Check it out, blast from the past … just 2.5 years ago today, only some 30 months ago, Kevmath was reporting on this newfangled medium emerging in poker called “Twitter”. It was a global chip-count texting machine, this Twitter, and it was catching on way bigger than our version here at Pokerati (called CSR, Citizen Stack Reporter, ahead of its time, obv since abandoned).

I can tell you there has been a noted difference in our on-site commentary since Twitter.

Anyhow, go Kevmath … for asking the question:

Could Twitter Replace the Poker Media?
Apr 3, 2009

I’d say in some ways yes … but in other ways no, it’s just changed how many do their jobs. But Twitter’s still got a ways to go before the #hashtag officially usurps the adjective, and I still haven’t seen the concept really work for anyone who’s tried to possess it … so there’s gotta be a reason @KevMath has more Klout than the rest of us.

The 2011 WSOP wouldn’t be the 2011 WSOP without chatter about Full Tilt. And here, on the last day, Howard Lederer makes another appearance in Las Vegas, apparently at another Asian restaurant. But this time it was none other than Todd Brunson who had the unexpected run-in with the once-proud father-figure of Full Tilt Poker.

And Brunson reports — via the often unreliable Twitter — that he got paid his Full Tilt balance of about $150k … in a way that suggests Lederer is either going door-to-door making payouts (perhaps tidying up affairs before he has to “go away”?) or possibly just living out of his car …

ToddBrunson

He asked how much I had on tilt and I told him 150k.. He said come with me. We went to his car and he opened his trunk and paid me!!!!!! 23 hours ago

ToddBrunson
Look who I just ran into.. I told him the wsop killed me and I was cash short…… http://lockerz.com/s/121600156 23 hours ago

Either way, the stress seems to be doing Lederer right, physically at least, as the previous poster boy for the well-fed high-stakes “poker body” seems to have shed a few (dozen?) pounds around the saddle.

Persona non grata: You mean you haven’t been paid yet? Have you submitted your W-9?

And while it would be nice if someone really did get their Full Tilt balance refunded … it can’t be an ideal structure for payouts when they’re happening out of the trunk of a car, even if it is a $250k Audi.

Doyle said to have been buying up Full Tilt dollars at a discount

Meanwhile, since we’re relying on Twitter here … this seems as good a time to pass on a “rumor” that I feel confident enough about the source — someone inside Bobby’s Room — that it might reveal why Brunson’s father, Doyle, has been extra sour on poker as of late.

Supposedly, a few weeks ago, Doyle was playing in Bobby’s Room at the Bellagio, and he was tweeting about his slaughter of Billy Baxter. Soon, talk shifted (off-Twitter) to Full Tilt’s money problems. Brunson reportedly said he was confident they intended to pay, and believed they eventually would … and with that began buying up Full Tilt accounts for about 60 cents on the dollar. Can’t confirm the exact amount he purchased … but the kinda money that people playing in the highest-stakes cash game in Vegas might have on Full Tilt Poker.

The next day, the Alderney Gambling Control Commission suspended Full Tilt’s license, effectively shutting the site down indefinitely.

We have few rules here at Pokerati, just possible guidelines. But with that, the few that we do have tend to be important, and one I’ve told contributors before: Twitter is not a primary source. You’d think I woulda listened to my own advice and known better than to report something that came from a single source on Twitter, even if it was from a verified account. But it was Doyle! @TexDolly! Aren’t we supposed to believe everything most of what he says?

Well apparently the Grand Ole Man of Poker has had a change of heart. Not a medical transplant mind you, and frankly, based on his latest tweet, not even a change of heart about playing per se … but he does report his own change of mind, saying he’ll be there, in the 2011 WSOP main event … he just won’t be happy about it. And he did use the word “official”, too.

No tweets on who’s putting him in and what kinda “good for poker” guilt trip anybody or corporate entity may or may not have put on him.

Barack Obama was taking questions from the masses today in 140 characters or less. It really is a rather unique evolution in political communication. It’s not too different from standing on a soapbox back in the day … except here the crowd is millions strong, and – bo has enabled his @replies.

The PPA rallied the troops to make sure that of the millions tens of thousands of people jumping up and raising their hands with a question, at least one that got heard was about online poker:

Don’t forget today at 2PM EDT, President Obama will be hosting a Twitter town hall and answering questions tweeted to him. Please take a moment to use Twitter to submit a question asking the President if he supports licensing and regulating online poker by clicking here. To follow the Town Hall as it happens, please click here.

Let’s make our voices heard. Tweet your question to President Obama now!

Proud to play,
Drew Lesofski
Director, Grassroots and External Affairs

I sent mine in. No answer … but we’ll see if @BarackObama maybe includes @Pokerati in his next #FollowFriday.

UPDATE: Follow this guy, New York Times politics blogger, to see what questions got asked and how they got answered.

