When these guidelines will be finalized is unknown, they could have a huge effect on the World Series of Poker, North American Poker Tour, and televised poker programming such as Face the Ace and Poker After Dark if .net sites were also not allowed.

More details to come…

Hat tip to “riverdance” on 2+2 for the link.

Seat 1: Barry Shulman (1,090,000)
Seat 2: Jason Mercier (3,198,000)
Seat 3: Praz Bansi (1,160,000)
Seat 4: Markus Ristola (784,000)
Seat 5: Chris Bjorin (518,000)
Seat 6: James Akenhead (1,398,000)
Seat 7: Daniel Negreanu (438,000)
Seat 8: Antoine Saout (701,000)
Seat 9: Matt Hawrilenko (674,000)

The group consists of six previous WSOP bracelet winners (Shulman, Mercier, Bansi, Bjorin, Negreanu, & Hawrilenko), two members of the November Nine (Akenhead & Saout), and a father of a November Niner (Shulman).

More than four hours into the final table “action,” Negreanu worked his way into second place. And that’s about it. Play continues with the likelihood that someone will eventually be eliminated. Live coverage can be found on the World Series of Poker website.

Gaming Intelligence reported that Harrah’s signed a deal with Dragonfish, a subsidiary of online giant 888, to support Harrah’s entry into the online market with the World Series of Poker and Caesars Casino.

“This is a ground breaking deal for 888 and demonstrates our ability to provide real value to globally renowned, land-based casinos and their leading brands,” said Gigi Levy, Chief Executive Officer of 888.

“We have the structure in place to realise our B2B division’s full potential over the next 18 months and beyond and today’s announcement of our partnership with an industry giant is further vindication of this strategy.”

Mitch Garber, CEO of Harrah’s Interactive Entertainment, added: “As we develop and roll out our interactive strategy, we have chosen to work with 888, primarily for their world-class technology, scalability, and a strong commitment to compliance, and responsible gaming,” said Mitch Garber, Chief Executive Officer of HIE.

No specific time frame was given for the official launch.

“It’s obviously different from competition at the poker table,” said Ho, who came in 11th place at this year’s World Series of Poker in Las Vegas. “It’s outdoorsy. This is physical and mental, but we will definitely be applying whatever skills we have as gamers to this competition and push ourselves in different ways that we’re not used to doing.”

Their combined bio can be found on the CBS website and describes them as well-traveled, extremely competitive, strong-minded, and savvy. (Funny – but not really – that they’re described by most poker media as simply “hot.”) Despite my usual ban on reality television, I’ll set the DVR to see how far the ladies make it. The premiere is Sunday, September 27.

To refresh memories, Shulman was headed for the final table of the WSOP Main Event in July and made some comments regarding the possibility of winning the bracelet, namely that he would throw the gold in the trash. Two days later, CardPlayer.com published a story allowing Shulman to clarify his feelings. He noted therein that he was disappointed in how the WSOP is run, and that it is no longer run by people who care about poker or have the players in mind. Some of his comments:

“Look, I love poker and entered with the hopes of winning,” Shulman stated. “But, more importantly, I support making the industry stronger and better for the players, and to do this, there needs to be some major changes to the way the World Series is run at the highest level. Hopefully, by doing something like this, people will start talking about those changes. I am going to stand by my commitment, but instead of pointlessly throwing it in the trash, I have come up with a few ideas.”

Jeff Shulman’s alternative bracelet ideas:
1. Auction off the bracelet and give the money to charity
2. Hold a tournament for all players shut out of the main event and award the winner the bracelet
3. Give the bracelet away in a SpadeClub.com tournament
4. Give the bracelet to Stephen Colbert

As the Card Player Media President and COO, Shulman has the magazine at his disposal in which to write a lengthy explanation of what is so wrong with Harrah’s and how he could fix poker. Instead, though, a page in the September 1 issue is dedicated (as always) to the Card Player TV show entitled “The Scoop with Adam & Diego,” and this time Shulman was the guest and excerpts were printed from the interview. Right off the bat, Diego Cordovez asked a question that baffled me coming from someone in the poker press:

“Now, the last couple of days, the poker press, what there is of it, has started to quote you and stir up controversy, which you initiated…”

Anyhooo, his answer? “…I’ve had a lot of people come up to me and say that somebody’s got to do something about it. I’m not sure I’m the right guy, being that I’m in the industry, but it’s not like we have some special relationship here. They hate us, for whatever reason… I think they hate anyone who’s not a celebrity, or maybe it’s just that they treat the celebrities so much better than everyone else that they have special rules, they don’t get penalties. I’ve never seen anything like it. If we really want to take poker to the next level, you can’t have different rules for different people.”

Evidently, by disrespecting the WSOP bracelet and Harrah’s (and all the players who would do anything to be in his final table position), he plans to take poker to the next level. Would that be the rude and insulting level? Would that be the vague and evasive level? Would love to hear some thoughts on this issue…

(The opinions/insinuations herein are Cali Jen’s views and not necessarily those of Pokerati or Pokeratizens.)

ESPN.com Announces New Web-Only Original Poker Show, ESPN Inside Deal

ESPN.com is expanding its poker coverage with ESPN Inside Deal presented by PokerStars.net, an original web-only weekly poker show on ESPN.com that will debut Tuesday, August 4. The show – co-hosted by ESPN The Magazine contributor Laura Lane, professional poker player and ESPN.com columnist Bernard Lee and ESPN.com poker editor Andrew Feldman – will not only feature some of the biggest players in the game and cover poker news each week, but take an inside look at the lifestyle in the world of poker.

The three-month series will conclude with the completion of the World Series of Poker main event final table and along the way will interview and analyze each of the remaining nine competitors. In addition to original Inside Deal content, viewers will also see never-before seen hands and features from the World Series of Poker broadcasts.

Throughout the series, fans will be able to submit questions to their favorite pros via email, Twitter and Facebook. Fans will also be given an exclusive chance to participate in a sweepstakes where one lucky winner will experience the November Nine in a unique way.

The featured guest for the first show will be Chris Moneymaker, the 2003 World Series of Poker main event champion. Moneymaker turned a $39 satellite victory on PokerStars.net into a $10,000 WSOP seat and then into $2.5 million after defeating 839 players in his first WSOP appearance. He is frequently credited with sparking the poker boom in the United States, often referred to as the “Moneymaker effect.” Others featured players for Inside Deal will include Daniel Negreanu and Joseph Hachem.

UPDATE: Gene got a good shot of the eruption!

The November Nine, upon its creation.

Shulman reportedly believes the selling of WSOP media rights is unfair and that the coverage now is unacceptable.

That is interesting. Let’s think back for a moment to the time, only two years ago, when the World Poker Tour sold the live tournament reporting rights to, ummm, CardPlayer! And didn’t CardPlayer provide its own mediocre coverage of the WSOP about three years ago? The Shulmans and their poker company seemed to have no aversion to buying exclusive media rights coverage until they were outbid and outdone by other companies.

Throw the bracelet in the trash can? Methinks that says more about the intended thrower than the WSOP.

We shall see! The Poker Shrink is putting the poker media to the test by encouraging our degeneracy asking us to bet on our picks for the November Nine. With 64 players remaining, some media members are picking our favorites/randoms to go all the way over the next two days at the WSOP. Who are we to shy away from a challenge?

Jen’s Picks:

Dennis Phillips
Phil Ivey
Billy Kopp
Ben Lamb
Ludovic Lacay
Leo Margets
Tom Schneider
Nick Maimone
Andrew Lichtenberger

Dan’s Picks:

Phil Ivey
Tom Schneider
Tommy Vedes
Antonio Esfandiari (Go Iran!)
Ludovic Lacay
Eugene Katchalov
Ben Lamb
Andrew Lichtenberger
James Akenhead

Kevin’s picks:

Billy Kopp
Phil Ivey
Jeff Shulman
Eugene Katchalov
Tom Schneider
Andrew Lichtenberger
Jeff Duvall
Nick Maimone
Ludovic Lacay

Seat 1: Clayton Newman – 244,000
Seat 2: Prahlad Friedman – 715,000
Seat 3: Tom Schneider – 3,168,000
Seat 4: Scott Eskenazi – 270,000
Seat 5: Paul Johnson – 1,606,000
Seat 6: Miika Puumalainen – 2,894,000
Seat 7: Scott Sitron – 778,000
Seat 8: Dwayne Stacey – 410,000
Seat 9: Michael Jansen – 852,000

Julie Schneider is in the front row supporting Tom, after having had a great series of her own with a third place finish in the $2,500 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball event about two weeks ago.

