Wrapping up the Friday tournament action, with another bracelet winner determined:

Québécois LeFrancois wins $1,500 NL

Pascal LeFrancois, a 23-year old student from Quebec, won the $1,500 NL Holdem event, winning $568,974 along with the coveted WSOP bracelet. LeFrancois defeated Max Steinberg in heads-up play, with Steinberg collecting $352,916 for his runner-up finish. The full list of results, Nolan Dalla’s tournament report, and a first for the official winner’s photo, can be found over at wsop.com.

Schmelev and Mizrachi at it Again in 10k Stud

Twelve players remain for day three of the $10,000 Seven Card Stud World Championship with Vladimir Schmelev and Michael Mizrachi looking to renew their rivalry from the $50,000 Players’ Championship won by Mizrachi earlier this week. Schmelev is the current chip leader (921,000), with Mizrachi in third (544,000). Other notables: Nikolay Evdakov (543,000), Steve Bilirakis (448,000) and Men Nguyen (302,000). The full list of chip counts is now available at PokerNews.

Chanthabousay Leads Pot-Limit Final Table

The final table of the $1,500 Pot-Limit Holdem gets underway at 2:30 this afternoon. JJ Liu is the first woman to make a final table at this year’s, starting third in chips with 479,000. Here’s how the entire final table will look:

Armen Kara 220,000
Gregg Wilkerson 230,000
Mark Babekov 246,000
JJ Liu 479,000
Edward Brogdon 89,000
Scott Haraden 224,000
Steve Chanthabouasy 533,000
Joseph Williams 385,000
James Dempsey 528,000

Gupta Going Great in $1,500 NL

Day 2 of the third $1,500 No-Limit Holdem event resumes at 2:30 this afternoon with 291 players returning, 270 making the money. Venkatesch Gupta will be the leader with 199,100 in chips. Among the notables: Blair Hinkle (112,400), Shannon Shorr (64,300), Erick Lindgren (57,600), Jerry Yang (49,100), Tom Dwan (44,500) and Neil Channing (42,000). Team Pokerati’s Pat Poels finished the day in 288th place with 3300 chips. The full list can be found over at PokerNews.

Taking it to the Limit for Day 2

The $1,500 Limit Holdem event returns with 177 players returning at 3:00pm to attempt to play down to a final table. Jameson Painter, who finished 5th at the $2,500 2-7 Triple Draw event earlier this week, starts play today as the chip leader with 47,600. David Williams is 3rd in chips (41,800) with Jason Potter (32,800), Jeff Madsen (28,700) and Matt Hawrilenko (23,900) among the notables near the top of the standings. The full list of players returning can be found at wsop.com.

Saturday Tournaments

Saturday brings Day 1a of the second $1,000 NL Donkament to the WSOP at 12pm today, with about 4,000 runners expected over the next two days. The plan is to play ten one-hour levels today per usual, but if the pace of eliminations is as rapid as it was last Saturday, there could be a change in plans. The 5pm tournament is the $1,500 NL 2-7 Lowball Single Draw event, won last year by Phil Ivey when it had a $2,500 buy-in with a field of 147.

For the third time in seven weeks, a woman has won a major poker tournament. Today, it was UB sponsored pro Liv Boeree the winner of the PokerStars.it EPT San Remo event, officially winning 1,250,000 Euros (about $1.7m US), defeating Jakob Carlsson in heads-up play. Below is a clip of the winning hand:

Meanwhile at the WPT World Championship, Heather Sue Mercer started Day 4 second in chips (1,364,000) with 35 players remaining. The only woman to win a non-ladies WPT event was Van Nguyen’s win at the sorta-open 2008 WPT Invitational. Among other notables remaining when play resumes at noon PT: Shawn Buchanan (1,841,000), Billy Baxter (887,500), Faraz Jaka (856,000), Phil Hellmuth (806,500), David Benyamine (731,000) Carlos Mortensen (586,000) and JJ Liu (495,000). Follow the live updates over at the the World Poker Tour site.

UPDATE: Mercer out in 20th

Highish-stakes pro David Plastik, looking to take down a $330 deep-stack tournament at the Venetian.

The 1st of four Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganzae got underway this week … and sure enough, the chance to play a skill-heavy event (deeper stacks, longer level times) for a low buy-in seems extra appealing (at least value-wise) in the current economic client.

I don’t have too many specifics, but I can say the fields seem to be bigger than last time, or at least are staying in the same ballpark. They definitely haven’t shrunk, relative to the world economy, that’s for sure. At this moment, the Venetian poker room and 30-something extra tables set up on the main casino floor aren’t packed, but they are full. Some familiar faces (on very quick glance) about five levels into today’s $550 NLH include Gobboboy Jimmy Fricke and PokerNews expat John Caldwell.