More…

Something in the Pokerati Twitter feed made me pause earlier today … huh … who woulda thought we’d ever see the day where a Full Tilt Mini Series of Poker PLO Event would be hyped with just a $10k guarantee?

FullTiltPoker 

Mini Series of Poker Event 31 starts at 15:20 ET. $30+$3 Pot Limit Omaha. $10,000 guaranteed. - http://ow.ly/5e5mF - 3 hours ago

Whether or not they crush the guarantee or there’s an overlay doesn’t really matter. But it does reveal something about Full Tilt’s confidence level, and imho shows a once-powerful entity crippled, having lost a few previous zeroes.

Just as a quick heads-up, there will be a LOT of twittering between Dan and myself today. If you dont know the accounts by now, be sure to follow @Pokerati and @Mark_Gahagan for up to the minute updates from the Pokerati crew.

Stuart Hoegner is quickly becoming something akin to the Joe Navarro of online-centric, international casino and gambling law. Though I’m sure @GamingCounsel on Twitter would never claim to be anything close to an @Kevmath for poker-related legal and legislative matters, this independent barrister and solicitor (they say things funny in Canadian) has in due process become a go-to voice of info about the latest legal and political shifts affecting 10s of millions of people in our multibillion-dollar industry.

While in town a few weeks ago, he sat for an episode of Jon Friedberg’s UTG, where they tackled some challenging questions for the Poker Industry as a whole in these undeniably tumultuous legal times — for anything connected to online gambling:

(Here’s a link if you’re having probs with the player as I am: http://tinyurl.com/2dkv9jj)

Ahh, remember how cute it was when Poker’s primary response to any insinuation of illegality was simply: “Whatever, game-a-skill.”

GamingCounsel has also become a regular guest on a podcast called CEM Audio Edge (Casino Enterprises Management), where he has broken down in great detail for CEMers matters of Canadian gaming code as well as effective use of Twitter:

Speaking of laws and Twitter, while we’re at it here are some quick story-worthy links — all ganked highlighted from @GamingCounsel’s feed:

Legal Briefs

State of Maine seems ready to expand gambling beyond parimutuel horse betting with a new “racino”.

Alderney (Full Tiltville) pushing propaganda to maintain its relevance as international online gaming regulator.

Isle of Man (PokerStarzistan) hosting frigid online gaming summit in November.

New Jersey Senate passes billto revitalize state gaming industry with boutique casinos.

Also …

The New York Times acknowledges that Big Casinos are finally on board with online gambling.

And a NYT piece about the continuing recession in Vegas.

Lastly, for now, (GC’s got plenty more) … The Economist on sports betting, athlete salaries, and match fixing.

With the £10,000 + 350 Main Event scheduled to start at 12pm London time Thursday, the final prelim event, £10,000 + 350 High Roller No-Limit Holdem Heads-Up will come to its conclusion at 3pm. Four players remain with the two winners playing a best-of-three final shortly after both matches are completed.

Gus Hansen v Andrew Feldman
Jim Collopy v Ram Vaswani

For results from day 2, check out PokerNews or WSOP.com.

Elsewhere …

WPT Borgata Poker Open – 10 players, including Dwyte Pilgrim and Lee Childs, remain as they play down to the TV final table. Defending champion Olivier Busquet finishes 25th, Mike Sexton finishes 20th. WPT Live Updates

UPDATE: Here’s the final table, starting at 4pm ET Thursday:

Seat 1. Kia Mohajeri – 4,225,000
Seat 2. Benjamin Klier – 6,125,000
Seat 3. Ofir Mor – 7,300,000
Seat 4. Brandon Novena – 5,125,000
Seat 5. Dwyte Pilgrim – 4,800,000
Seat 6. Daniel Makowsky – 3,300,000

PokerStars LAPT Grande Final – Rosario, Argentina :: Final stop of season 3 features a $5,000 Main Event. Can Jose “Nacho” Barbero win his 3rd LAPT event this season? PokerNews and the PokerStars Blog provide updates throughout the tournament.

November Niner Matt Jarvis tweeted over the weekend that Sorel Mizzi would coach him in preparation for the WSOP ME final table.

Love a good Twitter fight … but sometimes social media can hurt!

