Today’s CardRunner’s instruction comes from utility coach PoorUser, who comes to high-level poker with an advanced degree in Starcraft, a military science fiction strategy video game. Clearly CR is assembling an ever-expansive crew of instructors comprised of the coolest party animals on campus.

Kinda interesting here to watch his heads-up thinking giving lessons while playing ZeeJustin:

Remember, you can geek out for profit by studying with CardRunners poker trainers for free via TrulyFreePokerTraining.com.

Day 1a of the £10,000 + 350 Main Event drew a field of 137 players and an appearance by Phil Hellmuth (video below). The day 1a chip leader is Nicolas Levi with 153,850 in chips. Some notables returning Saturday afternoon: Bruno Fitoussi – 120,250, Leo Margets – 109,000, Allen Cunningham – 84,725, Barny Boatman – 73,200, Chris Ferguson – 52,950 and Jeff Lisandro 43,500. A full list of chip counts available at WSOP.com.

The £10,000 + 350 High Roller No-Limit Heads-Up event reached the best-of-three final, with Gus Hansen winning the first match, and Jim Collopy making a comeback from an over 2-1 deficit to even up the match. The third and deciding match is currently scheduled for Friday afternoon, but with both players planning to play in the Main Event, the exact time has not been announced. Be sure to check PokerNews or WSOP.com

Elsewhere …

WPT Borgata Poker Open, Atlantic City :: Play is currently heads-up between Dwyte Pilgrim and Kia Mohajeri. WPT Live Updates

UPDATE: Dwyte Pilgrim finishes first, winning $733,802, moves into first place in the CardPlayer Player of the Year standings.

LAPT Grande Finale – Rosario, Argentina :: $5,000 Main Event draws a field of 254 players, with 131 returning Friday afternoon. Winner takes down over $300,000. According to Terrence Chan, the Argentinian government will tax 31.5% of net winnings to all players outside Argentinia, which has some people upset. Updates at PokerNews and PokerStars Blog

With the £10,000 + 350 Main Event scheduled to start at 12pm London time Thursday, the final prelim event, £10,000 + 350 High Roller No-Limit Holdem Heads-Up will come to its conclusion at 3pm. Four players remain with the two winners playing a best-of-three final shortly after both matches are completed.

Gus Hansen v Andrew Feldman
Jim Collopy v Ram Vaswani

For results from day 2, check out PokerNews or WSOP.com.

Elsewhere …

WPT Borgata Poker Open – 10 players, including Dwyte Pilgrim and Lee Childs, remain as they play down to the TV final table. Defending champion Olivier Busquet finishes 25th, Mike Sexton finishes 20th. WPT Live Updates

UPDATE: Here’s the final table, starting at 4pm ET Thursday:

Seat 1. Kia Mohajeri – 4,225,000
Seat 2. Benjamin Klier – 6,125,000
Seat 3. Ofir Mor – 7,300,000
Seat 4. Brandon Novena – 5,125,000
Seat 5. Dwyte Pilgrim – 4,800,000
Seat 6. Daniel Makowsky – 3,300,000

PokerStars LAPT Grande Final – Rosario, Argentina :: Final stop of season 3 features a $5,000 Main Event. Can Jose “Nacho” Barbero win his 3rd LAPT event this season? PokerNews and the PokerStars Blog provide updates throughout the tournament.

November Niner Matt Jarvis tweeted over the weekend that Sorel Mizzi would coach him in preparation for the WSOP ME final table.

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

The final table has been set at the WSOP Europe Event #3 – £1,000 + 75 NL Holdem as the defending champion, JP Kelly, is in contention to defend his bracelet triumph at last year’s WSOPE. If Kelly won, he would also become the first player to defend a NL holdem bracelet since Johnny Chan back in 1987-88, and the youngest player to win three bracelets. That distinction belongs to Phil Ivey.* Here’s how that final table will be seated when play resumes at 2pm:

Seat 1: Karim Jomeen 109,000
Seat 2: Scott Shelley 148,000
Seat 3: Nicholas Katz 150,000
Seat 4: Paul Ian Pitchford 77,000
Seat 5: Jeppe Bisgaard 171,000
Seat 6: Mehdi Senhaji 369,000
Seat 7: Kaveh Payman 434,000
Seat 8: JP Kelly 242,000
Seat 9: Jack Lyman 55,000

* Credit to Donnie Peters at PokerNews.
Follow along in the updates at PokerNews or WSOP.com

Event #4 will take place at 5pm London time Tuesday, the £10,000 + 350 NL Holdem High Roller Heads-Up event. The field will contain a maximum of 128 players with registration closing when the tournament starts. In case of an unevenly sized field (more than 32, 64, or 128) there will be byes for round 1.

