The Ryan Seacrest of Poker? Matt Savage joined us on This Week In Poker live from the WPT Borgata last Tuesday.

We never ever pick favorites. Never. Ever.

With that said, our interview with Matt Savage last Tuesday on This Week In Poker was our favorite so far. Lots of solid topics covered, and great questions submitted from our viewers, including one from Jay “WhoJedi” Newnum on whether WSOP bracelets should be awarded outside of Vegas.

“I don’t like it,” said Savage. “I don’t think it’s like a real bracelet.”

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The final table of the £10,000 + 350 Main Event concluded Tuesday evening with Briton James Bord taking down the gold bracelet along with £830,401, defeating Fabrizio Baldassari heads-up. Here’s the full final table results:

1 James Bord 830,401
2 Fabrizio Baldassari 513,049
3 Ronald Lee 376,829
4 Roland De Wolfe 278,945
5 Nicolas Levi 208,119
6 Daniel Steinberg 156,530
7 Dan Fleyshman 118,643
8 Brian Powell 90,617
9 Marc Inizan 69,754

Nolan Dalla’s final table report is up at WSOP.com

Elsewhere…

EPT London :: Day 1a of £5,000 Main Event starts Wednesday, EPT London Schedule PokerNews and PokerStars blog cover all the action.

WSOP Circuit Southern Indiana – Elizabeth, IN :: The WSOP Circuit visits Indiana twice in October. Sat. Oct. 2 commences the Horseshoe Southern Indiana WSOP-C with 10 rings up for grabs, including the $1,600 Main Event. The winner, along with the best all around player, aka “Casino Champion” gets a seat at the $1,000,000 Championship Invitational in Las Vegas. WSOP-C schedule

Before I appeared on This Week in Poker with the folks at Wicked Chops Tuesday evening, I did a brief interview with Tatjana Pasalic for PartyPoker’s blog. Wish it went a little bit better, but was still a fun interview, even though it may not have looked that way:

Day 3 of the £10,000 + 350 Main Event concluded with 22 players remaining, playing down to the final table starting at 12pm London time Monday afternoon. A reminder, a stream with hole cards (plus 5 hour delay) will be available at ESPN3.com in the US, Latin America, Brazil, New Sealand and Australia. The same stream will be available at WSOP.com for European viewers. The chip leader is Ronald Lee with 922,000 in chips. Other notables returning: Andrew Pantling (Event #1 runner-up to Phil Laak) – 821,000, Viktor Blom – 705,000, Phil Ivey – 657,000, Hoyt Corkins – 566,000, Barny Boatman – 379,000, Victory Poker CEO Dan Fleyshman – 336,000 and Roland de Wolfe – 113,000. Table draw available at WSOP.com .

The £10,000 + 350 High Roller NL Heads-Up event finally has a winner, as Gus Hansen defeated Jim Collopy in the 3rd and deciding match to earn his first WSOP bracelet along with £288,409. Here’s how the final hand played out:

Elsewhere …

PokerStars LAPT Grand Final – Rosario, Argentina :: Martin Sansour defeats Bolivar Palacios, earning $322,280. Matthias Habernig’s bid for back-to-back LAPT wins fell short, finishing 6th. PokerStars Blog has the final table report.

TJ Cloutier Choctaw Poker Classic – Durant, OK :: Cloutier finishes 17th for $3,673, play down to 4-handed. www.roundersradio.com covering the FT action.

PokerStars WCOOP $5,000 Main Event :: 2,443 entries, first pays over $2m, 2nd and 3rd $1m+

JP Kelly fell ohsoclose of winning his 3rd WSOP bracelet in Event #3 – £1,000 + 75 NL Holdem, finishing 2nd to Scott Shelley, an employee at online poker site PKR, who won his seat in an office freeroll*. Shelley earned £133,857 for the win, while Kelly pocketed £82,854 for the runner-up finish. Full results available at WSOP.com.

* Credit to Chris Hall of PokerNews.

Day 1 of the £10,350 No-Limit Hold’em High Roller Heads-Up drew a field of 103 players, with the winner earning a coveted WSOPE gold bracelet along with £288,409. Round 2 action has concluded with 32 players returning with three more rounds of play starting Wednesday afternoon at 3pm. Among the players who made it to Wednesday action: Phil Ivey, Scott Fischman, Mori Eskandani, Andrew Feldman, Andrew Robl and Shawn Buchanan. The draw for round 3 is available at WSOP.com.

