Huff, Dan, Jess, BJ, and even Stapleton (with the return of the Tight Laydown?):

The Poker Beat: October 24, 2010

[audio:http://www.pokerroad.com/download/the-poker-beat:86]

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• Poker Hall of Fame inductees Harrington and Seidel, age-minimum debates, and comparisons to Rock & Roll Hall of Fame
• Anonymous tables at Ladbrokes
• Crespo’s Illinois online poker lawsuit — significant or frivolous?
• More on WSOP-C’s new power and purpose?
• WPT-Festa al Lago FT, Randall Flowers, and the Jess & BJ Show
• Phil Ivey is gay? Craps + multi-phallus fellatio promises at the Wynn

Though personally I don’t expect Darvin Moon to look anything like Sammy Farha en route to 2nd place … you gotta love the debate going on over who will, and who should win … let alone whose victory would be “better for poker”.

Super-young but true online pro vs. the “Ultimate Everyman” … you know, if everyman happened to cut trees for a living.

As you know by now, I’m probably as much a Cada fan as I am an Aston Villan (I’ve got Fake$100 invested in his winning) … but the hubbub going on right now reminds me a bit of funny-in-retrospect conversation as WSOP things got down to heads-up in 2003 …

From my first poker magazine piece in the first issue of (the recently resurrected) ALL IN:

On the last day of the 2003 WSOP main event, a handful of eliminated pros gathered around the final table to watch the action. Moneymaker — the Tennessee accountant who had never before played a live tournament — had amassed a sizable chip lead when Mike Matusow turned to fellow professional Eric Siedel and said, “I can’t believe another donkey is going to win the World Series of Poker.”

“You better hope he wins,” Seidel responded. “If Moneymaker can pull this off, it’s going to be worth at least $5 million to you and me over the next two years.”

“Are you crazy?” Matusow said, dismissively.

The only difference this go-round, of course, is that the world has already been introduced to online poker, and the Sammy Farha pro character is being played by a 21-year-old who stands to be the youngest WSOP main event champ in history (for the second year in a row).

Recapping some of the afternoon action on Sunday:

Negreanu looking for bracelet #5

The $2,500 Limit Holdem 6-max is down to the final three players, with Daniel Negreanu having a dominant chip lead. Brock Parker and Tommi Horkko are the other two left in the field. Finland now has its third top-3 finish in less than a week. You can still watch this final table at the Bluff website or for the international reader the PKR site.

Stammen Stampeding His Foes

The $2,500 NL Holdemevent just got to heads-up with Keven Stammen holding a 2-1 chip lead over Angel Gullen. This looks to be a very fast final table as it took just 70 hands to go from ten players down to two.

Ladies Event Attendance Showing Its Slip

The $1,000 Ladies NL Holdem World Championship drew a field of 1,088 this afternoon. That figure is down from last year’s 1,190, which was lower than 2007’s 1,286 total. 370 ladies remain in the field when they return from dinner break, with Ulrika Tangstrom the reported chip leader at 30,000. Defending champion Svetlana Gromenkova is third in chips (22,200), other notables include Maria Ho (22,100) Anna Wroblewski (14,100) and and Pam Brunson (8,200).

Seven Card Studs Wheeze into the Money

The Ladies’ field had at least one regular not in the field, as Barbara Enright ended a 23-year tradition of playing, as she was still in the field for the $1,500 Seven Card Stud event. The players made it into the money just before their dinner break, with 34 players currently remaining. Fabrice Soulier is the current leader with 120,000 in chips followed close behind by Dutch Boyd at 116,000. Defending champion Michael Rocco is 6th in chips at 75,000, with Enright listed in 7th in with 60,000. Other notables remaining include Thor Hansen (56,000), John Cernuto (40,000) and Pokerati blogger Robert Goldfarb (20,000. The players will now try to beat the 3am deadline to reach a final table, which does look like a possibility for this event.

5k Bubble Play

The $5,000 NL Holdem event has 65 players remaining, just two away from the money. Billy Kopp is the current chip leader at 350,000. Faraz Jaka is in 3rd place (334,000), with online phenoms Isaac Baron (326,000) and Mike Sowers (320,000) close behind. More experienced professionals Kathy Liebert (238,000) and Erik Seidel (225,000) are also in the chase. While Ivan Demidov hasn’t cashed at this year’s WSOP, his girlfriend Liya Gerasimova is on the cusp of doing just that with 215,000 in chips.

Omaha Will Get You Farha

The $10,000 Omaha 8 or Better World Championship brought a field of 179, including Sammy Farha, down 56 from last year. 30,000 in chips and a slow structure means low eliminations so far, but there’s bound to be a few when play ends today at the end of level 8.

To catch the updates for all of these events, head to www.worldseriesofpoker.com to follow all the exciting tournament action.

Pauly and I take the Tao of Pokerati studios remote — and set up shop in the Milwaukee’s Best Light Lounge to watch the chipstacks of a PLO/8 final table (on dinner break) as Eric Seidel goes for bracelet #9 (against Casey Kastle) in what may or may not be a record final table. While Phil Hellmuth has the decades left to stay ahead of the pack, Seidel stands a better chance than Doyle Brunson of catching him, chronologically at least.

Episode 16: Generation Bracelet

Actually, they’ve been in the air all day … but the hotly contested clubs bracket is now playing, and Pokerati managed to squeeze its way in to the last seat on a very tight but pleasantly elevated press row. So we’re gonna kick it old-school semilive-blog-style, at least for a little while:

5:28 — Mike Matusow is playing Joe Hachem, but talking trash to Gabe Kaplan, a table away … calling him a “washed-up old actor.”

