More episodes coming your way … because really, is there a better way to enjoy the full WSOP experience without being in Las Vegas? (Well I mean other than following Mathers here, on 2+2, Poker Road, and twitter …)

Of course you’ve known for years that I’m nowhere near so prolific as Pauly. That’s why he has a book coming out — I think like today! — and I’ve got just overlapping outlines, partial sample chapters … and now the occasional TOP episode previously unpublished here, but of course always available in the complete Tao of Pokerati archives for the chronologically demanding.

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Dan and Pauly keep a bird eye’s view on DonkeyBomber’s run during Day 2 of a donkament from the press box and find the easiest way to spot him is by his pants. They also chat about another Pokerati player — Toothless Bob — who was running great but suddenly went AWOL, as various types are known to do as we all get deep into the WSOP.

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What do Benjo and 7 Mexicans have in common with a flaring mob of Americans and Africans demanding someone at Harrah’s change the channel? Bad beat, obv. We’ve all heard stories, but Dan takes Pauly to the Bad Beat Bar itself, a comfortable but sparsely populated spot in a Rio Convention Center spillover area that feels more like a university commons than sports bar.

WSOP 2010 Insta-flashback …

The World Series had just gotten underway and Pauly, Dan, and Benjo preview the upcoming World Cup …

Episode 20: Benjo’s Bets and Conspiracy Theories

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Benjo explains his bets and talks about rigged-game conspiracy theories that our favorite Bulgarian bartender shared with him. Pauly and Dan pontificate on the gross discrepancies in World Cup lines between Harrah’s properties and off-Strip sports books.

If you are one of the couple-hundred+ people playing for swag in the Wicked Chops FC World Cup bracket … the real competition is just starting to take shape as the first few groups move to the knockout stage. (Go USA!).

Click here to check up on where you stand, click here to see Wicked Chops teaching us the power of WAGs, and click here to check in on Soccerati … which kinda sorta might need someone out there to design us a T-shirt.

OK, gonna try again at this link-dump thing … no writing, no context, not even any particular order or story arc here … just a random assortment of Safari tabs and windows over-cluttering my computer while I try to do Pokerati’s WSOP thang-luu …

“We all agree that one political party is stupid and the other is evil; all we are debating is which is which.” Something for certain poker media types to think about when we go twitter-crazy trying to spread political insight on current events, but really may be just contributing to negative stereotypes of tourney journos being little more than (poorly paid?) chip counters. [Poker Shrink]

Crap, guess that’s technically writing right there … before you know it, brevity with a single href= spins out of control into its own multi-link set of tangents, as happened when I tried to note, simply, that Harry Reid won a primary. [Pokerati]

Ask Brian Nadell what happens when poker players step into potentially hostile political territory. He may be an accomplished poker pro with 13 cashes and eight final tables at the WSOP, but that doesn’t necessarily make this online player at PokerStars suited for Washington DC.

At least he recognized as much before June 1, and dropped out of the Nevada senate race. One look at his campaign video and you’ll see why sometimes, no matter how badly you wanna win, it just makes sense to chop. [Hendon Mob, Nevada Appeal]

Good move?

Blowing off the primary homestretch did leave Brian Nadell with extra time (and presumably cash) to play early events at the WSOP. And on Monday this week, he appeared on Poker Road Radio, live from the Rio. [Poker Road]

One more Nadell link: an interview circa 2006 bemoaning the fate of a longtime player who never quite learned the meaning of FTW! [PokerStarsBlog]

Back to chip-counting, Daniel Negreanu calls out PokerNews for poor updates. [Daniel - Poker Journal]

PokerNews normally does a really good job with everything they do, but what in the world is up with the chip count coverage at the WSOP this year? They have a page for it, but clicking on it would be a complete waste of your time because not only is it rarely updated, it’s also nowhere near accurate.

Yeow. Can you imagine if Negreanu and @AllenKessler had children?

Similarly, a generally fine poker granny pundit has strong feelings about the quality of this year’s WSOP reporting, saying, “the live coverage has reached a new low.” [Poker Hag]

Looking forward, btw, to what looks to be the second coming of Poker2Nite … This Week in Poker. June 15, on the internet. [Wicked Chops]

Be sure to check out Change100′s Fashion Report where she looks into disturbing trends in douchebaggery. [Tao of Poker]

But does douching really matter if you’re buying tournament shorts from Tom? [Loudmouth Golf]

Now let’s take a momentary break from linking for …

Pokerati Trivia: Which international flag hung proudly in the Brasilia Room last year, but is not on display in the Pavilion Room this year — despite it’s strong connection to poker?

Ooh, I know!

An email yesterday from a poker media-y colleague: “today officially started my World Cup fever!!” I agree. Lots of jerseys showing up at the Rio, and peeps starting to make plans for where they’ll be watching the first matches. Just two days left to fill in your Wicked Chops FC brackets. [Soccerati]

Man-U midfielder Darren Fletcher’s Scottish national team didn’t qualify for the Cup, so instead came to the WSOP; he lasted about 90 minutes in the $1,500 donkament that The Other Guy (not-Durrrr) won. [PokerStarsBlog via CalvinAyre]

Annie LePage, one of Pokerati’s favorite Las Vegas small-tourney rounders, comes to the 2010 WSOP looking to cross the 5-figure line in cashes. While she would make fine Team Pokerati material, she instead is representing for PETA (and the Maven). Check her out as she expounds on the evils of meat + good poker health via Vegan living. [Hendon Mob, PETA.org]

OK, cool, but that’s not counting barbecue, right? On that note …

Extra-big ups to The Fat Guy, who used to write about poker, but now just writes about “Food, Music, Books, and Tractors”. TFG recently overhauled Pokerati’s technological infrastructure to better accommodate Tao of Pokerati. With bigger online media ops facing early-WSOP heartache and unconstructive criticism due to “faulty hamster wheels”, I’m pretty thankful Scott (and his trusty sidekick Ed), have kept Pokerati’s machinery running relatively smoothly for five years — pretty much 24/7 actually, ever since the Great Crash of 2007 when we ran out of duct tape. [Tao, The Fat Guy]

OK, good enough for now … More-better random links TK. OK, maybe one more …

Funny: the Bad Beat on Cancer banners seen around the Rio show a hand that isn’t actually a bad beat — the pocket Aces got there on the river! [Poker Grump]

The BIG event of the summer is about to get underway. No, not the Omaha Hi-Lo Split 8-or-Better World Championship … we’re talking about the World Cup. I’ll just betcha a few poker players are kinda into soccer, or football, or fútbol … whatever you wanna call it (just please not “footie”).

With South Africa 2010 just days away — our sister-site Soccerati has partnered with our poker allies at Wicked Chops for some World Cup bracketology. Together we’ve got “awesome” prizes in store for the winners. What exactly they’ll be … well, just play along, and we’ll tell you what you need to know when you need to know it. (Hint: I still have a few red and yellow cut cards left, which theoretically could work for soccer, too.)

Here’s how you can join in the fun while showing your Euro-friends that, believe it or not, you know your Totti from your Eto’o, and really are a bit more than just an American wanker:

First select which two teams will advance out of each the eight groups. The order you select them – 1st or 2nd – determines where they are placed in the 16-team bracket. Then predict the winner of the 15 bracket matches throughout the Finals. All picks lock with the first kickoff on Friday, June 11, 2010. Good luck!

Get in the action now:
http://games.espn.go.com/bpredictor/en-us/group?groupID=19078

Group: Wicked Chops FC
Password: wickedchops