It’s already starting to pain me not to have The Poker Beat to re-speculate wildly with limited knowledge on real people’s lives. Not sure who said what on previous episodes, but I can almost guarantee you one of us said this retirement would never stick, one said yes it would forever because we just know, and another panelist probably went “meh”. Oops, now the secret formula to award-quality podcasting is out …

Surely a newsbrief for the next episode … words coming directly from the WSOP champ himself via his PokerStars keepers … Peter Eastgate is Isildur1 back on some sort of probationary re-entry deal, obv. Rumor has it from unconfirmed unverifiable sources that he turned down inclusion of a WSOP ’11 main event buy-in in exchange for starting a Danish “home game”:

“Sometimes in life a person can feel lost and wake up one morning not recognizing who he is. Last summer that was how I felt. Prior to winning the WSOP in 2008, my life was very much a good solid routine of playing online poker and hanging out with my friends and family. Winning the WSOP changed that. I relocated to London and started a new life, the life of a high profile poker pro. For almost 2 years I was in a constant spotlight, travelling from poker tournament to poker tournament, doing thousands of interviews and never had a chance to catch my breath. In the whirlwind that followed winning the WSOP I lost track of the most importing thing in my life, myself.

Last summer I decided that I wanted to stop playing poker and catch my breath and find out who I am and what I want to do with my life. Over the last 8 months I have had a chance to reconnect with my friends and most important, my family. I have spent quality time with my family and really had an opportunity to figure out who I am and what I want to do with the rest of my life. When there is no financial pressure it can sometimes be hard to get motivated to move forward as a person.

I truly enjoy playing poker. I love the competitive element and the mental challenges of tournament poker. I feel it is important to constantly grow as a person and for a while I didn’t feel I was moving in the right direction. Having had time to think about my life and future I feel I have figured out how I can combine playing poker with a healthy life outside of poker.

I do not consider this a comeback, as I always knew there was a good chance I would play poker again. During my hiatus from poker, PokerStars have been very supportive. Therefore, I am pleased that I will start out with playing two events where I will be sponsored by PokerStars. First, I will be playing the PokerStars.com EPT Copenhagen which of course means a lot to me, since it is on my home ground. Then I will play the NBC Heads Up Championship. I am fortunate that PokerStars have the best online tournaments, so I have an opportunity to get back in tournament shape.

There have been some questions about the sale of my WSOP bracelet. I was not trying to devaluate the WSOP name. It was not sold to make any kind of statement. It was sold to raise money for UNICEF and I am very proud and thankful that the sale raised £100,000 to UNICEF.”

– Peter Eastgate

Interesting + cool … now the first ever November Nine winner can be more like all the rest who have come since then, but different because two months ago he became the only November Nine-era champion old enough to rent a car in Vegas.

NOTE: Turns out “devaluate” is a real word. Who knew?

Don’t call it a comeback … Vinnie Vinh, from Houston, had done little on the tournament scene since his chair finished 3rd in a limit hold’em event at the ’08 WSOP. But he did book a 14th place finish in a $970 No-Limit tourney at the LA Poker Classic in February … and check out results of Event #10 — a $335 NLH — at the Commerce Hold’em Series:

EVENT #10 $335 NO LIMIT HOLD’EM
ENTRIES 152 PRIZE POOL $43,776

PLACE NAME/HOMETOWN PRIZE
1 Vinnie Vinh, Houston, TX $14,006 plus $2,580 Seat
2 David Lopez, Tucson, AZ $7,486
3 Pho Tran, West Covina, CA $4,772
4 Glenn Forster, Los Angeles, CA $3,502
5 Huy Quach, West Covina, CA $2,845
6 Derwin Lowery, Los Angeles, CA $2,145
7 David Liau, Los Angeles, CA $1,707
8 Dono Terranova, Los Angeles, CA $1,270
9 Patrick Karschamroon, Los Angeles, CA $919
10 Adam Weinraub, Orange, CA $657
11 Nhut Tran, Norwalk, CA $657
12 Panayotis Kalessis, Los Angeles, CA $657
13 Impounh Vongvone, Los Angeles, CA $569
14 Sami Banizuraij, Salt Lake City, UT $569
15 Rocky Eniso, Glendale, CA $569
16 Gideon Cross, Los Angeles, CA $482
17 Bobby Binsky, Miami, FL $482
18 Yarom Limor, Beverly Hills, CA $482

I’m keeping tabs on these big-little tourneys via Steve Hall.

