Due to your heroic author’s insistence that he can actually play poker as well as write about it, he decided to take a quick trip to Atlantic City to play a couple of Circuit events. That failed miserably, and also delayed the publishing of this article by more than a day. But here it is, a recap of what turned out to be a very busy week.

Erik Seidel Declares, “All Buy-In’s Over $25K Belong To Me”
2nd in the 2010 NBC Heads-Up Championship. 4th in the 2011 PCA $25,000 High Roller event. 3rd in the $100,000 High Roller and a win in the $250,000 Super High Roller at the 2011 Aussie Millions. And in the last week, a win in the $25,000 High Roller event at the LAPC and redemption with a win in the 2011 NBC Heads-Up Championship.

That’s a whole lot of words without a complete sentence, but it needs to stand alone due to the sheer impressiveness of one man accomplishing all of that in a calendar year. For a long time, Erik Seidel was known only as the man on the other end of Johnny Chan’s WSOP win, courtesy of the famous clip in the movie Rounders. Since his most infamous moment, Seidel has won 8 WSOP bracelets, but the last year has to be his crowning achievement. The total cash haul for all of this success? Over $4.5 million.

The path that Seidel took to the Head’s Up Championship was an impressive one. His first three victories were over fellow founding members of Team FullTilt, defeating Allen Cunningham in the first round, Jennifer Harman in the second round and Phil Gordon in the third. Seidel’s next two matches were against very different kinds of players, specifically of the online variety. One of the few people who’s been as hot as Seidel on the tournament trail is Vanessa Selbst, who has captured a few titles of her own in the last year. But she too fell to Seidel in the round of eight, setting up a match with Andrew Robl in the semifinals. Robl was no match for Seidel, who advanced to the finals and, wouldn’t you know it, a WSOP Main Event champion was waiting for him there. In a reversal of fortune it was Erik Seidel standing tall, claiming the $750,000 first place prize by beating what many would classify as a surprise finalist in Chris Moneymaker. Should make for some pretty good TV.

John Riordan Can’t Buy Booze, But He Can Rock a WSOP Circuit Ring
WSOP Circuit, West Palm Beach, Florida
The bad news for John Riordan is that because he can’t gamble in the state of Nevada, he misses out on the huge opportunity of the WSOP Championship, with $1 million in the prize pool. The good news is that he’s already got quite a few reasons not to be upset. About 210,810 reasons, to be specific, as he won the Main Event of the WSOP Circuit stop at the West Palm Beach Kennel Club last week.

Riordan took advantage of the fact that Florida is one of the few places in the United States in which you’re allowed to gamble at 18, so while he technically qualifies for the million dollar freeroll, he can’t legally play in Las Vegas, and thus forfeits this right to play. His spot will be occupied by an additional at-large qualifier, determined by overall point standings for the entirety of the 2010-2011 WSOPC season.

Gregory Brooks Owes Neighbor Free Drinks For Life After Convincing Him to Play LAPC Main Event
LA Poker Classic, Commerce, California
I don’t personally know what it’s like to be able to play or not play a $10k event on a whim, but for those who can, it can be a decision that can change their life. In the case of Gregory Brooks, that’s exactly what happened. After some disappointing results online, Brooks was ready to take a break from poker, but thanks to the advice of that sagely neighbor, he decided to squeeze in a trip to the Commerce Casino that would change his life.

After several grueling days, Brooks found himself in the final six of the LAPC Main Event with online legends Vivek Rajkumar and Steve Gross, as well as former WSOP Main Event champion and poker superstar Carlos Mortensen. But when the dust finally settled, it was Brooks that was the last man standing. Most people end up with a headache or a mysterious rash after doing something on a whim. Greg Brooks won $1.6 million and a seat to the $25,000 WPT Championship. Tough life.