In a few minutes About an hour ago, the final table from yesterday’s $330 got underway. Bryan Micon from Neverwin was there, along with David Plastik, a couple other solid players, and a couple donks (according to Micon, who has since busted). First place: $28k.

To give you another example of the field sizes the Venetian’s 2009 DSE-1 is drawing, Event #1, on Monday, another $330, saw 447 players and a $129k total prize pool. 36 got paid …

1st – $40,117
2nd – $21,029
3rd – $10,353

Some other familiar faces who have been hanging at the Venetian this week: JJ Liu (she hasn’t missed a day), Kenna James, Susie Isaacs, Daniel Alspach, Adam Schoenfeld, and Lacey Jones. Some bloggers seem to be filtering through here, too … just ran into BWOP, and I hear Grubette is on her way.

UPDATE: Also in the $550 hizzouse — Haley Hintze and Mike Laing. Maybe this sorta turnout is nothing new, but it seems to me these events are being taken much more seriously than previous Deep Stacks.

What’s happening tonight at the WSOP:

The $1,000 NL Holdem with rebuys event has a winner, Canadian Max Greenwood took down the bracelet, making a remarkable comeback from being shortstacked 3-handed to take down the bracelet and almost $700,000. Rene Mouritsen of Aarhus, Denmark finished in 2nd (for the 3rd time at a WSOP event the past two years) to win just over $445,000. Fellow Aarhus resident Albert Iversen finished in 3rd. Greenwood was down to just over 400,000 when he went allin with a pair of 5’s against Mouritsen’s AJ. Another ace hit the flop, and a brick on the turn meant that Greenwood was down to two outs. Miraculously, Max hit that 5, doubling up twice more off Mouritsen to take the chip lead before Mouritsen would take it back when Iversen’s set of 5’s was run down by Mouritsen’s turned flush. After just over 30 hands of head-up play (and boisterous rooting from both player’s friends), all the money went in on a Jack high flop with Max’s AJ ahead of Mouritsen’s KJ. No help came and Greenwood completes the remarkable comeback.

The only tournament to start today, the $2,000 NL Holdem event, drew a field of 2,317, with just under 400 remaining with a couple more levels remaining in the day. Notable names at the top of the leaderboard: Erik Cajelais, Marco Johnson, Erica Schoenberg, Blair Rodman (who won this tournament last year), David Pham and Chau Giang.

Other tournament action today on the next page:
More…

We discussed a poorly received tourney idea on Beyond the Table a year ago — the concept being a “men’s minority event.” I loved the idea because we’ve all played dudes-only before and women have ladies tourneys … but while all women players have been the only representative of their gender at a table before, that’s a dynamic that guys simply don’t get to experience.

Psychology would be fun, results would be interesting …Logistics was the tough part — how to limit the field to 10 (or 15) percent men and still attract the necessary entries. But one thing we never considered was a simple invitational sit-n-go.

So much to my delight, the new episode of Poker after Dark just came on and lo and behold the players this week are Gus Hansen, Vanessa Rousso, J.J. Liu, Clonie Gowen, Beth Shak, and Erica Schoenberg. Very cool — well cast with Gus, who knows they know he knows they know he can be a tad horny influenced by his respect for the ladies.

“We should make all the guys play this format one time,” Clonie just said. Barack Obama presumably agrees, as he just sat down for a very similar 6-handed sit-n-go on The View:

(L to R) Vanessa Rousso, Clonie Gowen, Gus Hansen, J.J. Liu, Beth Shak, and Erica Schoenberg appear this week on Poker after Dark.

LAS VEGAS–Dude, Michele, maybe I’m biased … but you’re a pretty good hallway reporter. I’m sure, as usual, our readers will let everyone know if I am wrong.

Here’s Michele interviewing Mel Judah, who has more to say about the diversity of WSOP events and the actual fear evoked by Tuesday’s windstorm:

And this interview, with J.J. Liu, I found particularly fascinating. Not just because Michele shows her Sam Donaldson chops, but because of some hubbub I heard from presumably reliable sources just a couple days earlier … about Liu’s scandalous past. First, the video (watch for tells):

According to Oliver Tse, who was previously J.J. Liu’s agent, he had to “fire” his first client in his quest to become the Brian Balsbaugh of Asia because “her reputation [in Taiwan] is worse than O.J. Simpson’s.” Yeow, Oliver, how do you really feel? Apparently, she fled Taiwan some 20-plus years ago and came to the U.S. to escape some big bank-fraud scandal, Tse says, and then when that statute of limitations expired, she was able to come back from exile after her lawyer went on to become president of the country. Or something like that … I was eating a terrible $7 cheeseburger when he was dressed in coat-and-tie and giving me the critical skinny.

Either way, aren’t full-time poker characters great?