It’s always generally amusing when poker pros semi-catch the attention of those charged with letting us know about celebrities showing up at various locales around town. Yesterday, at the Palms:

Former MLB athlete and manager, Pete Rose dined at N9NE Steakhouse inside Palms Casino Resort Saturday night (10.3.09). Wearing a white dress shirt, blue jeans and white alligator boots, he joined his friends Mike Bertolini (sports memorabilia agent), Todd Brunson (professional poker legend) and Brunson’s son Doyle. They gathered for a short while to enjoy some cappuccino, leaving a little after 10 p.m.

Todd really is a legend when you think about it … but didn’t realize he had a coffee-drinking squirt named Doyle, LOL. A little curious what they musta been talking about with Pete Rose and a sports memorabilia agent. Perhaps Rose is thinking about making a go at the Poker Hall of Fame?

Watching the latest episode of ESPN’s Inside Deal … Laura Lane had a question for Howard Lederer, about who would win between him and his sister vs. the Brunson clan. Though Howard’s non-committal answer shows he is definitely learnin’ himself some politics, it got me thinking … really, who are the biggest poker families?

Though naturally I see yet another Dream Team tourney possibility, there could be other ways to quantify the “first family” of poker. Off the top of my head — based on people who play at least semi-regularly and have had some semblance of decent results in biggish events — you have, in no particular order:

The Brunsons
Doyle
Todd
Pam

The Lederers
Howard
Annie (Duke)

The Greensteins
Barry
Joe (Sebok)

The Mizrachis
Eric
Robert
Michael

The Williams
David
Shirley

The Schneiders
Tom
Julie

The Nguyens (Master)
Men
Van

The Heimowitzs
Jay
Lonnie

The (Belcore) Zogmans
Dan
Mary Jo

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MMA bad-asses Randy Couture, Frank Trigg, Phil Baroni, and others will be joining poker pros Todd Brunson, Lee Watkinson, Chip Jett, David Williams, and others to raise money for wounded vets this Sunday at the Golden Nugget. It’s a $330 buy-in (w/ $100 rebuys) … first prize is a $10k seat (+$2k travel) to the upcoming Sports Legends Challenge in the Bahamas. Karina Jett is the hostess — and if we’re lucky, we’ll get to hear Todd Brunson talk politics.

Come play if you’re in town. Good times, good cause, all that stuff … open to the public and no funky, disputable, optional-donation prize pool — just charitable poker the way it’s supposed to be. Click the image to enlarge the flyer, and below for official details.

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Recapping Sunday afternoon’s activities:

Mueller Muscling His Way to Bracelet #2

The final table of the $1,500 Limit Holdem Shootout has 6 players remaining after returning from their dinner break. Greg Mueller is the current chip leader (950,000), followed by Marc Naalden, Millie Shiu, David Williams, Flaminio Malaguti and Matt Sterling.

Erik Looking to put the 123 on the HORSE Field

Erik Sagstrom, an early Internet poker sensation, is the current chip leader (1,280,000) of the $50,000 HORSE with 31 players remaining. Ville Wahlbeck (775,000) is in 2nd place, followed by Vitaly Lunkin (735,000) in 3rd as the players take their dinner break. Day 2 chip leader Gus Hansen (670,000) is still in the top 10, along with Todd Brunson (610,000) and Freddy Deeb (560,000).

Hedler Ahead of the Field in $1,500 NL

Jason Helder (440,000) is the current chip leader in the $1,500 NL Holdem with about 120 players remaining as they try to play down to 9 before the 3am deadline. Notables with chips left include Men Nguyen, Cody Slaubaugh, Jason Potter, Owen Crowe and Vinny Pahuja.

Triple Chance NL Holdem

A field of 854 started today’s debut of the $3,000 NL Holdem Triple Chance event, with a field of approximately 400 remaining. No chip leader has been named yet, but the updates say that there’s a few players with stacks of 70,000 from their starting stacks of 9,000.

Stud 8 or Better

A field of 467 showed up for the $1,500 Stud 8 or Better event that started at 5pm, they have eight levels of play today, with the only notable casualty so far being Perry Friedman.

Check out www.wsop.com for more updates, and some stuff overnight from Pokerati.

Recapping the Friday afternoon action…

Vallo Valuable in $50k HORSE

As the players return from the dinner break, Martin Vallo is the unofficial chip leader (245,000) in the $50k HORSE event with all 95 players who registered remaining. The players are now on level four, with three more levels of play scheduled before play ends for the day. Among the early leaders, Daniel Negreanu (200,000), Jeff Lisandro, (188,000), Patrik Antonius (175,000) and Todd Brunson (168,000).

