The final table of the £2,500 + £150 NL Holdem 6-max final table for the first event of the WSOP Europe has now been set. Two WSOP bracelet winners (Bjorin and Tann) will be trying to add a bracelet to their collection. However, the main attraction will be Phil Laak, with his third cash in Europe this month – 15th at the Partouche Poker Tour, 18th at the English Poker Open:

Seat 1: Willie Tann 72,000
Seat 2: Chris Bjorin 368,500
Seat 3: Phil Laak 317,000
Seat 4: Andrew Pantling 627,500
Seat 5: Ilan Rouah 200,000
Seat 6: David Peters 251,500

Final table payouts:

1. £170,802
2. £105,506
3. £70,473
4. £48,202
5. £33,617
6. £23,900

The final table starts at 2pm London time, (6am Vegas time) with updates available at PokerNews and WSOP.com. At 5pm Thursday, the second WSOPE bracelet event gets underway, £5,000 + £250 Pot-Limit Omaha event, won last year by Jani Vilmunen, who bested a field of 154 players to earn over £200,000.

The 2010 WSOP Europe at the Casino at the Empire in London held their first bracelet event this afternoon, the £2500 + £150 NL Holdem 6-max event. The field had a cap of 204 players, selling out the tournament, however alternates were accepted, eventually creating a field of 244 entrants, with the final 24 making the money. 31 players will return at 2pm London time Wednesday (updates at PokerNews and WSOP.com), playing down to the final 6 players. Andrew Pantling leads the field with 106,100 in chips. Other notables returning: Chris Bjorin (103,800), Chris Moorman (94,200), 2007 WSOPE runner-up John Tabatabai (69,900), Phil Laak (63,600), Jeff Lisandro (55,500), Praz Bansi (49,300), Liv Boeree (27,700) and Andrew Lichtenberger (19,900). Full seat assignments available here.

The Tournament Trail

WSOP Europe – London :: – Event #1 – £2,500 NL Six-Max, starts Tuesday – Live updates available at PokerNews and WSOP.com.

Borgata Poker Open – Atlantic City :: – Tournament series culminates with $3,500 WPT, $2,000,000 guaranteed Sept. 17. – Results and updates at the Borgata Poker Open Blog

World Poker Open – London :: Sam Trickett defeats Yevgeniy Timoshenko heads-up, wins $200k, tournament airs in UK later this year. – PartyPoker Blog

English Poker Open – London :: Day 2 starts with 93 players, playing down to final table, over £220,000 for first. – Live streaming at EnglishPokerOpen.com

PokerStars UKIPT – Dublin :: Max Silver defeats Ronan Gilligan heads-up, wins 72,000 Euros. – PokerStars Blog

Commerce Holdem Series – Rudy Fulson wins $120 NL, $300k guarantee in 10-way deal for $44k, guarantee bested by 30 players.. $1,100 Ironman tournament (no breaks) starts Wednesday – Commerce Tournaments

Also…

BBC Radio 5 program investigating cheating in online poker, centered on PokerStars Double or Nothing scandal by chain of Chinese colluders. Podcast link

Week 2 of PokerStars WCOOP underway – WCOOP.com

The Tournament Trail

Partouche Poker Tour – Cannes – Vanessa Selbst, Fabrice Soulier, Soren Kongsgaard and Tobias Reinkemier among final tablists return November 6, first place prize €1,300,000 – Winamax.fr

Beau Rivage Gulf Coast Poker Championship, Biloxi, MS:: – Mark Rose wins $5,000 main event for $177,386, Chad Brown finishes 4th. – Results from the Hendon Mob

Commerce Holdem Series :: $120 NL w/ $100k to first, $300k prize pool starts today. More from Matt Savage:

PartyPoker World Poker Open – London :: Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Andrew Robl, and John Duthie among heat winners, final table on Friday. Party Poker Blog for updates

English Poker Open – London :: $1,000,000 guaranteed tournament starts Saturday at Palm Beach Casino, live streaming all weekend. English Poker Open

PokerStars UKIPT – Dublin :: Action gets underway Thursday afternoon – http://www.ukipt.com“PokerStars Blog

PokerStars WCOOP – First week of most successful online poker tournament series continues – WCOOP.com

Also …

Deliverance Poker sues Michael Mizrachi and Full Tilt for breach of contract – Cake Poker Blog

Intrastate online poker in California legislation reappears, passage by end of year? – EGR Magazine

Online poker coming to Indian casinos? – ATIG press release

Schedule finally announced for NAPT at the Bike in Los Angeles, will no TV coverage affect the field? – PokerStars Blog

WSOP Europe makes it’s appearance on crowded London poker calendar starting Tuesday – WSOPE Schedule

Finally, This Week in Poker w/ Scott Huff and Jess Welman:

Below is the PR announcement about the WSOP-Europe schedule. As many know, I’m not too hot these days on just posting press releases (without handsome pay) … but beyond the typically easy-to-cut-and-paste keywords these often contain, this mass-mailed announcement  has a bunch of stuff in it that I figure I might personally want to look at down the line.