Elsewhere …

WPT Borgata Poker Open – Atlantic City :: Day 3 playing down to 27, defending champion Oliver Busquet leads the field. WPT Live Updates and Borgata Poker Blog

SportingBet, former home of Sportsbook.com and Paradise Poker, settles with US Department of Justice for $33,000,000. – EGR Magazine

Event #2 of the WSOPE, £5,250 Pot-Limit Omaha, has concluded with 2009 WSOP Player of the Year Jeff Lisandro earning his 5th career bracelet, defeating Joe Serock heads-up, earning £159,154 in the win. Serock collects £98,262 for the runner-up finish. Willie Tann and Chris Bjorin, final tablists in event #1, finished 3rd and 9th respectively. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report, will be available shortly at www.wsop.com.

Day 1b of the £1,075 NL Holdem event drew a field of 195 players, with 27 returning Monday afternoon after 9 levels of play. The day 1b chip leader is Wesley Pantling, brother of Andrew Pantling, who finished 2nd to Phil Laak in Event #1 earlier this week. Other notables returning: Andrew Licthenberger – 42,400, EPT Vilamoura winner Toby Lewis – 35,300 and Scott Fischman – 23,200. Full chip counts at WSOP.com.

Elsewhere …

WPT Borgata Poker Open – Atlantic City :: 311 players registered for day 1a of the $3,300 + 200, $2,000,000 Guaranteed event, check out the updates over at WorldPokerTour.com.

PokerStars APPT Auckland – Final table action has just begun, PokerNews and the PokerStars blog are covering that action. The “godfather of New Zealand hip-hop”, Danny ‘Brotha D’ Leaoasavaii holds the chip lead.

Commerce Holdem Series – Final table of 2,085 NL Main Event – live streaming available here.

In another “good for poker” moment, Phil “The Unabomber” Laak took down his first WSOP bracelet, defeating Andrew Pantling heads-up to win the £2500 + 150 NL Holdem 6-max event, earning £170,802 and the coveted gold bracelet. Laak now has three top-18 finishes in Europe since his August ATV accident. Pantling collects £105,506 for the runner-up finish with Chris Bjorin picking up £70,473 for third place. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report forthcoming at wsop.com.

Event #2, £5,000 + 250 Pot-Limit Omaha, drew a field of 120 entrants with the top 18 making the money and a first place prize of £159,154 by Friday evening. Updates available over at PokerNews and WSOP.com Friday at 12pm, day 1a of the £1,000 + 75 NL Holdem kicks off, the first of three opening days. Last year’s winner was JP Kelly, the second player to win a WSOP and WSOPE bracelet in the same year, besting a field of 608 players to earn over £136,000.

Elsewhere …

Day 2 of PokerStars APPT Auckland gets underway with 96 of the original 218 players returning for a $123,000+ first place prize. PokerNews and the PokerStars blog are handling the update duties.

WPT Borgata Poker Open – Atlantic City :: $1,500 NL event event draws over 303 entries, Tiffany Michelle “ices” Maria Ho, $3,300 NL WPT event starts Saturday. – Borgata Poker Open blog

CardPlayer’s subscription-based poker site, Spade Club ceases operations – 2+2 thread

Shaun Deeb’s “unretirement” continues, winning his 2nd WCOOP bracelet.- PokerStars blog

Day 1b of the $335 Commerce Guaranteed Million Dollar Tournament drew a field of 563 players Tuesday afternoon, with James Pittman (victim of one of Phil Hellmuth’s classic rants, shown below) led the field with 311,500 in chips. Other notables returning Sunday include Michael Woo (101,500) and Mike Souza (89,500). Notables who earned money but who can try again for a top 27 finish include Internet entrepreneur Jason Calacanis, 2010 WSOP bracelet winner Hoai Pham. Play on Sunday for the 135 players remaining will resume at the earliest level that play ended on the opening days. At this time, day 1b has ended the soonest, on level 16 (1500/3000 with a 500 ante). The full results for day 1b can be found here.

NOTE: Registration for day 1c will reopen Tuesday at 4:40pm PT, while registration for day 1d reopens Wednesday at 4:40pm PT.