In other action at the seemingly endless LAPC, David Kitai won the WPT Celebrity invitational. The final table of this event was delayed by a week to accommodate the WPT filming crew, which was already set up to film the Main Event. Kitai took home a $100,000 package, with $75,000 in cash and the other $25,000 wrapped up in a seat in the WPT Championship.

WSOPC in Atlantic City Becomes a 3-Ring Circus
WSOP Circuit – Caeser’s, Atlantic City
The WSOPC has been in Atlantic City for less than a week, and there’s already madness brewing. At the final table of Event #5, a bevy of borderline poker ettiquette issues were raised, from calling for cards in hands players weren’t involved in to high-fiving spectators, to running around the rather large tournament area causing a major scene. The instigator of this madness was Matthew Piccolo, who Nolan Dalla, in his recap of the event, called “an unshaven Chris Farley wearing an Oakland Raiders cap.” The hysterics overshadowed the victory of Jaeik Cho, who quietly collected the WSOPC ring and nearly $30,000.

Luke Vrabel Takes Home $670K and a Lambo In 5th Anniversary of PokerStars’ Sunday Million
Its rare to see a tournament eclipse 10,000 players online. It’s nearly impossible to imagine almost 60,000 players in an event, and it hits that mark when the buy-in is $215. But that’s just what happened this past weekend in the PokerStars Sunday Million, where they guaranteed a $5 million prize pool for their 5th anniversary and reached more than double that mark. As play reached the final table, the structure became a bit too fast for the remaining players, who each agreed to chop out part of the prize pool and guarantee themselves almost $300,000. The biggest winner of them all was Luke “Bdbeatslayer” Vrabel, who took home $670,000 as well as a brand new Lamborghini Gallardo. Not bad for 16 hours of work.

Greg Pohler Becomes Most Famous Sibling Since Frank Stallone with LAPC Win; James Carroll, Elky Lead Final 2 Events
LA Poker Classic, Commerce, California

The LA Poker Classic is finally winding down, but the last few days should be quite a cap to what has already been a very exciting series. 681 players turned out for the $10,000 LAPC Main Event, which is down from last year but that can be attributed directly to Full Tilt not running direct satellites to the tournament. The winner will probably not be complaining though, as the top prize in this event is over $1.6 million. At last check, there were 34 players left, with James Carroll leading and David “Bakes” Baker not far behind. Other notables still in the field include Allen Cunningham, Joe Hachem, Jason Senti, Kathy Liebert and Lauren Kling. If you’ve got a second, be sure to check out the live video stream from the Commerce Casino. 5 players are left at the $25K high roller event final table, with Elky leading the pack.

There’s some debate as to whether or not Greg Pohler is the brother of Parks and Recreation star and SNL alum Amy Poehler, but thanks to a Google search, movies.yahoo.com says that she has a brother named Gregory, so I’m gonna run with that (despite the fact that they’re spelled differently). Pohler won almost $30,000 in Event #46 at the LAPC, but the most interesting result from that tournament may be the 17th place finisher. I haven’t heard the phrase “Parts Unknown” since I watched WWF back in the early 1990s.

One of the more impressive final tables has to be the $5,100 No Limit Hold’em event that took place last week. Randy Dorfman topped an impressive final table that included Shannon Shorr, Nick Binger, Jon Turner and French Pro Nicholas Levi. Dorfman took home $163,270 for this win, one of the biggest prizes awarded at this year’s LAPC.

The last of the unique events that Matt Savage runs at the LAPC was the double-elimination format Heads-Up tournament. The $5K tournament got 48 players, and the six making the money were an impressive group. John Racener, Erik Seidel, Justin Young and Fabrice Soulier all found their way to the money. The final match was between Nicholas Rampone and Scott Seiver, with Rampone coming out of the Loser’s Bracket against Seiver, who had not lost a match on the way to the finals. Rampone had to beat Seiver twice to capture the title, which is exactly what he did. He got $81,480 and a $10,000 seat to the Main Event, which was added to this tournament as well as a handful of others during the LAPC.

