On this episode of the Jess and BJ Show, Jessica Welman and BJ Nemeth try to wrap things up in time to catch Game 7 of the World Series, bet the Bookie’s Over/Under on how many former Foxwoods winners will remain at the end of the day, recap Day 2 of the World Poker Finals, and answer the question, “What is your favorite game-winning performance?”
My goodness, how many new poker (and non-poker) internet shows can there be … it’s like everyone in the world has a built-in laptop cam and a connection to the internet!
But this new venture from a couple of Poker Beat cohorts on the tournament coverage frontlines could actually do it for me, as I can’t think of a more morning-friendly way to find out all I need to know about WPT-Bellagio/Festa as it nears the money bubble. It’s like Regis & Kelly for poker junkies in a G4 generation.
Topics of the day include Allen Kessler, Phil Ivey, Annette Obrestad, and Matt Affleck … but really, it’s way more fun that that. 🙂
For the third time in seven weeks, a woman has won a major poker tournament. Today, it was UB sponsored pro Liv Boeree the winner of the PokerStars.it EPT San Remo event, officially winning 1,250,000 Euros (about $1.7m US), defeating Jakob Carlsson in heads-up play. Below is a clip of the winning hand:
Meanwhile at the WPT World Championship, Heather Sue Mercer started Day 4 second in chips (1,364,000) with 35 players remaining. The only woman to win a non-ladies WPT event was Van Nguyen’s win at the sorta-open 2008 WPT Invitational. Among other notables remaining when play resumes at noon PT: Shawn Buchanan (1,841,000), Billy Baxter (887,500), Faraz Jaka (856,000), Phil Hellmuth (806,500), David Benyamine (731,000) Carlos Mortensen (586,000) and JJ Liu (495,000). Follow the live updates over at the the World Poker Tour site.
UPDATE: Mercer out in 20th
The two major tournament circuits not named The World Series of Poker are currently running at the same time, with vastly different results. First, the $25,000 World Poker Tour World Championship at the Bellagio drew a field of only 195 entrants as registration closed after the conclusion of level 8. This continues the downward trend in the field size of most WPT events the past few years. Two years ago, the field in the WPT W.C was 545 players (won by David Chiu) and 338 last year (won by Yevginey Timoshenko). Only 18 spots will be paid, with the winner earning around $1,500,000. WPT Player of the Year leader Faraz Jaka is the current chip leader with 500,000 in chips. Follow the WPT Live updates here.
Meanwhile, the PokerStars.it EPT San Remo event drew a field of 1,240 entrants paying €5,000, just 24 remain when play resumes Tuesday for day 5. The current chip leader is Allan Bække (3,483,000), winner of the most recent EPT event in Austria, looking to be the first to win a second EPT main event. The other recognizable name to the casual poker enthusiast is Liv Boeree (1,337,000) First prize is a cool €1,250,000, and you can watch live streaming coverage of the final two days (volcano permitting) will be available at www.pokerstars.tv starting at 6am ET or you can follow the live updates over at PokerNews.
The final table of the $5,000 PokerStars NAPT Mohegan Sun Main Event came to a conclusion early Sunday evening, with Vanessa Selbst taking down the title in dominating fashion. In an interesting quirk, like her 2008 WSOP PLO bracelet win over Jamie Pickering, she defeated a strip club owner, Mike Beasley in heads-up play. Beasley held the chip lead at the final table, but within 30 minutes Selbst had regained the lead, and her aggressive style meant she never relinquished her hold on the lead. Her win brought up debate on Twitter inquiring if her win would help get more women into the game, a topic that has appeared at Pokerati here and here for two examples.
