really, is there a better way to enjoy the full WSOP experience without being in Las Vegas? (Well I mean other than following Mathers here, on 2+2, Poker Road, and twitter …)
Of course you’ve known for years that I’m nowhere near so prolific as Pauly. That’s why he has a book coming out — I think like today! — and I’ve got just overlapping outlines, partial sample chapters … and now the occasional TOP episode previously unpublished here, but of course always available in the complete Tao of Pokerati archives for the chronologically demanding.
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Dan and Pauly keep a bird eye’s view on DonkeyBomber’s run during Day 2 of a donkament from the press box and find the easiest way to spot him is by his pants. They also chat about another Pokerati player — Toothless Bob — who was running great but suddenly went AWOL, as various types are known to do as we all get deep into the WSOP.
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What do Benjo and 7 Mexicans have in common with a flaring mob of Americans and Africans demanding someone at Harrah’s change the channel? Bad beat, obv. We’ve all heard stories, but Dan takes Pauly to the Bad Beat Bar itself, a comfortable but sparsely populated spot in a Rio Convention Center spillover area that feels more like a university commons than sports bar.
WSOP 2010 Insta-flashback …
The World Series had just gotten underway and Pauly, Dan, and Benjo preview the upcoming World Cup …
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Benjo explains his bets and talks about rigged-game conspiracy theories that our favorite Bulgarian bartender shared with him. Pauly and Dan pontificate on the gross discrepancies in World Cup lines between Harrah’s properties and off-Strip sports books.
Every year at the WSOP, there are those “working it” who win, and those who lose … and plenty of us who have done both before and now do the bare minimum just to maintain and somehow stay in the game. Whether it’s being media, flooring, dealing, executiving, whatever … it’s not too different from what the full-time players have going on in their own poker pursuits.
One of the clear winners this year has been Tim Fiorvanti, aka @Tim00, aka “Timtern”. This WSOP youngster returned for his second Series to be a pathetically paid PokerRoad intern … and shortly into it got an additional gig as a pathetically paid Bluff Magazine writer. Nice!
Furthermore, while he hasn’t exactly torn the game up, he has become a regular and respected player in Pokerati’s 1/2 nl/plo @HardRockPoker. Thus, I was delighted to see him take-it-down further, throwing projectiles from press row to earn proper respect from Pauly, Benjo, and even the real professor, Shamus, who showed even gray-haired academics aren’t afraid to put it all on the line against any young or not-so-young poker challengers.
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Sometime after midnight, we let it all hang out with the gang in the press box who engage in a silly, yet innocuous throwing-things prop bet that began with Pauly and a single piece of wadded up paper. Before everyone knew it, Benjo, Shamus, and ten other bored members of the press (both foreign and domestic) were joining the fray. Degen prop betting often keeps the free press sane during those late night insane hours, as Tim the Intern took down the inaugural Small Ball Cup.
Gavin Smith is near the chip lead at the $2,500 Mixed Hold’em Final Table. (One of his remaining opponents, on the second-shortest stack, is Dwyte Pilgrim, a Pokerati Fantasy WSOP pick in 2009; again, we were just ahead of our time …) Phil Hellmuth knows both these spots well … and naturally, we understand why Hellmuth wasn’t gonna make it the whole way for #12, and why Smith was setting himself up nicely for #1.
(Does Pauly even know the shifts in Ole G Smith’s backing set-up? Do you?)
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Dan happens to wander into the Rio at the exact time Phil Hellmuth advanced to the final table of the PLO/8 event. Pauly and Dan head up to the Beef Jerky lounge to get a better look at the Hellmuthian circus.
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Pauly and Dan saunter into the Pavilion Ballroom, where they rarely hang out. During the recording of this particular episode, they’re ambushed by a couple of the entities from Wicked Chops Poker. At some point, a discussion about a masseuse working on Gavin Smith’s upper ass region breaks out.