Elsewhere…

WPT Borgata Poker Open – Atlantic City :: Day 2 underway, just over 200 players remaining with the top 100 making the money. A brawl almost takes place just before dinner as described by BJ Nemeth here. Other updates and goings-on here.

Heartland Poker Tour – Black Hawk, Colorado :: The poker tour that people forget keeps chugging along with Mark Dunbar taking down over $180,000 in defeating a field of over 400 players. HeartlandPokerTour.com has the recap.

T.J. Cloutier Choctaw Classic – Durant, OK :: Week-long series of tournaments w/ $1,650 Main Event Sept. 25-26 – Schedule

PokerStars WCOOP :: Jason Mercier and Chad Brown in the top 30 of 1k NL event, winner takes down nearly $500,000. RaiseOnce, allegedly Phil Ivey, takes down $25,000 HU title. PokerStars Blog

A review of Monday afternoon’s action:

Ivey, Juanda, Lisandro among final ten in 3k HORSE

Ten players remain in the $3,000 HORSE event, with Ryan Hughes (860,000) leading the field on dinner break. Other notables returning include Bill Chen (700,000), John Juanda (670,000), David “Not Bakes” Baker (450,000), Jeff Lisandro (445,000), Chad Brown (395,000) and Phil Ivey (180,000). Play resumes shortly, see who wins a bracelet at PokerNews.

Mahmood v Schmjekal at it again in 10k HU

Match #2 in the $10,000 No-Limit Heads-Up Championship final is underway, Mahmood only needs to win once more while Schmjekal needs to win two straight to earn a bracelet. PokerNews will be there for the long haul, hoping for a swift conclusion.

Frye cooking the field at 1k NL Day 2

Around 150 players remain on day 2 of the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem with Jeff Frye leading the field with 280,000 in chips as they return from dinner break. Other notables: Ryan D’Angelo (175,000), Scott Montgomery (140,000), Leo Margets (122,000) and Svetlana Gromenkova (73,000). See who’s cashed so far and get updates at wsop.com.

Jetten blasts into 10k Pot-Limit Holdem lead

62 players remain during day 2 of the $10,000 Pot-Limit Holdem Championship with Peter Jetten (605,000) holding the lead, with 27 players making the money which will be reached sometime this evening. Other notables: Tom Marchese (318,000), Jason Lester (290,000), Allen Kessler (245,000), Vitaly Lunkin (215,000), Burt Boutin (142,000) and Amnon Filippi (98,000). PokerNews will be go deep into the night providing updates and chip counts for people to track their favorites.

Shootout draws plenty of shooters

The $1,500 No-Limit Holdem Shootout drew a field of 1400 players, with the 140 ten-handed tables playing to a winner for round 1. The 140 winners return Tuesday afternoon, among the winners so far include Michael Binger, Adam Levy, Isabelle Mercier, Bryan Devonshire, Robert Mizrachi, Annette Obrestad, Rob Perelman, Chau Giang, JC Tran and Victor Ramdin. To see who else moves on this evening, check out wsop.com.

Razz draws hundreds to get frustrated

The 5pm tournament on Monday was the $2,500 Razz, which drew a field of 365 entrants starting with 7,500 in chips. Among the early chip leaders: Frank Kassela (14,300), Team Pokerati/Loudmouth Poker pro Tom Schneider (11,200), Dutch Boyd (10,600), and Lacey Jones (8,000). Eight hours of play are on the agenda, and PokerNews will be there to cover the excitement, if it can be found.

Sorry to leave any ‘Ati-first readers hanging for a week without easiest access to the latest Tao of Pokerati take on happenings at the World Series. Of course you all are smart … and presumably know to find any episode you (or I) may have missed in the Tao of Pokerati podcast archives here. Seriously, check ’em out … there’ve been some good ones.