Letting Ylon’s Be Bygones

Ylon Schwartz is the current chip leader (2,000,000) with three players remaining in the $2,500 Mixed Holdem event as they return from their dinner break. John McGuiness (1,200,000) and Bahador Ahmadi (750,000) round out the field. Barry Greenstein finished in 5th before heading off to join the $50k HORSE field.

Cantu Crushing PLO8

With 36 players remaining in the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha 8 or Better event, Brandon Cantu (525,000) is the dominant chip leader, with Tommy Vedes (225,000) a distant second. Other notables remaining: Lee Watkinson (70,000), Noah Boeken (62,000), Phil Hellmuth (58,000), and Randy Holland (46,000).

Limited Field in Limit Holdem Shootout

The late afternoon tournament, $1,500 Limit Holdem Shootout drew a field of nearly 600, seated at 64 tables. The round one winners play at eight eight-handed tables, and those winners will return on Sunday to determine the winner. No table winners have been determined yet, but expect some notable winners included in the morning update.

Catch up with all the updates over at www.wsop.com and more stuff from Team Pokerati during the evening.

Here’s tonight’s action in brief:

Four left in $2k NL on ESPN360: 4 left, currently on dinner break until 9:40pm Anthony Harb and Peter Rho chip leaders.
Nine left in $10k Mixed Event: Doyle out 13th, Scott Dorin leader, Huck Seed 2nd, Todd Brunson 9th

81 left in $2.5k NL holdem, Alex Keating chip leader.
39 left in $2.5k Limit holdem 6-max, 36 get paid. Shawn Buchanan chip leader.

366 return from dinner break in $5k NL, starting field was 655, down about 80 from last year.
359 entries in 1.5k 7 Card Stud, Mark Seif and Tom Schneider among very early chip leaders.

More updates at www.worldseriesofpoker.com and Pokerati (maybe) during the evening.

Another day, another two final tables delayed at the WSOP yesterday. Starting with the $2,000 No Limit Holdem event, 25 players return at noon on Saturday to play down to the winner. The reason for the early start is in the hopes that a final table will be reached around the scheduled 2pm time that the final table would air on ESPN360 (http://wsop.pkr.com for those outside the US). The chip leader when play resumes will be Mike Carlson with 858,000 in chips. Others people may have heard of include Jim Geary (511,000), and Jose Rosenkrantz (187,000).

The other event will definitely have a more intriguing final table, as the $10,000 Mixed Event World Championship is down to its final 20 players, all of whom are in the money. Huck Seed will be the chip leader at 645,500. In a father-son battle, it’s Todd Brunson (374,500) with a slight chip lead over Doyle Brunson (335,000). Other notables remaining include Mark Gregorich (266,000), Mike Wattel (210,000), Michael Binger (132,000), Eric Froehlich (102,000) and a mystery person who name and chip count wasn’t reported. They’ll get to return at 1pm, and with the average stack having just 10 big bets, a final table may not be that long in the offing.

In the two final tables that concluded earlier this morning, Ken “Teach” Aldridge schooled the final table to win the $1,500 NL Holdem 6-max event for $428,259, and Rami Boukai took down the $2,500 PLO/PLH (HA) event, which was worth $244,862.

More tournament news after the jump:

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Finishing up business from Monday night before moving on…

The $1,000 NL Holdem Stimulus Special finished at 3am today with 50 players returning at 1pm to play down to a winner. The chip leader is Robert Comegys from Grand Prairie, TX with nearly 1.2m million in chips. Danny Fuhs is close behind, with notables such as Eric Mizrachi, Lee Watkinson, Dan Heimiller, and Jonathan Aguiar far down the leaderboard. More details will be available in my PokerNews recap later today. Today’s event is scheduled to be the first of over 20 WSOP final tables to be streamed online this year. The scheduled 2pm final table will be pushed back at least a few hours, depending on how fast play is today. Updates on Pokerati during the day today.

The $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha event finished their Day 1 with 81 players remaining, the exact amount needed to reach the money. Jason Mercier, best known for his success on the European Poker Tour, is the chip leader with 227,000 in chips, over 60,000 more than second placed Matt Humphrey. Other notables who’ve made the money include Eric Froehlich,, Dario Alioto, Josh Arieh, An Tran, Warren Karp, Shannon Shorr, Robert Mizrachi, and Kirill Gerasimov. Those players and many more return at 2pm today to play down to a final table.

