The North American Poker Tour at the Venetian is coming to its inevitable conclusion with the $5,000 main event final table, scheduled to start at 2pm PT today, with live streaming available at www.napt.com/tv. Here’s how the final table of 8 will look when play resumes:

Seat 1: Daniel Clemente (1,345,000)
Seat 2: Sam Stein (6,145,000)
Seat 3: Thomas Fuller (4,735,000)
Seat 4: “Miami” John Cernuto (1,300,000)
Seat 5: Yunus Jamal (3,940,000)
Seat 6: David Paredes (4,700,000)
Seat 7: Tom “kingsofcards” Marchese (2,370,000)
Seat 8: Eric Blair (1,690,000)

On Thursday, the final table of the $25,000 High Roller Bounty Invitational Shootout will play out, also scheduled to start at 2pm PT. Here’s the final table, with the number of $5,000 bounties each collected:

Scott Seiver (6)
Hoyt Corkins (4)
Faraz Jaka (4)
Joe Cassidy (4)
Brett Richey (3)
Peter Eastgate (2)
Ashton Griffin (2)

Each player earned $75,000 for winning their table, with the last man standing on Thursday pocketing $455,000 in the winner-take-all format. All seven players are also eligible to win an additional $100,000 from PokerStars.net for having the most bounties.

For those looking to follow the action, check out www.pokerstarsblog.com w/ ShortStack Shamus, Jennifer Newell and Otis, or the live reporting over at PokerNews.

Inspiring shit over at Tao of Poker — with reports from the LAPT’s ill-fated venture into Nuevo Vallarta. Shame on me for not considering the imminent dangers … as I forgot whom we’re dealing with here:

Someone suggested that we remove our badges. For a couple of moments, I was on edge and extremely concerned at the safety of Change100 and myself and my fellow media reps like Owen, Otis, Joe, Alex, and everyone else. I never thought that I’d get tossed into prison in Mexico for a non-drug charge. Then I got really freaked out. The federalies wouldn’t throw me in jail. They’d whack me. Journalists are the enemy in third world countries and forty-five journalists were killed in Mexico since 2000. According to Reporters without Borders, Mexico is considered the most dangerous country for journalists with the exception of Iraq.

In the end there would be no gunfire, but a tense standoff between an international poker company and a shady second-world gov creates a pretty dramatic look at the sociopoliticonomic world we live in — with nearly a million dollars in play, one side walks into a trap, while the other shoots itself in the foot … everyone else scrambles in the crossfire.

Click here to get the full story of Otis’ Amazing 35th Birthday Party.

The 2008 World Series has come and gone and will most likely, in a little less than three months, will come again. In the meantime, while cleaning out the computer(s) we’ve come across these “lost” episodes … recorded in the tail days of the main event. But this is everything … there’s no more, OK? At least not for now. So if you’d like to step back into the WSOP for just a few minutes at a time to the vocal stylings of yours truly and Dr. Pauly, by all means, have a listen/download. Some of it actually seems a little extra interesting with the benefit of a month-or-so of hindsight.

For the entire WSOP season click here.

The heretofore unheard old-new episodes, salvaged from the cut-and-pasting room floor:

Episode 30: The Cost of Donuts
Grubby joins the media to talk main event numbers and the price of trendy donuts in today’s oil economy. (3:19)
[audio:30-TOP-grubby.mp3]

---

Episode 31: Scotchy Poker
Dan+scotch early in the WSOP day=talk of Dario Minieri and Isabelle Mercier. (4:02)
[audio:31-TOP-scotch.mp3]

---

Episode 32: French Warfare
Benjo takes over the mic when Dan calls in drunk, and he and Pauly talk more about Isabelle Mercier live from the Day 2 killing fields. (5:14)
[audio:32-TOP-benjohappy.mp3]

---

Episode 33: New York & Texas
Michele Lewis joins in as Dan and Pauly break down the difference between Texas and New York humor, or at least the difference between Pauly and Dan. (2:40)
[audio:33-TOP-michele.mp3]

---

Episode 34: Go Team!
Dallas’ Raj Kattamuri is going deep, and Pauly tracks down Dan in the poker kitchen to find out what it takes to be patched up on Team Pokerati. (2:37)
[audio:34-TOP-teampokerati.mp3]

---

Episode 35: No Wiener
Benjo is not his usual jovial self as the main event comes to a close and he bids farewell to his American friends in the penultimate WSOP episode of Tao of Pokerati. (4:41)
[audio:35-TOP-benjosad.mp3]

---

Episode 36: Unhookered
The traditional late-late night poker-blogger farewell binge drinking at the Rio’s Hooker Bar, with guest appearances by Otis and Mean Gene. (3:29)
[audio:36-TOP-hookerbar.mp3]

I meet up with Pauly in the Amazon Room, observing the end of Day 1A, where we speculate on on the over/under for the overall main event field size and the price of my watch. Otis then jumps in with tales of being forcibly removed from the tournament area by a mocking floorman amid fears of over-soiled chips and accusations of semi-murder at the tables.

Episode 20: Surviving Day 1A (feat. Otis)

Poker pros, poker media, WSOP execs, agents, and interns convened a couple days ago at the Sapphire Club for the Bluff Magazine party — a delightfully rancorous fête celebrating the end of regular WSOP season and kicking off the main event playoffs … and of course, Tao of Pokerati was there. In this episode, Pauly gets a lapdance, I miss my days in the strip-club biz, and Otis tries to arrange a $1,000 beer pong game with Doyle Brunson. All in all, the poker field trip to the industry’s favorite Vegas titty bar leads to lower-midstakes ballin’ at its most pathetic finest.

Episode 19: Topless Beer Pong (feat. Otis)