A Pair of Swedes Invade To Denmark, One Captures (EPT) Crown
EPT Copenhagen – Copenhagen, Denmark

Another week, another €500K first prize on the EPT. After playing down from a final eight that included Juha Helppi and American online wiz Kevin Iacofano, two Swedish pros battled it out for the EPT Copenhagen title. Michael Tureniec and Per Linde battled for more than three-and-a-half hours heads-up, with Tureniec vindicating himself following a previous second place finish on the EPT by capturing this title. Tureniec won €496,271 for this effort, but no word on how Scandinavian relations are following this brash invasion.

Former Corrections Officer Lays Down the Law, Becomes First Female Poker Champion in Florida History
WSOP Circuit, Palm Beach Kennel Club – West Palm Beach, Florida

The young history of tournament poker means that we’ll be seeing a lot of first-time events in the coming years. This past week at Florida saw the first woman crowned as champion of a major event. June Amer, a retired corrections officer in Dade County, won the biggest prize of this circuit stop to date, banking over $65,000 in a $550 event with 664 entries. After cashing in Event #2, Amer overcame what looked to be an insurmountable chip lead in this tournament to lock up the Circuit ring, as well as put herself in position to contend for player of the series.

Quite a few familiar faces showed up to play at this WSOP circuit stop, including Team Pokerati member Tom “DonkeyBomber” Schneider. He found his way to the final table of an Omaha 8/b event, but with less than one small bet when the final table began, Schneider could not improve his position and finished 9th. Also at this final table was “Captain Tom” Franklin, but he too fell short of this title, finishing in 5th place. The winner of the event was Timothy Burt, a veteran who served for three years in Iraq, who knotches his second WSOP circuit ring, the first coming in a HORSE event in Biloxi last November.

Mark Benasa Wins Record Red Dragon in Macau; Hannibal Lector Unavailable for Comment
Macau Poker Cup, Grand Casino Lisboa – Lisboa, Macau

509 players turned out over two days of the Macau Poker Cup Main Event. Known as the “Red Dragon”, this tournament shattered the previous record of 321 players, and created a prize pool of over HKD $5,090,000. Mark Benasa won the title, becoming the first Filipino player in the tournament’s history to do so. Benasa took home a first place prize of HKD $1,100,000 ($140,000) and now leads the APOY race, with a one-year sponsorship from PokerStars Macau on the line.

Swim Instructor Sinks Competition To Win HPT Title
HPT, Downstream Casino Resort, Quapaw, Oklahoma

27-year-old Michael Jensen is a part-time poker pro, but definitely someone who has his priorities in order. In an interview before the final table at Downstream Casino, Jensen said, “Whether I finish sixth or first, I’m teaching swimming lessons to little kids tomorrow afternoon.” If I were Jensen, I would be pulling a Scrooge McDuck following those lessons, as his $100K payday for first place could definitely fill a pool full of coins to swim in.

Computer crashes, flight delays and internet inconsistencies successfully delayed this column once again, but even those pitfalls couldn’t keep this column down for more than a day. I may have failed to put myself in position to appear in this column again, but others won big at the WSOPC’s inaugural trip to Florida, which got underway this week. There was also some serious action in Brazil and a crescendo in the action at the LAPC.

Largest Field in Florida History Fails To Prolong “Year of the Media”
Palm Beach Kennel Club – West Palm Beach, Florida

It’s become increasingly clear that all of the media’s run-good has been usued up for the foreseeable future, as my own personal attempts to cash in on the year of the media have once again failed. I was one of 877 entries over two starting days at the inaugural event of the World Series of Poker event at the Palm Beach Kennel club this week. The $345 event brought together the largest field for a poker tournament in the history of the state of Florida, generating a prize pool of over $250,000 and awarding almost $50,000 to the winner. The biggest names to go deep in this event were former WSOP ME final tablist John Spadavecchia, and Ronnie Bardah, who bubbled the final table in 10th place.

