The Detox Poker Series on Saturday Day 1b of the $550 NL Holdem – $200,000 Guarantee drew a field of 228 players on Saturday creating a total field of 433 entrants for a prize pool of $216,500. The final 27 players made the money, with some of the notables who cashed yesterday: Alex Outhred and David Tuthill (both earning $1,200), David “The Maven” Chicotsky and WSOP photographer Rob Gracie (each collecting $800).

The leader from Saturday’s action is Alexander Carmosimo, finishing with 511,000 in chips. The most notable name from Saturday who made the last nine was 2008 November Niner Ylon Schwartz, but he returns with only 73,000 in chips. The 18 returning players are guaranteed $1,700 with the winner earning $60,030. Live streaming of today’s action will be available at www.detoxpoker.com, with the players seated with 34:04 remaining in level 16, blinds at 4,000/8,000 and a 1,000 ante:

The full list of results and payouts are available at the Detox Poker site here.

The final tournament of the series starts at 5pm, the Player Appreciation w/ $50 rebuys tournament with $5,000 added to the prize pool. The tournament is available exclusively to players who present three tournament receipts from the Detox Poker Series. Players start with 2,000 in chips, with $50 rebuys available when your stack is 2,000 or lower. At the end of level three, a $50 add-on is available to add 4,000 chips to your stack.

Be sure to check out www.DetoxPoker.com for updates, videos and more as the Detox Poker Series concludes.

Recapping Saturday night’s action, with the list of great players without a bracelet had another named crossed off the list.

Ole G Smith wins mixed holdem bracelet

Gavin Smith, one of the most popular players on the tournament circuit, finally won his first WSOP bracelet this morning, defeating Danny Hannawa heads-up to win the $2,500 Mixed Holdem event along with winning $268,238. Full results at wsop.com

Tournament of Champions starts today

The WSOP Tournament of Champions gets underway at 12pm today, as the 27 participants will play four one-hour levels today and Monday, with the survivors returning on July 4 to determine the winner. Besides being filmed to air on ESPN later this year, ESPN3 will be streaming a feature table both days. Here’s the feature table when play starts today:

Doyle Brunson
Daniel Negreanu
Annie Duke
Howard Lederer
Joe Hachem
T.J. Cloutier
Antonio Esfandiari
Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier
Scotty Nguyen

Trickett on top final day of $1,500 NL

Day three of the $1,500 No-Limit Holdem returns at 3:00pm with Sam Trickett (922,000) leading the 35 players remaining as they play down to a winner. Other notables in the hunt include: Dutch Boyd (619,000), Ray “ExitOnly” Rayburn (560,000), Paul Magriel (460,000), Alex Outhred (444,000), and Zachary Clark (176,000). Team Pokerati’s Tom Schneider finished 128th, good for $4,348. Full chip counts available at PokerNews.

Altbregin ascends to 5k PLO 8 lead

Day 3 of the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha 8 or Better resumes at 3pm with Sergey Altbregin (486,000) holding the chip lead with 21 players remaining. Other notables returning: David “Devilfish” Ulliott (415,000), Perry Green (367,000), Dan Shak (331,000), Dan Heimiller (247,000), Allen Kessler (117,000), Andy Black (100,000) and Erik Seidel (65,000). Full chip counts and updates available at http://www.pokernews.com/live-reporting/2010-wsop/event-46/“>PokerNews.

Brickner blasts his way into day 1a 1k NL lead

The next to last $1,000 No-Limit Holdem event of the WSOP drew a field of 1,759 entries for day 1a Saturday afternoon. That field was whittled down to around 300 players when they return on Monday afternoon, and the reported leader is Justin Brickner with 86,000 in chips. Other notables include Antonio Esfandiari (35,000), Scott Montgomery (30,000), Matt Glantz (28,000) and Carter King (17,000). Full chip counts along with updates for Sunday’s day 1b action available at wsop.com.

Jaffee leading $2,500 8-Game

Day one of the $2,500 Mixed Event brought 453 players to the Rio Saturday afternoon, with 162 returning at 4:10pm today. The reported chip leader is Jared Jaffee with 71,125. Some of the notables returning include: Justin “Boosted J” Smith (58,225), Michael Mizrachi (56,875), Brandon Cantu (41,000), Scott Seiver (37,350), Dario Minieri (32,175) and Gavin Griffin (29,150). Team Pokerati’s Julie Schneider returns with 18,975 in chips. Other chip counts and updates at wsop.com.

A recap of Friday night’s action:

10k HORSE down to final 9

The $10,000 HORSE World Championship is down to an unofficial final table of 9, full of big name players. Here’s how they’re currently seated:

Seat 1: Richard Ashby – 300,000
Seat 2: Nick Schulman – 385,000
Seat 3: Matt Glantz – 1,400,000
Seat 4: Eugene Katchalov – 870,000
Seat 5: Carlos Mortensen – 780,000
Seat 6: Marco Johnson – 1,680,000
Seat 7: Marco Traniello – 90,000
Seat 8: Scott Fischman – 515,000
Seat 9: Ian Gordon – 1,050,000

Follow the action as they play down to a winner at PokerNews.

