NAPT :: Day 3 brought us down to 19 players and there are still a lot of known dangerous players in the field heading into Day 4. Jason Mercier, Matt Affleck, Michael Binger, and Anh Van Nguyen are all still in the running to become the first (and maybe only?) NAPT LA champion. A detailed chip count is available as well as a seat draw for the 4th day of competition. There is more going on today than in the past few for the NAPT as well. The $5000 Bounty Shootout is going to take place at the Crystal Casino in Compton (yes, you read that right). Turns out if you want to televise anything, you can’t do it at the Bike because the WPT has a lock on that sort of thing. Which makes the next bit of information all the more interesting. It was revealed (or at least people finally noticed) that the final table will be filmed for ESPN from the Crystal Casino as well. Oh, and these televised events will be airing in December, 3 hours for the bounty shootout and 1 hour for the main event final table.
At first glance, Stars appears to be dropping the ball consistently with the NAPT, is it birth pangs or a resignation that they just wont be getting very far with this tour? Time will tell, but for now action in this event will restart, once again, at 1PM PST.

NAPT :: 256 players will not be coming back as Day 2 saw more people eliminated from play than on either day 1 day. They played about 6 levels today (down from 10 levels on day 1) and the blinds are now 3000/6000 with a 750 ante. Jimmie Guinther is the new chipleader, with 894,000 chips, but Travis Pearson (835,000) is not very far behind. A familar face from the Day 1B chip counts, Anh Van Nguyen, is also sitting pretty with 614,000, good enough for 3rd on the chip counts. With 81 players left going into day 3 and 22 of those players teetering in the dreaded ~20BB and below range, the action is sure to come fast and furious tomorrow.

Here’s a look at the top 10 chip counts as well as some notables:

• Jimmie Guinther: 894,000
• Travis Pearson: 835,000
• Anh Van Nguyen: 614,000
• Bryn Kenney: 586,000
• Thomas Middleton: 519,000
• Micah Raskin: 515,500
• Tom Lee: 509,000
• Nicholas Verkaik 495,500
• James Sowers: 481,000
• Michael Binger: 474,000
• Phil Laak (whom Pokerstars has listed as from Ireland because birthplace is all that matters): 377,000
• Jason Mercier: 158,000
• Gavin Griffin 143,500

If anyone was missed from the notables, well, we can only fit so many in one go. Play resumes at 1PM PST.

NAPT :: Day 1B saw another large field of 373 players get chopped down to 175 by the end of the day. This means out of the 701 total players that signed up for the event, we have 337 going into day two: a little more than half the field cut down after the two day ones. Kim Frederiksen not only came out on top of the day with 237,000 chips, but also is the overall chipleader, edging out Day 1A leader Nicholas Crippo by 2k. While players like Hafiz Khan, Michael Binger, and Joe Cada survived the day with relatively large stacks, many more pros fell on Day 1B, including Elky, Victor Ramdin, David Williams, and November Niner Jason Senti. Michael Binger’s stack in particular had an interesting trek to the top end of the chip count, winning a 4 way all in with the nut straight on the flop (Pokerstars Blog).

Here are the top 10 chip counts going into Day 2:

• Kim Frederiksen: 237,000
• Nicholas Grippo: 235,100
• Thomas Middleton: 229,100
• Scott Fischman: 224,600
• Hafiz Khan: 210,200
• Blake Kelso: 207,500
• Clint Coffee: 202,900
• David Sesso: 200,000
• Romulus Segal: 190,700
• Cary Katz: 184,000

(Chip Counts courtesy of NAPT.com)

Day 2 restarts at 1PM PT. You can check out updates on the Pokerstars Blog, as they will certainly be updating throughout the day.

@Kevmath laid down the gauntlet on Twitter this evening on the ever-popular “Words With Friends” app. Soon @RealKidPoker and @Mark_Gahagan were in on the action, offering up their WWF user names publicly on twitfeed. Now I’m three-tabling them all headups.

Negreanu just countered back after I triple-word scored on “SIZED”. Seems he’s playing from his new iPad from NAPT at the Bike.

@RealKidPoker: “34,575 end lvl 4. Nice little comeback reminiscent of my start in EPT Vienna. A bit tired, and playing words with friends to pass time.”

Gahagan may have just pulled ahead with his 57-pointer “VIEW” off my “QUIDS”, but I’m not drawing dead yet. As for Kevmath, I’m on the warpath after he used a questionable “ER” to position off a triple word score.

If HR2267 had already passed, I’d be looking to lay some cash on this tonight.

The Tournament Trail

Partouche Poker Tour – Cannes – Vanessa Selbst, Fabrice Soulier, Soren Kongsgaard and Tobias Reinkemier among final tablists return November 6, first place prize €1,300,000 – Winamax.fr

Beau Rivage Gulf Coast Poker Championship, Biloxi, MS:: – Mark Rose wins $5,000 main event for $177,386, Chad Brown finishes 4th. – Results from the Hendon Mob

Commerce Holdem Series :: $120 NL w/ $100k to first, $300k prize pool starts today. More from Matt Savage:

PartyPoker World Poker Open – London :: Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Andrew Robl, and John Duthie among heat winners, final table on Friday. Party Poker Blog for updates

English Poker Open – London :: $1,000,000 guaranteed tournament starts Saturday at Palm Beach Casino, live streaming all weekend. English Poker Open

PokerStars UKIPT – Dublin :: Action gets underway Thursday afternoon – http://www.ukipt.com“PokerStars Blog

PokerStars WCOOP – First week of most successful online poker tournament series continues – WCOOP.com

Also …

Deliverance Poker sues Michael Mizrachi and Full Tilt for breach of contract – Cake Poker Blog

Intrastate online poker in California legislation reappears, passage by end of year? – EGR Magazine

Online poker coming to Indian casinos? – ATIG press release

Schedule finally announced for NAPT at the Bike in Los Angeles, will no TV coverage affect the field? – PokerStars Blog

WSOP Europe makes it’s appearance on crowded London poker calendar starting Tuesday – WSOPE Schedule

Finally, This Week in Poker w/ Scott Huff and Jess Welman:

There’s been a lot of speculation about where the regulatory-challenged NAPT would head next, as it looks to spread across the US and/or Canada after a too awesome for its own good spectacular made-for-TV debut on American soil in Nevada at the Venetian.

Word was leaking to interested parties that it would indeed be at the Bike in California, with the Gold-Strike Tunica all but ready to be locked down, too. But now we know the plans for sure — the Bike it is, November 12-17, right after the November Nine — as does any else who might have an extreme stake in the future success and expansion of the North American Poker Tour presented by PokerStars.net.

THE POKERSTARS.NET NAPT ANNOUNCES AN EXCITING NEW STOP FOR SEASON 1

The PokerStars.net North American Poker Tour (NAPT) today announced the addition of a new stop to its Season 1 schedule. The NAPT will visit beautiful sunny Southern California for NAPT Los Angeles, a festival scheduled for November 12 – 17, 2010 at one of the largest poker rooms in the world, the incredible Bicycle Casino, aka ‘The Bike’.

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