24-year-old Reed Zhao was crowned the champion, the first winner of a circuit ring in the state of Florida. The Lexington, Kentucky native is a high-stakes online cash game grinder, but he’ll likely be playing some more tournaments in the coming weeks to challenge for player of the series and a spot in the Million Dollar Freeroll. Zhao is currently joined atop this list by James Giraldo, who won a $545 event for $43,000 in his first major live tournament, and “Tampa Bay” Ray Del Cueto, who won $28,800 in Ring Event #3.

A Pair of Ladies Hold WPT Invitational in Check
Los Angeles, California
As the longest tournament series outside of the World Series of Poker inches toward its ending, two of the more unique events that the LA Poker Classic has to offer took place. The WPT Celebrity Invitational tournament got underway this week, with boatloads of LA celebrities and poker players rubbing shoulders and doing their thing the red carpet. After playing down to the final six, the two biggest pros remaining are Dan Heimiller and David Kitai, but the story of this table is a pair of chess masters that also happen to be women. Almira Skripchenko and Dinara Khaziyeva are each vying for a top prize of $100,000, which includes a seat to the $25,500 WPT Championship. The final table will be played out on March 2nd, so it can be filmed back-to-back with the $10,000 WPT event.

The other unique event at the LAPC this week was the annual Ironman event, where no breaks are given and the tournament is played straight from beginning to end. 68 players signed up for this twisted idea from the mind of Matt Savage, and pro Nikolay Evdakov emerged victorious (and tired). He won $60,630 and a seat in the main event for his victory, which was his second LAPC victory of the week after winning the six-handed Pot Limit Omaha following a three-way chop for almost $35,000. Evdakov is one of four people to own two or more titles at this year’s LAPC and he has thrust himself into the player of the series race there.

Another notable player found victory this week as Owen “owcrowe” Crowe, who won a $1,065 event for over $37,000 in an event that saw Matt Savage’s personal punching bag for the LAPC, Matt Affleck, cash. On several occasions during this series Savage, who is an infamous needler and may or may not have sent yours truly a text message during the AFC Championship game when the Jets were down three touchdowns, has brought up the monster pot that Affleck lost at this year’s WSOP Main Event, once playing it on a giant projector screen for the entire tournament field.

Power Outages Can’t Stop First Chilean LAPT Champion
LAPT Brazil – Sao Paolo, Brazil
Brazilians comprised 60% of the 536 players in this record-breaking LAPT event, and the hometown crowd was hungry to crown the first Brazilian champion in the history of the Latin American Poker Tour on their own turf. They had quite an edge heading into the final table as well, with 5 of the 8 players at the final table coming from Brazil. In fact, all 8 players were from Latin America, and a Latin American nation crowned their first champion, but it was Chilean Alex Manzano emerging as the champion. Manzano satellited in online and turned that small investment into R$ 615,840, roughly $370,000.

The left coast featured prominently in this week’s tournament action, with two different series’ winding down, while the WPT made a stop in Florida and the WSOP Circuit found it’s way to Lake Tahoe.

NAPT Los Angeles (Los Angeles, California)

The big story heading into the Main Event of NAPT LA was how the turnout would be for the first non-televised event of the tour. In a not-too-surprising outcome, the power of PokerStars’ satellites helped build a field of 701 for the $5K event, and from that came an impressive final nine. Once that nine was reached, the NAPT was able to circumvent the no-compete clause of its host, the Bike, and move the final table action to the Crystal Casino to shoot the action for future airing on ESPN2.