Pauly skipped town a couple days ago … I guess with Rio security responding to all the billboard advertising around their property for Dr. Reefer, the Happiness Consultants, Legal Cannabis Scrips ‘R Us, etc. by cracking down on 420 breaks at the WSOP, Pauly decided if he was gonna leave the Rio, he might as well keep on driving (then flying) to the nearest Phish concert.

But no worries … He’ll be back in a few days; in the meantime Benjo and I gotcha covered. Last night, with two final tables going on at the main stage, we found ourselves in one of those spots where two additional bits of exciting Amazon action were taking place simultaneously, with galleries overlapping in a single aisle as remaining players were well past their bubbles and getting nearer to big-money prizes.

Episode 35: French Man Kissing (w Benjo)

There’s a real s’affrontent going on in the $10k heads-up, with Bertrand Grospellier, arguably the #1 player in France right now, battling Benjo’s pal Lucovic Lacay, currently the top contender capable of dethroning him. All the excitement has the French guys on the rail madly … kissing? Benjo breaks down the questionable nature of these public displays of Euro-affection.

Episode 36: Touching Tom Senior (w Benjo)

DonkeyBomber‘s going deep in the Seniors event, but did Dan ruin his chances for a bracelet in “the oxygen event) with some inappropriate touching? Player superstitions aside, there’s some real concern about Toothless Bob, who was going into this event as the Team Pokerati favorite but may or may not have shown up to play.

Two more bracelet winners became known Sunday morning, and the rest of Saturday’s action:

Papola denies the Master bracelet #8

Jeffrey Papola defeated Men Nguyen in the $5,000 No-Limit Holdem 6-max event, earning $667,443 and his first career bracelet. Nguyen earned $412,746 for the second-place finish, moving into a three-way tie for first in the WSOP Player of the Year race with Michael Mizrachi and James Dempsey. Erick Lindgren finished sixth for $82,303. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report are available at wsop.com.

Velador slams the door on his second bracelet

Luis Velador took down the $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha/Pot-Limit Holdem title as he defeated David Chiu heads-up, good for $260,517 and his second career WSOP bracelet. Chiu earned $160,902 for the second place finish, moving into a tie for 6th in the WSOP Player of the Year race. Full results and Dalla’s tournament report can be found at wsop.com.

10k NL Heads-Up down to an Elite 8

The final day of the $10,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Holdem Championship resumes at 3pm with these matchups:

Jason Somerville vs. Kido Pham
Faraz Jaka vs. Ayaz Mahmood
Alexander Kostritsyn vs. Ludovic Lacay
Ernst Schmejkal vs. Vanessa Rousso

The matches will be single-elimination until the finals, a best of three match. Follow the action at PokerNews.

Minetti leads Seniors’ event, Schneider among final 23

Day 3 of the $1,000 Seniors’ No-Limit Holdem Championship resumes at 2:30pm with Michael Minetti leading the final 23 players with 1,038,000 in chips. Other notables returning include Michael Woo (523,000), Jack Ward (519,000), and Team Pokerati/Loudmouth Poker pro Tom Schneider (284,000). The full list of chip counts is at PokerNews.

Montgomery leads day 1a of 1k NL

Original November Niner Scott Montgomery (75,200) led the day 1a survivors in the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem event as the field played halfway through level 9 to get down to 286 players. Other notables: Neil Channing (64,500), Michael Gracz (52,700), Fabrice Soulier (39,125), Liv Boeree (24,275) and Leo Margets (22,875). The full list of chip counts is available at wsop.com.

Siegel super at day 1 of 3k HORSE

Day two of the $3,000 HORSE resumes at 3pm with Jordan Siegel leading the 207 players who remain with 66,900 in chips. Other recognizable names include: Darus Suharto (55,100), Dan Heimiller (52,100), Howard Lederer (44,400), Chau Giang (36,400) and Eugene Katchalov (29,900). The full list of chip counts is available at wsop.com.

Sunday’s tournaments

12pm is day 1b of the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem event, with a field of at least 1,000 expected. The 5pm tournament is the $10,000 Pot-Limit Holdem Championship, won last year by John Kabbaj in a field of 275 for $633,335.