UPDATE: Steve tells me that Vinnie is playing these minor league Commerce tournaments for Men the Master.

photo: Steve Hall

Don’t Trust This Guy: He’s shown a willingness to screw over five fellow poker players and sully the WSOP for just $2,400.

Big congratulations to Savvas Zenonos for successfully stealing $2,400 from the prize pool in a 2009 WSOP main event mega-satellite that was supposed to be shared in a 22-player chop.

Click here for the details of how a good chop can go awry.

It was a skillful play by Zenonos, who hails from Queensland, Australia — effectively mugging five other players of $300-$500 each without even having to reach in their pockets! Nice!

On the benefit of the doubt that it was a simple mistake (despite his saying, “I’m going to screw you over,” before actually doing so), we gave him three days to make good … and then even another couple of weeks before outing him as a brazen petty poker thief here … but no luck.

Zenonos had no cashes at the 2009 WSOP, but did finish 3,050th for number of cashes in 2008, and 2,984th in WSOP money won that year. His lifetime tournament winnings total $7,675 — though these results do not include satellite wins like this one, where he won an agreed-upon $7,800 but left (supposedly he literally ran off) with $10,200.

Pokerati was unable to reach Zenonos for comment, but will respectfully keep him on The Pokerati Bad List until he pays the money he owes (to any or all of the five afflicted) or volunteers to serve 10 days in a pillory at the 2010 WSOP.

Roland de Wolfe is at the final table in a $1,500 donkament, going for his second bracelet of 2009. Would be pretty cool to win one in a 198-player PLO-HL and a 2,095-player NLH.

The fact that I had him on my fantasy team in 2008 and not 2009 just further reassures me that I am a man ahead of my time.

Current final-table chip counts:

1. Jonas Klausen 2,849,000
2. Steven Bradbury 1,860,000
3. Eric Baldwin 1,700,000
4. James Taylor 1,200,000
5. Martin Jacobson 633,000
6. Roland de Wolfe 500,000
7. Andrew Youngblood 453,000
8. Benjamin Scholl 328,000

Click here to follow the action online.

And here (Bluff) or here (PKR) to watch it live.

As we now reach a point in the WSOP where tournaments will be finishing every day, Pokerati’s WSOP World Standings will be back … tracking which nation-states are kicking the most arse. While we can expect the USA to dominate simply because of sheer numbers and home-field advantage, it should be interesting to see which other countries are here to show that poker in their motherlands has fully arrived. The UK, for example — with 26 final tables, 248 cashes, and $6.5million in take-home pay in 2008 — clearly knows what they’re doing, but they couldn’t close anything out to bring home a bracelet for the Queen. It was the Russians and Germans who made the most noticeable claims to poker dominance … but not before the Danes, exclamated by Peter Eastgate’s main event victory, stepped over all of them to say, “Our small socialist utopia will leave you drawing dead on the fjord. Fůgck the G-8 powers in poker!”

On the stateside front, Pokerati declared California the unofficial capitol of the poker world … but Cali blanked at the main event final table and Nevada had a redraw with WSOP-E — and sure enough, John Juanda et al successfully wrestled away the claim.

The final 2008 WSOP World Standings:

One of Pokerati’s WSOPals is up for an award: Lina Olofsson is a finalist for Scandinavian Female Poker Player of the Year in some Scandi Poker Awards from PokerStars. Honestly, though I know she had some good success at the tables last year, I don’t know much else about her play other than that she cashed in a $2k NLH at the ’08 WSOP. So here’s what they’ve got to say in PokerStars Scandiland about the poker media’s favorite Swede:

Lina placerade sig i pengarna i ett WSOP-event efter att hon även lyckats vinna två säten till WSOP Main Event till ett värde av totalt 28 000 dollar. Hon gick sedan långt i online-SM där hon kom på 22:a plats av 1788 startande. Lina kom också 4:a i Casino Cosmopols stora turnering i Göteborg, Spring Poker Week och vann 99000 kr. Hon har spelat in över 160 000 kronor på turneringar under 2008.

Right on. I couldn’t agree more. Especially the Spring Poker Week. Sweet as pie, and talented writer and photog … so we’re giving her the offiicial nod. You should, too.

Click here and scroll down to vote.

This is probably old news to most, but while rummaging through an ESPN media site looking for a pic for the WSOP Europe post below, I came across these stats, which while familiar to me, I hadn’t seen all together, at least not without the summertime Fog of WarSOP clouding my perspective.

