John Paul Kelly 2009: 2 bracelets, 2 continents.

The first event of the 2009 World Series of Poker Europe is completed and we have crowned the first champion. He ended Day 1 as the chipleader and finished the tournament in the same vein, step forward Mr JP Kelly.

The £1,000 entry-fee appealed to pros and amateurs alike, with Day 1a attracting 295 runners including the likes of Phil Hellmuth, Roland de Wolfe and Dave ‘Devilfish’ Ulliot with the former being eliminated very early on into proceedings.

After raising preflop, then calling a re-raise from Eddie Hearn, Hellmuth somehow managed to get all his chips in the middle holding 5h6h which gave him an open-ended straight draw. He definitely needed to hit as Hearn held pocket kings, but a 9s turn followed by a Qc river saw ‘The Poker Brat’ heading for the rail.

The action was thick and fast due to the shallow starting stacks and hour long blinds and by the end of play only 41 players still had chips remaining!

Day 1b showed no signs of slowing down either, despite it been a more pro-heavy day with Phil Ivey, Chris ‘Jesus’ Ferguson, Annette Obrestad and 2008 WSOPE Main Event winner John Juanda taking to the tables. Out of the 313 that started, only 58 would return for Day 2.

JP Kelly was the overnight chipleader with 99,000 chips but Richard Kellet, Ian Frazer andFabian Dunlop were all hot on his heels with stacks around the 65,000 mark. Of the 89 remaining players, only 63 would make the money, meaning 26 unlucky players would be going home empty handed.

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The first three levels of the Main Event have seen over 900 players already hit the rail, leaving around 1,100 players returning from dinner break. The unofficial chip leaders are Brian Hanson and James Akenhead with 625,000 in chips. Other notables with an above average stack (currently around 170,000): Owen Crowe (555,000), Bertrand Grospellier (520,000), Sorel Mizzi (445,000), David Benyamine (402,000), Phil Hellmuth (390,000), Phil Ivey (360,000), Lou Diamond Phillips (345,000), Mike Sexton (297,000), Dennis Phillips (240,000), Tom Schneider (230,000), 2009 WSOP Player of the Year Jeff Lisandro (211,000) and Jason Alexander (190,000).

Notables who hit the rail:

Erik Seidel, Raymond Rahme, Jimmy Fricke, Jean-Robert Bellande, Bill Edler, Darus Suharto, Ville Wahlbeck, “Miami John” Cernuto, Bryan Micon, Roland de Wolfe and Sam Farha.

More stuff from Pokerati later this evening as the money bubble may be reached tonight, depending on how fast the eliminations go after dinner.

First, an interview with the Commish from SkyPoker’s James Hartigan about Day 1d (Thanks to DesD on 2+2 for the link):

Day 2a concluded with 607 players remaining and Andrew Gaw the chip leader with 386,800 in chips. In an interesting story, Eric Cloutier, who was reported chip leader at the end of day 1a with 150,750 in chips, turned out to have 15,075 to start the day. He ends today in 2nd place with 383,500 in chips. Other notables: Greg Mueller (287,300), Andy Black (215,700), Mike Sexton (169,000), Kara Scott (139,500), Jimmy Fricke (138,300), Tom Schneider (123,700), Greg Raymer (95,900), Jason Alexander (73,700), Sam Farha (67,500), Erik Seidel (55,600) and Roland de Wolfe (21,200). To view the entire list of day 2a survivors, follow this link.

The Mystery of Amazon Green 156

The day 2 situation brings up this interesting case, especially since it’s the very last table in the Amazon Room. As I mentioned to Pauly, there were 4 players on the day 1d entrants list who were seated in the 10 seat, all of them in the Amazon Green section:

Jeppe Nielsen – Amazon Green 143/10
Joe Reitman – Amazon Green 144/10
Marco Bertaccini – Amazon Green 145/10
Dale Poynter – Amazon Green 146/10

To be fair, only Poynter’s table was actually 10-handed, although in Reitman’s case, that table only seated 7 players (according to the list). Another interesting table is Amazon Green 156, which is seated as follows:

LANDAU, MICHAEL
ERNA, SALVATORE
GASPARD, JEAN
HACHEM, TONY
MICHNIK, MICHAEL
HARRISON, AUDLEY
SEED, HUCK
MORRISON, KIRK
ODONNELL, KEVIN

Gaspard and Seed both had been guaranteed a seat, for winning WSOP-C New Orleans and the NBC Heads-Up event respectively, as noted by the Commish in the above video. Audley Harrison is a known British boxer who has played a few events this year at the WSOP. Some of the rumors that were flying around the Rio yesterday were about some players getting preferential treatment. I’ll leave it to the reader to guess which names on the above list fit that role. Another name worth mentioning is Kevin O’Donnell, who apparently was shut out, according to Gary Wise’s article on ESPN.com:

Frustration was boiling over among those who felt their dreams of championship glory moving beyond reach, many feeling betrayed by what they saw as insufficient warning of what might be going down.

