4,500-chip, four-color starting stack at Stratosphere.

The Stratosphere’s quaint 10-table poker room sits in the back of the casino, past a row of slot machines, craps tables, another row of slot machines, down the ramp past Roxy’s Diner, near the escalators to the Top of the World restaurant — just before the Double Down Pit and Back Alley Bar. On Thursday, there was a sole 1-2NL table of action about 30 minutes before the nightly tournament.

You’d hardly know that this room has supposedly become the new Sahara when it comes to Las Vegas’ most popular small buy-in dailies — with the 7pm event drawing consistent fields of 50 players or more.

I approached the podium and purchased a seat for the event. The buy-in is $45 for 4,500 in chips, plus a $20 add-on that gives you 4,000 more chips, which you can purchase any time within the first hour. (There’s also an option for unlimited re-entry within that time frame.)  With 20-minute levels, that add-on is necessary, especially considering there are no automatic shufflers in the tournament tables.

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Day 2 of the $20,000 Epic Poker League Main Event concluded with Sam Trickett leading the remaining 18 players, all guaranteed $43,190. Trickett is the only player with a seven-figure chip stack as the field will now be playing for a $1,000,000 first prize as the players agreed to move money from 2nd place to the winner.

Day 2 started with 63 players as Eugene Katchalov, Ben Lamb and Brian Rast held the top three spots. Only Katchalov survived the day with chips as the early action was dominated with several eliminations as Vanessa Selbst, Dwyte Pilgrim, and Phil Laak were among the familiar faces hitting the felt.

Some players complained about the fast structure; leading Commissioner Annie Duke and Tournament Director Matt Savage agreeing to review the structure, among other aspects of the EPL, before their second tournament in September.

The remaining 29 players reached the dinner break with an average stack of about 80 big blinds, with the objective of finishing the day after bursting the money bubble. Antonio Esfandiari, Brandon Cantu, Nam Le, Tom Marchese and Frank Kassela all fell short of earning their first EPL cash when 19 players remained, one from the money. A prolonged bubble period gave Trickett the opportunity to add to his stack, becoming the first EPL player to hold over 1,000,000 in chips.

Two hours into hand-for-hand play, Matt Graham added his name to the long list of EPL firsts as his pocket jacks were cracked by Chino Rheem when he turned a flush to become the EPL’s first bubble boy.

The remaining 18 players return Thursday at 12pm to play down to the final table of six. The field consists of 20 WSOP bracelets, 3 WPT titles and almost $80,000,000 in tournament winnings. Two players who qualified through the Pro/Am over the weekend, Brandon Meyers and Dan Fleyshman, become EPL-eligible for the rest of the season if either player wins the tournament on Friday. Here’s how the Day 3 field will be seated with play resuming with blinds at 2,500/5,000 with a 500 ante (the average stack having ~76 big blinds):

Table 1:

Seat 1: Adam Levy – 587,000
Seat 2: Dan Fleyshman – 82,500
Seat 3: Hafiz Khan – 144,000
Seat 4: Hoyt Corkins – 252,500
Seat 5: Brandon Meyers – 109,500
Seat 6: Isaac Baron – 637,500

Table 2:

Seat 1: Noah Schwartz – 259,500
Seat 2: Matt Glantz – 453,000
Seat 3: Ted Lawson – 210,000
Seat 4: Huck Seed – 93,500
Seat 5: Chino Rheem – 408,000
Seat 6: Gavin Smith – 357,500

Table 3:

Seat 1: Hasan Habib – 646,000
Seat 2: Eugene Katchalov – 418,000
Seat 3: Sam Trickett – 1,032,000
Seat 4: Jason Mercier – 535,500
Seat 5: Justin Bonomo – 42,000
Seat 6: Erik Seidel – 609,000

Live updates and more available at www.epicpoker.com

Those dastardly SAEs won’t be allowed to play in the Pikes-only Northwestern homecoming freeroll, that’s for sure.