Day1a recap

Day 1a of the Main Event got underway after Greg Raymer gave the command to “shuffle up and deal” shortly after 12pm on Monday to the 1,125 player throng, mostly seated in the Amazon room. The Pavilion room had a few tables at the start, but they were the first to be broken and moved into the Amazon room. Raymer was the first big name to be eliminated yesterday, crippled when he moved in with a flush draw against his opponent’s flopped set of tens. The flush didn’t get there, and he was gone a few hands later. During the day he would be followed out the door by notables such as T.J. Cloutier, Victor Ramdin, Isaac Haxton, Chino Rheem, Nick Schulman, Mike Caro, Ray Romano, Billy Baxter and Jimmy Fricke.

When play ended in the middle of level five, 762 players will return Friday afternoon for day 2a with the survivors from Wednesday’s day 1c field. The day 1a leader is British pro James Mitchell Corwin Cole with 241,075 228,200 in chips. Michael Mizrachi is 4th in chips with 142,650, with others near the top of the leaderboard including Barry Shulman (113,325), Chris Moneymaker (107,425), John Hennigan (95,050), Maria Ho (90,700), Scott Seiver (80,100), Vince Van Patten (75,450) Dwyte Pilgrim (68,775), Lacey Jones (67,600), Rene Angelil (52,275) and Matt Glantz (44,000) . The full list of chip counts is now available at wsop.com.

Day 1b preview

Today’s 1b field will bring another crowd of 1,000+ players to the Rio, each holding their $10,000 lottery ticket, hoping for a big payday. Follow all the updates, chip counts and other excitement over at wsop.com, or follow Dan’s lists of Twitterers.

Monday also meant the conclusion of the last two preliminary bracelet events:

Vonk valiant, wins 1000 NL bracelet

The final $1,000 No-Limit Holdem of this year’s WSOP was won by the Netherlands Marcel Vonk as he defeated David Peters heads-up, earning $570,960. Peters earned $350,803 for his runner-up finish, with England’s Paul Kerr in third for $255,076. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report at wsop.com.

Tomer wins final prelim bracelet

The $2,500 No-Limit Holdem came to an end earlier this morning with Tomer Berda with holding all the chips as he overcame a 2-1 chip deficit against Vladimir Kochelaevskiy heads-up, pocketing a cool $825,976. Kochelaevskiy will receive $510,939 for the second place finish. Full results and Dalla’s tournament report at wsop.com.

UPDATE: Day 1 of the Main Event will play 60 minutes of level 5. The 90-minute dinner break will take place at the end of level 3.

The World Series of Poker, to most people who don’t follow poker, finally gets underway this afternoon with day 1a of the $10,000 No-Limit Holdem World Championship, better described as the Main Event. A field of 6,500 players are expected to show up at the Rio in Las Vegas, seating themselves at tables in the Amazon and Pavilion rooms, hoping their two chips and a chair will turn into something much larger over the next 12 days when the last 9 players return in November to play down to a winner.

The main concern for this year’s Main Event will be if Thursday’s day 1d, which had the highest number of pre-registered players, may mean some players could be shut out. Throw in the schedule (four two-hour levels scheduled for each day 1), and it’s possible not enough players will be eliminated on days 1a and 1b to accommodate the much larger fields expected for days 1c and 1d.

While the Main Event gets underway today with updates at PokerNews and wsop.com, or follow Pauly’s live blog. There’s still two more bracelets to be awarded today along with the rest of Sunday’s action.

Alaei wins 10k PLO

The final table of the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship concluded with Daniel Alaei defeating Miguel Proulx heads-up to win $780,599, along with his third career WSOP bracelet. Proulx, winner of the $2,500 PLO event earlier this WSOP, collects $482,265 for the runner-up finish. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report coming soon at wsop.com.

Huck Seed, TOC winner

The final day of the WSOP Tournament of Champions concluded with 1996 Main Event winner Huck Seed defeating Howard Lederer heads-up, winning $500,000. Lederer adds $250,000 to his results, with Johnny Chan earning $100,000 for third. Full results at wsop.com.

1k, 2.5k final tables today

The final two preliminary bracelet events will be awarded this afternoon, both with a start time scheduled for 3pm, but the Main Event may throw a hitch in those plans. Follow the updates at PokerNews or wsop.com. First, here’s the final table for the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem:

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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.

Recapping the rest of Friday night’s action that Dan didn’t post about, with a Saturday full of battles that don’t involve UFC 116: featuring Brock Lesnar v Shane Carwin.

