One bracelet already awarded, another bracelet possibly awarded tonight, the mess that is the Tournament of Champions and other tournament action:

Kelly wins 25k 6-max, Brunson 10 Deal

The final table of the $25,000 No-Limit Holdem 6-max took less than four hours to complete, as 21-year old Dan “djk123” Kelly took down the bracelet along with $1,315,518 when his A-10 ran down Shawn Buchanan’s pocket jacks with an ace on the river. Kelly also became the 7th member of the Brunson 10 with the win, as he was part of a competition during the WSOP to award the spot. Buchanan earned $812,941 for his second place finish, he also won a big hand on the river a few minutes earlier, when the money went in on an open-ended straight draw against Frank Kassela’s flopped two pair. The straight on the river meant a 3rd place finish for Kassela ($556,053), along with 60 POY points to give him a stranglehold on the title. Jason Somerville ($386,125), Mikael Thuritz ($272,804) and Eugene Katchalov ($194,559) rounded out the final table. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report at wsop.com.

Proulx leads 10k PLO, Hellmuth’s chips throw TOC into chaos

What was expected to be the final day of the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship is currently on a dinner break with 18 players remaining. Miguel Proulx, who won the $2,500 PLO event earlier in the WSOP, holds the chip lead with 1,966,000, with Ludovic Lacay (830,000), Jason Mercier (794,000), Tom Dwan (501,000) and Phil Hellmuth (181,000) among the notables remaining. Live updates available at wsop.com.

Hellmuth’s stack is causing problems for the Tournament of Champions, which was scheduled to resume at 7pm. With Hellmuth still in the TOC, the other 16 players were hoping for Hellmuth’s elimination tonight to get the field down to a final table and avoid a long day on Sunday. After Hellmuth made the dinner break, there was discussion about playing one level during the PLO dinner break, but with Joe Hachem asleep and Huck Seed unable to be found, that idea was scrapped and the TOC will be played out starting at 11am, unless some other problem arises in the next few hours.

Phil Gordon wins Ante Up for Africa

A field of 83 poker pros and celebrities, took the felt in the $5,000 Ante Up for Africa charity tournament, with Phil Gordon beating Shannon Elizabeth heads-up, with Gordon donating the entire $129,086 to Ante Up for Africa. Erik Seidel and Jerome Bettis also appeared at the final table. Annie Duke tweeted that over $300,000 was raised in total from the event. Full results and Dalla’s tournament report at wsop.com.

$2,500 NL nears the money

After a delay in the $2,500 No-Limit Holdem due to a shortage of available dealers, 222 players remain for day 2, with the final 196 making the money. James Mackey is the current leader with 240,000 in chips, followed by Isaac Baron (170,000), David Singer (144,000), Andy Philachack (100,000), Jamie Gold (82,000), Tom Franklin (74,000) and Jason Dewitt (63,700). Updates and chip counts available at PokerNews.

1k NL makes the money

Less than 200 players remain in the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem with at least four more levels scheduled for tonight. Check the results and updates at wsop.com.

Before it gets too late, big congrats to Pokerati blogger-player Jon Katkin, who took 2nd place out of 220ish in the Opportunity Village Celebrity Poker Tournament at Caesars Palace last Saturday.

Nice!

Katkin bought in for a single $300 tax-deductible good-cause bullet, and with blinds rising quickly, maintained a 10-20 BB stack throughout to get to the final table. There, he knocked out Howard Lederer and outlasted Allen Cunningham to win $5,000, a week’s stay in a fancy-room suite at the Rio during the WSOP main event, and $1k in food comps at any of the restos there.

Read Katkin’s take on his own game as well as PokerGrump’s impromptu coverage of the event.

More…

Setting foot in a casino card room for the first time since the WSOP yesterday, I did so to support my local L.A. poker spot The Bicycle Casino. The lovely Marketing Director Kelley O’Hara invited me to play in the media tournament in the brand new Event Center to kick off the month of Legends of Poker tournaments. While I opted not to play and only observed for a short time, I must say the Event Center is a vast improvement over the tournament room of the past. The spacious room is bright, welcoming, and about as elegant as Bell Gardens, California can get. Players at Legends events will be very pleasantly surprised.

Seems that about 180-200 people turned out to play in the tournament, including players like Annie Duke, Joe Reitman, Men Nguyen, and Jamie Gold. Some of the celebs spotted were Camryn Manheim and Sara Rue, along with local TV newscasters like hottie Phillip Palmer. It was no surprise that Duke took it down, though, and donated the winnings to Ante Up for Africa. (I get the feeling she’s really dedicated to that there organization.)

