• Andrew Feldman of ESPN Poker has a Final Table Blog/Chat going on where you can chat and ask him questions as he live blogs the Final table. The live chat also has the twitter feed for all the players on the table along with some other pros, so should be a fun feed to follow throughout the day (ESPN Poker Live Blog).

• Bluff gives the low down on the patches. With FTP coming into the day with 7 sponsored players and only 3 allowed to wear the FTP logo everyone was speculating what they would do. They definitely came up with a creative answer (Bluff Magazine).

• Pauly over at Tao of Poker lets you know what happens during the break at the Main Event final table in his Semi-Live Blog (Tao of Poker).

Now in some non-November 9 News but definitely a good read:

• Amy Calistri and Tim Lavalli took a deeper look back in 2006 into where 2 million extra chips came after they noticed a discrepancy at the end of Day Seven of the Main Event. They take a look at possible staff error to even the possibility of cheating between staff and players. (AimlesslyChasingAmy)

Though I hardly recall why specifically, something about this visitor seemed peculiar enough for me to wanna preserve the moment. ith the benefit of hindsight, I’m sure I was just kidding.

From Pokerblog.com:

Party Player Profile: The Foot
By: Dan Michalski – August 04, 2006

Mike Wilson from Canada did not make it to Day 3, but he considers his first WSOP a success regardless. As a competitive bridge player, he’s no stranger to big national tourneys. But Texas Hold’em is relatively new to “The Foot.”

He started playing online after leaving a local casino “ticked off” — not just because they wouldn’t accomodate his special needs, but because, he says, they were jerks about it in the process. So he signed up with PartyPoker because he just wanted to play the game like everyone else. After playing online for less than a week, he won a 3,500-player Party freeroll and a seat in the main event at the WSOP.

(Harrah’s, by the way, was accommodating, allowing him to have a friend sit nearby simply to help him push in big stacks of chips when necessary, and restack them when he won a pot.)

As mentioned, Wilson’s been eliminated. But he’s still in Vegas and can likely be found rolling the dice at a nearby craps table.

For 2007:

6,358 players
621 spots paid
621st place — $20,320
1st place — $8.26 million

Thanks to Justin from PokerPages for the early info.

While lamenting the long hours and empathizing with PokerNews for their struggles with chip-counts and hand recall, CardPlayer guy says:

“I definitely made up suits of cards. All the time.”

The question I am asked more so than any other in recent weeks is an estimate on the size of the main event field. Pokerati is sticking to its over/under of 4,001 — though we acknowledge that there are all sorts of mitigating factors that could come into play and seriously alter the differential between projection and reality, one way or the other.

This first one shows the growth of the main event over the decades, with the blue orbs representing the size of the prize pool.

The Main Event: Bubble Fixin’ to Burst?

This next one shows the amount Harrah’s took out of the prize pools in 2006. I’ll be honest, I expected this to be more troublesome, and to be showing a disturbing trend since the casino behemoth took over the WSOP. But that’s simply hasn’t been the case. The following graph is posted on a logarithmic axis … not sure what that really means, but it makes things fit a little better … so take that into account when assessing what that main-event spike really represents.

Skimming off the Top

Here’s a random assortment of info from WSOP history.

Main Event breakdown

And last but not least, here is the historical relationship between the number of entrants in the WSOP main event and first-prize payout. This is a graph where we can expect to see some divergence, as Harrah’s and the WSOP have made payouts less top-heavy starting in 2007 to better spread the wealth amongst the masses of players.

Trickle-down Poker

x axis = event number
y axis = number of players
bubble = prize pool

What’s interesting is that, obviously, the number of online qualifiers has everything to do with the size of the ME. Last year, they represented 6,600 of the 8,800 entrants. But with the preliminary events, there were relatively very few getting in via online satellite. So I can’t imagine these lesser planets will change much at all this go-round.

For comparison’s sake, below is the same data charted for 1985 and 1975.

Size of WSOP Events: 1985

Size of WSOP Events: 1975

Ahh, remember the good-ole-days when the police could just look the other way?

For those of you who may not recall, Lee was the well-connected, family-lovin’ San Antonio bookie businessman who finished 6th in last year’s WSOP main event (winning a cool $2.8 million) … only to have his hometown police rain on his welcome-back parade by busting into his house to confiscate cash and cars on allegations that he was running an online gambling ring. His case is still pending.

Robert Daily stated:

“After my resignation, DGH approached me to join their group as a board member to provide leadership to their online gaming platform – especially poker – and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity. I have made many great friends within the poker industry and I look forward to working with them in the future from a different perspective.”

Bob was appointed as the 2006 WSOP Tournament Director and again for 2007.

Poker Rap

And this one gives me warm fuzzies. I think it may have been done by Lisa Wheeler of CardPlayer.

2006 WSOP

Reigning World Series Of Poker® Champion Jamie Gold
Won’t Face Retroactive Penalty For Rules Infractions

LAS VEGAS – March 28, 2007 – The World Series of Poker will not penalize reigning WSOP World Champion Jamie Gold for two rules infractions that occurred during the 2006 WSOP Main Event.