The $10,000 Seven Card Stud World Championship ended after eight levels with 101 of its remaining 142 entrants remaining. High-stakes cash game player David Oppenheim emerged as the chip leader, with veterans “Miami John” Cernuto, Nick Frangos, Danny Robison, and Steve Zolotow helping make up the top 10. Others who’ll be looking to work their way up include Eli Elezra, Todd Brunson, Eric Drache, Erick Lindgren, Andy Bloch, Cory Zeidman and Phil Ivey. They also return at 2pm to play down to their final table.

The one event that was able to conclude Monday was the WSOP Champions Invitational as Tom McEvoy, the 1983 Main Event winner, knocked off Robert Varkonyi, the 2002 Main Event champion to win the first Binion Cup along with a 1970 red Corvette.

The preview for today’s events:
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First, some advice from the Poker Shrink to those in the poker media during the WSOP.

Day 1a of the $1,000 NL Holdem Stimulus Special drew a full field of entries today as the WSOP tournament staff issued a press release declaring the event a sellout at 6,000 entrants, although official numbers are slightly below the 6000 total. There have been rumors that a few spots are still available on Sunday to select individuals who wish to register. An earlier rumor that alternates were being allowed to enter the event turned out to be incorrect. The players will be returning from their dinner break shortly, with less than 1000 players remaining to play the final 2 to 4 levels today. Among the notables that have already came and went: Kevin Saul, Shannon Shorr, and PokerRoad’s Joe Sebok, Joe Stapleton and Barry Greenstein.

The 40th Annual $40,000 NL Holdem event almost has its final table in place, as they’re now 10-handed and return from their dinner break shortly. Alec Torelli leads a stacked table with 5,375,000 in chips. The remainder of the table features Greg Raymer, Tony G, Ted Forrest, Justin Bonomo, Dani Stern, Vitaly Lunkin, Isaac Haxton, Noah Schwartz and Lex Valdhuis (with his girlfriend, Evelyn Ng, sweating the action on the rail).

The size of the Stimulus Special caused a one-hour delay in the start of day 2 of the $1,500 Omaha 8 or Better event. The players reached the money just before their dinner break. Notables who won’t be heading to the pay window include Phil Hellmuth, Andy Bloch, “Hollywood” Dave Stann, Scott Clements and Tony Cousineau. Defending champion in this event Thang Luu is near the top of the leaderboard, with Layne Flack, Freddy Deeb, Todd Brunson and Pat Poels all still in the fight. Special congratulations goes to former WSOP TD Matt Savage for his first WSOP cash. With about 85 players left, the goal is to play down to a final table for Sunday, but don’t be too surprised if there’s a couple of tables who’ll get to return tomorrow afternoon. Check out www.worldseriesofpoker.com for more updates during the evening, and here for players to follow.

The $1,000 NL Hold’em Stimulus Special looks to be a huge success, as day 1a appears to be sold out with at least 2,800 entered. There’s still some room for tomorrow’s day 1b, but it looks like that field will also be maxed out before play gets underway at 12 noon today. The WSOP Staff Guide projected 5,305 entrants and that has already been exceeded, so I’ll take the cheap win and take the over with a field of 5700 who will eventually play this weekend as the WSOP staff finds a few additional tables to put on the floor to accommodate the field.

The 40th Annual $40,000 NL Hold’em event returns for day 3 action today at 2pm with 23 players playing down to Sunday’s ESPN final table. Justin Bonomo will start action as the chip leader with 2,678,000 in chips, Ted Forrest in 2nd with 2,586,000, and David “WhoooKidd” Baker in 3rd with 2,367,000. Greg Raymer is the last remaining World Champion in the field, in 4th place with 2,287,000. Other notable names include Alec Torelli, Dani Stern, Matt Glantz, Isaac Haxton, David Chiu, Neil Channing, Andy Black, and Andrew Robl.

The $1,500 Omaha Eight or Better also comes back at 2pm today with 197 players remaining from their record field of 918. 2008 winner Thang Luu appears to have returned to his winning form, as he’ll start play today as the chip leader with 73,600 in chips. Other notable names remaining in the field include Phil Hellmuth, Annie Duke, Todd Brunson, and Brandon Cantu. Their final table is also scheduled for Sunday, although with much less exposure than what will be a mix of live and online stars of the 40k event or the WSOP Champions Invitational event, which also starts on Sunday. More to come today, with an update soon (?) if the Stimulus Special has sold out.

