That’s hard to say, but regardless, you can still look stylish in your nonchalance with this 2010 edition WCOOP T-shirt commemorating the events from back in the Poker Cold War days:

Generic WCOOP Shirt by Pokerati

The first EPL Main Event winner, Chino Rheem, was put on probation shortly after winning $1,000,000. Rheem is obligated to pay back players he owes money to with any winnings or he’ll no longer participate in EPL events. He finished Day 1 in 6th place after six levels were played Tuesday afternoon. The smaller field means twelve players will cash, with the winner earning $782,410.

Here’s the top 10 in chip counts going into Day 2:

1. Jaime Kaplan – 324,600
2. Dan O’Brien – 321,400
3. Alec Torelli – 231,500
4. Mike McDonald – 199,600
5. Nam Le – 176,300
6. Chino Rheem – 173,300
7. Sean Getzwiller 165,400
8. Andrew Robl – 149,700
9. Adam Levy – 145,400
10. Marco Johnson – 145,200

Day 2 updates available starting from 12pm PT at www.epicpoker.com

EPL Preliminary Action

The $1,500 Pro/Am event featured an overlay of nearly $50,000, meaning only nine $20,000 Main Event seats were available when the field was down to 9 players. The event earned points towards the Global Poker Index, giving players incentive to play down to a winner. Greg Mueller defeated Nam Le heads-up to become the official winner with Phil Hellmuth finishing 3rd. Brandon Meyers and Sean Getzwiller each qualified for the Main Event for the second straight Pro/Am, but Meyers was eliminated on Day 1.

Jaime Kaplan was the 10th place finisher in the Pro/Am, but he earned a Main Event seat when qualifier Michael DiVita chose not to participate in the Main Event after information about his being a convicted child molester came to public light.

After the Pro/Am concluded the EPL held a charity event for Fallen Heroes USA, an organization dedicated to assisting families of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty. Epic Poker’s own Michael Craig took down the bracelet, defeating Phil Hellmuth heads-up as $25,000 was raised for the charity.

Seat 1: Roland de Wolfe – 1,377,000
Seat 2: Marc Inizan – 349,000
Seat 3: Nicolas Levi – 428,000
Seat 4: Fabrizio Baldassari – 697,000
Seat 5: Brian Powell – 842,000
Seat 6: Dan Steinberg – 1,520,000
Seat 7: James Bord – 1,331,000
Seat 8: Ronald Lee – 1,899,000
Seat 9: Dan Fleyshman – 1,946,000

Streaming of the final table, with hole cards, on a five-hour delay will be available at www.espn3.com and www.wsop.com for European viewers. For those looking to follow the action live, PokerNews and WSOP.com will constantly be providing live updates.

Elsewhere …

TJ Cloutier Choctaw Poker Classic – Durant, OK :: Sudhakara Kattamuri takes down the $1,500 + 100 Main Event for $73,127.

Big Poker Oktober – Bicycle Casino :: Small buy-in series of tournaments through Oct. 9, NAPT in November.

PokerStars WCOOP $5k Main Event: Under 125 players remaining, one of them tbvle, winner of hand 50,000,000,000 on PokerStars at a 2/5 cent table, which included a WCOOP Main Event ticket. He’s turned that into at least $17,711 and is looking for more. The PokerStars blog is providing live updates as they play down to a winner by Tuesday morning.

The £10,000 + 350 High Roller NL Heads-Up event finally has a winner, as Gus Hansen defeated Jim Collopy in the 3rd and deciding match to earn his first WSOP bracelet along with £288,409. Here’s how the final hand played out:

Elsewhere …

PokerStars LAPT Grand Final - Rosario, Argentina :: Martin Sansour defeats Bolivar Palacios, earning $322,280. Matthias Habernig’s bid for back-to-back LAPT wins fell short, finishing 6th. PokerStars Blog has the final table report.

TJ Cloutier Choctaw Poker Classic – Durant, OK :: Cloutier finishes 17th for $3,673, play down to 4-handed. www.roundersradio.com covering the FT action.

PokerStars WCOOP $5,000 Main Event :: 2,443 entries, first pays over $2m, 2nd and 3rd $1m+

Seat 1: Karim Jomeen 109,000
Seat 2: Scott Shelley 148,000
Seat 3: Nicholas Katz 150,000
Seat 4: Paul Ian Pitchford 77,000
Seat 5: Jeppe Bisgaard 171,000
Seat 6: Mehdi Senhaji 369,000
Seat 7: Kaveh Payman 434,000
Seat 8: JP Kelly 242,000
Seat 9: Jack Lyman 55,000

* Credit to Donnie Peters at PokerNews.
Follow along in the updates at PokerNews or WSOP.com

Event #4 will take place at 5pm London time Tuesday, the £10,000 + 350 NL Holdem High Roller Heads-Up event. The field will contain a maximum of 128 players with registration closing when the tournament starts. In case of an unevenly sized field (more than 32, 64, or 128) there will be byes for round 1.