Here’s the full final table results, with the edited final table coverage on ESPN2 May 10th at 10pm ET:
1 – Vanessa Selbst, $750,000
2 – Mike Beasley, $428,000
3 – Mike Woods, $240,000
4 – Scott Seiver, $190,000
5 – Alistar Melville, $150,000
6 – Derek Raymond, $115,000
7 – Cliff Josephy, $85,000
8 – Jonathan Aguiar, $60,244
Don’t know much about bullfights. I know Carmen ends up at one. And there’s that part in The Sun Also Rises when everybody goes to Pamplona to drink and watch ’em. Apparently your traditional corridas de toros features three distinct stages or tercios, each full of symbolic significance and designed to increase suspense before the final killing of the bull.
This week Juan Carlos Mortensen, a.k.a “El Matador,†successfully completed a third big stage in his World Poker Tour career, besting a field of 143 players at the WPT Hollywood Poker Open in Lawrenceburg, Indiana to take down the $393,820 first prize. That makes three WPT titles for the Ecuador native, tying him with Gus Hansen for the most ever.
As B.J. Nemeth noted in his WPT live reports, the win also makes Mortensen the all-time money leader in WPT history, bringing his total earnings to $5,754,308. Mortensen’s other WPT titles include a victory at the WPT Doyle Brunson North American Championship in 2004 and a win at the WPT Season Five Championship at the Bellagio in 2005.
B.J. also points out that Mortensen has now amassed more than $9.6 million in career tourney winnings. In other words, he’s killing.
Add to all of that Mortensen’s pre-boom WSOP Main Event title in 2001, and he’s certainly helped his candidacy for such things as the vote for the 2010 WSOP Tournament of Champions (where as of this moment he does appear among the Top 50 vote-getters). Not to mention helping his cause for possible Poker Hall of Fame consideration.
For more discussion of “El Matador†— as well as the WSOP TOC and other pokery topics of the day — check out this week’s episode of The (award-winning) Poker Beat.
After having what he admitted was his worst year in poker last year, Phil Hellmuth decided some changes were in order. In his blog from February, Hellmuth hired mindset coach Sam Chauhan and had a battery of tests among other changes to get his poker game back to the when he was considered by more than himself as the best player in the world. It appears to be paying off this week, as Hellmuth has made the final table of the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars Main Event Friday afternoon. Here’s how the rest of the final table will be seated when play resumes around 4pm PT (results come from the Hendon Mob Database):
Seat 1: Hasan Habib – 455,000
Seat 2: Phil Hellmuth – 1,433,000
Seat 3: Andy “BKiCe†Seth – 2,164,000
Seat 4: Matt Keikoan – 371,000
Seat 5: Mclean Karr – 1,112,000
Seat 6: Dan O’Brien – 1,129,000
Other big names who missed the final table: Scotty Nguyen (8th), “Miami John” Cernuto (11th), Nick Schulman (13th), Chau Giang (14th), and current WPT Player of the Year leader Faraz Jaka (18th). Live updates will be available from BJ Nemeth and the other good people over at the WorldPokerTour.com site.
In other news related to Hellmuth, Ultimate Bet has decided to cancel the 2010 Aruba Classic as they decided to expand their offerings online, including having a second Ultimate Bet Online Championship series each year.
Our Tao of Pokerati mobile studio made BJ’s PokerRoad Nation photoblog … which clearly, you can now see, totally ups the quality of poker photography:
Says BJ:
Two of poker’s most experienced WSOP reporters, Dan Michalski (left) and Dr. Pauly McGuire, record an episode of their joint podcast, The Tao of Pokerati, from media row on Sunday night. Michalski has been blogging from the WSOP at Pokerati.com since 2004, and McGuire at TaoOfPoker.com since 2005. While some media outlets see the others as competition, bloggers like Michalski and McGuire see themselves more as coworkers and peers — working together improves everyone’s coverage.
Meanwhile, a Tao photographer using a hidden camera smuggled into Pokerati headquarters reveals our secret to podcasting success:
We know Pokeratizens already know to get your official hand coverage and chip counts at PokerNews WSOP.com, while supplementing it with some sex Wicked Chops, drugs Tao of Poker, and rock-n-roll PokerRoad.