Pokerati is headed to Chicago for an event you may not know about, nor should you. The awesomely titled “Pike Poker Tourney” takes place at the Best Western-Evanston on Saturday, Oct. 23, after Northwestern’s (5-1) homecoming football game against Michigan State (7-0).

It’s a $1,000+ freeroll for Pi Kappa Alpha alums and actives … with $1k going to first, and 2nd through 4th TBA tomorrow. Economists have confirmed that $1k is still “a shitload” to college students.

I’ll be serving as executive floor honcho, and found out earlier today the original plan called for only 1,000 starting chips.

Gahhh!

Just because this will be a very quick, luck-friendly 3(ish)-hour event doesn’t mean it has to suck! (We can stretch it to 4 hours if necessary, though it shouldn’t be hard to get players to push chips around — health officials confirm that college students still like to drink, as do aging alumni desperately trying to cling to their youth.)

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The 2010 WSOP Europe at the Casino at the Empire in London held their first bracelet event this afternoon, the £2500 + £150 NL Holdem 6-max event. The field had a cap of 204 players, selling out the tournament, however alternates were accepted, eventually creating a field of 244 entrants, with the final 24 making the money. 31 players will return at 2pm London time Wednesday (updates at PokerNews and WSOP.com), playing down to the final 6 players. Andrew Pantling leads the field with 106,100 in chips. Other notables returning: Chris Bjorin (103,800), Chris Moorman (94,200), 2007 WSOPE runner-up John Tabatabai (69,900), Phil Laak (63,600), Jeff Lisandro (55,500), Praz Bansi (49,300), Liv Boeree (27,700) and Andrew Lichtenberger (19,900). Full seat assignments available here.

Tomorrow is the second guarantee @DetoxPoker … $50k assured, for a $230 buy-in with a single $200 rebuy. That makes the math pretty hard to do for how many runnin’ rebuyers they need to avoid putting up an overlay … and potentially having one of the new suits chopping heads from the Poker Lounge staff willy-nilly. But gotta think they’ll make that small one.

Of course the real event everyone’s talking I’m thinkin’ about is tomorrow’s big Pokerati event at 5 pm. While there’s no guarantee in play beyond good times, lots of action, and a little PLO tourney experience — and its still unclear how CardPlayer intends to interpret their own rules for POY points — Event #11 is the one tournament at Detox offering a true World Championship.

I know this because I declared it so myself … and I’m pretty sure that’s how it works in poker! So as of right now, until someone declares otherwise, tomorrow’s late Detox event will be the 2010 Pokerati NLH/PLO Championshi … check that … make it the 2010 NLH/PLO World Championship!

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The Detox Poker Series is right around the corner, starting Friday Aug. 13 with a $100k Guarantee for a $350 buy-in with two day ones, re-entry allowed. The spankin’-new small-stakes/big-action festival comes at a whispery time around the home room to the Pokerati NLH/PLO game … with a new crew of top-level casino brass combing through the Hard Rock’s books while walking through various gaming areas with tape measures … raising uncomfortable questions about the fate of the $12 million, two-year-old poker lounge that has seen its ups and downs without yet fully realizing its potential.

Of course that’s kinda the point of bringing in an internationally renowned tourney director. Or at least it was initially. Kinda still works, but for different reasons …

First things first … Savage has guaranteed the guarantees — $350k worth. This is despite a misleading tweet just two weeks ago from @hardrockpoker saying there’d be $1 million in guaranteed prize pools. [/shaking head] It coulda just been a hyperbolic typo, but an amusingly ironic one then considering the Hard Rock’s image problems after a few overpromises that these tourneys were to help put to rest. But according to Matt himself on 2+2, he’s got the $350k locked up by contract no matter how few players show.

