As seen in the Rio casino poker room. Co-branding with Bravo, the player tracking system in just about every poker room and makers of the Bravo Poker Live App.

The WSOP isn’t just about the WSOP … you have tournament options of notable field sizes and different game varieties all across town. While Aria has opened an entire new section for dailies, Bellagio cleared a section for tournaments and TV cameras and Binions made way for more tables, too. There’s a summer “classic” at Wynn and the Deep Stacks Extravaganza is back at Venetian, while Golden Nugget and Caesars Palace gear up for the Grand Poker and Mega Stack series’ respectively.

Need help deciding what, when, and where to play throughout the summer? This handy spreadsheet breaks down all the big tournament action — with details on buy-in, blind structures, and rake so you can choose the best brick-and-mortar MTT.

The 2012 WSOP is looking for a few good dealers, or perhaps I should say a few hundred, and Caesars Entertainment still has a couple of 3-week boot camps to prep the troops.

You won’t get paid while attending the academy, but as far as I can tell you don’t have to pay either. Caesars promises to equip you with the skills to pitch cards and cut chips at RIO All Suites Hotel from May 27 to July 16, aka the 2012 World Series. A session in late April provides advanced lessons for dealing non-hold’em games.
I’m still waiting for a response on my application. If I get accepted, I hope to document the experience. And since Caesars stresses “good customer service skills,” we’ll do it with a smile.

The job ad also says “a neat professional appearance and good personal hygiene are essential.” That might narrow the competition in the poker community. But I know I’m ready to shave and shower before I shuffle up and deal.

After a delay when an original schedule was “leaked”, the 2010 WSOP Schedule is now online with 57 bracelet events. The WSOP starts with a doubleheader on Friday, May 28th with the $500 Casino Employees Event starting at 12 noon, followed by the $50,000 Players’ Championship, which will be an 8-game mix (HORSE, NL Holdem, Pot-limit Omaha and 2-7 Triple Draw). The final table will consist of No-Limit holdem only.

The full schedule, with structure sheets are now online at the wsop.com site.

For other details regarding the 2010 WSOP:

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Day 1a of the Main Event is in the books, with 821 players remaining from the 1,116 who started the day. The reported chip leader is Eric Cloutier at 150,750. Other notable names with chips include: Jason Alexander (89,575), Pokerati’s Tom Schneider (79,600), John Hennigan (76,250), Vitaly Lunkin (68,300), Someone who didn’t report (69,500), Jimmy Fricke (63,425), and Andy Black (56,475). To see the entire list of chip counts, check it out here.

Day 1b gets underway at noon today, and will surely be the smallest field of the four day 1’s, with a chance the field will be under 1,000 when the registrations are calculated sometime after the dinner break after level 2 this afternoon. To see if that happens, follow the live updates over at www.wsop.com and more stuff from Pokerati during the day.

Congrats to Matt Hawrilenko, winner of just over $1,000,000 in the $5,000 NL Holdem 6-max earlier this morning.

The big day has finally arrived, the final bracelet event of this year’s World Series of Poker, the $10,000 NL Holdem World Championship starts shortly after 12pm today, after the various festivities that kick off the event conclude (marching bands, Wayne Newton, or whatever they decide to do this year).

Each Day 1 will play 5 two-hour levels of poker, with a 20-minute break after each level and a two-hour dinner break. Thousands will swarm the various tournament rooms of the Rio to either play or spectate, some hopefully catching the eye of the ESPN cameras that will be around to film all the action. Expect a return of the mysterious Post-It note covering the total number of registrants on the tournament clock, which eventually revealed 6844 entrants. This year’s WSOP Staff Guide projects a field of 7323, and if last year is an indicator, Days 1a and 1b (being the 4th of July) will have the smaller fields, while Sunday and Monday’s days 1c and 1d will be much larger as people decide to enjoy their weekend before plunking $10,000.

As always, plenty of updates will be available at www.wsop.com and Dan, Jen and the rest of Team Pokerati will do their part to describe the action over the next two weeks.

Recapping the Tuesday afternoon activities, with the hope that Miami John Cernuto has a speedy recovery.

Hungary Hungary Bracelets

Peter Traply captured the first WSOP bracelet for Hungary, taking down the $5,000 NL Holdem Shootout , winning $348,728. Andrew Lichtenbergerfinished in second, good for $215,403. Lichtenberger thought he had the tournament won when his A-K flopped another ace against Traply’s pocket sixes. Another six on the turn doubled Traply up, leaving Lichtenberger with just 250,000 in chips out of the 7.5 million in play. Lichtenberger would double up several times, eventually regaining the chip lead. But Traply would be too much, finally knocking out Lichtenberger when his A-K dominated Lichtenberger’s A-J to the delight of his Hungarian railbirds.