First, this note from Nolan Dalla’s latest tournament report:

In the days following the third annual Ante Up For Africa tournament, WSOP officials have received a number of media inquiries regarding the event’s second-place finisher – specifically whether he collected his winnings without donating a portion to the cause the tournament benefits. In light of these ongoing inquiries and certain erroneous media reports that have been filed since the event’s conclusion, the WSOP feels it is necessary to clarify certain relevant facts.

First and foremost, the second-place finisher, to date, has not collected his tournament winnings. Nor has he stated an intention not to contribute to the charity. This player has, in fact, contacted Ante Up For Africa organizers to discuss his plans for the money. Any reports to the contrary are factually inaccurate and should be disregarded.

Day 1b concluded with 655 players returning Tuesday afternoon, joining the remaining entries from day 1a as Day 2a gets underway. The reported* chip leader at the end of play is Brandon Demes with 137,075. Other notables with a decent stack include: Fabrice Soulier (97,725), Joe Sebok (78,800), Bruno Fitoussi (58,100), Shaun Deeb (55,100), Amarillo Slim (48,075) and Greg Raymer (43,750). To see the entire list of survivors, check out the link here.

* Day 1 chip leader Eric Cloutier’s stack was reported as 150,750, it turns out it actually is 15,075.

Day 1c gets underway with a possible change in schedule, as ESPN.com’s Andrew Feldman noted, day 1c and 1d MAY start with 5 levels of play, then playing 4 levels on Day 2b on Wednesday. Day 2a will then be five levels long so everyone has played for the same amount of time. Feldman expects an announcement to made just before play gets underway at 12 noon today. Follow the updates over at www.wsop.com here and maybe some stuff from the rest of Pokerati during Sunday.

It’s the first episode without the Wolfman, but you should still listen as the WSOP media-osos gather outside the Amazon room to discuss $50k HORSE, late registration policies, WSOP parties, PokerPalooza, the big question of whether or not the WSOP is polarizing into varsity and JV divisions, and … the best and worst ideas in play at the 2009 World Series of Poker.

Special pass-bys by Charles Barkley, Mike Tyson, and Oliver Tse … plus the Insider and the Tight Laydown. Dr. Pauly sits in with the crew … and gotta say, as the first episode I’ve ever heard just as a listener, this Poker Beat thing is a pretty good show!

on PokerRoad

The Poker Beat
Caldwell, McGwire, Wise, Nemeth, Stapleton
7/2/09

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Click below for Nolan’s official report — all the data you could want, complete with quotes from celebrity players, information on who exactly played (and won), and info about the fundraising component. A few things that stand out to me:

• 138 entries. Up from 88 last year, which was way down from 167 in 2007. Wonder what’s up with that — The economy? Celebrity Apprentice?
• The Scheinbergs played? I was under the impression that the family atop the PokerStars pyramid was taking a long vacation from the United States, particularly in light of the payment processor crackdown … but maybe not? Different Scheinberg family from New York?
• Philip Tom, dad of accused online-poker bad guy, cashed, finishing in 10th place. Charity makes everything good.
• Belorussian wins. (Should this event be included in the Pokerati World Standings?)
• Who was the one player who didn’t play ball with the donation process?

More…

One of the great WSOP traditions is fast becoming the Bluff/Sapphire party (3rd year?) … where hundreds of Amazon-entrenched pokerers — from pros to media to dealers — who have lived for more than a month in a pen mostly void of conjugal relief gather to collectively release steam before hunkering down for the main event … and what a perfect night when the other big party is the “elitist” Ante-Up for Africa afterparty. There’s something delightfully egalitarian about being entertained by 98-percent naked aspiring starlets making money while having a grand-ole beglittered time … personal degeneracies be damned.

AlCantHang fills in for yours truly to record the first ever Tao of Pokerati episode mid-lapdance — an “event” joined by DrizzTDJ and (briefly) Calfornia Jen. Change100 gives the (awesome) play-by-play. Plus Kathy Liebert … and is that Tom McEvoy?

Tao of Pokerati at the 40th WSOP
Las Vegas, NV

Episode 11.27: The Best Party of the Year (feat. AlCantHang)
1:27
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Episode 11.28: Grindcore Poker (feat. Change100)
2:51
[audio:tao/TaoPokerati_WSOP_Sapphire_Change100.mp3]

(Interlude …)
0:05
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Richardson, accused of taking a less-than-charitable payout option.

Kinda bummed I missed Ante-Up for Africa yesterday … Hollywood A-list celebrity-related traffic aside (and pictures of Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Charles Barkley, Don Cheadle, Jason Alexander, Dean Cain, Brad Garret, Herschel Walker, and Sarah Silverman playing poker) … this is arguably the biggest charity poker tournament of the year (in the world) … and I was curious how the money worked. It was my understanding that originally, 50 percent of the prize pool went to Refugees International a charity* … and the big winners, being already-rich folks moved by the excitement of no-limit hold’em and thoughts of a tax-deductible feel-good gesture, often chose to give their cash prize over to the honorary good cause as well.