Specifically, what jumped out was:

No Betfair. Nothing scandalous or controversial here. Harrah’s and Betfair simply finished out their three-year contract (’07-’09). Pokerati lost its deal with Betfair, too, around the same time. Bummer, but all good. The peeps we worked with at Betfair were some of the finest we’ve encountered in the industry … and we were happy to create the “WSOP World Standings” with them — a year before anyone else — even though it inevitably would get co-opted WSOP.com. (Just meant less work for me!) Harrah’s reports a similarly pleasant and positive relationship. Suppose all Betfair’s absence really means is that we might be seeing fewer emails about a Queen made of Legos or Buckingham Palaces of cards.

Online satellites / WSOP.com. Hmm, you’d think this might be the most important component — the first ever official online satellites for WSOP bracelet events on WSOP.com — but I almost missed it down in paragraf #10:

For the first time since WSOPE was formed, real money poker is available online to UK residents at WSOP.com.  Unique and exciting offers will be tied to WSOP Europe participation for UK residents including satellites.  If you are a UK resident, check out WSOP.com for the latest details on how to qualify for the 2010 WSOP Europe.

I guess it only makes sense now, why the new HIE wouldn’t try to extend a relationship with one of their most cooperative, non-litigious table-felt sponsors … at a time when any additional sponsorship money might seem extra-desirable. I suppose there’s only so much space around the final table with Harrah’s self-sponsoring this year — with WSOP-E officially presented by WSOP.com, CaesarsCasino.com, and CaesarsBingo.com.

Those are the real “sponsors” in London this year; Harrah’s officials told me as much  – even though we haven’t yet gotten press releases championing the landmark signage possibilities.

More…

This just came in over the transom, in much more difficult to cut-and-paste than before format:

The 2010 WSOP-Europe Schedule.

Five bracelet events this time, instead of four.

After a lengthy delay, the schedule for the 2010 WSOP Europe, remaining at the Casino at the Empire in London, England was announced this afternoon. There’s five bracelet events being offered (up one from last year). Here’s this year’s schedule:

Event 1 – £2,500 NL Holdem 6-max – September 14-16th
Event 2 – £5,000 Pot Limit Omaha – September 16th-18th
Event 3 – £1,000 NL Holdem – September 17th-21st (This event will have three day 1′s)
Event 4 – £10,000 High Roller Heads-Up NL Holdem Septermber 21st-23rd
Event 5 – £10,000 NL Holdem Main Event – September 23rd-28th (This event will have two day 1′s)

While the date and location of the 2010 WSOP Europe has not yet been announced, PokerNews is reporting that the World Series of Poker will hold their first tournament at the Emerald Resort and Casino in Vanderbijlpark, South Africa.

An article from the Times Live newspaper in Johannesburg notes that there will be two events will be held during WSOP Africa. The first event is a three-day PLO event, capped at 200 players, with a $1,100 buyin, $300 rebuys and a $400 add-on running from Oct. 24-26. The “main event” will be a $5,000 buy-in NL holdem event from Oct. 27-31, with the field capped at 500 players. No word yet of any television deals or if these will be considered bracelet events, but more details to come over the coming weeks.

UPDATE: According to a conversation PokerNews had with the WSOP, the event is possibly being considered as a WSOP Circuit event, and will definitely NOT be bracelet events.

From the current issue of Bluff Europe:

We never thought we’d say this, but Barry [Shulman], we salute you! Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have to go and throw up.

Still up for grabs: the vaunted poker yarmulke awarded to Last Jew Standing.

Here’s a storyline that ESPN somehow missed/didn’t feed us on the media-prep conference call … It’s a very Jewish WSOP main event final table.

The Jewish Daily Forward points out what may or may not be a statistical anomaly: Four of the November Nine — Jeff Shulman, Steve Begleiter, Eric Buchman, and Kevin Schaffel — happen to speak Hebrew, at least during family holidays.

From a stack perspective, these Jewish players control 49.6 percent of all the chips in play. How stereotypical …

The J-article also offers a rich history of Jews in the game … from Jack Strauss to Jamie Gold … and most recently Barry Shulman’s Yom Kippur victory at WSOP-E. Back in the day, of course, the World Series was all about Jews vs. Texans, but Texans have been sucking it up in recent years now the game has a more widespread international appeal that has prevented any one region from owning pwning it.

Full Disclosure: I used to make an annual pilgrimage to a Dallas synagogue in an effort to bring people with money to the Lodge convert non-gentiles to the poker way. So yeah …

ALT HED: נובמבר תשע עצה: בית על היהודים

It’s been a busy couple of weeks in poker with notable tournaments running in locations as diverse as London, Aruba and… Blackhawk, Colorado? To keep you up with who’s winning around the world, our crack staff is everywhere. We think.

Barry Shulman
WSOPE Main Event
London, England

With more than $1.3 million in first-place money and a WSOP bracelet on the line, the match had Academy Award potential as Shulman, father of November Niner and up-and-coming poker bad boy Jeff “Happy” Shulman, bettered perennial fan favorite and all-time tournament money winner Daniel Negreanu.

