Saturday at noon is the first of six $1,000 No-limit holdem events, each having two day 1’s and fields of at least 5,000 expected. Last year’s “Stimulus Special”, won by Steve Sung for over $770,000, drew out all kinds of people, as Pauly noted in his Nostrum Donkulus post. After reading that, check out his morning link dump.

Time for some Friday recapping:

Casino Employees Cashing

The first bracelet event, $500 Casino Employees , finished play at the end of level 10 with 53 players remaining. The chip leader is Kent Washington, from Oakland, California with 168,300 in chips. Jonathan Kotula, who won this event in 2008, is in 2nd (108,700). The only other recognizable name remaining is Bellagio tournament director Jack McClleland (19,700). The tournament is scheduled to resume at 2:30pm today, although the 1k donkament may delay that start. The schedule notes they’re playing down to a winner today, but circumstances may prevent that. If they play down to a winner today, it may put a damper on the plans looking to take part in Bluff’s Streak 2 Seven contest to win a 2010 or 2011 WSOP me seat, as mentioned on this week’s episode of the award-winning Poker Beat.

Players’ Championship Moves to Day 2

Day 1 of the $50,000 Players’ Championship concluded earlier this morning with 105 of the 116 players remaining. Chip counts haven’t been finalized, but it appears Erik Sagstrom will be the chip leader at 329,100. Other notables in the top 10: David Oppenheim (313,800), “Miami John” Cernuto and Joe Serock (265,000), Justin Bonomo (255,000), Barry Greenstein (240,100), and early chip leader Daniel Kelly (223,000). Tom Dwan, Brian Townsend, and 2009 dual bracelet winner Greg Mueller started off down $50,000 at the WSOP, eliminated on Friday. The remaining field will return at 3pm today as the field is scheduled to play six 90-minute levels.

Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting

For those who get eliminated early enough, you can watch guys trying to beat the shit out of each other at the MGM Grand Garden area for UFC 114 tonight. The highly anticipated main event features Rashad Evans v Quinton “Rampage” Jackson topping an 11-fight card. For those looking for a preview of the fights, or looking for some good betting tips, check out www.mmafix.com and www.rawvegas.tv.

More later today, but in the meantime be sure to check Pokerati, on Twitter and hit up the official WSOP site over at www.wsop.com

It apparently was just a one-time deal, but still … I’ve never played for the Washington Generals, have you played for the Washington Generals? Pretty cool … as Team Tiffany and Maria continue on their 15-minutes-of-farewell tour, throwing themselves into as many non-poker spots as possible until the next season of The Amazing Race forces the Harlem Globetrotters’ opponents to retire their numbers:

[via Wicked Chops]

Watch Tiffany Michelle and Maria Ho Show The Globetrotters How To Play Basketball on RawVegas.tv

The RawVegas gang caught up with the new WSOP main event champ at the viewing party held at ESPNzone in New York, New York. Good little glimpse of what he’s all about, how he’s handling friends who will inevitably hit him up for money, and the process of amicably (presumably) parting ways with his backers Eric Haber (“sheets”) and Cliff Josephy (“JohnnyBax”) …

Watch WSOP 2009 Viewing Party at ESPN Zone on RawVegas.tv

Tuesday night’s WSOP Main Event episode featured Norman Chad stating one sentence about the Ultimate Bet scandals as Phil Hellmuth and Todd “Dan Druff” Witteles were at the same feature table. Michalski noted in the comments, Mark originally “broke his silence” regarding the Absolute Poker scandal over at Raw Vegas back in 2007.

Watch The Toke – Absolute Poker’s Mark Seif on RawVegas.tv

In response to some of Seif’s comments, Todd “Dan Druff” Witteles offered a response on RawVegas.tv a few days later.

Watch The Toke – Dan Druff on RawVegas.tv

Scotty being Scotty — talking mostly poker while jinglin’ his bling — via Raw Chops:

Watch Scotty Nguyen Talks about the 2008 50K HORSE Event on RawVegas.tv

Two rather distinct views of the World Series, a third of the way through the show, from @JeffreyPollack and Micon, both discussing their party animal ways:

For all J-Pollack V-logs, click here.

For the original Degen Update from the pseudo-media dude with revoked credentials (supposedly related to his video of a player smoking meth) and a tale of violence around a rule dispute in a $65 satellite, click here.