Beyond that … expect an extra-partytime atmosphere around typical Savage series stuff (deep structures, quality dealers, friendly intelligent floor, good internet coverage, etc.) to liven up the joint: He’s in charge of providing ultra-improved tournament action while the Hard Rock promises to provide good music and a guaranteed flow of nipple-friendly eye-candy stumbling past the poker room.

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When players bag their chips for the night, they get a “pink slip” that serves as a claim ticket allowing them to re-take their seats the next day.

According to Rio security, on each of the Day 2s of the main event, with more than 2,000 players arriving, every one of them had their pink slips. Yesterday, however, with 205 players remaining and prize money not just within grasp but actively escalating, some 30 players forgot or lost that little piece of paper that helps guarantee re-entry into the tournament.

In what some consider a controversial decision, tournament director Jack Effel decided to stop play with 1:15:44 left in level 16 (2,500/5,000 w/ 500 ante) to have the 751 players remaining (747 make the money) take their 90-minute dinner break. Effel’s explanation was that they needed time to prepare for paying the players who bust out immediately after the bubble bursts. The field had planned to start hand-for-hand play before the announcement. The current leader is Theo Jorgensen with 1,325,000 in chips. Other notables: Matt Affleck (1.26m), Tony Dunst (1.18m), Phil Galfond (1.05m), Adam Levy (840k), Johnny Chan (785k), Jean-Robert Bellande (753k), David Benyamine (630k), Scotty Nguyen (540k) and Eric Baldwin (500k). Also in the field are all 4 Mizrachi brothers: Robert 310k, Michael 118.5k, Donny 115k and Eric 60k.

Gavin Smith and Jason Somerville discuss the decision with Wicked Chops Poker.

Notables who were eliminated earlier today: Matt Savage, Annie Duke, JJ Liu, Hank Azaria, Robert Varkonyi, Dan Harrington, Erica Schoenberg and Barry Greenstein. Team Pokerati’s only remaining hope (?), The Big Randy, was eliminated in early action.
Follow the action on the money bubble with play resuming at 8:30pm at wsop.com.

The final opening day of the Main Event drew a field of 2,391 hopefuls to the Pavilion and Amazon rooms at the Rio on Thursday afternoon. Football Hall of Famer/Dancing with the Stars winner Emmitt Smith kicked off the festivities with the “Shuffle up and play” command, before deciding to go with the traditional “shuffle up and deal”. According to Pauly’s semi-live blog, he initially refused to sign the ESPN waiver, possibly still bitter about the Worldwide Leader getting rid of him a couple years ago. After finally signing the waiver, he was eliminated a short time later. Among the notables who also had an early day: Joe and Tony Hachem, Doug Lee, Sorel Mizzi, Allen Kessler, John Juanda, Phil Gordon, Brian Townsend, Steve Dannenmann, Michael Craig and Pam Brunson.

After nine hours of play, 1,699 players get to return Saturday afternoon for day 2b. The reported day 1d leader is Steve Billiarakis with 187,150 in chips. Some other notables returning on Saturday include: Archie Karas (137,775), David Benyamine (130,800), Vanessa Rousso (111,050), Jason Mercier (90,525), Frank Kassela (87,000), Darvin Moon (78,400), Kara Scott (69,625), Barry Greenstein (53,625), Doyle Brunson (52,425), 97-year old Jack Ury, (40,500), Bryan Micon (36,400) and Shawn Sheikhan (32,900). The full list of chip counts is available at wsop.com. The day 2b table draw is available here, you can also find it on my Twitter as well.

Day 2a gets underway at 12pm with over 2,400 players returning, scheduled to play 4 levels. The 90-minute dinner break will be held after 3 levels are played, which would mean the middle of level 8, although that has not been confirmed by tournament director Jack Effel at this time. For those looking for the day 2a table draw, it’s available in PDF and spreadsheet form. During the day, be sure to check out wsop.com and your favorite Twitter followers and find out what’s going on at the World Series of Poker.