For full play-by-play of the epic 17-hour, big-name final table, click here

Aaron Gustavson
EPT London Main Event
London, England

Across town at the Grosvenor Casino, it took just seven hands of heads-up play for 23-year-old online pro Aaron Gustavson to knock off defending WSOP main event champ Peter Eastgate and claim the £850,000 first-place prize at the EPT London Main Event.

More details at EuropeanPokerTour.com

Brandon Hall
Aruba Poker Classic
Aruba

A little rain couldn’t dampen Hall’s spirits as the 20-year-old online qualifier from Littlestown, Pa., beat out 474 other players to claim more than $753,000 and the title of Aruba Poker Classic Champion after defeating Robert Mizrachi in heads-up play. He plays online as “AreTheseUtz”.

Read more about him at the UltimateBet Blog

William Givens
HPT Mile High Poker Open
Black Hawk, CO

24-year old William Givens won nearly $145,000 and his mother’s respect after taking down the Heartland Poker Tour’s Mile High Poker Open at the Golden Gates Casino earlier this month. Givens, who has been playing professionally for just over a year, won his way into the $1,650 main event through a $360 satellite. Using cash game winnings from the weekend, he actually won two satellites and sold the other seat for additional profit.

Read more about his biggest win to date on the Heartland Poker Tour here

Topics this week include the emergence of Darvin Moon and Phil Ivey in the press, tournament spotlights (Shulman def. Negreanu @WSOPE, Gustafson def. Eastgate @EPT-London, UB’s Aruba-fest), and the demise of PokerPages (feat. former PP EIC Amy Calistri) …

on PokerRoad

The Poker Beat
Huff, Caldwell, Michalski, Wise, Nemeth, Calistri, Stapleton
10/8/09

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

“Anything to help poker out is fine with me.”

As discussed on this week’s The Poker Beat … Phil Ivey is making friendly with the cameras these days. He sits down for nine minutes with PokerTube.com to talk about what he’s doing in Europe, his plans leading up to Nov. 9, his main event prep strategy (“get a good night’s sleep, have a good breakfast”), and even addresses the mini-controversy from the summertime WSOP when he balked at being on ESPN’s feature table. (Oh, right, totally forgot about that.)

The specific hand he recalls almost effortlessly (from four years ago) and breaks down in the interview can be found here:

(It really is pretty impressive, and a reminder of why people have been so into Phil Ivey even before he started talking.)

http://www.pokertube.com/Hands.aspx?hand=2029

It was a seemingly epic battle for a queen’s ransom that went well into the wee hours GMT … old-school poker in Poker’s N€w World, if you will.

And making his second consecutive go at the WSOP-E main-event title, runner-up Daniel Negreanu would come up two outs short of being “happy” that he just became the biggest winner in the history of tournament poker.

photo: The Tower / A World of Poker

Negreanu knocked out six of the other final table-ists to get heads-up. And yet in the end Barry Shulman — CardPlayer’s overlord emeritus — held strong in a war of presumably tight aggression to win £801,603 (= $1,283,687 USD). That, of course, is almost exactly the amount his son Jeff has been guaranteed for making the November Nine. No added pressure/father’s shadow issues for sure.

Negreanu’s second-place finish and £496k payday propelled him to the top of the all-time tourney-money leaderboard, passing Jamie Gold and Phil Ivey — who now needs to finish 6th-or-better this November to re-pass Negreanu as the winningest tournament player ever.

(Thanks, Lance, for the deets!)

Here’s video of the final two hands from The Casino at the Empire, Leicester Square:

(If for some reason the above vid disappears, you can find the original page here.)

For those of us debating how ESPN and PokerPROductions (a different film crew than the gang producing WSOP-LV episodes) should do their broadcasting jobs … it seems this 6-day event will be shown in 2 hours, not 20 … and that includes squeezing in the Caesar’s Cup! While that may not seem to do poker-junkie justice to a tournament that kept a bunch of us jaded, immune-to-tourney-hype types checking in on the action for more than 16 hours of final table play, I suppose movie-length could work, too.

UPDATE: Clarification of ESPN’s programming intent in the comments below (from ESPN sources who would know). They plan to give it way too much more coverage than implied above.

Click below for Nolan’s official write-up/script:

More…

Spoiler Alert:

Shulman wins, Negreanu Lederers It

They’re heads-up at the WSOP-E main event … Barry Shulman vs. Daniel Negreanu.

Dare I say I’m rooting for Shulman? Not sure I really believe that. But I do like the father-son storyline possibilities for the November Nine.

(Barry apparently just became a grandfather a few days ago, btw. Not sure if it was his first or 17th, but word is that son Happy just spawned new Shulman progeny.)

Follow the action here.

From MySpace.com/Pokerati:

UPDATE: LOL, as per the PokerNews ShoutBox, I guess it’s official, I’m rooting for Barry. Not sure how that happened!