As you may or may not know, Dr. Pauly skipped town for a few days to go “see a band” (WTF?) … That left Benjo and me to report on the final table of the Champions Invitational: Tom McEvoy beats Dan Harrington and Robert Varkonyi to win himself a Corvette and, of course, the plausibly coveted Binion Cup … providing him sellable items should he ever need a little bankroll stimulus. And we hear about Phil Hellmuth’s oddly graceful 10:1 hands-shaken to hands-played ratio as he, like Pauly, makes an early but not-so-unexpected exit at the WSOP … temporarily derailing an Angry Frenchman’s plans to stage a potentially violent coup.

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

Episode 11.14: Early Exits
5:00
[audio:tao/TaoPokerati_WSOP_ChampsInv_14.mp3,tao/TaoPokerati_WSOP_Outro_Benjo.mp3]

Brought to you by Phish Coventry and psilocybin.

Finishing up business from Monday night before moving on…

The $1,000 NL Holdem Stimulus Special finished at 3am today with 50 players returning at 1pm to play down to a winner. The chip leader is Robert Comegys from Grand Prairie, TX with nearly 1.2m million in chips. Danny Fuhs is close behind, with notables such as Eric Mizrachi, Lee Watkinson, Dan Heimiller, and Jonathan Aguiar far down the leaderboard. More details will be available in my PokerNews recap later today. Today’s event is scheduled to be the first of over 20 WSOP final tables to be streamed online this year. The scheduled 2pm final table will be pushed back at least a few hours, depending on how fast play is today. Updates on Pokerati during the day today.

The $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha event finished their Day 1 with 81 players remaining, the exact amount needed to reach the money. Jason Mercier, best known for his success on the European Poker Tour, is the chip leader with 227,000 in chips, over 60,000 more than second placed Matt Humphrey. Other notables who’ve made the money include Eric Froehlich,, Dario Alioto, Josh Arieh, An Tran, Warren Karp, Shannon Shorr, Robert Mizrachi, and Kirill Gerasimov. Those players and many more return at 2pm today to play down to a final table.

The $10,000 Seven Card Stud World Championship ended after eight levels with 101 of its remaining 142 entrants remaining. High-stakes cash game player David Oppenheim emerged as the chip leader, with veterans “Miami John” Cernuto, Nick Frangos, Danny Robison, and Steve Zolotow helping make up the top 10. Others who’ll be looking to work their way up include Eli Elezra, Todd Brunson, Eric Drache, Erick Lindgren, Andy Bloch, Cory Zeidman and Phil Ivey. They also return at 2pm to play down to their final table.

The one event that was able to conclude Monday was the WSOP Champions Invitational as Tom McEvoy, the 1983 Main Event winner, knocked off Robert Varkonyi, the 2002 Main Event champion to win the first Binion Cup along with a 1970 red Corvette.

The preview for today’s events:
More…

KevMath (the Snopes.com of Poker?) challenged my facts on the easy-to-prove number of eligible players for the WSOP Main Event Champions Invitational. I say there are 27, he says there are 25. So, going through the list … here’s who may or may not be playing:

There have been 39 main event bracelets.
Seven winners are deceased:

Johnny Moss ’70 ’71 ’74
Puggy Pearson ’73
Stu Ungar ’80 ’81 ’97
Hal Fowler ’79
Jack Strauss ’82
Jack Keller ‘84
Bill Smith ’85

That leaves 28 bracelets still in play … hmm … and two are repeat winners … so 26?

Those eligible:

(unconfirmed attendance in italics)

1.    Amarillo Slim ’72
2.    Sailor Roberts ’75 — also deceased
3.    Doyle Brunson ’76 ’77
4.    Bobby Baldwin ’78 – can’t make it
5.    Tom McEvoy ’83
6.    Berry Johnston ‘86
7.    Johnny Chan ’87 ’88
8.    Phil Hellmuth ’89
9.    Mansour Matloubi ’90
10.    Brad Daugherty ’91
11.    Hamid Dastmalchi ’92
12.    Jim Bechtel ‘93
13.    Russ Hamilton ’94 – snubbed
14.    Dan Harrington ’95
15.    Huck Seed ’96
16.    Scotty Nguyen ’98
17.    Noel Furlong ’99
18.    Chris Ferguson ’00
19.    Carlos Mortenson ’01
20.    Robert Varkonyi ’02
21.    Chris Moneymaker ’03
22.    Greg Raymer ’04
23.    Joe Hachem ’05
24.    Jamie Gold ’06
25.    Jerry Yang ’07
26.    Peter Eastgate ’08

OK, crap, math … KevMath … 25 it is.

So how do you call it? I guess we kinda split the difference? I’m considering both Hamilton and Baldwin as eligible, albeit expected no-shows.

CORRECTION: Sailor Roberts also deceased … OK, crap, Mathers wins.

One of the first “big” WSOP events will be the special, invitational Champions tourney … a non-bracelet freeroll for all previous main event champions, which will be one of only four televised ESPN events. This made-for-TV No-Limit Hold’em brouhaha — where players are competing for a shiny trophy and a red Corvette — should give the old-dog pros a chance to remind the 21st century WSOP millionaires who’s really boss … and the Varkonyis and Golds and Yangs a chance to say, “Hey, I didn’t just get lucky, Doyle Biznatch!”

27 players are eligible … and almost all have pre-registered. Bobby Baldwin ’78 has RSVP’d in the negative. But there’s one interesting name on the list of non-confirmeds* — well actually there’re five, but one of these is not like the others … in fact, as a member of the WSOP PAC, he’s probably on Jeffrey Pollack’s speed dial:

Mansour Maltoubi ’90
Hamid Dastmalchi ’92
Russ Hamilton ’94
Noel Furlong ’99
Chris Ferguson ’00

None of these are holdouts, from what we’re hearing … just MIA. (Though we’re not so sure the WSOP is looking that hard for Russ, because they could always give his invitation to Layne Flack.)

Wicked Chops is on the hunt for them here.