NOTE: Over 2,100 players have registered for day 1d, with a capacity field of over 3,700 expected.

Day 1c of the Main Event drew the biggest field as 2,314 players as defending champion Joe Cada handled the “shuffle up and deal” to get today’s activities underway. Cada finished the day with a respectable 55,000 in chips. Among the notables who don’t get to return for day 2b on Saturday: Tom Dwan, Howard Lederer, Huck Seed, Isabelle Mercier, Chad Brown, Men Nguyen, Faraz Jaka, Dario Minieri, Chau Giang, 2009 November Niner Steve Begleiter, and after making his usual dramatic entrance, Phil Hellmuth exited quietly.

At the end of 9 hours of play, 1,642 players will join the 762 day 1a survivors Friday afternoon at 12pm at the start of day 2a. The reported leader at this time is Mathiu Sauriol with 169,900 in chips. Johnny Chan finished the day 2nd in chips with 163,700, other notables back for day 2a include Lauren Kling (149,650), Barny Boatman (144,050), Hoyt Corkins (129,150), David Williams (112,225), Todd Terry (96,175), Jennifer “Jennicide” Leigh (85,425), Brock Parker (71,125), Liz Lieu (70,050), Annie Duke (62,000), Yevgeniy Timoshenko (48,150), and Antonio Esfandiari (44,150). The full list of chip counts is now available at wsop.com. The full table draw for day 2a will be linked here and at my Twitter for those interested when it becomes available.

Day 1d of the Main Event gets underway at 12pm, with football Hall of Famer Emmitt Smith handling the “shuffle up and deal” duties, with some poker site sure to put a patch on him if he decides to play. The Main Event field is already the second-largest in history with over 7,000 players registered with a chance it breaks 8,000 over the next 8 hours. Catch the action over at wsop.com, Pauly’s blog and Twitter to see if anyone gets shut out, who gets knocked out, and how this afternoon’s action is played out.

NOTE: Over 2,000 players have already registered for day 1c, late registration for day 1d is scheduled to reopen at 4:40pm PT today.

Day 1b of the Main Event brought 1,489 players to the Amazon and Pavilion rooms at the Rio for 9 hours of poker action. Phil Gordon, Rafe Furst, Joe Sebok and other dignitaries took part in the pre-game activities to help promote the Bad Beat on Cancer charity. Tuesday’s “shuffle up and deal” command came from Ashley, named “Dealer of the Year” by the WSOP, to get the tournament into action. Some of the notables who didn’t make it through the day included Annette Obrestad, Joe Sebok, Jamie Gold, Erick Lindgren, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Liv Boeree, Justin Bonomo, Mark Seif, Brandon Adams and former November Niners Darus Suharto, Ivan Demidov and Craig Marquis. For a semi-live view of Tuesday’s action, check out Pauly’s day 1b blog.

After 4 1/2 levels of play, 1,017 players will return Saturday afternoon as part of the day 2b field. The day 1b leader is James Danielson of La Plata, Maryland with 201,050 in chips. Some of the notables with a significant amount of chips: Alexander Kostritsyn (131,800), Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond (107,100), Gavin Griffin (97,200), Blair Rodman (85,025), Todd “Dan Druff” Witteles (73,475), Brandon Cantu (65,025), Gavin Smith (62,275) Vladimir Shchemelev (53,500), and Phil Laak (40,275). Team Pokerati/Loudmouth Poker pro Tom Schneider finished the day with 22,075 in chips. The full list of chip counts is now available at wsop.com. For those who made it through day 1a, there is a partial table draw available now here. The day 2b partial table draw is now online here, and on my Twitter when available.

As mentioned above, over 2,000 players have already signed up for day 1c, and today also brings the annual circus of Phil Hellmuth’s grand entrance, scheduled for 1:30. This year, he’s dressing up as an MMA fighter with Wanderlei Silva expected to be part of his entourage and UFC announcer Bruce Buffer introducing him. Daniel Negreanu has jokingly tweeted his own plans about making his entrance today as Rocky Balboa. The rest of the field will make their entrance the usual way, by walking into the Rio without making a spectacle of themselves. See what transpires during the day at wsop.com.