Thought you all might find them interesting, too:

The World Series of Poker — By The Numbers

• $9,119,517 – Prize for the Champion of the 2008 WSOP Main Event
• 28,000 – Number of pounds of TV equipment used to produce the Final Table
• 7,000 – Number of hours taped in July at the WSOP
• 6,844 – Players that began the 2008 WSOP Main Event
• 2,750- number of hands logged during WSOP Main Event taping (up to 300 more expected for Final Table)
• 175 – Total Number of days worked for the 2008 WSOP (Pre-production on May 22- set strike on November 12)
• 124 – The total number of countries and territories represented by players at this year’s WSOP
• 40 – Number of cameras used by ESPN to film the entire 2008 WSOP
• 39 -Number of years the Main Event of the World Series of Poker has existed
• 24 – Hour operation needed to turnaround the Main Event Final table Nov 11.
• 20 – Number of HD cameras used to film the Final Table
• 20 – Number of Main Event hours that will air on ESPN in 2008 (highest ever)
• 15– Average amount of hours worked daily by crew covering the WSOP for 17 days
• 13 – Avid editing systems used to turnaround the Final Table show for same-day airing
• 6 – The number of years in a row an amateur has won the Main Event

OK, hmm, some new poker on TV coming in less than a month that I’m actually interested in Tivo-ing watching. ESPN’s first ever production of WSOP Europe. They’re playing 4/8 Hour-Limit episodes (with Reruns and a half-kill?) — promising a different feel-and-vibe, and introducing the mobile hole card-cam.

WSOP Europe 2008: John Juanda vs. Ivan Demidov

Alright, I like the sounds of it! Can’t wait to watch the eps with a hypercritical eye and then haphazardly tear apart the hard work of dozens, if not hundreds of people trying to give the whiners and moaners viewers Pokerati readers what they say they want in poker television.

Though I doubt WSOP Europe on TV will have quite the cultural impact of similar-length miniseries such as V, Shogun, and The Thornbirds … I suspect it can be equally as catching as From G’s to Gents.

More…

Worthy opponent or dead money? The youngest WSOP main event champ in history.

Caught up with Peter Eastgate, 23, as he scoped out the $400/$800 NLH action at the Golden Nugget yesterday … The reigning WSOP champ goes into today’s HSP game down $100k — if you consider the results of a warm-up session at Bellagio (against Daniel Alaei and Bryn Kenney) part of the same trip — and speaks about what it’s like to play with a freshly inflated bankroll against more experienced players in bigger games than you’re used to.

Curiously enough, the guy he really fears at this table is the only dude younger than he is — 22-year-old (Fort Worthian?) Tom Dwan, aka durrr.

Peter Eastgate, Las Vegas
12-20-2008
4:29
[audio:eastgate-high-stakes-poker.mp3]

I recently discovered some new tricks on YouTube, so … In what is sure to be as critically acclaimed as Lucky You, here’s a glimpse of the American political system in action, as seen at a semi-private PPA get-together on Day 1B of the 2008 WSOP main event (July 4th) … where a poker activist braintrust confabbed down the hall, in the Palazzo Suites, about Beltway procedure and parliamentary strategy moving forward:

A moving and dramatic civics lesson, to be sure. Starring Al D’Amato, Howard Lederer, and Annie Duke. Special appearances by Phil Hellmuth and Jeffrey Pollack as The Commish.

The data’s just starting to come in … as final WSOP dealer paychecks went out last week:

I picked up my toke check from the final table on Thursday. I got a grand total of $9.37 for my 8 main event downs so an extra $1.17 a down.

WSOP dealer tipping is always a prickly issue, you know, give or take a few million.

Hmm, OK, so if I’m doing my math right … that comes to an extra $2.34/hr (pre-tax) for WSOP main event dealers. Not sure if that’s good/bad or fair/not — but theoretically an additional $800 from the November Nine for a week’s worth of main event dealing doesn’t sound too shabby. Obviously dealers weren’t thrilled that nearly half of the remaining $32 million in main event prize pool money still to be toked out — 1st and 2nd place — went to two Euros, who come from quite the different tipping cultures. (Seriously, when Danes have to give 60 percent to their gov, can you really blame them for stiffing the pizza guy?)

But hey, the penguins dealt the turns and rivers. So clearly, it’s all in their hands: WSOP dealers reap what they sew. No?