Taylor wins battle of roommates at Limit Shootout

The final table of the $1,500 Limit Shootout was one of the strongest final tables you’ll see at a $1,500 event with notables like tournament limit holdem specialist Terrence Chan, former WPT player of the year Jonathan Little and former Party Poker Million winner Mike Schneider. When it came down to heads-up, it would be roommates Brendan Taylor and Ben Yu battling it out for the bracelet, with Taylor coming out on top to earn $184,950 and the bracelet. Yu brings back $114,484 for the runner-up finish while Little finished 3rd ($73,218), Schneider came in 6th ($23,563) and Chan a disappointing 8th ($12,961). Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report at wsop.com.

Kelly and Kassela headline 25k 6-max final table

Day three of the $25,000 No-Limit Holdem 6-max started with a flurry of eliminations in the first hour; leading Daniel Negreanu to take issues with the structure on Twitter, eventually finishing in 11th. Dan “djk123” Kelly, who started the day 18th in chips, will start the final table today as the overwhelming chip leader, while Frank Kassela will try to add to his WSOP Player of Year lead. Here’s how the final table will look when play resumes at 2:30pm PT, with streaming available at ESPN3.com (where available) or updates at wsop.com:

Seat 1: Frank Kassela – 2,610,000
Seat 2: Jason Somerville – 1,665,000
Seat 3: Dan Kelly – 5,895,000
Seat 4: Eugene Katchalov – 475,000
Seat 5: Shawn Buchanan – 2,110,000
Seat 6: Mikael Thuritz – 1,535,000

Talbot tops day 1b 1k NL

Day 1b of the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem drew a field of 1,504 players Friday afternoon, with 255 players joining the rest of the day 1a survivors to have a total field of 586 returning at 2:30pm. The money will be reached when 396 players remain with the winner earning $570,960. The day 1b chip leader is Andrew Talbot with 70,175. The full list of day 1b chip counts can be found at wsop.com, those looking for a table draw, i’ll try to get it up on my Twitter as soon as it becomes available.

Sander grinds into lead at $2,500 NL

The final prelim of the WSOP, $2,500 No-Limit Holdem drew a field of 1,941 players Friday afternoon, with 500 players remaining when play resumes at 3pm. The money is reached when 198 players remain, with the winner pocketing a payday of $826,418. The reported chip leader is Dan Smith with 229,000, although he tweeted 22,900 earlier this morning. Marc Sander holds the chip lead with 98,000, followed by notables such as Mark Newhouse (81,400), Isaac Baron (70,100), Court Harrington (69,000), Dan Heimiller (53,100), Jamie Gold (42,000), Jonathan Aguiar (37,000) and Ivan Demidov (34,800). The full list of chip counts appears over at wsop.com and check my Twitter or WSOP’s Twitter for the table draw.

Ante Up for Africa

The annual charity effort held at the WSOP, Ante Up for Africa, gets underway at 2pm. The $5,000 buy-in event helps bring poker pros and celebrities together to help out a worthy cause. Those who make the money are encouraged to donate half of their winnings, hopefully the controversy from last year’s event will be avoided this year.

Recapping Thursday night’s action, with the final bracelet event before the WSOP starting this afternoon:

Welch jams Eaton for 3k Triple Chance bracelet

After a lengthy heads-up match, Ryan Welch secured his first WSOP bracelet, winning the $3,000 No-Limit Holdem Triple Chance tournament, earning $559,371. Eaton earned $344,830 for his runner-up finish, Guillaume Darcourt finished 3rd for $223,459 and Will “The Thrill” Failla coming in 4th for $163,352. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report are available at wsop.com.

Kenney leads 25k NL 6-max into money

Day two of the $25,000 No-Limit Holdem 6-max finished with 18 players remaining with John Juanda being the unfortunate bubble boy. When play resumes at 3pm, Bryn Kenney will start the day as the chip leader with 2,425,000. Among the notables: Abe Mosseri (1,035,000), Daniel Negreanu (860,000), Isaac Haxton (835,000), Justin Bonomo (576,000) and Carlos Mortensen (484,000). Full chip counts and updates during the afternoon at wsop.com.