Go Team Pokerati/PokerStars/Schneider!

UPDATE: Tom now sitting in third place on leaderboard. From Karridy: @DonkeyBomber busts 2 players at the featured table and is now over 4 Million in chips in the WSOP Main Event. Appx 125 players left.

For most of Day 5, Phil looked as if he wanted to run away. But with a Main Event championship title that he may envision with his name on it, he’ll stick around and put up with the ESPN camera crews and rows of fans (and media people with cameras).

According to Aaron of PokerWorks, Tom opened the pot to find a raiser in Kevin Saul. Tom reraised, at which point Kevin shipped for just over 1 million. Tom called and was covered by about 50K, but he flipped over pocket aces. Kevin showed A-K, and the board blanked to knock cripple Kevin and catapult Tom to somewhere near the 2.1 million-chip range. That puts him in the chip lead and one of only three players to have made it above the 2-million mark.

At the first break: @DonkeyBomber 2.2 million. 315 left

Funny (or not) that Tom’s all-in wasn’t covered at all by the ESPN cameras, and the official media of the WSOP is stretched awfully thin today and missed it.

UPDATE: Tom ended the day with 3.16 million. According to @Karridy, that’s 5th out of the 185 remaining players.

Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier came into Day 4 as the massive chip leader, and though he lost a little ground, he still finished the day with 1,253,000 chips.

And Kara Scott! She didn’t have a stellar day but ended it with 400K. After the flurry of bustouts after the money bubble today, she hung in there and posted a solid end-of-day result.

@DonkeyBomber 830k. Still hand for hand.

He’s prettttty much guaranteed to make the money here…

UPDATE: He did. Go Tom!

Some of my players have done well and could very well tear up the Main Event, but I could have possibly done better than, for example, picking my dentist’s nephew. Here’s a little rundown of my eight players through the end of the preliminary events:

Daniel Negreanu – Clearly the best of the picks, Daniel had an excellent series, though possibly not by his own high standards. With eight cashes, two of which were in world championship events and two of which were final tables, he cashed for more than $330K in the series.

Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier – One of the favorites in many player pools this year, ElkY cashed twice during the series but could not quite pull a final table. He did make the cover of Bluff Magazine, though, with the article written by fellow Frenchman Benjo.

Terrence Chan – He came into the WSOP with a hot online poker streak that simply didn’t translate into WSOP bracelets, only walking away with one cash in the preliminary events.

Kara Scott – Besides being a talented and professional EPT hostess, the woman can play some poker as well. She played one preliminary event – a $1,500 NLHE – prior to the Main Event and cashed in 58th place.

Luca Pagano – My favorite Italian player did not cash. Viva Italia next year and all that.

Jonathan Dull – My dentist’s nephew had one cash in a $1,500 NLHE event, but, well, I won’t have much to report to my dentist in July.

Dwyte Pilgrim – After 13 cashes in WSOP Circuit events over the past year, Dwyte ran cold at the WSOP in Vegas and wasn’t able to cash in the prelims. But his record over the past year doesn’t lie, so it’s just a matter of time, guy I’ve never met buddy.

Whit Blanton – Pokerati player Whit made a run at one event and didn’t find his way to the money. But he still loves Pokerati, and isn’t that what matters?

Bonus pick Mekhi Phifer – Ummm, where was he?