Was gettin’ all geared up for an exciting #FollowFriday when I got this reminder of how much things have changed. Alas …

But hey, I’ll always have this bit of inspiration — recorded during the 2006 WPBT Winter Classic, shortly after passage of the UIGEA … a time when Twitter hardly existed and I believed, along with Phil Hellmuth, that poker’s future was in ringtones:

Oliver Tse poker future

ALT HED: Oliver Tweetse

The Main Event will resume around 8:30pm with 42 players remaining, playing down to 27. The chip leader is Cuong Nguyen, who won the biggest pot of the tournament so far off of Theo Jorgensen on the last hand before the break when his Kh-Jc outflopped Jorgensen’s Ac-3c when it came down Kc-5h-9c to take the lead with 19,520,000 in chips. Joseph “subiime” Cheong is 2nd with 14,000,000 in chips. Play resumes at 8:30 with the start of level 29 with the blinds at 50/100/10k, follow the updates over at wsop.com

Notables:
William Thorson – 12,290,000
John Racener – 9,275,000
Bryn Kenney – 7,400,000
Matt Affleck – 5,535,000
Adam Levy – 5,180,000
Scott Clements – 4,200,000
Michael Mizrachi – 3,655,000
Johnny Lodden – 3,495,000
David Baker – 2,960,000
Theo Jorgensen 2,300,000
Hasan Habib – 520,000

Notable Eliminations:
Jacobo Fernandez
Tony Dunst
Alexander Kostritsyn
Peter Jetten
David Benyamine
Eric Baldwin
Jean-Robert Bellande

A few quicklinks, as I clean off my desktop while getting ready for the pseudo-final stage of the 2010 WSOP, which got started pretty much earlier today …

USA Today declares: WSOP is recession-proof.

Also from USA Today: Emmit Smith has an increasing love for poker, sparked by charity efforts backed by Full Tilt.

Timtern’s got a new Top Tweets column in Bluff. The follow-up editorial is what makes it better than most.

@Pokerati got props in Vegas Seven’s own top-tweets column, called Tweets of the Week.

Lacey Jones profiled in Vegas Seven magazine.

Lon McEachern wearing Tom’s Loudmouth jacket, via the WithLeather sports blog.

Do we have to fear the WSOP-Media event becoming the next ladies event? Technically it’s discriminatory and demeaning to media. But for some reason far fewer protested when Michael Craig’s assistant Shauna took his seat to play her first ever poker event.

Meanwhile, while there are plenty of signs of (Lost) Vegas refinding its economic way, the once luxurious Riviera has filed for bankruptcy.

BTW, just proof that Mathers can’t see everything Team Pokerati’s lone remaining player in the Main Event, The Big Randy, is alive at dinner break with 202k. He’s still trying to keep a low profile while chipping up quietly until money time.

UPDATE: LOL, maybe just semi-low … didn’t realize he had an active twitter account until reading it on WSOP.com. Go team!

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 2,000 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.

NOTE: Registration for day 1c will reopen Tuesday at 4:40pm PT, while registration for day 1d reopens Wednesday at 4:40pm PT.

Day1a recap

Day 1a of the Main Event got underway after Greg Raymer gave the command to “shuffle up and deal” shortly after 12pm on Monday to the 1,125 player throng, mostly seated in the Amazon room. The Pavilion room had a few tables at the start, but they were the first to be broken and moved into the Amazon room. Raymer was the first big name to be eliminated yesterday, crippled when he moved in with a flush draw against his opponent’s flopped set of tens. The flush didn’t get there, and he was gone a few hands later. During the day he would be followed out the door by notables such as T.J. Cloutier, Victor Ramdin, Isaac Haxton, Chino Rheem, Nick Schulman, Mike Caro, Ray Romano, Billy Baxter and Jimmy Fricke.

When play ended in the middle of level five, 762 players will return Friday afternoon for day 2a with the survivors from Wednesday’s day 1c field. The day 1a leader is British pro James Mitchell Corwin Cole with 241,075 228,200 in chips. Michael Mizrachi is 4th in chips with 142,650, with others near the top of the leaderboard including Barry Shulman (113,325), Chris Moneymaker (107,425), John Hennigan (95,050), Maria Ho (90,700), Scott Seiver (80,100), Vince Van Patten (75,450) Dwyte Pilgrim (68,775), Lacey Jones (67,600), Rene Angelil (52,275) and Matt Glantz (44,000) . The full list of chip counts is now available at wsop.com.

Day 1b preview

Today’s 1b field will bring another crowd of 1,000+ players to the Rio, each holding their $10,000 lottery ticket, hoping for a big payday. Follow all the updates, chip counts and other excitement over at wsop.com, or follow Dan’s lists of Twitterers.

Monday also meant the conclusion of the last two preliminary bracelet events:

Vonk valiant, wins 1000 NL bracelet

The final $1,000 No-Limit Holdem of this year’s WSOP was won by the Netherlands Marcel Vonk as he defeated David Peters heads-up, earning $570,960. Peters earned $350,803 for his runner-up finish, with England’s Paul Kerr in third for $255,076. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report at wsop.com.

Tomer wins final prelim bracelet

The $2,500 No-Limit Holdem came to an end earlier this morning with Tomer Berda with holding all the chips as he overcame a 2-1 chip deficit against Vladimir Kochelaevskiy heads-up, pocketing a cool $825,976. Kochelaevskiy will receive $510,939 for the second place finish. Full results and Dalla’s tournament report at wsop.com.