$1500 Limit Shootout Final Table

Day two of the $1,500 Limit Holdem Shootout started with the disqualification of Yueqi “Rich” Zhu, for making a deal heads-up when he won his shootout table on Wednesday. Zhu explained to PokerNews he was feeling ill, and decided to make a deal with his opponent. After that was taken care of, the remaining 63 players at the eight shootout tables playing down to a winner. The final table will start at 3pm today with this lineup, each starting with 450,000 chips:

Jonathan Little
Terrence Chan
Mike Schneider
Joe McGowan
Ben Yu
Brian Tate
Brendan Taylor
Sijbrand Maal

Follow the updates for this event at PokerNews.

Dempsey leads day 1a of 1k NL

Day 1a of the final $1,000 No-Limit Holdem tournament of the WSOP drew 2,340 entrants Thursday afternoon to the Amazon and Pavillion rooms at the Rio. Play finished halfway through level 9 with 331 players to return Saturday afternoon. James “Flushy” Dempsey leads the day 1a field with 144,100 in chips. Among the notables returning: Shannon Shorr (45,000), Toto Leonidas (31,475), Jena Delk (23,175) and Liv Boeree (16,575). A full list of chip counts is available at PokerNews.

Paino leads 10k PLO Day 1

The $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha got underway Thursday afternoon with a field of 346 players taking the felt. After eight levels of play, 166 will return at 3pm, with the final 36 players making the money with the winner taking down $780,599. Antonio Paino leads the returning players with 240,000 in chips, with James Akenhead (181,100), Fabrice Soulier (151,200), Noah Boeken (114,400), Annette Obrestad (106,900), Tom Dwan (103,800) and Michael Binger (97,200) among the big names in the upper half of the leaderboard. The full list of chip counts is now available at wsop.com.

Friday’s tournament

Besides day 1b of the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem event starting at 12pm, the 5pm tournament is the $2,500 No-Limit Holdem event. Last year, Keven Stammen won this event in a field of 1,088 for $506,878.

Recapping the action from Wednesday, with three WSOP bracelets awarded:

Busse “kickz” out Crowe to win 1k NL bracelet

Shawn “jordankickz” Busse got the better of Owen Crowe to win Event #47, $1,000 No-Limit Holdem, earning $485,791 along with the coveted WSOP gold bracelet. Crowe earned $300,494 for his runner-up finish. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report at wsop.com.

Chance wins out at 5k PLO

The $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha bracelet goes to Chance Kornuth, earning $508,090 in defeating Kevin Boudreau heads-up. Boudreau earns $313,792 for finishing in 2nd, while Robert Mizrachi couldn’t join his brother Michael in winning a bracelet, finishing 8th at the final table. Full results and Dalla’s report at wsop.com.

Linn wins $1500 NL

Michael Linn ended up with all the chips in the final $1,500 No-Limit Holdem tournament of the WSOP, getting the better of Taylor Larkin in heads-up play to pocket $609,493 and the bracelet. Larkin has $378,905 to cushion the blow of finishing in second. Full results available at wsop.com.

Eaton leads 3k NL Triple Chance

Jon “sketchy1” Eaton leads the final 12 players returning for the final day of the $3,000 No-Limit Holdem Triple Chance at 2:30pm to play down to a winner. Here’s how the field will be seated when play resumes, follow the updates over at PokerNews:

Table 306:
Seat 2: Will Failla 960,000
Seat 3: Frank Rusnak 1,041,000
Seat 4: Gregory Ronaldson 145,000
Seat 6: Bradley Craig 340,000
Seat 7: Tad Jurgens 292,000
Seat 8: Koen Debakker 259,000

Table 307:
Seat 2: Tommy Vedes 984,000
Seat 3: Guillaume Darcourt 613,000
Seat 4: Jon Eaton 1,678,000
Seat 5: Sergey Lebedev 917,000
Seat 6: Ryan Welch 932,000
Seat 7: Noel Scruggs 553,000

Day 2 of 25k 6-max

A field of 191 signed up for the $25,000 No-Limit Holdem 6-max event, with just 69 returning when play resumes at 2:30pm. ESPN3 (where available) will start airing a feature table at that time. Only 18 players will make the money, with the winner earning $1,315,518. The current chip leader is Alexander Gruibem with 548,000, followed by Jason Somerville with 516,600. Other notables returning include: Daniel Negreanu (407,100), John Juanda (401,300), Nick Schulman (280,000), John Duthie (256,800), Freddy Deeb (234,400), Barry Greenstein (194,800), Ivan Demidov (169,200), Erick Lindgren (154,400) and Andrew Feldman (101,600). The full table draw is available here and follow the action at wsop.com.