Jerrod Jamming in 8-Game

Jerrod Ankenman, co-author with Bill Chen of The Mathematics of Poker is the current chip leader (1,230,000) of the $2,500 8-Game event. Earlier eliminations included Players to Watch Layne Flack (7th) and Rami Boukai (13th) Online favorite Jimmy “Gobbo” Fricke finished in 9th place to bubble the official final table. Jon Turner (another Player to Watch) is currently in second place (822,000), as he continues to impress in mixed-game tournaments.

Sweating to the Seniors

The $1,000 Seniors NL Holdem World Championship has about 120 players remaining as they’ll try to get as close to a final table as possible before the 3 am deadline. The current leader is Tony Brenner (315,000). Barbara Enright (85,000) and Eric Hershler make up a couple of the notable names remaining. Meanwhile, Players to Watch Lloyd Shinn (130th) and Berry Johnston (185th) did make the money.

The Author, The Cowboy and a Guy Named Warwick

The $2,500 Razz event has author Michael Craig (126,000) the chip leader, followed by “Cowboy” Kenna James (125,000) right behind him, followed by Day 1 chip leader Warwick Mirzikinian (98,000) with 43 players remaining, only 32 getting paid. Other notables remaining include Jeff Lisandro (59,000), Player to Watch Ville Wahlbeck (47,000), and James Van Alstyne (45,000), all involved in the thrilling WSOP Player of the Year race.They will also attempt to have a final table established by the 3am deadline.

Pot-Limit Holdem Boiling Over

The $10,000 Pot-Limit Holdem World Championship drew a field of 275 entrants, 162 of which will return from their dinner break. The unofficial chip leader is David Singer (132,000), with David Stiecke (95,000), Vanessa Rousso (93,500), Bill Edler (67,500), Eric Baldwin (56,000), and Jason Mercier (51,000) just some of the notables remaining. Four more levels remain in their day before returning at 2pm tomorrow.

Omaha, Ha Ha!

The $2,500 Omaha 8 or Better event began with a field of close to 400 entries. No official chip leader has emerged, but the final Player to Watch that hasn’t been mentioned today, Daniel Negreanu is now working on his third tournament of the day, as he has already been eliminated from the Razz and Pot-Limit Holdem events. Could he go 0 for three? Check out the updates over at www.wsop.com or my morning update and find out.

Admittedly, hockey is far from my favorite sport. Even hailing from St. Louis Blues country, I’ve never been a hockey fan. So as the NHL Charity Shootout sponsored by PokerStars was underway on the ESPN stage, I wasn’t exactly compelled to check it out.

The decision to grab a pic was more for Pokerati readers than any other reason, but when the security guard told me I wasn’t allowed in the media area, I used Twitter to express my dismay. Within a matter of minutes, WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack was at my work station. “Come with me,” he said in a way that made me think of card counters being taken into the back room to be roughed up nicely. He took me to the NHL game media area, told the security guard I was to be allowed in, and let me know that he simply didn’t want the media to have a bad experience with this event. Done and done. (Later, I’ll see if my new BFF wants to hang out at the clubs.)

Back to the event, three tables full of NHL stars, poker pros, and online qualifiers will play out, and the winners will return to play the final table at 7:30-ish tonight for big money to be donated to their charities of choice. ESPN is filming all of the fun, and Mean Gene is anxiously (understatement of the week) awaiting the arrival of the Stanley Cup around 7pm. Here are a few pics of Table #2 that is still playing out in the Amazon Room.

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Recapping the early portion at the start of week 3 of the WSOP:

Serock over Brock

The $1,500 NL Holdem 6-max event is down to its final five players as they return from dinner break shortly. Joseph Serock is the chip leader, with Brock Parker looking to extend to 10 the number of years with someone winning two bracelets at the WSOP in second place. Russell Crane, Alex Wilson and Jesse Rios rounding out the field.

HORSEs Dragging Along

Players in the $3,000 HORSE event returned from the dinner break with 80 players remaining, only 48 getting paid. Matt Hawrilenko is the leader with 160,000 in chips. Notables near the top include: Gavin Smith (100,000), David Singer (92,000), Ylon Schwartz (80,000), and Michael Watson (52,000).

Pot-Limit’s a Boiling

The $1,500 Pot-Limit Holdem event is down to 22 players, with Alexey Popov the chip leader (290,000) with Jason Dewitt (285,000), Blake Stepp (240,000), Erik Seidel (140,000) among the remaining players.

Shootout at the Rio Corral

The first day of the $1,500 NL Holdem Shootout event as the event has drawn to an early close as a sold out field of 1,000 players, 10 players seated at 100 tables with all tables completed. Among the players who move to Day 2 action: Luis Velador, Peter Jetten, Zelong Dong, Tony Cousineau, Joe Beevers, Theo Tran, Alex Bolotin, and Chris Klodnicki.

Drawing for a World Championship

Around 100 players registered for the $10,000 NL 2-7 Lowball Single Draw World Championship with Gus Hansen making his WSOP debut. It’s early in the proceedings but all the big names are in attendance including Team Pokerati’s Tom “DonkeyBomber” Schneider. Follow him on Twitter and maybe will provide an update during the evening on the site. Also, check out wsop.com for further updates during the evening.