Elsewhere…

WPT Borgata Poker Open – Atlantic City :: Day 2 underway, just over 200 players remaining with the top 100 making the money. A brawl almost takes place just before dinner as described by BJ Nemeth here. Other updates and goings-on here.

Heartland Poker Tour – Black Hawk, Colorado :: The poker tour that people forget keeps chugging along with Mark Dunbar taking down over $180,000 in defeating a field of over 400 players. HeartlandPokerTour.com has the recap.

T.J. Cloutier Choctaw Classic – Durant, OK :: Week-long series of tournaments w/ $1,650 Main Event Sept. 25-26 – Schedule

PokerStars WCOOP :: Jason Mercier and Chad Brown in the top 30 of 1k NL event, winner takes down nearly $500,000. RaiseOnce, allegedly Phil Ivey, takes down $25,000 HU title. PokerStars Blog

The best multitable tournaments, player loyalty rewards, stats, and seeing your own picture at the table were the vision unleashed on the world on September 11th. Click to look back at the site as it was then.

It was just for play money at first, but the timing would prove fortuitous. People seemed to enjoy the software and were telling their friends … as online poker seemed to provide a much-needed escape from the ever-more-difficult to swallow news of the day.

Less than a month later, America would launch made-for-TV strikes against Al Qaeda training camps and Taliban strongholds in Afghanistan. International travel had ground to a virtual halt, and even the mail came with threats of Anthrax. At a time when Americans weren’t sure who was their friend or enemy, there was a certain peace in being able to sit down at a table with people from countries all across the world and play a game. The “PokerStars Internet Poker Room” would throw a big $5,000 freeroll that drew 836 players — making it the biggest online poker tournament in history (won by a player with the screen name “Kyle”.)

PokerStars would begin offering real-money play in December … with players able to transfer funds via Paypal, Firepay, Mastercard, and Visa … and a few months after that, in 2002, would start something called WCOOP, the World Championship of Online Poker.

Around the time of the second WCOOP, the Pentagon began proudly championing its “Iraq’s Most Wanted” deck of cards, which had the TV news regularly discussing why kings and queens were better than 5s, for example, and perhaps subconsciously reminding people they could be playing online poker. Sure enough, with war in Iraq now raging, the players came in droves, shattering records from the previous year.

It seemed without a doubt now that PokerStars had a real moneymaker on its hands.

Hevad Khan, core reason behind the “Hevad Khan” WSOP tournament rule, out.

Gavin Griffin, first player ever to lock up an unofficial triple crown, consisting of a WSOP bracelet and WPT and EPT titles, gone.

Peter Eastgate, 2008 WSOP Main Event Champion, sayonara.

In the end, these three all seem to make some sense. Peter Eastagate has quit retired from poker, though its anybody’s guess how long this haitus retirement is going to last. And if Hevad’s and Gavin’s Hendon Mobs are any indication, neither player has done anything particularly spectacular in the last two years. This coupled with high profile signings of David Williams and Vanessa Selbst earlier this year may have prompted Stars to trim the fat with regards to its pro holdings. Whether they stop here or not is anyone’s guess, but it will be interesting to see if at least the non-retired pros get picked up by a new site in the near future.

On the tournament trail …

WSOP Circuit Council Bluffs, Iowa Blair Hinkle wins $1,500 Main Event, Robert Georato “Casino Champion”, qualifying for $1m National Championship at Caesars Palace in May. WSOP.com

PokerStars.net EPT Vilamoura, Portugal :: Toby Lewis takes down the title, football legend/MBE Terry Sherringham finishes 5th. PokerStars Blog.

WPT London :: Final table set, Party qualifier eligible for $500,000 bonus with win, £15k High Rollers starts this afternoon PartyPoker Blog

Partouche Poker Tour, Cannes :: Over 750 players, prize pool nearly €6 million, live streaming w/ hole cards starting Monday at Partouchepokertour.com. Follow along en Francais w/ Benjo at Winamax.fr

The River – Winstar, OK :: Raymer, J. Mercier, Chainsaw, G. Smith, Flack among hundreds of North Texas locals fighting in the $2.5m guaranteed main event this weekend

Commerce Holdem Series :: – Encouraging numbers halfway through 500k guarantee opening event despite rumblings of a boycott. Commerce Tournaments

UPDATE:

Gulf Coast Poker Championship – Biloxi, Mississippi :: $5,000 Main Event starts Saturday. BeauRivage.com

Elsewhere & Also …

PokerStars’ WCOOP gets underway Sunday.