Time to recap the Saturday afternoon action:

Lindgren and Nguyen highlight 5k 6-max FT

Six players remain at the $5,000 No-Limit Holdem 6-max final table with Jeffrey Papola (2,340,000) leading when play resumed at 9pm. The rest of the final table is made up of Erick Lindgren (1,670,000), Men Nguyen (1,505,000), Orlando Delacruz (1,100,000), Bruno Launais (1,003,000) and Mark Radoja (480,000). Follow the action at PokerNews.

Velador vibrant at PLO/PLH FT

Eight players remain in the $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha/Pot-Limit Holdem final table with Jose Luis Velador (985,000) holding the chip lead. Kevin MacPhee (631,000), David Chiu (437,000), Rob Hollink (323,000), and Victor Ramdin (200,000) are the notable names remaining, follow the action at PokerNews.

10k NL HU at Round 4

The $10,000 No-Limit Holdem Heads-Up Championship is currently at round 4 with players now in the money. Among the round 4 winners: Faraz Jaka, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Brian Rast, Kido Pham, Ludovic Lacay and Jason Somerville. One more round is scheduled for 11pm tonight, with the 8 survivors playing to a winner Sunday afternoon. See who else moves on at wsop.com.

Seniors’ sauntering along at day 2

Less than 150 players remain as play continues on day 2 of the $1,000 Seniors’ No-Limit Holdem Championship with Duane Gerleman (210,000) reported as the chip leader. Other notables in the hunt: Team Pokerati/Loudmouth Poker pro Tom Schneider (181,000), Berry Johnston (110,000), Susie Isaacs (60,000) and John Spadavecchia (55,000). Find more info over at wsop.com.

Day 1a of 1k NL underway

A field of 2,485 1,987 started day 1a of the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem with around 550 players remaining, scheduled to play 10 levels or down to about 360 players, whichever comes first. Notables who’ve grown their 3,000-chip stack: Scott Montgomery (25,000), Liv Boeree (24,700), Neil Channing (18,000) and Lee Childs (11,000). More updates and chip counts can be found at PokerNews.

3k HORSE field saddles up

The 5pm tournament today, $3,000 HORSE, drew a field of 478 entrants with the top 48 making the money, with the winner earning $329,840. The early leader is Robert Willamson III with 16,000 in chips, followed by Andre Akkari (13,000), Shaun Deeb (12,500), Matt Savage (11,700) and Scotty Nguyen (10,500). More updates as eight levels of play is scheduled at PokerNews.

Recapping Friday night’s WSOP tournaments with the two latest bracelet winners finally determined Saturday morning, but first some breaking news for Pokerati fans:

DonkeyBomber leads 1k Seniors’ field

Day 1 of the $1,000 Seniors’ No-Limit Holdem Championship concluded with 427 players remaining at the end of 10 levels of play. The reported chip leader is Team Pokerati/Loudmouth Poker pro Tom Schneider in front with 94,000 in chips. Other notables with chips when play resumes at 2:30pm: Berry Johnston (62,900), Lon McEachern (27,200) and Sam Simon (23,100). A full list of chip counts is now available at PokerNews.

Ellis wins bracelet #4 for the UK

The $1,500 No-Limit Holdem event reached a conclusion first as Mike Ellis overcame a large chip deficit heads-up against Christopher Gonzales to win the bracelet along with $581,851 as the Briton wins the fourth bracelet this year for the UK, moving them into second in the WSOP world standings. Gonzales earned $360,906 for the runner-up finish. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report are available at wsop.com.

Puchkov punches his way to HORSE victory

The $1,500 HORSE event finally concluded in the wee hours of the morning as Konstantin Puchkov defeated Al “Sugar Bear” Barbieri to earn $256,820 and a WSOP bracelet. Barbieri earned $158,647 for the second place finish. Full results and Dalla’s tournament report will be available at wsop.com shortly.