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After weeks of watching poker, Benjo can’t resist the urge to play and signs up for the $100 11 pm “brogdig” tournament. We learn first that Benjo is actually a very weak player. And then we learn he’s been doing some undercover reporting at the cash tables, where he learns that the Rio occasionally has an overaggressive rake.
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When LA Lakers owner Jerry Buss comes to Las Vegas to celebrate his National Championship by playing the $10k HORSE, he needs a little juice for his iPhone, which Benjo graciously supplies. He doesn’t try to hawk it though, instead seeing a long-term plan complete with courtside tickets and the digits of multiple barely legal vixens.
Sorry to leave any ‘Ati-first readers hanging for a week without easiest access to the latest Tao of Pokerati take on happenings at the World Series. Of course you all are smart … and presumably know to find any episode you (or I) may have missed in the Tao of Pokerati podcast archives here. Seriously, check ‘em out … there’ve been some good ones.
Pauly skipped town a couple days ago … I guess with Rio security responding to all the billboard advertising around their property for Dr. Reefer, the Happiness Consultants, Legal Cannabis Scrips ‘R Us, etc. by cracking down on 420 breaks at the WSOP, Pauly decided if he was gonna leave the Rio, he might as well keep on driving (then flying) to the nearest Phish concert.
But no worries … He’ll be back in a few days; in the meantime Benjo and I gotcha covered. Last night, with two final tables going on at the main stage, we found ourselves in one of those spots where two additional bits of exciting Amazon action were taking place simultaneously, with galleries overlapping in a single aisle as remaining players were well past their bubbles and getting nearer to big-money prizes.
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There’s a real s’affrontent going on in the $10k heads-up, with Bertrand Grospellier, arguably the #1 player in France right now, battling Benjo’s pal Lucovic Lacay, currently the top contender capable of dethroning him. All the excitement has the French guys on the rail madly … kissing? Benjo breaks down the questionable nature of these public displays of Euro-affection.
NOTE: Lucovic would end up beating Elky, who earned $38k in the Round of 16, while Lacay moved on to the final 8 where he is guaranteed at least $92k.
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DonkeyBomber‘s going deep in the Seniors event, but did Dan ruin his chances for a bracelet in “the oxygen event) with some inappropriate touching? Player superstitions aside, there’s some real concern about Toothless Bob, who was going into this event as the Team Pokerati favorite but may or may not have shown up to play.
A multitude of random click-worthy links and watchable videos, with or without context, that may or may not play into your evolving, overall world poker view … brought to you by 1/2 NL/PLO at the Hard Rock, now playing Tuesdays, Thursdays, late Fridays and by request:
The new This Week in Poker is here. Probably not quite ready for an Emmy nomination yet, or even a Webby if there is such a thing. But smart people behind it all … and possibly eventually a show that comes in to its own somewhere around the convergence of the internet and TV. [Wicked Chops]
I love caption contests — have won many of them. But gonna let someone else take down the wordsmither’s glory (and Full Tilt prize points) on this one, featuring funny and plausibly awkward image moments from the WSOP. [Full Tilt From the Rail blog]
One blog I enjoy reading regularly throughout the WSOP (personally check in on it about twice a week) is Adam Goulding‘s, aka Snoopy, who always provides a unique and worldly perspective on Poker America. [BlackBelt Poker]
I’m also checking in regularly on the people set to do the 360-streaming of final tables. Technology is supposed to be much improved from their WPT Championship debut, and word is they just got the green light from Nevada Gaming for the 2010 WSOP … but still not sure exactly when and where I’ll find the live action I’m looking for — hope to know soon! [All360Poker]
UPDATE: Going into Day 2, with 450 players remaining from a record field size of 3,142, Tom is the chip leader. A little concerned that I couldn’t find Bob amongst the list of entrants.
Did you know David Plastik used to be a rock’n'roll photographer in the 80s before becoming a professional poker player? His photojournalism seems to wash through the bright lights and make-up for a grittier view of a glam music in a newspaper era. [DavidPlastik.com]
Hey, that mighta been my best link-dump ever! Actually led to fewer open windows on my desktop, not more, and took only about an two hours to provide you with 6+ minutes of targeted, purposeful pokery web browsing.