1500 Limit Shootout makes the money

The $1,500 Limit Holdem Shootout drew a field of 548, with the 64 winners of their table making the money, returning at 3pm to play down to the final 8. Among the winners yesterday: Chau Giang, Nam Le, Terrence Chan, Yevginey Timoshenko, Barry Shulman, Marcel Luske and Jonathan Little. The table draw for day 2 is now online, check out who’s sitting where here and follow the min-raising thrills over at wsop.com.

Thursday’s Tournaments

Today is the last day where two new bracelet events get underway, starting with day 1a of the final $1,000 No-Limit Holdem starting at 12pm with the usual crowd of thousands heading to the Rio. The 5pm tournament is the $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Championship, won last year by Matt Graham, winning nearly $700,000 in defeating a field of 295.

A look back at Monday night’s action, with another WSOP bracelet winner determined earlier today:

Eskeland stops Sung, wins Mixed Event bracelet

The only bracelet awarded Monday went to Norway’s Sigrud Eskeland, as he defeated Steve Sung heads-up to win the $2,500 Mixed Event, earning $260,497 and the prized WSOP bracelet. Scott Seiver finished in 6th for $40,175, while Todd Brunson finished in 10th for $18,045. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report at wsop.com.

Davidian branches out into lead for 1k day 3

Manuel Davidian holds the chip lead (889,000) when day 3 of the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem resumes with the final 33 players playing down to a final table. Among the notables returning: Owen Crowe (610,000), Shawn Busse (432,000), Olivier Busquet (377,000), EPT winner Allan Baekke (274,000) and Scott Montgomery, winner of the previous 1k NL WSOP event (151,000). As noted in the comments, Richard Ferro finished 182nd for $2,589. Chip counts and updates starting at 2:30pm PT at wsop.com.

Zarbo leads after day 1 of $1500 NL

Day two of the final $1,500 No-Limit Holdem tournament of the WSOP will have 290 players returning to the Rio at 2:30pm with Giuseppe Zarbo leading the field with 156,500 in chips. Other notables returning include George Lind (96,400), David Pham (83,300), John Myung (66,300), Shane Schleger (54,800), Liv Boeree (43,400) and Matt Matros (36,600). The day 2 table draw and chip counts are available at PokerNews.

Schaffel leads 5k PLO

Day 2 of the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha resumes at 3pm with 2009 November Nine participant Kevin Schaffel leading the 172 who had chips at the end of level 8 with 178,900. Some of the returning players include Dan Shak (100,800), Annette Obrestad (73,600), Nam Le (63,000), Lex Veldhuis (52,800), Ben Grundy (48,000), Jonathan Little (41,000) and John Juanda (28,300). Full chip counts and table draw now at PokerNews.

Tuesday’s tournament

Only one tournament on today’s schedule, the $3,000 Triple Chance No-Limit Holdem event. Players start with 3,000 in chips, then get two additional “rebuy” chips, each good for another 3,000 chips to be added to their stack during the first four levels of play. Last year was the debut of this event, won last year by Jorg Peisert in defeating a field of 854 for $506,800.

As much as I’ve noted Team Pokerati’s struggles on the felt this summer, it’s not like our players don’t know their way to the WSOP payout window. Here’s a rundown of the team’s representative real-money scores so far:

(Click below for the Team Chauhan comparative results.)

Tom to La, after Team Pokerati’s first and only FT of 2010: “Congrats, you really played great. If I don’t bink a tourney soon, think you might be able to float me some scratch?”

Tom Schneider
$4,348 – 128th – $1.5k NLH
$22,085 – 14th – $1k NLH/Seniors
$3,352 – 52nd – $1.5k PLH
$6,128 – 32nd – $1.5k Omaha Hi/Lo

La Sengphet
$22,728 – 7th -$1k NLH/Ladies

Pat Poels
$13,232 – 10th – $2.5k Limit 2-7 3x

Robert Goldfarb
$6,128 – 29th – $1.5k Omaha Hi/Lo

The Big Randy
$3,428 – 196th – $1.5k NLH

Toothless Bob
$3,080 – 2nd place – $150 NLH (Binion’s Poker Classic)
$1,240 – 1st place – $65 NLH (Sahara nightly)
$355 – 4th place – $65 NLH (Sahara nightly)

John Harris (85Nutz)
TBD – first 2010 WSOP day 2 – $1k NLH

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