Jason Mercier lost a flip for possibly the first time in his poker career to exit in 7th place, followed soon after by Mike Binger in 6th. Ray Henson went out in 5th, and PokerStars lost its last sponsored pro with the exit of Anh Van Nguyen in 4th. The story of this final table ha to be the total domination by Joe Tehan. After winning the coin flip with Mercier to bust him, Tehan cruised to victory and pocketed $725,000 for his efforts. [PokerStars Blog]

That wasn’t the only action going on at the Crystal Casino, as they ran a $5K bounty shootout that was also filmed by the 441 crew. The final table included the likes of Michael Mizrachi, David Williams, Eric Baldwin, Tom Marchese, Pat Pezzin, Justin Young, Mohsin Charania, Clint Coffee and Kevin MacPhee. Each earned $20,000 for winning their initial table, as well as $1,000 for each player they eliminated. When it got down to heads-up play, it was Justin Young who locked up the most bounties, thus locking up a free seat in the upcoming PCA version of this event, but he would ultimately fall short as Eric Baldwin won a marathon heads-up battle at almost 4am local time and took home $134,800. Which might make for a pretty awkward trip home, as they drove out to LA from Las Vegas together for the NAPT. [PokerStars Blog]

LA Poker Open (Los Angeles, California)

Just down the block at the Commerce, the LA Poker Open is winding down towards the end of its Main Event. In the lead-up to the big tournament, Sorel Mizzi topped a short field to win a $1,500 bounty event, while Will “the Thrill” Failla added an LA Poker Open final table to one he made earlier in the week at the Bike, at a final table that also featured Bryan Devonshire and Matt Affleck. Affleck continued running well deep into the Main Event of the LA Poker Open before losing a tough coin flip late and being eliminated in 13th place.

11 players remain heading into the final day of play, with Kwinsee Khoa Tran leading the way with 1,075,000. First place in this one is $178,830. [Commerce]

HPT Championship Open (Mount Pleasant, Michigan)

Even with the elimination of Tiffany Michelle on the “TV Bubble”, this HPT final table managed to have a few recognizable names, despite the events in LA and Florida. Bernard Lee continued an impressive month of November by making this final table, and was joined by Dean Hamrick, who won his first WSOP bracelet this year. Ahmed Haraji was victorious, taking home $176,865 for his win. Check out the work that Scarlet did all week live from this event. [Heartland Poker Tour]

WPT Regional Series: Seminole Hard Rock Fall Open Poker Tournament (Hollywood, Florida)

The World Poker Tour dipped its toe in the water for the first time in Florida with a regional event that got underway Friday. Entering Day 3, Raj Vorha holds the chip lead with 1.34 million. The two biggest notables among the 23 still in contention are Shannon Shorr (182K) and Allie Prescott (126K).

EPT Barcelona (Barcelona, Spain)

The tournament is just getting underway with only a couple of levels in the books.Daniel Negreanu wrote a blog entry detailing his struggle to make it to this event and the hoops he had to jump through to do so that’s definitely worth a read.

WSOP Circuit Event: Harvey’s Lake Tahoe (Lake Tahoe, NV)

246 players showed up for this event, which has to be a fairly good sign considering how spread out players are around the country (and the world). After one day of play, the chip leader is Dan Black of Cloverdale, California with 329,500. [WSOP]

Elsewhere…

With just a few weeks left in the year, there’s only a couple more chances for players to crack the Player of the Year standings. In CardPlayer, Tom Marchese holds a solid lead over Dwyte Pilgrim, Vanessa Selbst, and Sorel Mizzi, while in the BLUFF race Mizzi holds a commanding lead of Marchese, David Peters and Selbst.

Online

Soi Nguyen missed out on any additional money when he was eliminated in 9th place at the WSOP Main Event, but he certainly cashed in during the FTOPS. In his first hosting duties as a member of the FullTilt team, he managed to win his own tournament. Somehow he didn’t use up all of his luck in making his run to the November Nine, as his event was a Super Turbo Rush Poker tournament that started players with just 300 chips, but Nguyen came through in the end and banked nearly $80,000.

The big winner of the FTOPS was “JHoWn”, who took down the Main Event of the series on Monday for a cool $412K.