Oh oh oh … and one last thing (for the moment) … We’re kicking so much Tao of Pokerati arse ever since the Benjo partnership and giving Pauly a key to the server farm, I can’t even keep up with it all. But fortunately the Best Little Short-Podcast in Poker gives you so much for so little, it doesn’t take much to get caught up. Meanwhile for a little closer-to-real WSOP experience in condensed space and time, be sure to check for the latest in the Tao of Pokerati archives. There’s a Matt Savage and PPA buzz, while Benjo’s on a lesbian kick in the Rio again. [Tao of Poker]
This Week’s Tourists at the Table:
(L to R) Team Pokerati WSOP-Ladies Event Final Tablist La Sengphet, Stuey, her boyfriend DC, and Good Chuck showing the Vegas grinders that Dallas players know a thing or two about PLO.
In so many ways, I can’t believe the WSOP is now almost two weeks complete. In some ways it seem like we just got started … in others, it seems like holy crap, we’re full in the heat.
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We head off the strip and record an episode at our local breakfast joint on the west side of town. Change100 and Michalski discuss an alarming trend on display at the WSOP — the invasion of Jersey Shore douchebaggery in what is traditionally Vegas Dbag territory.
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Benjo makes an astute observation — that WSOP tournaments are like different types of porn, particularly the specialty events, like the similarities between 10K Stud and CFNM bondage.
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After getting a tip from the Poker Grump about a chest-heavy woman in the poker room, Pauly and Benjo spring into action. Along the way they get distracted by the poker kitchen and then debate the merits of stalking the one we refer to as … The Devil.
I suppose the first big hubbub of the 2010 WSOP was Michael Mizrachi’s run in the $50k Mix. And the second, had to be Tom Dwan, who essentially did the equivalent of calling his shot when laying up to 3.5:1 odds on himself for a bracelet — resulting in 7 (or maybe 8 ) figures of high-stakes-gambler money on the line as he fought to take down donkament gold … not to mention the biggest payday of his 23-year-old life. For about half a day, he had a bunch of TV pros sweating turns and rivers unlike what they’ve grown used to on Poker After Dark.
To bring you breathtaking excitement (and palpable tension) from the Amazon floor last night, I’m gonna skip ahead in the Tao of Pokerati storyline … and catch up with Pauly and Benjo, who were of course right there as Durrrr’s chip-stack had a collection of prop-bet gamblers re-evaluating their futures.
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While the final table of Event #11 was being set up, Benjo spotted a group of the Big Game regulars who bet against durrrr having a quick meeting. The T.O.P. crew speculate on a potential bracelet bet buy-out if durrrr continues to dominate the donkament.
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Moments after the big donkament ended and durrrr took second, Benjo and Pauly headed over to the rail of the $10k Stud-8 event to watch the reactions of pros who bet against durrrr winning a bracelet and dodged a massive bullet.
Be sure to check out Pauly’s recap of Durrrr “calling his shot” (my metaphor, not his, obv) only to hit a long, barely foul ball and all the details available on his surrounding bracelet bets.
Everyone in poker seems to really care about the French these days.
And for all you us pathetically unilingual Americans, here is an easy-to-bookmark tinyurl for Benjo’s “Las Vegas, off the record”, with his personal take on any and all WSOP action robo-translated from French to English: http://tinyurl.com/38r4wdd
Just a brief update for now, but in what could be Tom Dwan’s biggest winning day, he’s the current chip leader with 9 players left at the $1,500 No-Limit Holdem final table. First place would officially pay Dwan more than $600,000, but he has plenty of bracelet bets with pros, leading to this tweet from Benjo, along with a brand-new Tao of Pokerati episode bringing you to the floor where this major side-action is happening. :
Surreal. A congregation of Big Game players are currently having a sit-down, most likely discussing offering Dwan to buy out of their bets.