Lindgren, Nguyen feature final day of 5k NL 6-max

The final day of the $5,000 No-Limit Holdem 6-max event gets underway with 12 players remaining. Here’s how the field will be seated when play resumes at 3pm:

Seat 1: Orlando Delacruz – 301,000
Seat 2: Anthony Roux – 668,000
Seat 3: Evan Panesis – 299,000
Seat 4: Jeffrey “jpapola” Papola – 598,000
Seat 5: Mark Radoja – 1,493,000
Seat 6: Darren Elias – 841,000

Seat 1: Bruno Launais – 875,000
Seat 2: Men Nguyen – 264,000
Seat 3: Erick Lindgren – 1,165,000
Seat 4: Taylor Mcfarland – 848,000
Seat 5: Paul Sheng – 712,000
Seat 6: Lucas Greenwood – 425,000

Follow the updates of this event at PokerNews.

Velador and Chiu top two in 2500 PLO/PLH

Day 3 of the $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha/Pot-Limit Holdem resumes at 3pm with 14 players remaining. Jose-Luis Velador (455,000) and David Chiu (451,000) are the leaders, while Rob Hollink (423,000), Victor Ramdin (262,000) and Phil Ivey (207,000) also return. PokerNews will be there until a bracelet winner is determined.

10k NL Heads-Up down to final 64

Two rounds of play have finished in the $10,000 No-Limit Holdem Heads-Up Championship with 64 players remaining when the field returns at 3pm. The 32 round three winners will make the money, with some of the notables returning include: Phil Ivey, Gavin Smith, Phil Gordon, Antonio Esfandiari, Sorel Mizzi, Jonathan Little, Josh Arieh, Vanessa Rousso and Vivek Rajkumar. The full bracket for this event is now online at wsop.com.

Saturday’s tournaments

The 12pm tournament is day 1a of the fourth $1,000 No-Limit Holdem event of the WSOP, with a field of at least 3,000 expected over the weekend. The 5pm tournament is the $3,000 HORSE event, which drew a field of 452 players last year with Zac Fellows coming out on top for $311,899.

Reviewing the start of week 4 at the WSOP:

Seniors’ event sets record

The $1,000 Seniors’ No-Limit Holdem event drew a record 3,248 entries this afternoon when play started shortly after 12pm today. Not only was this a record field for a Seniors’ event, it was the largest field to start a tournament on a single day in poker history. The current leader is Team Pokerati and Loudmouth Poker’s own Tom Schneider with 29,000 in chips. Other notables include: “Minneapolis Jim” Meehan (16,000), Lon McEachern (14,500), Alan Boston (13,000) and TJ Cloutier (11,000). The field is currently on their dinner break with four levels remaining for the field to play. Follow the occasional updates over at PokerNews.

10k Heads-Up sells out again

The $10,000 No-Limit Heads-Up Championship drew a sold-out field of 256 entries, with two rounds scheduled for today. Winners of round 1 matches include Gavin Smith, Tom Dwan, Jason Mercier, Annette Obrestad, Josh Arieh, Phil Gordon, Blair Hinkle and Phil Ivey. The 128 winners will return at 10pm for round 2 action. See who moves on and who moves out at PokerNews.

Barbieri leading HORSE final table

The final table of the $1,500 HORSE has returned from their dinner break with eight players remaining. Here’s the chip counts when play resumed:

Al Barbieri 635,000
Konstantin Puchkov 605,000
Blake Cahail 540,000
Hani Awad 520,000
Andrew Revesz 475,000
Dustin Leary 420,000
Robert Mizrachi 250,000
Ken Lennaard 250,000

Follow the updates over at wsop.com.

Gonzales leads 1500 NL day 3

Christopher Gonzales (2,700,000) holds a large chip lead in the $1,500 No-Limit Holdem final day with 11 remaining. The field will be returning from dinner break shortly, see if anyone can run him down at wsop.com.

Brady leads bunch at 5k 6-max day 2

Dinner break ends shortly for the 56 players remaining in the $5,000 No-Limit Holdem 6-max event, with 54 making the money. Matt Brady (465,000) holds a slight chip lead over McLean Karr (460,000) when play resumes. Other notables include David Ulliott (265,000), Christian Harder (255,000), Isaac Haxton (185,000) and Eric Baldwin (157,000). PokerNews will be there to follow the action when play resumes.

Tieman leads during day 2 of PLO/PLH

The $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha/Pot-Limit Holdem field is on dinner break with 54 players remaining, but only 45 make the money. Joshua Tieman is looking for his 2nd WSOP bracelet this year as he leads the field with 209,500 in chips. Victor Ramdin (155,000), John Kabbaj (98,000), David Chiu (87,600) and Burt Boutin (67,000) are among the notables looking to get a return on their investment when play resumes. The fine reporting team at PokerNews will be there to see who bubbles and who bounds into the lead.