In a recent interview with The New York Times, Gold said that in one incident he exposed a hole card to an opponent. He said that in the other incident he told an opponent he held top pair and top kicker after the opponent had bet. While common in cash games, such actions are violations of WSOP tournament rules.

Under the 2006 WSOP rules, Gold would have been subject to a penalty requiring him to sit out 10 minutes of play – if WSOP floor persons had seen either of those incidents when they occurred. The rules for the 2007 WSOP call for a 10-hand rather than 10-minute penalty.

After The New York Times interview was published, senior WSOP officials reviewed video footage and had two conversations with Gold about the incidents. Gold freely acknowledged and expressed contrition for the rules infractions, attributing them to his exuberance and excitement at participating in his first-ever WSOP Main Event.

The WSOP officials determined from the video review and the discussions with Gold that he did not deliberately attempt to violate the rules and that no penalties would be invoked retroactively for the incidents.

“Not only were we impressed with Jamie’s candor and contrition, but we also recognized that tournament officials didn’t witness the incidents or take appropriate action at the time of the rules infractions,” said Jeffrey Pollack, commissioner of the World Series of Poker. “We share culpability in this case and are satisfied that the actions in question were inadvertent mistakes. We look forward to Jamie’s participation in the 2007 WSOP.

“I do want to stress, however, that we do not condone any violations of the rules and will make every effort to enforce them in every WSOP event,” Pollack said.

The 2007 World Series of Poker Presented by Milwaukee’s Best Light will begin June 1 at the Rio® All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas. More information on the tournament is available at www.worldseriesofpoker.com .

The WSOP is operated by a subsidiary of Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE:HET). Harrah’s is the world’s largest provider of branded casino entertainment through its operating subsidiaries. Since its beginning in Reno, Nevada, nearly 70 years ago, Harrah’s has grown through development of new properties, expansions and acquisitions, and now owns or manages casinos on four continents. The company’s properties operate primarily under the Harrah’s®, Caesars® and Horseshoe® brand names; Harrah’s also owns the London Clubs International family of casinos. Harrah’s Entertainment is focused on building loyalty and value with its customers through a unique combination of great service, excellent products, unsurpassed distribution, operational excellence and technology leadership.

More information about Harrah’s is available at its Web site — www.harrahs.com .

The first year we’ll see a decline in the number of entries to the main event of the WSOP is:

Started: June 18, 2006
Total Votes: 27

• 2008-2010: 56% (15)
• Go Batfaces!!!¹: 19% (5)
• none of the above¹: 11% (3)
• 2006: 7% (2)
• 2007: 4% (1)
• 2011-2020: 4% (1)

¹ = Added by a guest

Hmm, suspect we’d get different results if we ran it twice.

In this video, Jamie Gold finally gets real — or at least semi-real — acknowledging that he is not a “great” player, he definitely got lucky, and making himself subject to the Crispin Leyser lawsuit may have been bad form.

“I really screwed some things up,” Gold says. “There [were] several times where as the guys from Wicked Chops so aptly put it, that I basically monkey-fucked a football when it came to handling my success.”

Awesome. Jamie Gold is my new best friend. Now all he has to do is say about 1 million Hail Marys and he can go on to being a real ambassador for the game.

First off, happy February 14. If you do a Yahoo! or Google image search for “valentine poker” (quotes excluded) here’s the first thing you see:

HOLLAND has officially legalized online poker, licensing the game to its government-run land-based casino. This development comes shortly after a round of raids on AMSTERDAM home games. (See the connection?)

UTAH has no intentions of legalizing gambling, but the state did amend some recent legislation to ensure that AMATEUR TEXAS HOLD’EM is allowed in bars.

Meanwhile, WYOMING is one step closer to legalizing “social” cash games in bars and restaurants, though big tourney action may still be outlawed.

A lot’s going down in MACAU, which apparently generated more gambling revenue than LAS VEGAS in 2006. This sorta expansion has Virgin pioneer RICHARD BRANSON putting a few billion into the Asian gambling pot.

But Chinese casino mogul STANLEY HO isn’t gonna let the round-eyes gank all his action.

JOHNNY CHAN has plans to eventually open shop in Macau (and elsewhere) — has partnered with the makers of The Block to create “the world’s first poker hotel.” Tourney director extraordinaire MATT SAVAGE is part of his team — we can only hope this doesn’t mean all of China will be taught to do the flop one card at a time.

Here’s a pokery valentine, from CUBA:

Speaking of communism, you probably have heard by now that the US ATTORNEY’S OFFICE has seized $55 million worth of Neteller funds as evidence.

About $520 of that belongs to yours truly. I suppose that makes me COLLATERAL DAMAGE in the [tag]War on Poker[/tag]:

Here is what Neteller has to say about how and when we will get our money.

Amy and the Shrink have an update on the investigation into a seriously BOTCHED COLOR-UP during last year’s WSOP main event.

It coincides with news that HERSHEY’S has been named the Official Chocolate of the 2007 WSOP. Mmmm, two million extra chocolate chips!

POKERTEK, makers of dealerless electronic poker tables, is being sued by TELLIS, a TEXAS-based software company that doesn’t even have a website.