The Main Event is just kicking into gear, so at least one of my picks still has a chance to go deep. (Go Kara!)

twitpic: @melissalvla

Between the tournament staff, Harrah’s staff, and security contingent, there were approximately 20 suits, lined in front of the room. Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack addressed the crowd with a prepared statement that began, “We are sorry and I am sorry.” He went on to say that the players would not be allowed to play, and that he understands that it is disappointing. “We wish we could accommodate you,” he said and added that he wished they would have played other starting days.

Questions were beamed at Pollack, many players talking over each other at times. Allegations of special treatment were aimed at Harrah’s, with some players asserting that well-known players were granted entry after others were shut out. Pollack’s response? “Absolutely not.”

Most questions revolved around the option of allowing players to begin play this evening and play through the night or somehow incorporating a Day 1E into the mix, but Pollack insisted that it would be logistically and operationally impossible to do. When someone pushed the subject, WSOP Communications Director Seth Palansky jumped in with a question of his own directed at the player. “Why didn’t you show up earlier?” A collective “oooh” let Palansky know that he may have gone too far with the comment.

Pollack tried to cool the crowd with comments like, “We are not doing this happily today,” but it was clear that the players were not becoming any more satisfied with the comments. With Pollack promising that sell-out tournaments will be the number one topic to be discussed when planning the 2010 WSOP, he eventually ended the meeting with parting words “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Pollack, Palansky, and other executives went out a private side entrance protected by security.

But while the general reception Frank received in the Amazon Room was positive, it also gave an indication of what kind of struggles his efforts face. Beyond having to deal with the self-promotional shenanigans of Phil Hellmuth and all he brings to the table in the name of poker (for better or worse), behind me on the rail were some poker players/fans/bigots who made hateful gay jokes during his entire short-but-semi-important speech.

Nearing the 1pm start of the press conference in the Full Tilt Chris Ferguson suite, there were about 5 reporters present. No kidding. By the time Frank began speaking, there were possibly twice that, excluding PPA representatives and Full Tilt Poker bigwigs. Of the 5-8 media outlets represented, ESPN got their headshot early and left, before the speech had hardly started.

Some of what the disinterested might have missed:

~It is likely that the Obama Administration was not behind the Southern District of New York’s seizure of more than $30 million in online poker site payments, though Frank is pursuing answers and will attempt to clarify the role of the Department of Justice in the actions.

~While Frank’s current proposed legislation (H.R. 2267) may not be heard in committee until September, it is a priority for Frank to push his companion legislation (H.R. 2266) that will delay the implementation of the UIGEA through 2010.

Meanwhile, everyone else was standing outside the Rio waiting for Phil Hellmuth to arrive in a chariot with scantily-clad chicks, then following him down the hall like he was someone important President Obama. After that embarrassment spectacle, I noticed that there was more media interested in interviewing a WSOP player wearing a full-length Indian headdress than were in the Frank press conference.

(Sigh.)

I just can’t help but wonder if the people who ignored Frank’s presence today will be the same ones asking why the delay in passing pro-poker legislation, or why their online poker funds are frozen, or why they have trouble finding work in the poker industry.

In a post-tournament interview, Ahamdi wanted to point out that he is proud of his heritage and supports change in his native country. He believes that playing the Iranian anthem at the WSOP will enable many poker players and the public to better understand the pro-Western attitudes held by many Iranians, both who live within Iran and abroad.

With all of the unrest going on in Iran surrounding the recent election, it was a thought that the people in the Amazon Room would stand with extra pride, exert some sort of extra support for the people of Iran, and it would be a grand moment representing the state of the world (or something like that). In fact, the moment was like any other bracelet ceremony, as the majority of the room stood to respect the anthem of the winner’s country, the winner seemed consumed in his own private moment of silence, and it was over.

Perhaps, however, that is what is notable about the World Series of Poker…and poker tournaments in general. Conflicts that may arise between groups of people or warring countries are not apparent at the poker tables. It’s the demeanor of the person at the table, along with playing style and respect for others that gets the attention rather than their ethnicity or skin color. Others like Dr. Pauly contend that the WSOP is simply so all-consuming that no one responds to news unless it hits them in the face like the death of Michael Jackson. Iran? Never heard any of their music so… Read the Tao of Poker take on the mindset of the players here.