During the WSOP and not, we always find good stuff at Wicked Chops … and we love how easy they and their pals at RawVegas.tv make it for us to steal re-tweet it:

Watch Scotty Being Scotty Premier Episode! on RawVegas.tv

Based on the premier episode of Scotty being Scotty, I think they might have a hit on their hands. (Watched the whole dang thing and will definitely watch the next one …) No?

WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack’s latest v-Log, giving his marketing pitch critical assessment one week into the 2009 World Series:

And for those who haven’t seen it yet, click here to see the Doyle Brunson vs. Amarillo Slim scooter race and $50k prop bet.

After Raw Vegas’ attempt to interview Russ Hamilton didn’t go so well, Dave Farra called up former FBI agent and expert on non-verbal communication Joe Navarro to give his opinion on the video.

Watch Joe Navarro on Russ Hamilton Video on RawVegas.tv

This is more than just Rumorati … it’s based on actual purported facts and second-hand semi-verified info:

Word is that the IRS has been in direct contact with at least two important and well-informed online pokerers who may or may not have important data on Russ Hamilton and the money stolen via Ultimate Bet. And this is not just some computer in Washington DC sending out form letters — there’s apparently a special agent in Nevada currently investigating the case.

What they’re interested in is 20 million untaxed dollars. And as is starting to get revealed since RawVegas went commando with their cameras, there is clearly more to this case than just an online poker cheating scandal and subsequent tax evasion … there could be some money laundering involved … which is kinda funny (not funny ha ha) because money laundering was one of the primary reasons given for the UIGEA … and now we have an example of how the law to prevent it may indeed have facilitated it.

I don’t know enough about how IRS investigations work to know what kind of teeth this thing really has — but I’d like to think that so long as the Feds keep an eye out for one-way tickets to Costa Rica by any R. Hamilton’s … in the end, one way or another, his fate is not going to be left in the hands of the Kahnawake.

Must-see … via Wicked Chops … the RawVegas red carpet crew gets some face-to-face time with alleged Ultimate Bet supercheater Russ Hamilton (wearing a clubUBT.com visor, interestingly enough) to see what he has to say about being the Bernie Madoff of Poker:

Watch RUSS HAMILTON UltimateBet Super-User Cheating Scandal (Exclusive Video) on RawVegas.tv

Kudos, btw, to the WCP/RV guys for reminding us that old school gotcha journo-ing does have a purpose.

Players are just starting to return from break … you know, it’s more than halfway over … and RawVegas has a fun piece speaking with some Las Vegas poker pros (at the Hard Rock launch tourney) about whom they’re picking to win the WSOP main event:

Click, and enjoy.â„¢

From the always clickworthy good folks at RawVegas.TV

I feel a sincere need to speak on this.

For the first time, I listened to the NWP Radio show last night because it was a tribute to Brandi Hawbaker. Her suicide has deeply affected me, and I hoped to hear some interesting perspective on her life and death. Almost two hours into the show, I did hear those things from Brandi’s ex-boyfriend Brandon and friend Jenn, though they were abruptly cut off in the midst of a very interesting discussion at the show’s end.

Dan Druff, who I know didn’t mean his comments in any sort of malicious way, exemplified many of the opinions I’ve heard since the news of Brandi’s suicide became public. People who have no personal, family, or friend history with mental illness have a rather narrow-minded and simplistic view of most types of mental difficulties. Brandon and Jenn did their best to dispel myths and shed some light on the complexities of people inflicted with such a disease, but it seems to be very difficult for outsiders like Druff to comprehend it.

Over the past week, I’ve had numerous conversations with people in the poker community about Brandi’s suicide. Most of their comments are rooted in pure shock at the thought of someone taking her own life. “It’s the most selfish thing someone can do,” someone said. “She must have done it to get back at the people who were mean to her,” another commented. “How does life get so bad that you want to die?”

More…

RawVegasTV is celebrating its 1-year anniversary … a not-so-shocking milestone for an operation built on the concept of Joe Sebok eating four taquitos to Gavin Smith’s 2.5 and Google searches for “denise pernula naked”.

With a staff of 12, they’ve put up more than 1,100 videos, generating more than 35 million views. [via Robin Leach]

Congrats, dudes! Pretty impressive for a web-something that “has nothing to do with Wicked Chops,” according to RVTV president Steven “Chops” Preiss … it’s amazing how many eyeballs you can capture by putting up high-quality vids (I mean resolution-wise, mixed quality content-wise) in players that always work and are easily link/embeddable. Having a sassy lass who isn’t afraid to grab her own boobs while doing the news probably also helps, as does Barrett Applegate: