That’s about all we know, but who knew, and glad to know … the US Men’s National Team striker has been recovering from injuries suffered in a major car accident. To help his healing, he’s been playing some $5/$10 no-limit hold’em at Bellagio.

It’s starting to occur to us that a lot of poker players out there might have a keen interest to bet some international football gamesin the coming months. Bear with us, and we’ll see if we don’t know anyone who can help that cause.

ALT HED: Phil Ivey, the Ronaldinho of Poker?

Meanwhile, Nick Geber, formerly the multimedia guru at Bluff and a Sirius Radio soccer analyst, is back in public action … just in time for the World Cup — over at The Ref’s a Wanker.

We all knew this sorta thing would be coming … but how it would come (and continue to shake down) is, of course, a little less clear. The buzz:

• Matthew Parvis has resigned from his position as editor-in-chief of Bluff. This is confirmed fact.
• Supposedly he is headed to PokerNews.com. Not confirmed, and in what capacity not sure.
• Lance Bradley will take over as EIC of Bluff. Confirmed, and makes sense, since he has previously served as the top editor of Bluff’s website, and by proxy, WSOP.com, which Bluff loses control of any day now.
• Nick Geber has reportedly been “fired” from Bluff, or at least “let go”. Not confirmed … circumstances unclear. Nick is supposedly a part-owner of Bluff Media, too … so extra layer of complexity there.

Interesting … to at least about a dozen or so Pokeratizens. Also, we can go ahead and debunk the wild rumor started here that Nick Geber’s kerfuffle at Bluff was sparked by his intent to go to Soccerati.com to replace SangyFarha. Simply not true.

Recapping the action from Wednesday night:

Brock to Brock

Brock Parker extended the streak of double braclet winners at the WSOP to 10 years, as he bested Joseph Serock in the $2,500 NL Holdem 6-max event. Both bracelets came in shorthanded events as he beat Daniel Negreanu heads-up in the $2,500 Limit Holdem 6-max event earlier this week.

Seidel Looking for Bracelet #9, #9, #9…

The $1,500 Pot-Limit Holdem final table was reached earlier this morning, and this is how they’ll be seated when play resumes at 2pm at www.bluffmagazine.com/live:

Seat 1: Marc Tschirch – 268000
Seat 2: Erik Seidel – 337000
Seat 3: Jason Dewitt – 476000
Seat 4: Kyle Carlston – 320000
Seat 5: Andrew Radel – 250000
Seat 6: John-Paul Kelly – 627000
Seat 7: Ravi Raghavan – 145000
Seat 8: Kirk Steward – 231000
Seat 9: Aaron Virchis – 191000

HORSE in the Homestretch

The $3,000 HORSEevent reaches its conclusion today with 21 players remaining when play resumes at 1pm. Zac Fellows will start the day with the chip lead at 471,000. James Van Alstyne (455,000), Ylon Schwartz (186,000), Chau Giang (149,000), Bill Blanda (144,000), and Gavin Smith (121,000) are some of the notables coming back as well.

Shootout at the Rio, Day 2

Day 2 of the $1,500 NL Holdem Shootout has 100 players, sitting at 10 tables, remaining when play resumes at 2pm today. Each player will start with 45,000 in chips and play down to a winner, returning on Friday afternoon with 450,000 in chips along with the other table winners to determine the winner.

Drawing Without Limits

Day 2 of the $10,000 NL 2-7 Lowball Single Draw World Championship started with 96 entrants yesterday afternoon. 57 players return at 2pm today, 43 of which will get nothing for their efforts. Roland de Wolfe starts the day with 180,300 in chips. Notables also returning include John Juanda (111,800), David Benyamine (69,500), Kenny Tran (64,800), Phil Ivey (56,000), Daniel Alaei (51,000) and Freddy Deeb (49,600). Unfortunately for Dan, Tom Schneider will not be able to wear the Pokerati patch proudly, as he was eliminated.

Thursday’s Tournaments and Projections

Two tournaments start the action today, starting with another edition of the $1,500 NL Holdem event, with another field of over 2,000 players expected. Last year, Luis Velador took down this event in a field of 2,304 for $574,734. The 5pm event is another event for specialists, $2,500 Omaha 8 or Better/Stud 8 or Better won last year by Farzad Rouhani in a field of 388.

The WSOP Staff Guide projected that 2,400 players would start the $1,500 NL holdem event (take the over – 2,541), while the $2,500 OHL/SHL event would draw a field of 419 (take the under, 371). Action abounds at the WSOP today, so head to the WSOP website and Pokerati throughout the day for the latest in the online poker payment processor situation and other stuff during the day.

Oh my. Evidently, this “professional commentator” was not aware that the microphone was on nor that anyone was recording his ramblings. They were. And because of the risque nature of his comments, they’re now on YouTube. (UPDATE: Apparently, Nick Geber knew his words were being recorded but only in a mic-testing format. However, all recordings are picked up by overseas partners.)

You decide: funny, good-natured jabs at his employees or inappropriate, sexist remarks?

UPDATE: All traces of the video have been removed from YouTube.

Some updates from Monday:

Lisandro Liquidates 7 Card Stud Field

The $1,500 7 Card Stud event saw Jeff Lisandro make quick work of the final table, taking home his 2nd bracelet along with $124,959 in winnings. Rodney Pardey was the final victim to Lisandro, taking home $77,230 for his 2nd place finish. Pardey’s nephew Eric Pardey was also at the final table finishing in 6th place. Nick Frangos (4th) and John Juanda (5th) were two of the more notable names at that final table.

5k NL Holdem Five-Handed

The $5,000 NL Holdem final table will be returning from dinner break shortly with five players remaining. The chip leader is Fabian Quoss with over 3.4m in chips. Brian Lemke, Thomas “Thunder” Keller, Mike Sowers and Ivan Demidov’s girlfriend Lika Gerasimova round out the quintet. The final table is airing on ESPN360 as well as wsop.pkr.com for those overseas who are still awake.

Ladies Workin’ It Out

The $1,000 Ladies NL World Championship is now under 50 players, with Lisa Hamilton the chip leader (245,000). Notables remaining include Day 1 chip leader Tamara Tibbles (190,000), JJ Liu (78,000), Lisa Parsons (46,300), and Karina Jett (45,000). Players will try to play down to their final table or the next few hours for a possible streamed final table.

Omaha 8 Field Splitting Apart

The $10,000 Omaha 8 or Better World Championship has 41 players remaining, as they also try to get to a final table tomorrow before the 3am deadline. Sam Khouiss is the current chip leader at 360,000. Notables remaining include Scott Clements (240,000), Ville Wahlbeck (190,000), Phil Ivey (165,000), Jean-Robert Bellande (150,000), Annie Duke (114,000) and Phil Hellmuth (105,000).

Monday’s 6-Maxed Out

The $2,500 NL Holdem 6-max event drew a field of 1.068, a slight increase over last year, with 370 players remaining. The unofficial chip leader is Layne Flack with over 80,000 in chips.

Follow the action for the next few hours over at www.worldseriesofpoker.com

Live streaming web-vid coverage of the final table, starting shortly.

As the $1,500 NL event isn’t close to having a final table, the people at Bluff Media have decided to show the final table of the 2-7 NL Single Draw Lowball final table, featuring Phil Ivey at 2pm at the Bluff Magazine website.

The final table lineup is in my previous post, so no need to repeat that. ESPN once filmed a final table of this event when it was a $5,000 w/rebuys event back in 2004,when they’d film a variety of different events. If Ivey’s eliminated early, we’ll probably see why they’ve gone to the more familiar NL holdem/PLO.

Edit: wsop.pkr.com will work as well for those having trouble with the link at Bluff’s site. Also, there’s no commentary, just the table talk and the Tournament Director microphone.

From the Twitter of WSOPlive, who will be streaming over 20 final tables of this year’s WSOP:

The final table of event #4 ($1,000 NL Holdem is taking much longer to reach than anticipated, the powers that be have asked us to cancel today’s broadcast.

we’ll be broadcasting tomorrow at 2pm Vegas time no matter what, the players who final table event #4 will have the option to return then

Should they decline, we’ll show the final table of the $1500 Pot Limit Omaha event. This also means we’ll be adding a bonus event soon.

So no need to stay up tonight to wait for a final table, if the players decide to end early. That causes a final table logjam as there’s the possibility of three final tables running tomorrow afternoon as the $10,000 7-Card Stud World Championship will also play to a conclusion on Wednesday. Stay tuned to Pokerati and www.worldseriesofpoker.com for further updates.

Peter Eastgate won it. Age 22. New Great Dane. It’s too late, of course for the newspapers (East Coast, at least) to get the results into the paper … so you’ll have to watch it plausibly live on ESPN!

(Actually, I suspect a few midwestern papers, at least, will be able to get something in at the last moment — or they’ll just use the internet … bummer that it didn’t go a bit longer?)