WSOP Circuit Horseshoe Hammond tournaments to add more than 40 $10k Regional Championship seats to their tournaments – WSOP.com

Jennifer Harman, Kathy Liebert and Billie Brown get inducted into the Women in Poker Hall of Fame tonight. US Ladies Championship Saturday at the Golden Nugget. Women in Poker Hall of Fame

And Tatjana Pasalic spends three minutes with Phil Ivey

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)

Jesper Hougaard
WSOP-Europe £1,500 No-Limit Hold’em
London

24-year-old pro establishes himself as a Danish powerhouse, beating 409 Europponents to win more than US$256k whilst taking down his second WSOP bracelet in 2008. Gave up a career as a world-class table tennis player to focus on poker.

Check out his bracelet climb beginning with a cash in the 2007 main event at WSOP.com

Carter King — “ckingusc”
WCOOP $5,200 Main Event
PokerStars

22-year-old online pro from Columbia, SC, beat out 2,183 other avatars to win the biggest online tourney (in terms of prize pool) in history. Anytime you can win $1.27 million playing a computer game for two days straight, you gotta think it’s a pretty good use of your time. He got in on a $320 mega-sat.

Check his impressive stats at PocketFives.com

Vivek Rajkumar — “Psyduck”
WPT Borgata Poker Open — $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em
Atlantic City

Another 22-year-old online pro, Vivek “Harold and” Rajkumar (our nickname, not his) came off a win in the $2,500 NLH at the LA Poker Classic ($113k) to win $1.42 million at the WPT Borgata Poker Open.

More about Vivek at WorldPokerTour.com

Sherkhan Farnood
WSOP-Europe £2,500 HORSE
London

Barack Obama says we need to focus more on Afghanistan, and Sherkhan gives poker escapists a reason to do just that. The Kabul banker becomes the first second ever Afghani (and because he also claims residence in Dubai, the first UAE-er) to win a WSOP bracelet — US$193k.

Check out the competition he beat at WorldSeriesofPoker.com

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?”

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.)

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:

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.

**MEDIA ALERT****MEDIA ALERT****MEDIA ALERT**

HARD ROCK OFFICIALLY UNVEILS FIRST OF ITS KIND POKER LOUNGE

WHAT:            To celebrate the grand opening, Hard Rock Poker Lounge is hosting a red carpet VIP poker tournament Sept. 13.  The winner will be awarded a priceless Hard Rock Chopper motorcycle, a custom-made collector piece that has been a valuable part of Hard Rock history since the property opened.  Players will get their first chance to experience poker Hard Rock style with bottle service, a specialty food menu and the decadent atmosphere that separates the Poker Lounge from traditional poker rooms.

WHO:              The exquisite room is the real star of the evening. Expect some of Vegas’ favorite famous names, pros from the poker world, plus a few surprise Hollywood and Sports celebs.  Expected to attend include: pro poker players Chad Layne, Scott Fischman, Anjela Brunson, Rick Fuller, Jeremiah Smith, Phil Hellmuth, Stan Goldstein, Jason Newitt and more; Scott Ian Rosenfeld of Anthrax; local celebrity Zowie Bowie; Sal Masekela and Clinton Sparks of Daily 10; talk show host Montel Williams; tennis pro Andre Agassi; UFC fighter Randy Couture; Jermaine O’Neal of the Toronto Raptors; Paul Pierce of the Boston Celtics; UFC fighter Mike Swick and more.

WHEN:            Saturday, Sept. 13, 2008
Media Check In:  4:30pm
Red Carpet:        5:00pm
Tournament:        6:00pm

WHERE:          Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
Poker Lounge – located across from Pink Taco
4455 Paradise Road
Las Vegas, NV 89052

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.

Umm, yikes.

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.

WSOP Europe – Day 10 :: Day 1a of the £10,000 + 350 Main Event drew a field of 137 players and an appearance by Phil Hellmuth (video below). The day 1a chip leader is Nicolas Levi with 153,850 in chips. Some notables returning Saturday afternoon: Bruno Fitoussi – 120,250, Leo Margets – 109,000, Allen Cunningham – 84,725, Barny Boatman – 73,200, Chris Ferguson – 52,950 and Jeff Lisandro 43,500. A full list of chip counts available at WSOP.com.

The £10,000 + 350 High Roller No-Limit Heads-Up event reached the best-of-three final, with Gus Hansen winning the first match, and Jim Collopy making a comeback from an over 2-1 deficit to even up the match. The third and deciding match is currently scheduled for Friday afternoon, but with both players planning to play in the Main Event, the exact time has not been announced. Be sure to check PokerNews or WSOP.com

Elsewhere …

WPT Borgata Poker Open, Atlantic City :: Play is currently heads-up between Dwyte Pilgrim and Kia Mohajeri. WPT Live Updates

UPDATE: Dwyte Pilgrim finishes first, winning $733,802, moves into first place in the CardPlayer Player of the Year standings.

LAPT Grande Finale – Rosario, Argentina :: $5,000 Main Event draws a field of 254 players, with 131 returning Friday afternoon. Winner takes down over $300,000. According to Terrence Chan, the Argentinian government will tax 31.5% of net winnings to all players outside Argentinia, which has some people upset. Updates at PokerNews and PokerStars Blog