8am Update: Under 80 seats left for Sunday.
10:30am Update: 5,839 registered from Da Commish’s Twitter

Playing today are:

Tom Dwan
Doyle Brunson
Eli Elezra
Peter Eastgate
David Benyamine
Barry Greenstein
Ilari Sahamies
Daniel Negreanu

I attended the grand opening/premiere/LV poker mixer for The Real Deal at the Venetian on Tuesday. I’m still processing what I witnessed — but I am pretty sure it was the official jumping of the shark for poker, as some 500 poker fans (including Tim Conway, Robert Wagner, Bob Newhart, multiple poker agents, WSOP officials, and the owner of the Venetian and president of the Sands, who walked out after 25 minutes) witnessed painfully how getting lots of airtime on ESPN, GSN, and Fox Sports comes nowhere close to making you a Vegas entertainer worthy of a $100 ticket twice a night, let alone twice a lifetime.*

*Exceptions: Lacey Jones and Vinnie Favorito were great.

Wicked Chops and RawVegas were there, too. And they took advantage of the red carpet to poll a few well known poker players on who they’re backing in the presidential election:

The breakdown:

Daniel Negreanu — Obama
Scotty Nguyen — McCain
Doyle Brunson — Diplomatic: likes McCain but “Obama is better for poker” (?)
Todd Brunson — McCain
Lacey Jones — Undecided: Worked in previous McCain campaigns, but “on the fence”
Eli Elezra — Filibuster: Obama “right guy for poker … but I’m a businessman also”
Gavin Smith — Obama
Dennis Phillips — Diplomatic Filibuster: House and Senate elections matter more

In a move that may or may not say anything about the state of poker on TV (or even just the state of TV for that matter), the show Stargate Atlantis is doing a little filming in Vegas today … at Planet Hollywood. Something about looking for a serial killer at a high-stakes poker game visited by aliens who hold the fate of the planet security in their hands. The Las Vegas pros at the table — Todd Brunson and Roy Winston(?).

Airs January 2 on the Sci-Fi Channel.

ALT HED: Extra, Extra!

Click below for the episode descrip:
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Michael Phelps made history at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics by winning a record eight gold medals. And his comments to the press about wanting to play some poker in the future garnered much attention from the poker community, as in offers from the Asian Poker Tour and Betfair regarding the WSOP Europe. Neither offer was accepted.

It seems that the swimming legend does things on his own terms. Phelps recently traveled to Las Vegas with some friends as guests of the Palms, and one of his wishes was to meet Doyle and Todd Brunson and Hoyt Corkins.

Photo courtesy of DoylesRoom.com

According to the most recent post on Doyle’s blog, he received a call and brought his son and Corkins, along with Jennifer Harman and Marco Traniello, to meet Phelps for a dinner at Nine Steakhouse at the Palms. “What a nice kid!” Doyle wrote. “Phelps and some of his friends wanted books so I took Super System 1 and 2 to them and they asked all kinds of poker questions. Michael said all he wanted to do in life, was to eat, swim and play poker.”

Oh yeah… I can already see Phelps with a Doyle’s Room cowboy hat at the WSOP in 2009. Obviously, no deals have been signed at this point and Phelps has not accepted any invitations to play in tournaments thus far, but I can see an NBC National Heads-Up Championship and World Series in the kid’s future. Just a personal prediction…

The poker shark just can’t seem to be jumped. While I don’t expect to see All In: The Musical on broadway any time soon, apparently some people believe that poker players actually go see shows, or at least that they are more likely to if the show is about poker. The Real Deal is gonna be part poker theatre, part poker tourney, part poker game show, with audience members interacting with various pros on stage via wi-fi at The Venetian. Poker thespians will include Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Jr., Antonio Esfandiari, Gavin Smith, Eli Elezra, Jennifer Harman, Phil Laak, Scotty Nguyen, and Todd Brunson — guess they’ve got nothing better to do with High Stakes Poker gone — and surely it is only a matter of time before Hellmuth wins a Tony and/or The Producers will be brought to you by FullTiltPoker.net. No word on whether or not they plan to add hypnosis to the mix (”I will find inner peace and fold these pocket 10s”), but just to let the poker entertainmentpreneurs out there know, poker still has yet to be translated into any of the following:

Poker: the Topless Revue
Poker: the Pool
Poker: the Mechanical Bull Ride
Poker: the Buffet
Poker: the Surgery

Who says there still isn’t room for growth in this industry? Click below to read the full press release, and for more info about a show that will be sure to dazzle us in frightening ways before the end of the year:

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Happenings from yesterday with a preview of today’s action::

The two final tables yesterday have been covered enough here so on to the day 2 action. The $5,000 NL Holdem final table is now set for this afternoon under the ESPN360 cameras shortly after 2pm.