Had an interesting convo last night with @HeartlandPokerTodd (not his real twitter name, though it prolly should be) …

Todd Anderson from Fargo, North Dakota, bought into his first WSOP Main Event a few days ago, and we were talking about the value of chips acquired early in this $10k, long blind-levels, triple-stacked tournament. Before long we began to conclude that a player would be fine making it to Day 2 without playing a single hand. We couldn’t agree, however, on where that chipstack would be at the end of Day 1.

So here is my attempt to calculate it … feel free to disagree and/or disparage:

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UPDATE: Day 1 of the Main Event will play 60 minutes of level 5. The 90-minute dinner break will take place at the end of level 3.

The World Series of Poker, to most people who don’t follow poker, finally gets underway this afternoon with day 1a of the $10,000 No-Limit Holdem World Championship, better described as the Main Event. A field of 6,500 players are expected to show up at the Rio in Las Vegas, seating themselves at tables in the Amazon and Pavilion rooms, hoping their two chips and a chair will turn into something much larger over the next 12 days when the last 9 players return in November to play down to a winner.

The main concern for this year’s Main Event will be if Thursday’s day 1d, which had the highest number of pre-registered players, may mean some players could be shut out. Throw in the schedule (four two-hour levels scheduled for each day 1), and it’s possible not enough players will be eliminated on days 1a and 1b to accommodate the much larger fields expected for days 1c and 1d.

While the Main Event gets underway today with updates at PokerNews and wsop.com, or follow Pauly’s live blog. There’s still two more bracelets to be awarded today along with the rest of Sunday’s action.

Alaei wins 10k PLO

The final table of the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship concluded with Daniel Alaei defeating Miguel Proulx heads-up to win $780,599, along with his third career WSOP bracelet. Proulx, winner of the $2,500 PLO event earlier this WSOP, collects $482,265 for the runner-up finish. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report coming soon at wsop.com.

Huck Seed, TOC winner

The final day of the WSOP Tournament of Champions concluded with 1996 Main Event winner Huck Seed defeating Howard Lederer heads-up, winning $500,000. Lederer adds $250,000 to his results, with Johnny Chan earning $100,000 for third. Full results at wsop.com.

1k, 2.5k final tables today

The final two preliminary bracelet events will be awarded this afternoon, both with a start time scheduled for 3pm, but the Main Event may throw a hitch in those plans. Follow the updates at PokerNews or wsop.com. First, here’s the final table for the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem:

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Note: At the time of this post (6:00am PT), registration is temporarily closed for days 1c and 1d of the Main Event.

A busy 4th of July awaits the WSOP with three bracelet events and the Tournament of Champions finishing today, maybe.

WSOP TOC finally resumes Sunday

It’s an early day for the remaining 17 poker celebrities as the WSOP Tournament of Champions plays down to a winner starting at 11am. Mike Matusow will lead the field with 85,500 in chips when play gets underway, follow the gripes, complaints and other action around the felt at PokerNews.

Proulx leads 10k PLO final table

With 18 players left, the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship looked like it would feature a strong final table. That fizzled when Tom Dwan, Phil Hellmuth, and Jason Mercier were eliminated in the final two tables, leaving a very international final table when play resumes at 4pm with this lineup:

Seat 1: Ludovic Lacay – 2,279,000
Seat 2: Daniel Alaei – 1,800,000
Seat 3: Miguel Proulx – 2,440,000
Seat 4: Matthew Wheat – 745,000
Seat 5: Ville Mattila – 490,000
Seat 6: Trevor Uyesugi – 435,000
Seat 7: Alexander Kravchenko – 330,000
Seat 8: Stephen Pierson – 570,000
Seat 9: Dmitry Stelmak – 1,285,000

Peters leads day 3 1k NL field

Day 3 of the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem is scheduled to play down to a final table when play resumes at 3pm. David Peters leads the remaining 47 players with 594,000 in chips, with bracelet winner Jesse Rockowitz (320,000) and Alex Jacob (163,000) among the notables remaining. The full list of chip counts and results are at wsop.com.

