It feels good to run good … and because it’s important to know whom you’re up against, here are six players you may wanna congratulate/look out for at the tables live and online, as their most recent noteworthy successes suggest they are running particularly well.

Mary Joe Belcore-Zogman
Heartland Poker Tour’s “The Grand Series”
Onamia, Minnesota

Bested 201 players to take down $85,723 — making her the second woman to win an HPT event, and part of the first husband-wife team to both win on the Heartland Poker Tour. Dan Zogman won $220k in Gary, IN, last year. The Zogmans hail from McHenry, IL, about 60 miles outside of Chicago.

More details about her win at HeartlandPokerTour.com

Phil Ivey
Full Tilt Million Dollar Cash Game
London

Made a stab at his 6th bracelet in the £2,500 HORSE at WSOP-Europe (banking more than US$25k for 6th place), and while overseas was the big winner in the million-dollar cash game against his fellow Full Tilt pros and other highest-stakes players. Finished +$536,400, dominating the competition for the second time in the event’s 3-year history.

Live-blog coverage from Michael Craig (relevant posts start in the #520s)

More…

An email from Shamus last night:

Am live blogging the WCOOP Main Event tonight for PokerStars. I tell [Mrs. Shamus] that Tom is playing.

“What is his name, again?” she asks. “Love handle?”

He outed himself.

After Dan tried to delicately give “luvgamble” kudos for winning the WCOOP Event #24 ($530 NL 2-7 Single Draw) without giving away his real name, as no one likely caught the clever “Schmonkey Schmomber” clue, Tom Schneider gave his real name when doing the winner’s interview piece for PokerStars.

In the piece written by Falstaff entitled, “Oops! I Won Another Bracelet! Tom ‘luvgamble’ Schneider Takes Down Event #24,” the Donkey Bomber discusses the key to his WCOOP success.

Schneider, who has had tremendous success in live tournaments with 2 World Series of Poker bracelets in 2007 and the WSOP Player of the Year title for that year, says “I like games that don’t have any educational material available. I believe that my advantage is that I’m able to figure out games without having to rely on written material.”

Ahhh, not reading. That’s the key! Duly noted.

Today, Schneider started out at the top of the leaderboard of the WCOOP $5200 NLHE main event. Keep up with his progress as live bloggers track all of the happenings. (Side note: If Schneider stays in long enough, I’ll likely write some witty blog entries about him during the late shift tonight, my last of the WCOOP.)

click to enlarge

Well whaddya know … Pokerati fave [name deleted] still plays poker … and last night he (”luvgamble”) won WCOOP event #24: $530 NL 2-7 Single Draw. (Which really is the best psychology-based poker game of all.)

308 runners, 49 in the money. First Place paid a nice $42k … glad to see [name deleted] finally book a noticeable win in 2008, which will make me feel better taking a chunk of it in our presidential election wager.

The one unfortunate thing … [name deleted] always liked to play anonymously, and wouldn’t even tell me his PokerStars screen name for fear that I’d publicize it. But now, as it goes in poker because I have no conscience he actually won a semi-public event, I get to out him, and the “Shmonkey Shmomber” is stuck playing a Googleable screen name into perpetuity. Ha ha, er, I mean congrats!

Other notable money finishers with trackable screen names:

newhizzle - Mark Newhouse
Bill Chen - Bill Chen
GavinGriffin - Gavin Griffin
KidPoker - Daniel Negreanu
BeL0WaB0Ve - Kevin Saul

Meanwhile, here’s a moment of Zen from 10th-place finisher Bill Chen, speaking on “The Power of Acceptance”, and even the necessity of embracing plausible death:

There’s a lot of action going on, now and into this weekend …

First off, in the online world, the WCOOP (World Championship of Online Poker) is going on on PokerStars. You can rail it live as an observer on PokerStars itself, of course, or if you’ve got an offline life you can follow it semi-live on the PokerStarsBlog in the capable hands of our own California Jen and some of your other favorite bloggers (Change100, Tuscaloosa Johnny, Otis).

Believe it or not, they’ve also got “TV” coverage of these big online tourneys — they’re about halfway through 33 of them. Check it out right here if you’ve got a half-hour to kill:

The new PokerStars TV will also be all over the EPT Barcelona, which just got underway — including some live video coverage viewable on the internet, along with more traditional blog-coverage and chip updates.

On the salty side of the pond, the Borgata Poker Open is getting heated in Atlantic City. That’s where Pauly’s at. And he’s covering all the action (along with the ever-illustrative Tropical Steve and poker-media journeyman Michael Friedman) on the official Borgata Blog. The WPT main event kicks off on Sunday. The WPT has their own blog-crew coverage, too — something called “The Muck”.

Meanwhile, I’m stuck here in Vegas, where it’s a Freerollin’ Saturday for me:

I start the day in Event #2 of the PokerListings Run Good Challenge. Supposedly we’re having some blind-structure issues with PokerStars, but regardless, it will be a chance to redeem myself from my lackluster Event #1 performance.

Then, later tomorrow evening, it’s the grand-opening tourney at the Hard Rock, where I’ll be playing against Phil Hellmuth, Anjela Brunson, Rick Fuller, Scott Fischman, Scott Ian (of Anthrax), Jeremiah Smith, Andre Agassi, Montel Williams, Randy Couture, Jermaine O’neal, Paul Pierce, and others for an important motorcycle. Will be texting in updates via CSR should you care to follow my quest against a field that should be a combination of great and terrible, with a less-than-skill-friendly blind-structure.

Click below for more detailed info on the event itself, and the motorcycle.

It really is shaping up to be a Good Poker September.

More…

The World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) begins its seventh installment of the annual poker tournament series today on PokerStars. Event #1 of 33 total started at 2:30pm ET, and Event #2 gets going in a few minutes. The WCOOP will run through September 22nd.

I mention this for two reasons:

1. The WCOOP is a big friggin’ deal. It happens only once a year, which makes the anticipation factor high, and it was the original online poker tournament series. Big numbers are expected, as evidenced by Event #1, the NLHE six-max, which has 7,217 players with a prize pool of $1,443,400.

2. PokerStars has a live blog running for all of the events, from beginning to end. I’m one of the slew of bloggers tracking the tables/players and posting updates. It’s something new for PokerStars and most of the writers, but it’s looking like it will be a great endeavor. Stop on by and check out the action if you have nothing else to do enjoy online poker.

…and the other shoe falls.

Umm, yikes.

Let’s not talk about me (and how turning the straight with the second-nuts flush draw didn’t get there) … no no, there’s far more excitement going on in Scottsdale, as our good friends in the Arizona Posse are making quite a showing online this weekend.

Big Robert won a 300-player multi on Full Tilt last night–paid about $7,000–and tonight he’s sweating Pat Poels and Ryan Hughes, who are both at two different WCOOP final tables on PokerStars.

Poels is chip leader with seven left in 2-7 Triple Draw, and Hughes is sitting solid in Pot Limit Omaha (6-max). Both are playing for big five-figure payouts … actually Poels Hughes is already there.

Meanwhile, I’m deciding whether or not to drive home … or to Arizona.

UPDATE: Poels — pstarfish – finished 2nd (out of 649) to win $18,821. Hughes — elycash41 – finished 3rd (out of 1,818) to win $27,379. Nice job, Arizona! Way to represent. So wanna party like you guys.