Seat 1: Anders Henriksson 311,000
Seat 2: Jacobo Fernandez 848,000
Seat 3: Rajesh Vohra 1,040,000
Seat 4: Ben Sprengers 441,000
Seat 5: Adam Geyer 645,000
Seat 6: Scott Freeman 423,000
Seat 7: Scott Seiver 2,512,000
Seat 8: Chuck Sklar 439,000
Seat 9: Dave Seidman 653,000

More after the jump:

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What’s happening at the WSOP while I wonder if the new boss is as same as the old boss…

The only final table yesterday concluded early Thursday, and we finally got a bracelet winner that had won one previously. The $5,000 NL 2-7 KC Lowball w/rebuys event saw Mike Matusow outlasted Jeff Lisandro and the rest of a talented final table, featuring Tom Schneider. Matusow was down to 405,000 in chips with Lisandro and Barry Greenstein had the other 3,100,000 in chips when the dinner break began. Returning from the break definitely appeared to rejuvenate him, as he was on the attack early and often. Eventually, Lisandro eliminated Greenstein, but headsup was mostly controlled by Matusow, until he eventually won when his Q-8 hand beat Lisandro’s Q-9 and Matusow wins his 3rd WSOP bracelet and the $537,000 that came with it.

Final tables for today and other action after the jump:

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In a final table filled with high-stakes players and bracelet winners, Eric Brooks ($0 in tournament cashes) beats Fu Wong ($110,000 in tournament cashes) in the $10,000 7 Card Stud World Championship. Alexander Kostritsyn, who at one point had a 1,000,000 chip lead over his nearest competitor, finished in 3rd. High stakes regulars Minh Ly and David Oppenheim finished in 4th and 8th respectively. 8-time bracelet winner Erik Seidel finishes in 5th.

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Happenings at the WSOP while JC Tran (and his spectacular breasts) make the final table.

Play ended shortly after 5am in the $10k Mixed Event World Championship. A tournament that had its share of controversy, from confusion over the structure to players threatening to go to 2+2 to express their dislike of having table redraws start at triple draw instead of going through the eight-game rotation. Here’s the final table, starting at 4pm:
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So the WSOG has been a really cool event … it grew this year from 60 players to 80 players, probably only 30 of whom were poker players. I hope it continues to grow to the point that poker has only a minor connection to it … because when they can get the Charles Barkleys and Michael Jordans competing in it, then I gotta think it would be a huge TVmajig. (Currently it will be airing on CBS as a time-buy, paid for primarily by Full Tilt.)

Here’s an article about the WSOG in USA Today. What I find most fascinating are the comments it has gotten — comments not by staunchly pro- or anti-poker people … but by run-o-the-mill Americans who have a slight interest in reading a not-so-prominent article about a quirky variant of golf. They give a lot of insight into the challenges that poker faces in the future (on TV and otherwise):

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LAS VEGAS–I’ve never been much of a fan of Todd Brunson. I dunno, he just kinda walks around like he’s the son of Doyle or something. And the one time I met him — at his father’s pre-main-event party last year — he made it very apparent that VIP access or not, I was hardly worth his time. But after seeing him in action tonight, I think I might gotta reconsider …

Earlier this evening, Todd wandered over to the low-stakes cash tables with Freddie Deeb’s (very cute) daughter. He was good-fun drinky, and Ms. Deeb (sorry, I can’t remember her first name) was letting us all know she just turned 21 three weeks ago. (Happy Birthday!)

Then he sat down and began playing some $4/$8 limit … yakking it up all jovial with the little people. Very cool. He also showed good poker consideration by asking the dealer to blind him off (instead of dealing him out) whenever he got up and disappeared to other spots in the poker room for a while.

Brunson the Younger then stood up to make an announcement. (”I never realized he was so big,” observed a player at my table.) He was offering $5,000 to any man who shows up for tomorrow/today’s Ladies event in drag. The stipulations: they had to be wearing a visible Doyle’s Room logo, and if turned away plea “discrimination!” I’m not sure if they had to be allowed into the tourney or not. (The Tiltboys pulled off such a stunt a few years back at Bay 101 and were met by some with humor, and others with extreme disdain. And I’m not sure Todd really cared whether or not you got in … so long as you get on TV. “If 10 people do it, that’s fine! I’ll pay out $50,000!)

(At least one Rounder Clubber is seriously considering the offer.)

A little while later, a young low-stakes lady asked Todd Brunson to sign her (spacious) butt. Jaws dropped and camera-phones flipped open at multiple surrounding tables as he ever-graciously abliged.