$1,500 NL down to 12

The final day of the $1,500 No-Limit Holdem has just 12 players remaining as they return from dinner break. The chip leader is Niccolo Caramatti with 2,365,000. He’s followed by Aaron Gustavson (1,475,000), Dean Hamrick (1,450,000), and UFC fighter Mike Swick (405,000). More updates and chip counts during the evening at wsop.com.

Finne fine during day 2 of mixed holdem

27 players remain in the $2,500 Mixed Holdem event, as they play down to a final table this evening. Timothy Finne holds the chip lead with 316,000, followed by 2010 bracelet winner Steven Kelly (250,000), Dwyte Pilgrim (175,000), another 2010 bracelet winner Valdemar Kwaysser (170,000), Gavin Smith (108,000) and Randy “nanonoko” Lew (90,000). Updates and more at PokerNews.

$1,500 NL Day 1

A field of over 3,000 took part in Friday’s $1,500 No-Limit Holdem event, with less than half remaining as they take return shortly from their dinner break. The early chip leader is Alex Outhred with 63,000, followed by notables such as Alex Bolotin (48,000), Chino Rheem (32,000), Adam Junglen (21,000) and Dan Heimiller (10,300). More updates during the last four hours of play at PokerNews.

$5,000 PLO 8

A field of over 280 started the evening’s tournament, $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha 8 or Better, almost 90 more than last year. Players start with 3,000 in chips, then receive three more “rebuy” chips, each good for 4,000 chips. The early chip leader is Robert Mizrachi with 33,000, followed by Robin Keston (30,000), recent bracelet winner Steve Jelinek (13,500) and David Benyamine (11,000). The tournament just entered its third hour, so find more split-pot action during the evening at wsop.com.

I’m of course looking forward to whatever Dream Team Poker’s next event is … and plausibly defending Team Tao of Pokerati’s title. Seriously, having played in three Dream Team tourneys now (winning one), and taken part as either a player or analyst (?) in a few other team-concept no-limit hold’em freezeouts, I have some genuine strategy thoughts on this format … and fugk, just as much authority on it as Matt Parvis or Jamie Gold.

Anyhow, check out their rockin’ new promotional vid from the WSOP team tournament … they’ve got a few different musical varieties on their site and YouTube, but I liked this one best:

Starring Kenna James … with splash appearances by Lacey Jones, Liz Lieu, Jerry Yang, Dennis Phillips, Susie Isaacs, Alex Outhred, Barry Greenstein, David Williams, Evelyn Ng, Gavin Smith, Bryan Micon, Pam Brunson, Jose Canseco, et al.

ALT HED: Pauly Sniffs Cash

Lectures, lab sessions, and lunch are all part of an academic effort to plug your leaks.

Much to say about the WSOP Academy I attended last weekend at Caesar’s … about things I learned, how I performed, and, frankly, what kinda people are shelling out close to $2,000 for anything these days. For some of the 50-or-so poker players in attendance it was just a matter of a buy-in or two for the level they play at. And for others, it was more than half their annual poker budget in a way that doesn’t even account for flights to Las Vegas from Australia or Buffalo.

Prof. Seif: “He may think it’s the right move, but Dan stands to lose a stack of 20-dollar bills this big if he keeps playing that way.”

All in all it was a great class taught by Mark Seif, Mark Gregorich, Alex Outhred, and Michael Gracz — very engaging, informative, and often irreverent — didn’t feel like Saturday/Sunday detention at all. I lost pretty big in the one session of $1/$2 NL I’ve played since WSOP-Acad graduation … I guess they shoulda reminded us to take a nap after class, or they can only do so much with a guy who insists on misplaying KQ generally 8 out of 10 times. (Ah, the painful, humiliating schoolchild memories …) If I could just misplay the hand 4 out of 10 times, that would be some serious positive EV, saving me the theoretical cost of tuition in just a few orbits!

BTW, the next WSOP Academy is at WinStar, February 21-22 — a poker room near and dear to so many Texas player and longtime Pokeratizens. Outhred and Gracz will be part of the Thackerville faculty, along with Greg Raymer and Master Mindset (?) coach Sam Chauhan.

Click here for more info … and really, you should totally think about signing up. Your Pokerati-friendly friends will feed you and everything.

This weekend wasn’t about life-changing money so much as it was about life-easing money for those who went super-deep (top 1 percent), but not deep-deep-deep in the main event: Margo Outhred reading David Sedaris’ latest (When You Are Engulfed in Flames) while awaiting important updates via text from her husband Alex. Though supposedly tournament poker is all about going for the win, there were points when he got short-stacked that she became very interested in the payout levels, and would rush back into the Amazon Room to let him know what they stood to gain if he could hold on for X spots longer.