A few notes from the coronation:

The Poker Royalty agents exchanged little smiley fist bumps upon Eastgate’s victory. Not sure what that means — but I gotta think a young online Scandi pro has got to be relatively marketable.

Where’s Norman Chad? Nick Geber is taking on the role as post-game interviewer.

Eastgate doesn’t speak fantastic English, and though the Danes will likely be taking some hefty tax (an issue broached by Geber), he can still probably afford a lot of Rosetta Stone. The Danish early-career Dirk Nowitzki of Poker? OK, bad comparison … but it’s late, people are tired, and, frankly, there’s kinda an eerie calm in the Penn & Teller Theater, as the enormity of Eastgate’s achievement still seems to be setting in.

If you’re just tuning in and/or need something to pass the time between episodes of Tao of Pokerati … there is a live audio broadcast of what’s going on at the felt — hosted by Nick Geber, who is joined now by Lacey Jones and Daniel Negreanu. Click here to tune in. (With cool chipstack/blind ticker on display, too.)

Also at WSOP.com … Commish Jeffrey Pollack is back to blogging.

UPDATE: Daniel is talking about Eric Morris’ “ass cleavage”. Yikes.

ALSO: This slightly delayed (10 minutes maybe?) audio coverage is really good. Some Russians have written in saying it’s allowing them to follow their man Ivan Moneymaker/Demidov.

The day that the poker community has been waiting for has finally arrived, as the November Nine reunite to determine this year’s “World Champion”.

Has the 100+ day delay been a success? ESPN says ratings are the highest they’ve been in two years, but that was when Hellmuth and Matusow were heavily featured in the coverage. The hoped for mainstream coverage talked about when this all began never really came through, as Lou Krieger mentions.

Play is scheduled to start today at 10am PT at the Penn and Teller Theater at the Rio in Las Vegas. For those that want to listen to the coverage, http://www.bluffmagazine.com/blufftvBluff Magazine and worldseriesofpoker.com will provide an audio stream along with constantly updated chip counts, using their Poker Tracker software. Nick Geber, Lacey Jones and a bunch of other guests will be in on the action. Jeffrey Pollack even writes a rare blog about tonight’s Hall of Fame ceremony, which will take place at about 7:15, just before play resumes from the dinner break. When heads-up play resumes Monday at 10pm PT, Erick Lindgren will receive his WSOP Player of the Year award (and whatever comes with that).

It was decided earlier last week that they will NOT redraw for seats, so here’s how they’ll be situated when cards go in the air (in case you forgot):
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The final table of the $5k main event at the WSOP-New Orleans goes down tomorrow at 2 pm central. Semi-live video coverage at worldseriesofpoker.com.

Click below for all the official details after the jump. I’ll be paying attention to Marc Fratter, from Clonie’s hometown of Murphy, TX. (Kinda near where my folks live, too.) He seems to have his game on these days, and if so seems well-seated with a medium stack:

Fratter

SEAT 7: Marc Fratter
HOMETOWN: Murphy, TX
CHIP COUNT: 311,000
Marc Fratter is a 36-year-old attorney from Murphy, TX. He has a three-year-old daughter named Kate who loves to play poker with her dad. Fratter was the co-champion of the 2007 Caesars Indiana Poker Championship. He won $117,000 in that tournament. He also cashed in the 2007 Red River Roundup. This is his third time to cash in a major tournament.

Miles

Go Mark! I mean Marc!

He’s going up against Timothy “TK” Miles, who won a $1,000 WSOP-Circuit event in New Orleans this past winter and has the chip lead.

Drogba

The WSOP-Circuit final table, however, is in a tough time slot tomorrow — going up against the UEFA Cup finals, being broadcast live from Moscow. (Bluff Media video honcho and former Fox Football Fone-in host Nick Geber is presumably ocnflicted.) Honestly, the soccer game will probably get most of my attention even though I’m not sure whom to root for — Chelsea vs. Manchester Utd. — since I usually just root against those two teams. (Go Liverpool/Wigan/Blackburn Rovers!)

Rooney

Chelsea, of course, is are the bad-ass team from the yuppity side of London, loaded with great players, most notably Drogba from the Ivory Coast. Man-U are the working-class faves from Britain’s Second City, with bratty high-paid hotshot Wayne Rooney … who likes to gamble (badly) and used to play Texas Hold’em in a rough-and-tumble Man-U home game.

Again, click below for details on the poker event going up against what is essentially, worldwide, the Super Bowl:
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