But this year people were telling me it was a mere request for generosity — that winners give at least 50 percent of their prize payout to AUFA, which would be shipping the money to the Sudanese cause via the Enough Project (and the IRC?). That seemed a little odd to me, because hey, if the wrong person wins, there could be a problem. Sure enough, an email just came in over the transom — skewering a player named Adam Richardson, who most recently finished in 143rd place in a $1,500 NLH at this year’s WSOP, and 624th in last year’s main event — with the subject line, “What a Prick!”:

Not sure if you got this news. But the prick who won second place in the World Series of Poker charity event which is Ante Up For Africa, completely stiffed the charity.

Players do not have to give any money, according to the rules. But all the players know this is an important event set up to help a very good cause.

Many witnesses said the player was approached afterward by some of the organizers. He was asked politely if he cared to leave a donation, and replied that no one could do anything to stop him and that he was leaving with all the prize money. He walked out the door with like over $100,000.

The player was rude during the tournament and obviously had his own agenda, which was not in the spirit of helping the Ante Up for Africa cause. He likely saw a softer than usual field and took advantage. He had every intention of enriching himself at the expense of the charity.

The player’s name is Adam Richardson, from Poway, California.

He is bad for poker and needs to be called out for taking an angle shot in this event. I hope you will agree this is despicable behavior. The guy is a total prick. Roast his fucking ass.

Hunter

Hmm, if this is true, indeed, arguably poor form. We have not confirmed any of this (and I wasn’t there for the actual event), but the above is the email that’s circulating, and it at least raises the question why a certain chunk of the prize pool isn’t automatically taken out for the charity itself (as it is with most charity poker events).

* Ante Up for Africa “designated charities” have included the Enough Project, Not on Our Watch, and the International Rescue Committee. Refugees International was the recipient of Annie Duke’s Celebrity Apprentice fundraisers.

NOTE: Adam Richardson (unconfirmed) responds to “Hunter’s” accusations in the comments below.

The final update before the Main Event for me, as it’s final table time in the $5,000 NL Holdem 6-max event. The final table is now four-handed consisting of Josh Brikis, Sean Keeton, Matt Hawrilenko, and Faraz Jaka. Jonas Wexler and Matthew Waxman finished 5th and 6th respectively. Live updates are available at www.wsop.com

Ante Up for Africa is being filmed now for ESPN, and it has plenty of Full Tilt Poker pros with Rafe Furst, Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Phil Gordon, Erik Seidel, Jennifer Harman and John Hennigan appearing at the final table. Hopefully Dan and/or Jen will have more updates when there’s a result.

Friday afternoon starts the Main Event, and all the fun and chaos that brings to the Rio. Pokerati will be there to catch the action, so come back, please.

Starting with today’s lone tournament starting, one with a very worthy cause:

Ante Up for Africa

The big charity event of the WSOP is this afternoon’s Ante Up for Africa, a star-studded affair with a $5,000 buy-in, with a request that those who make the money donate 50% of their proceeds to Refugees International and The Enough Project to attempt to end the crisis in Darfur. It’s also the shortest tournament of the WSOP, with it’s 20-minute blind levels in the first hour followed by increases every 15 minutes, the tournament is projected to finish in just five hours. ESPN’s cameras will be following the action as it’s scheduled to dedicate two hours of their WSOP coverage to this event.

Finishing up the Wednesday night tournaments:

Veckey Victorius in $1,500 NL

Tony Veckey makes his first career cash a WSOP bracelet in the $1,500 NL Holdem, good for $673,276 defeating Jason Wheeler heads-up. Nolan Dalla’s tournament report notes that Veckey is a software engineer with Motorola and a graduate of the DeVry Institute. He was hoping to play in Saturday’s $1,500 NL Holdem event, but it was sold out, leaving him to make this his first WSOP tournament. He’s returning back to work and has decided not to parlay this success into this year’s Main Event, choosing to wait until 2010’s Main Event.

Abe’s Awesome in Triple Draw

As noted in the post below, Julie Schneider finished 3rd in the $2,500 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball with high stakes veteran Abe Mosseri picking up his first career WSOP bracelet, along with $165,513. Masayoshi Tanaka finished in second, denied Japan’s first WSOP bracelet, picking up $102,313.