Mackey’s Million leads 2500 NL

Day 3 of the $2,500 No-Limit Holdem finds 73 players returning at 3pm, attempting to reach a final table. James Mackey (1,011,000) holding a large chip lead over the field. Other notables who come back to the Rio include Mike Wattel (428,500), Jon Turner (288,000), Dan Shak (215,500), Isaac Baron (194,000), Craig Marquis (152,000) and Court Harrington (145,000). Full chip counts and results available at wsop.com.

One bracelet already awarded, another bracelet possibly awarded tonight, the mess that is the Tournament of Champions and other tournament action:

Kelly wins 25k 6-max, Brunson 10 Deal

The final table of the $25,000 No-Limit Holdem 6-max took less than four hours to complete, as 21-year old Dan “djk123″ Kelly took down the bracelet along with $1,315,518 when his A-10 ran down Shawn Buchanan’s pocket jacks with an ace on the river. Kelly also became the 7th member of the Brunson 10 with the win, as he was part of a competition during the WSOP to award the spot. Buchanan earned $812,941 for his second place finish, he also won a big hand on the river a few minutes earlier, when the money went in on an open-ended straight draw against Frank Kassela’s flopped two pair. The straight on the river meant a 3rd place finish for Kassela ($556,053), along with 60 POY points to give him a stranglehold on the title. Jason Somerville ($386,125), Mikael Thuritz ($272,804) and Eugene Katchalov ($194,559) rounded out the final table. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report at wsop.com.

Proulx leads 10k PLO, Hellmuth’s chips throw TOC into chaos

What was expected to be the final day of the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship is currently on a dinner break with 18 players remaining. Miguel Proulx, who won the $2,500 PLO event earlier in the WSOP, holds the chip lead with 1,966,000, with Ludovic Lacay (830,000), Jason Mercier (794,000), Tom Dwan (501,000) and Phil Hellmuth (181,000) among the notables remaining. Live updates available at wsop.com.

Hellmuth’s stack is causing problems for the Tournament of Champions, which was scheduled to resume at 7pm. With Hellmuth still in the TOC, the other 16 players were hoping for Hellmuth’s elimination tonight to get the field down to a final table and avoid a long day on Sunday. After Hellmuth made the dinner break, there was discussion about playing one level during the PLO dinner break, but with Joe Hachem asleep and Huck Seed unable to be found, that idea was scrapped and the TOC will be played out starting at 11am, unless some other problem arises in the next few hours.

Phil Gordon wins Ante Up for Africa

A field of 83 poker pros and celebrities, took the felt in the $5,000 Ante Up for Africa charity tournament, with Phil Gordon beating Shannon Elizabeth heads-up, with Gordon donating the entire $129,086 to Ante Up for Africa. Erik Seidel and Jerome Bettis also appeared at the final table. Annie Duke tweeted that over $300,000 was raised in total from the event. Full results and Dalla’s tournament report at wsop.com.

$2,500 NL nears the money

After a delay in the $2,500 No-Limit Holdem due to a shortage of available dealers, 222 players remain for day 2, with the final 196 making the money. James Mackey is the current leader with 240,000 in chips, followed by Isaac Baron (170,000), David Singer (144,000), Andy Philachack (100,000), Jamie Gold (82,000), Tom Franklin (74,000) and Jason Dewitt (63,700). Updates and chip counts available at PokerNews.

1k NL makes the money

Less than 200 players remain in the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem with at least four more levels scheduled for tonight. Check the results and updates at wsop.com.