It looks to be a long night for some of these events to get finished, but for those who don’t want to stay up that late, another report will be forthcoming in the morning.

Recapping Thursday’s action with two bracelet winners:

Keikoan grinds out 10k limit title

After almost five hours of heads-up play, Matt Keikoan defeated Daniel Idema in the $10,000 Limit Holdem World Championship. Keikoan earns $425,969 and his second WSOP gold bracelet, while Idema will have to be consoled with earning $263,244 for the runner-up finish. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report are available at wsop.com.

Proulx powers his way to PLO bracelet

Miguel Proulx dispatched Loren Klein in heads-up play to win the $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha bracelet along with $315,311 early Friday morning. Klein pockets $195,147 for falling just short of the bracelet. Dalla’s report and full results at wsop.com.

Gonzales leads 1500 NL field for day 3

Day three of the $1,500 No-Limit Holdem has Christopher Gonzales leading the field with 1,315,000 in chips as 21 players remain when play resumes at 3pm to play down to a winner. Other notables: Neil Channing (461,000), Jean Gaspard (413,000), and David Sands (346,000). Chip counts for the remaining field is online at PokerNews.

Puchkov leads HORSE field on final day

The final day of the $1,500 HORSE will have Konstantin Puchkov (465,000) leading the final 24 players when play resumes at 3pm. Others looking to make their way to the top include Robert Mizrachi (238,000), Allen Kessler (229,500), Cliff Josephy (165,500), Chip Jett (120,000) and defending champion James Van Alstyne (111,500). The full field is now online at PokerNews.

Harder holding 5k 6-max lead for day 2

Day two of the $5,000 No-Limit Holdem 6-max event has 116 players remaining when play resumes at 2:30 this afternoon with Christian Harder the chip leader with 258,700. Other big names returning to win the $667,433 top prize include David “Devilfish” Ulliot (176,000), Phil Ivey (148,300), Isaac Haxton (123,100), Chad Brown (101,400), and Todd Terry (99,500). The full list of chip counts can be found here.

Smith boosted into PLO/PLH lead

Justin “Boosted J” Smith (130,000 in chips) leads the day 2 field of 126 survivors in the $2,500 Pot-Limit Holdem/Pot-Limit Omaha event when action resumes at 3pm. The tournament drew 428 entrants, with the top 45 making the money, with $260,517 going to the winner. Other notables returning include Victor Ramdin (54,750), Ashton Griffin (44,000), Jeff Lisandro (40,200),

Friday’s tournaments

Two tournaments on Friday’s agenda, with the 12pm event the $1,000 Seniors’ No-Limit Holdem Championship, with players who are 50 years old and over eligible to participate. Last year’s winner was Michael Davis who defeated a field of 2,707 entrants, good for $3437,358. The 5pm tournament is the $10,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Holdem Championship, guaranteed to attract a sold-out field of 256. Last year Leo Wolpert was the winner, earning $625,682.

After a lengthy delay, the schedule for the 2010 WSOP Europe, remaining at the Casino at the Empire in London, England was announced this afternoon. There’s five bracelet events being offered (up one from last year). Here’s this year’s schedule:

Event 1 – £2,500 NL Holdem 6-max – September 14-16th
Event 2 – £5,000 Pot Limit Omaha – September 16th-18th
Event 3 – £1,000 NL Holdem – September 17th-21st (This event will have three day 1’s)
Event 4 – £10,000 High Roller Heads-Up NL Holdem Septermber 21st-23rd
Event 5 – £10,000 NL Holdem Main Event – September 23rd-28th (This event will have two day 1’s)

You’ve all seen it before … but it had been several years since I watched it in full (with no other distractions). If you haven’t seen it for a while either, enjoy a clip from back when poker was just poker …

Seven years ago today, the 2003 Main Event got underway …

After wading through a massive field of 839, Chris Moneymaker would end up facing off against Sam Farha, the quintessential Vegas gambler, and making the bluff that created an industry:

(Check out his hat. Think PokerStars got good ROI on their swag?)