After crowning a new World Champion last week, it would be a bit difficult to generate as much excitement for this week. But once you’ve embraced young Mr. Duhamel and memorized the Canadian National Anthem, buck up because the tournament circuit never sleeps.

Some of the best players in the world converged on Southeast Asia and Los Angeles, with multiple events in each locale, but that wasn’t all that happened this week.

APPT Macau (Macau)

18-year-old Zhang Dan Peng, playing in his first ever live tournament, defeated a field of 161 that included the likes of Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan and John Juanda, amongst others. Peng took home HK$1.67 million, about $215,000, for his victory. He is the first Chinese player to win the APT Macau. [PokerListings]

The biggest story to come out of Macau was what Ivey and Dwan were doing after they exited the tournament. They sat down at the cash tables with some wealthy Chinese businessmen, and according to Matt Savage there was at least $5 million on the table at the game’s peak. [BetFair]

WSOP Circuit Biloxi (Biloxi, Mississippi)

The newly reimagined WSOP Circuit continues to bounce around the country at a blistering pace. The latest stop saw the Circuit head to Biloxi, with the $1,500 Main Event pulling in an impressive 270 runners. Travis Lutes was the last man standing, taking home $95,000 and a coveted seat in the upcoming WSOPC $1 million freeroll at Caesers. [PokerNews]

Isle Open Poker Championship (Pompano Beach, Florida)

The latest poker gold rush in the United States has to be going down in Florida, where recent changes to the law have allowed games to explode at dog tracks and casinos throughout the state. They didn’t even need the name power of a major tour to draw 198 players to their $2,000 main event. Ayaz Mahmood, who won a bracelet at this year’s WSOP, made the final table and finished 7th, and Matt Ezrol found himself $100,000 richer following his win. [Cardplayer]

APPT Cebu (Cebu, Philippines)

232 players who started action less than a week ago are now down to just nine. Kim Gap Young of Korea is the chip leader heading into this final table, where they’ll be vying for PHP 5,810,000 for first place money. Action should be resuming shortly, so follow all of the action via the link just to the right of this sentence. [PokerStars Blog]

LA Poker Open (Los Angeles, California)

It’s often said that you can’t get something for nothing, but in this case you can come pretty close. The Commerce Casino has developed a tournament system with small buy-ins and several opportunities to re-enter that have generated massive prize pools. The LA Poker Open is no exception, as a $220 and a $125 event each crowned $100,00 winners, Vinh Duong and Peter Hengsakul respectively. The two tournaments had a combined prize pool of over $825,000. [Commerce Casino]

NAPT Los Angeles (Los Angeles, California)

81 players are still standing in this one. Check out Mark Gahagan’s update for chip counts and notables that are still in contention.

There was some big news from the side events at this event, as early this morning Jess Welman chopped the Ladies’ event for $3,000. This continues an incredible run in live events this year, including a cash in the WSOP Women’s event and a final table appearance in Event #1 of the Detox Poker Series, which was a freeroll following a win in a media freeroll. She also finished second in the recent Foxwoods media freeroll.

Perhaps spending all of her time covering the poker circuit has rubbed off on her, and it is clearly time for her to consider going pro. In fact, just working for her at the WSOP this summer seems to have rubbed off on yours truly, as this past Friday night I won $3,700 in a $2 Rush rebuy tournament on FullTilt.

In Other News…

Recent Hall of Fame inductee Dan Harrington finished fifth in the appropriately named $1,000 Poker Hall of Fame event at the Caesers Classic… Check out this fantastic piece by Short-Stacked Shamus following up on the Cannes cheating scandal that gives some insight into the presence of poker media at live events.

In the Online World…

The biggest news in the online world is centered around FullTilt, as they finally followed the lead of PokerStars and headed out of Washington. It’s not all bad though as the latest round of FTOPS is well underway, with over $19 million in prize guarantees.