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.

Interesting story in the Miami Herald about Joe Cada, Kevin Schaffel (Florida’s representative in the November Nine), skill vs. luck, and whether or not the game is good for you. My favorite line(s):

“We had 115 different countries have players represented this year,” said Seth Palansky, a World Series spokesman. “It’s just an astonishing amount — more than the Olympics.”

To be fair, that’s only more than the Winter Olympics. Poker still has a bit more work to catch the Summer games.

Ha ha. Burn on Palansky.

The story continues:

Not everyone is happy with the poker boom. Gambling critics like the Florida Family Policy Council say the game’s greater social acceptance is largely a result of aggressive PR efforts.

“It’s being promoted as something that’s sexy and adventurous and cool,” said council President John Stemberger. “All the big money is on the side of promoting it, not on the side of educating people as to why it’s not a smart thing.”

True enough, Mr. Stemberger, but the same thing could be said about religion, right? You think our activity can be harmful — and indeed it can — and I think your activity can be harmful … and indeed it can. But that’s where living in the wonderful US of A comes into play … As an American (and Floridians are Americans, even the ones who are Cuban) I have the personal freedom to pursue my happiness, just as you do … even though I can show you example after example of people pursuing the activities Big God money is pushing doing tremendous harm … usually with a lot more blood and death, in fact.

Trust me, when it comes to potentially addictive products, poker is much closer to Starbuck’s than Marlboro … even though financial advisors have shown time and time again how quitting a $5 a day Starbuck’s habit can equal millions of extra retirement dollars in the course of life.

Meanwhile, here’s another Herald story about Florida’s longtime wagering culture as the state considers it’s biggest expansion of gambling in history.

As the PokerRoad boys say, “If you can’t take the best of it, take the worst of it.” For Kevin Schaffel, that meant getting all in preflop with pocket Aces vs. Eric Buchman’s pocket Kings and losing to quads.

Live poker is most certainly rigged.

I was standing on the balcony as the hand played out and the emotions were obvious.

Pre-flop – aces vs. kings

Post-flop – aces vs. quads

The first of a series of Inside Deal shows this weekend, along with daily episodes of the Poker Edge podcast.

The long wait is almost over as the November Nine take their place at the final table Saturday afternoon. The following look at stack sizes, seat position, blind levels, M, etc. is part of a much larger post I made over at 2+2 regarding the final table, the information taken from the WSOP November Nine Media Guide:

Final Table Details

1 – Darvin Moon 58,930,000
2 – James Akenhead 6,800,000
3 – Phil Ivey 9,765,000
4 – Kevin Schaffel 12,390,000
5 – Steven Begleiter 29,885,000
6 – Eric Buchman 34,800,000
7 – Joseph Cada 13,215,000
8 – Antoine Saout 9,500,000
9 – Jeff Shulman 19,580,000

More…

Still up for grabs: the vaunted poker yarmulke awarded to Last Jew Standing.

Here’s a storyline that ESPN somehow missed/didn’t feed us on the media-prep conference call … It’s a very Jewish WSOP main event final table.

The Jewish Daily Forward points out what may or may not be a statistical anomaly: Four of the November Nine — Jeff Shulman, Steve Begleiter, Eric Buchman, and Kevin Schaffel — happen to speak Hebrew, at least during family holidays.

From a stack perspective, these Jewish players control 49.6 percent of all the chips in play. How stereotypical …

The J-article also offers a rich history of Jews in the game … from Jack Strauss to Jamie Gold … and most recently Barry Shulman’s Yom Kippur victory at WSOP-E. Back in the day, of course, the World Series was all about Jews vs. Texans, but Texans have been sucking it up in recent years now the game has a more widespread international appeal that has prevented any one region from owning pwning it.

Full Disclosure: I used to make an annual pilgrimage to a Dallas synagogue in an effort to bring people with money to the Lodge convert non-gentiles to the poker way. So yeah …

ALT HED: נובמבר תשע עצה: בית על היהודים

Besides Kevin Schaffel, Mike Sexton discusses his being inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame, the latest poker news, previews of tonight’s WSOP episodes (the first half of day 8 coverage) and Phil Ivey’s ESPN: The Magazine cover appearance.

UPDATE:

Prahlad Friedman Wins Million-Dollar Prize, Schaffel Takes Second

The final table of the $10,000 WPT Legends of Poker resumes at 4pm PT today, with November Niner Kevin Schaffel the chip leader at 2,234,000. Here’s how the rest of the final table will be seated:

1. Sam Stein – 743,000
2. Todd Terry – 2,219,000
3. Kevin Schaffel – 2,234,000
4. Prahlad Friedman – 1,476,000
5. Mike Krescanko – 1,209,000
6. Toto Leonidas – 580,000

Steven Begleiter, the other November Niner remaining from action on Tuesday, finished in 9th. Here’s what the final table is playing for:

1 $1,034,500
2 $471,670
3 $231,300
4 $144,600
5 $116,225
6 $89,220

BJ Nemeth and company will be providing hand by hand coverage of the final table on their live updates page.

Here’s the latest edition of PokerStars.net’s Inside Deal, with November Nine participant Eric Buchman:

In other November Nine news, Kevin Schaffel and Steve Begleiter are 2nd and 3rd with just 24 players remaining at the WPT Legends of Poker at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, California. Todd Terry is the current chip leader with 850,000. Follow the live updates starting at 3pm PT over at the WPT live updates page as they play down to the final six players.