Sweet Sixteen Survive in Six-Max

Sixteen players remain in the final preliminary event of the WSOP $5,000 NL Holdem 6-Handed . They resume this afternoon at 1pm to play down to a winner and this is how they will be seated when play resumes:

(Table 58)
Seat 1: Peter Feldman – 1328000
Seat 2: Aurelien Guiglini – 549000
Seat 3: Josh Brikis – 294000
Seat 4: Thorsten Schaefer – 1094000
Seat 5: Matthew Waxman – 1132000
Seat 6: Alex Venovski – 684000

(Table 59)
Seat 1: James St Hilaire – 876000
Seat 2: John Conkright – 749000
Seat 4: Rory Mathews – 1358000
Seat 5: Jonas Wexler – 848000
Seat 6: Eugene Katchalov – 356000

(Table 60)
Seat 1: Robert Kay – 1213000
Seat 3: Frank Calo – 569000
Seat 4: Sean Keeton – 641000
Seat 5: Matt Hawrilenko – 1327000
Seat 6: Faraz Jaka – 778000

Phil Hellmuth finished in 24th place, if he remained it probably would have given ESPN’s production team quite the difficulty in covering his run for bracelet number twelve and the Ante Up for Africa event.

Follow the updates of today’s activity at www.wsop.com and Pokerati will surely be there covering all the high-profile celebrities in action.

That’s what’s happening here … new faces showing up, old faces showing up, events coming to a close, PokerPalooza getting set up, parties every night … all in preparation for what the rest of the world calls “the World Series” … and what we call “the main event”.

Oh, my, and I almost forgot about Ante Up for Africa … plausibly the biggest charity event in all of poker for the entire year — with tons of Hollywood celebs and presumably real bona-fide non-poker paparazzi and an after-party that lots of people want to get into.

We’ll be sure to bring you coverage of something, in some way … but what, I’m not so sure. As you may or may not have heard, I’ve suffered an injury, which you can see below (watch the guy on the right):

Pauly and I step into the Poker Kitchen to discuss Ante Up for Africa — essentially the We Are the World of poker tournaments — and in doing so chew on the difference between ’80s famine and Darfur genocide, life outside the WSOP bubble, the mindset of pros playing for a good cause with a tournament underlay, and a lack of charity signage in what’s supposed to be a charity WSOP VIP lounge.

Episode 21: Poker for Africa(feat. Otis)

Let me start out by saying that the Ante Up for Africa tournament is a stellar effort to raise money for Darfur refugees and awareness of the mass atrocities taking place in Africa and around the world. The ENOUGH and Not On Our Watch projects are doing wonderful things, and I hope this tournament raises a great deal of money for the causes.

The tournament was held in the Brasilia room here at the Rio. That’s all I know. How many players? Didn’t have time to count because the media was given 15 minutes for photos before we were kicked out. Names of all the celebrities and poker pros? Again, not enough time to write them down. Hopefully, a press release will be issued with all of the information at some point.

Good news? Mekhi Phifer was playing in the tournament.

Bad news? I’m not sure where to begin.

Blanket statement: The media aspect of this day was handled poorly. Very poorly.

More…

The RSVP’s for the Ante Up for Africa tournament (July 2) are coming in. Confirmed celebrity charity players so far:

Don Cheadle
Matt Damon
Ben Affleck
Adam Sandler
Ray Romano
Charles Barkley
Jason Kidd
Kevin Pollack
Cheryl Hines
George Lopez
Joe Trohman (Fall Out Boy)

Sweet … as the song goes, “Ain’t no party like a J. Kidd party ‘cuz a J. Kidd party don’t stop!”

It’s a $5k buy-in for a luck-heavy blind structure. Remember when the concept of paparazzi-able celebs playing terrible poker used to make for good TV? Click here for a special registration form for Event #167.

The beneficiaries of this event (which raised $700k last year) are enoughproject.org and notonourwatchproject.org.

Annie Duke has been getting healthy and training for a marathon since late in 2007, but something has dampened her hopes of running in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon in San Diego on June 1. That thing is her pelvis, which she evidently fractured while running. The fractured pelvic bone has her benched until it heals.

Her latest blog post indicates how disappointed she was to receive the doc’s prognosis:

Well, bleh! I am really upset. A little amazed that I kept going out and running three and four miles on a fractured pelvis. But upset that I have to cancel the marathon that I have been looking forward to in such a big way and upset that my body has apparently failed me. I suck 🙁

Not only was Annie looking forward to completing a marathon, but she was doing it to raise funds for Ante Up for Africa, the organization she runs with actor Don Cheadle. Even so, the duo have succeeded in raising well over a million for the refugees of Darfur thus far. With more than $700,000 raised at the charity tournament at the 2007 WSOP and over $500,000 at the recent San Manuel event, Annie and Don are raising awareness and much-needed funds for the cause. The 2008 Ante Up for Africa tournament is scheduled for July 2nd at the WSOP, and they are hoping to raise closer to – if not over – $1 million at the event.