A few people have asked me WTF I’m talking about saying that November 2008 will go down as an historical month where everything changes/d. To spell it out, you have:

The November Nine — historic simply as it pertains to the conclusion of a single not-so-little tournament that seems to be the barometer for all things related to the poker industry.

Midnight Rule-push for UIGEA Regs — we’re just one of 100 single-issues affected by the Bush administration’s attempts to party it up like frat boys and trash the joint before checking out … but regardless, it means we have a whole bunch of additional clean-up to do.

60 Minutes/Washington Post Exposés — whether it’s determined to be fair-and-balanced good-for-poker coverage or a damning hatchet job hacked with a double-edged blade of lies … the Thanksgiving weekend stories represent the official exposure of the online poker biz, hairy warts and all, to the non-poker world.

Clonie Gowen vs. Full Tilt Lawsuit — a loyal soldier turns on her poker-biz commanders, with attempts to air grievances in American court threatening to bring the multibillion-dollar operations of a super-private jurisdictionally challenged business into the public domain. While FTP reps actively petition the Feds to let them open these books but only if they can pay extra taxes, the former Full Tilt covergirl arms herself with a taser gun and takes aiming at a Red Pro.

Formation of Cereus — the two most scandal-ridden online poker sites officially join forces to create a recovering cheater supersite, flooding their own tables with “refund” money to keep the action moving.

Plug Pulled on PokerBlog.com — hardly the biggest deal in the bigger picture … but PartyPoker’s apologetic canning of Dr. Tim represents a new fiscal reality facing even the most legitimate of online poker sites and their workers.

Introduction of HB 222 in Texas — Take 2 on trying to bring the game that had everything to do with the creation of an $18 billion industry (subject to all the hubbub above) back home where it belongs.

All this, of course, is going on in the midst of a major lawsuit related to internet authority in Kentucky — where unprecedented government action has shaken up/down the online poker industry, forcing noticeable shifts in business ops and resource allocation. Clearly:

Today also happens to be the anniversary of “Who Shot JR?” Twenty-eight years ago today a bajillion people were watching Dallas to find out the answer:

Kinda interesting because this gave birth to the concept of a TV cliffhanger — which is essentially what the WSOP was going for with the November Nine. Viewers from 53 countries tuned in to see JR get shot … sparking seven months of promotional speculation, and by the time the winner answer was revealed on an historic two-hour special, 11 new countries had signed up the show to run on their networks.

. . . according to Harrah’s Sports and Entertainment Director of Communications Seth Palansky. Palansky appeared on Gary Wise’s podcast Wise Hand Poker (the 11/19/08 episode) to talk about various subjects, including doing a little post-mortem of the delayed WSOP Main Event final table and broadcast.

As the pair discussed various promotional opportunities — as well as the distractions of the economic crises and presidential election that punctuated those last couple of weeks prior to the final table — Palansky stated how he had some news to “break” on Wise’s show. Per Kevmath’s transcription:

SP: We had a player booked on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, they chose not to do it.

GW: Are we allowed to ask which player it was?

SP: I don’t want to name names and get into that for anyone. We also had the Ellen DeGeneres show booked with another player, who chose not to do it.

GW: Why were these players choosing not to do these shows?

SP: That’s something that the players and their agents and advisors, etc. that should be in the position to answer….

Palansky goes on to “express a concern” that the unnamed players didn’t seize the opportunities to appear on the mainstream shows. “They’ve got to take advantage of the opportunities that get presented to them,” said Palansky. “And it’s unfortunate that in situations where we had a successful pitch and an opportunity for our players to be on that national stage, they chose not to.”

Discussion has ensued on the 2+2 forum (where Kevmath’s transcription of the pertinent passages, unabridged, can be found).

Ed. Note: See Shamus’ own more detailed, existential thoughts on the making of a more-than-poker TV star here.

Dennis Phillips was the chip leader for four months — possibly the longest time anyone in the history of poker has held onto the biggest stack. And though he got off to a shaky start and would ultimately finish 3rd (winning $4.5 million) he still skillfully survived a roller coaster session to be the Last American Standing. When it was all said and done (a day earlier than he had hoped for), he threw a party for his 200 or so traveling friends at McFadden’s (formerly the Tilted Kilt) — and without a heads-up match to worry about, it was some good wholesome relaxed American fun, compliments of a good wholesome All-American player who proved even a bald, middle-aged white guy could inspire a loyal and appreciative following to wear red hats and cheer.

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