But a few other spots on the internet you may not want to forget about this 40th WSOP:
Hardboiled Poker — Shamus is covering the action on-the-felt for PokerNews, but he provides his real analysis of summer life at the Rio at HBP.
BJ’s Photo Blog — a higher level of poker photography.
Poker Shrink — Dr. Tim’s doing “The Poker Mind in Depth”, where he ignores the concept of doctor-patient privacy and takes his couch sessions with Daniel Negreanu, Mike Matusow, and Phil Hellmuth semi-public.
Benjo — If you speak French, you naturally will want your fix of les World Series of Poker from the Frenchiest French guy on media row.
PokerRoad did an amazing tribute show to Justin Shronk, featuring Joe Sebok, Gavin Smith, Ali Nejad, Court Harrington, Scott Huff, and special guest BJ Nemeth.
If you knew Shronk, this is well worth the time. If you didn’t, it gives some insight into a life lost too early but a life well-lived and filled with friendship, respect, and love. Click here to listen to the heartfelt tribute.
On a personal note, thanks to the guys for putting together this show. Almost as difficult as feeling the loss of Shronk was hearing the heartbreak and sadness in your voices, but it is deeply appreciated.
Rest in peace, Shronk.
We’re going on a little early … 12:30 pacific … as former PokerNews honcho John Caldwell officially joins the crew today. Tune in live or catch the podcast later on PokerRoad.com. Also on today’s episode there’s gonna be some Dan vs. BJ action, over the relevance, facts, and significance of Mitch Garber’s reported heading to Harrah’s. The important question is, of course, which one of us is Hannity, and which is Colmes?
For those that like to follow the live updates at poker tournaments, it can be frustrating waiting for your favorite player’s status in a tournament. You could be someone who’s upset that some kid hired off Craig”s List who can’t tell the difference between a straight and a flush messing up your bustout hand and making you look like stupid. The best way to combat this would be to be your own live updates reporter to get your side of the story out there. During last year’s WSOP, there was a site called FT Sweat was available for those who wanted to provide updates, but it was rarely utilized. Pokerati has it’s own CSR which works within the Pokerati community, whenever it gets updated. The hot application these days is Twitter, and the poker community is following the millions who’ve discovered Twitter.
Want to follow the shortened ramblings of an egomaniac, your favorite poker tournament reporter or blogger, or follow Pokerati (just don’t expect any updates).
As Kevin points out, I’m helping kick off a new podcast today in pursuit of my aspirations of becoming a talking head who mouths off smugly about things he only kinda-sorta knows about.
The Poker Beat (a Scott Huff joint) will essentially be like Meet the Press or The Sports Reporters for poker. Should be interesting. My segment will be with Scott and occasional 2008 Pokerati poster (and WPT tournament reporter) BJ Nemeth.
Click here to listen live. Eventually the folks at PokerRoad will have it up in podcast form, too, so you can listen at your convenience and/or sync with iTunes. But today is our first go, so everything’s new and rolling out as we go along. But it should be more professional than my previous podcast endeavors — like we have an outline and everything!
ADDENDUM:
Here is the link to send a supportive email to some influential folks on behalf of fully legal poker in Texas.
UPDATE: Here’s the full episode, for listening at your leisure — http://www.pokerroad.com/the_poker_beat/1-29-09/TPB_1-29-09.mp3
[audio:http://www.pokerroad.com/the_poker_beat/1-29-09/TPB_1-29-09.mp3]
Pokerati’s own Dan Michalski and an all-star cast of poker media will appear on the premier episode of “The Poker Beat” with Scott Huff at 1pm PT Thursday afternoon over at PokerRoad.
The lineup:
John Caldwell (formerly of Pokernews)
Gary Wise of ESPN and WisehandPoker.com
Matt Parvis of Bluff Magazine
Dan Michalski of Pokerati.com
BJ Nemeth of World Poker Tour
and Joe Stapleton of PokerRoad.com with some closing thoughts.
Topics will include the Obama and the UIGEA, the Durrr Challenge, and the L.A. Poker Classic.