5:30 — My view of Tom Schneider vs. Gavin Smith is blocked by the decorative Doric column cameras. Apparently the set designers aren’t aware that Caesar’s Palace harkens back to more of an Ionic era.

5:33 — Phil Hellmuth is all-in against arguably the weakest opponent in the field … he’s got aces, and the his opponent, Tom Dwan, aka online wunderkind “Durrr” has 10s.

5:36 — Ooh! Hellmuth on the turn! Hellmuth picks up a flush draw that doesn’t get there. Poker is fun!

5:39 — Hellmuth is talking about his brilliant show of weakness to get Durrr to push as they count up his chips … yep, they were even stacked and the greatest heads-up hold’em player in the world is out.

5:41 — They were on the feature table, which now is empty. The way the room is set up, there are four tables with whole cams, and four tables without. The players that will have to move on to get better TV coverage:

Tom Schneider / Gavin Smith
Hooman Nikzad / Greg Raymer
Erik Seidel / Johnathan Little
Kenny Tran / Scott Clements

5:50 — Tom and Gavin are still about even. Antonius has taken a lead on Kaplan. Matusow is all-in against Hachem, with both players on a draw. Phill Hellmuth would like people to know he is supposed to be hanging out with “Andretti” tomorrow. (It’s a Nascar weekend here in Vegas.)

5:53 — Mike is doing his best impression of that Full Tilt commercial where he’s bluffing … and just got sucked out on and crippled by Hachem. Mike is waving an Australian flag.

5:54 — Jamie Gold’s mom, btw, is playing 1/3 in the cash room. I can’t see her chip stacks however. She looks to neither be killing the game nor getting killed.

LAS VEGAS – Nope, you’re wrong. A six-handed final table is a…six-handed final table and Hoyt Corkins took it down. I’ve discussed my fantasy poker point system with LB at The Poker Biz, aka Wicked Chops Junior. None for me. Then he scolded me in front of everyone in the media room today for not reading your post. But hey, I’ve got money to lose.

And thanks for the kudos but I have been eliminated from the limit $3k NLH event. My high pocket pairs were up against a higher pocket pair every time. Just down right cold decked. My table was less than exciting but all around me sat Joe Sebok, Amir Vahedi, Annie Duke, JC Tran, Phil Hellmuth, Eric Seidel and David Sklansky.

FYI – This would typically be a comment; however, the comment feature is still unavailable.

Hello? Is anyone out there?

I’ve got a fun little speaking gig this weekend — visiting the Beth Torah men’s club to talk poker.

Last year’s appearance went well — in fact, click here if you’ve got 90 minutes to kill listening to some questionable audio — but while regaling the breakfast crowd with poker-boom lore, home-game theory, and tales from the WSOP, I did stumble on one question … “Are there any Jewish poker pros?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “A lot of them. Like, um … uh … um … oh! Barry Greenstein! He’s Jewish, right? Wait, is it GreenSTEEN or GreenSTINE? I never remember.”

Oy.

More…

Perhaps the best thing about the UIGEA will be the end to all those terrible PartyPoker ads (and that song!) on American TV … Check out these Full Tilt videos I just stumbled upon (via Bill Rini’s sitemeter), which tell you quite a bit about who online poker sites are marketing to these days.

click to view

Do you play so much poker that your wife is probably banging other dudes? Phil Ivey feels your pain.

Are you kinda socially awkward, a la John Juanda, but still fully entertained by great farting?

And gay or not, Erik Seidel speaks to probably half the Batfaces in some capacity or another.

(published in All In Magazine, premiere issue, June/July 2004)

The future of poker arrived in 1984–when legendary Vegas gambler Bob Stupak faced off against Orac, a poker-playing Apple II computer. It was heads-up no-limit Hold ‘Em for $500,000, in a showdown that would later air on ABC’s Ripley’s Believe it or Not. At one point in this first-ever televised poker game, Orac had flopped a set, and Stupak, looking at top two pair, was raising into the stone-faced machine.

As he was programmed to do, Orac put Stupak all-in. Stupak called, and that’s when the computer crashed.

“It just froze,” recalls Mike Caro, “the mad genius of poker” who created Orac. According to the rules for this unusual match-up, even though the cards had already been turned over, the hand had to be replayed. Stupak would get a better deal after the machine re-booted and go on to claim victory for humankind.

“I suspect–I probably shouldn’t say this, but I do–I’ve always wondered about what happened there, in what manner Stupak really won,” says Caro laughing. “I’ve always thought someone might have pulled a plug somewhere.”

Caro’s whole intent with the exhibition was to show that poker was a game worthy of serious analysis, like chess or bridge. The cards were bar-coded so Orac could read them, and as a result, the television audience was able to watch the game knowing what the players were holding or folding. Additionally, with this information, Caro was able to show on-screen statistics and probabilities, so viewers could better understand what was at stake with each play.

Now, 20 years later–thanks in no small part to a confluence of computers, television, and big-money Texas hold’em–poker is suddenly huge. Five different networks now carry the game on TV, with more poker shows in the making. Casinos across the country have been expanding their poker rooms, and at this year’s World Series of Poker, the tournament director had to truck in 100 extra tables to accommodate a record number of buy-ins. Online (a concept hardly conceived when Orac was the only machine that knew how to play) poker rooms seem to be opening up by the dozen, with real-money players signing up by the tens of thousands.

More…