Haley continues to investigate the legal battles between HARRAH’S and FREDERIC SCHIAVO over the rights to WSOP.COM.

This valentine from PKR.com suggests that while a man’s hand may seem stronger than a woman’s … it’s still possible that she’s holding the nuts:

UPDATE: Just re-watched the vid, and the lady actually would need some help on the turn to make her straight-flush.

Did you know the proportion of WOMEN PLAYING POKER continues to grow? The XX-chromosome set reportedly represents 30 percent of online players now.

BRANDI HAWBAKER, cute-as-pie poker girl and Full Tilt nipple-cover model, has reportedly found a new way to fund her bankroll by stripping at SPEARMINT RHINO. (Congrats on the new sponsorship deal!)

Remember, on February 14 and forever …

I also just read this AP article, about how that new law we all love to hate may hurt the WSOP. The issue, of course, is not just the absence of thousands of players previously sent by the likes of PartyPoker, but moreso that Harrah’s — in an attempt to prove compliance with the UIGEA? — has said they will not take third-party entrants this year. Hence the predicted decline in the biggest historical indicator of poker growth … total entrants into the main event of the WSOP.

(Speaking of … check out the new poll on your righthand side. What do you think we’re lookin’ at?)

OK, anyhow, so the most peculiar thing I found in this article was from WSOP media honcho Gary Thompson:

Tournament spokesman Gary Thompson said since 2005, organizers have not accepted third-party registrations for the $10,000 buy-in main event from online gambling companies with U.S. operations, and that hasn’t stopped it from attracting record fields.

Uhh, no third-party registrations since last year? I think about 6,000 competitors in the main event this year might disagree. (Can anybody get confirmation of this? I seem to remember hearing that about 2,600 players paid the $10k straight up … but can’t find a good blog-fact on it.)

While we love to give the suits at Harrah’s lots of hard times, some of which are occasionally deserved, Thompson is actually a pretty good egg … not one to feed you just the corporate line, and generally open to semi-constructive criticism. So he’s not one you’d expect to purposely spread disinformation. Reading on …

“In 2005 and 2006 we had record fields each year. We’re confident again that 2007 will be the best one ever,” he said.

Thompson suggested that a loophole that allowed players who qualified online to pay their own entry fees directly, after being given the fees by online poker companies, would continue to pass muster with regulators.

Ahh, OK, so now it makes sense … Harrah’s is speaking semi-vaguely, hedging bets, not overly committing to anything. And/or are finding a way to back away from previous insinuations that online players were not longer going to be part of the WSOP game.

* I’ve got dibs on that phrase.

You’ll also find continuing discourse on the subject on PokerBlog. Dr. Tim says:

I wanted to give you a heads up on this before it hits the net. Amy & I have been working on a series of articles about the 2 million extra chips on the table in the WSOP Main Event. In about an hour Pokernews.com will be putting up the first three articles, this got a bit rushed because Harrah’s has figured out that we have them by the short hairs and they were going to make a statement. There will be two or three more articles in the next week or so.

Everything that pokernews is too chicken to print will go on PokerBlog and I intend to start the discussion on PokerBlog as soon as the articles go up.

Seriously, can you believe this guy has a Ph.D?

I also recently came across this pokery podcast/podcasty poker by Dallas’ own Manny “the Minnow” Mendoza, recorded during his debut outing to the World Series. Seriously, how could the Morning News have let him go.

And Manny, if you are looking for work, please know that Pokerati is hiring!

We offer $0 a year and no benefits — not too different than Belo! I really hope you consider this opportunity. Others are welcome to apply, but be sure to click the above link so you know what kinda competition you are up against and where we set the bar.

Compare Lee’s first public statement on his legal troubles to that of Jamie Gold … who hired a PR firm to spew a bunch of yadda-yadda bullshit.

Click here to see the TV news report.

Police reportedly were executing a warrant that allowed them to seize everything inside his estate in the tony Shavano Park neighborhood … because cops claim possessions inside may all be ill-gotten gains. According to a police spokesman, this was not a raid to arrest Lee, but it was part of an investigation into a “major” online gambling ring.

Wow wow wow.

Of all the final tableists, Richard Lee was arguably the nicest guy there. The anti-Jamie Gold. After he busted out in 6th place (winning $2.8 million), I asked him:

You’re the only one at the final table not wearing anything from an online poker site. Why is that?

His answer:

“I don’t need the money, I have plenty of money, and I decided that I wasn’t going to endorse anyone but God, my family, and San Antonio, Texas.”

Yee-haw! I screamed on the inside. I looked over at Nolan Dalla, because he knew what I was getting at with my question, and being a Texan, he, too, likely felt the internal whoop.

Anyhow, it was an impressive statement by Lee. Supposedly the going rate to wear an online poker site’s gear at the main event final table was $500k. (As opposed to $50k at other televised final tables.) But if what police are suspecting is true, then huh … wonder if there wasn’t some other reason he didn’t want to attach his name to any semblance of an online gaming site.

(Mean Gene can add another one to his entertaining POKER: CSI line-up.)

UPDATE: Here’s the San Antonio Express-News on the investigation.