63rd-55th place paid $115,800

WSOP Academy instructor Alex Outhred finished in 54th(-46th) for $135,100 — a small but noticeable victory on his way out of the 2008 WSOP main event.

Play ended on an explosive note last night as Phil Hellmuth’s antics earned him a 1 orbit penalty for his prolonged verbal attack on Cristian Dragomir on the last hand of play. 79 players return at 12 today to play down to the final 27, however long that takes. There’s still two women in the field (Tiffany Michelle 5th with 3,438,000 and Lisa Parsons 73rd with 581,000). The leader is Mark Ketteringham, with 5.8m in chips,Andrew Brokos in 2nd with about 4.08m, and Nikolay Losev in 3rd with 4.06m. Notable names remaining include David Benefield, Brandon Cantu, Kido Pham, David “Chino” Rheem, Mike Matusow, Hellmuth, Victor Ramdin, Matt Matros, Keith
“The Camel” Hawkins, Alex Outhred, and Thomas Keller. To see everyone’s situation in terms of chips and where they sit, head to page 2:

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After it was decided to play one more level after the dinner break, the tournament staff decided to suspend play with just over 38 minutes remaining in level 19. Two possibilities: Since play started an hour later on Friday, ending it at the same time as the other Main Event days would seem right. Also, there was 21 full tables of 9 players when play was suspended. so that there wasn’t a disadvantage to the other tables.

The leader at the end of day 4 is Jeremy Joseph with over 2.18m in chips, Nikolay Losev is 2nd with 2.11m in chips. 46 players start play today with over 1m in chips, among those players include Brandon Cantu, Shawn Sheikhan, Alex Outhred, Mark Vos, David Benefield, and Gus Hansen and Allen Cunningham. Phil Hellmuth is the final remaining Main Event winner with 581,000 in chips.

Tiffany Michelle, Kara Scott, Minna Ritakorpi, Karen Manfrede, and Lisa Parsons, make up the remaining female players. To see how everyone will be seated today, head to page 2:
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About 215 players head towards their 90 minute dinner break, knowing that they’re only playing one more level when they return around 9:45pm. At that point, they should be under the magical 175 figure tournament director Jack Effel had mentioned when play could possibly be stopped early. Saturday is scheduled for another 5 two-hour levels, while on Sunday they play down to the final 27.

The chip leader appears to be Jeremy Joseph, currently atr 2.8m in chips, 1m more than Brandon Cantu in 2nd. Today’s been a moving day for many pros (live and online), as Allen Cunningham, David “raptor” Benefield, APT winner David Saab, and Alex Outhred have moved into the top 10, More notable names left include Phil Hellmuth, Gus Hansen, Mike Matusow, Hoyt Corkins, Raja Kattamuri, Chip Jett, and Adam “roothlus” Levy. There’s less than 10 female players left (Alana Morin leads the ladies with 1m in chips), but two of them are more known for their work in front of the microphone, as Tiffany Michelle (Pokernews reporter) and Kara Scott (EPT hostess) survived the dinner break as well.

More updates later, as the Amazon room gets more deserted by the elimination…

Finally the Main Event doesn’t need to have any letters in front of the day number as about 1,300 players return at noon today to play 5 more two-hour levels of play, with the hope of playing into the money today. The curious will want to know if they can make it down to the devilish 666 for the money today, and when the arduous task of hand-for-hand play starts. The Day 2b leader appears to be Peter Biebel, with just over 515,000 in chips. Other notables near the top: Alex Outhred, Raja Kattamuri, Victor Ramdin, favorite of Pauly Diogo Borges, Jean-Robert Bellande, Phil Hellmuth and Gus Hansen.

More updates later…

Sure, I’m a lady. (Shut up, Dan.) But I’ve written numerous articles about my anti-ladies-only tournament stance…

When All In Magazine asked if I wanted the assignment to cover the WSOP Ladies Academy in Vegas this past weekend, it required some consideration. I firmly object to women being separated in the poker community, but I noticed that Annie Duke was the primary instructor for the class. Knowing that we shared the same view about ladies-only tournaments, I decided to accept the assignment and investigate. The comped room at Caesars had something little to do with my decision.

Alex Outhred Instructing Students

Glad I did it.

The two-day course was extremely informative, as Annie covered everything from bluffing to betting amounts to detailed strategy for pre-flop and post-flop play. Joe Navarro spent a few hours discussing tells, which even drew some Vegas pros like Tom McEvoy and JJ Liu to sit in. Alex Outhred also helped with the lectures and the live table demonstrations. There were about 75 ladies enrolled in the $1700 course, and everyone seemed glad to have been there.

The lingering question: Why was it for women only?

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