“I think that Harrah’s communications was awful,” said Kevin O’Donnell, a professional circuit regular who’d gone home to Arizona for Independence Day. “If they’d warned us better about this possibility, we’d have made the needed adjustments. There are a lot of things they’re going to say that are true, but ultimately the communications broke down. As a business person, I understand you can only fit in so many people, but they should have done a better job of letting people know they were going to have these space issues.”

Meanwhile, Palansky was sending out a follow up e-mail at 12:08 p.m. entitled “WSOP Main Event – Flight 1D is a SELLOUT.”

Yet O’Donnell did get a seat — at Amazon Green 156 — and returns today with more than 72,000 in chips.

Day 2b gets underway at noon today, playing 4 two-hour levels. A not exact list of chip counts and where they’ll be sitting can be found here. If you’re in the Amazon Room and poker room, you’ll be playing 9-handed. Buzio’s and any of the other tournament rooms will mostly start 10-handed, although they’ll be breaking tables as fast as they can to get to 9-handed as quickly as possible. One of the tables not in use at the moment, Amazon Green 156.

Follow the live updates at www.wsop.com and other updates from Pokerati about other goings on at the WSOP.

It’s something that wasn’t written about in Super/System … yet everyone has to consider it. Barry Greenstein has a good vlog post up about what goes into making a decision about which day to start in the WSOP main event, where he gives his thoughts on why day 1c may be the toughest field to wade through — with input from Justin Bonomo, Roland deWolfe, and Sorrel Mizzi. Check it out here.

The last week at the 2009 WSOP has seen some impressive performances from the European poker contingent. Europeans love to head over to ‘Sin City’ when the World Series of Poker is running and this year they’ve enjoyed great success with cashes and bracelets galore to be celebrated. When it comes to WSOP bracelets, what happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas!

Finland’s Mika Paasonen fell at the final hurdle in the $2,000 No Limit Hold’em event. Paasonen, who made a name for himself online before switching to the live arena, couldn’t overcome Angel Guillen, from Mexico City, in a tense heads-up encounter. Paasonen joins fellow Finn and possibly one of the players of the WSOP so far, Ville Walhbeck, in the top 10 European money winners for 2009 to date. Wahlbeck’s deep cashes and bracelet success sees the man from Helsinki sitting pretty on $849,793 in winnings so far. Paasonen is a respectable 8th on $333,593 following his three cash results.

Fabrice Soulier from France has continued his superb WSOP run of form. Following the $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha event, where the Frenchman finished in 21st for $14,433, Soullier led the number of cashes leaderboard with an impressive six. However, he has only made one final from his six cashes and, at the moment, his consistency seems to lack the killer instinct needed to win a bracelet.

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For those who missed it live … here’s yesterday’s Poker Beat podcast to get you through “the grind”, the hump, the “dog days”, whatever you wanna call the Series in mid-June. In this episode, we discuss what a bracelet really means to a guy like Greg Mueller, just how good really is JC Tran, and, in this Year of apparent Multiples, what’s a guy like Roland deWolfe all about? Also … “Full Tilt’s” lawsuit (via Kolyma) vs. an Aruba-Aussie payment processor run by 25-year-old Crocodile D-bag … and “celebrity” tournament director Matt Savage joins us to discuss the TDA Summit — and specifically rule changes related to texting at the table.

on PokerRoad

The Poker Beat
Huff, Caldwell, Michalski, Nemeth, Wise, Stapleton + Savage
6/18/09

[audio:http://www.pokerroad.com/upload/radio/23/audio/TPB_06_18_09.mp3]

Sorry for the slowdown in getting podcasts to you. For those who can’t always handle semi-informed snarky banter for more than 2-4 minutes at a time and need more vulgarity and shticked-up grit, Tao of Pokerati (brought to you by Dream Team Poker) will also be back very soon.

Bring it!

Recapping the early action from Thursday at the WSOP:

De Wolfe Lying Low at Final Table

As Dan mentioned below, Roland de Wolfe is trying to win his second bracelet at this year’s WSOP at the $1,500 NL Holdem final table. As the player’s just left for a dinner break, here’s the chip standings with seven players remaining:

Jonas Klausen – 3,315,000
Eric Baldwin – 2,505,000
James Taylor – 1,385,000
Andrew Youngblood – 1,118,000
Benjamin Scholl – 500,000
Roland de Wolfe – 305,000
Steven Bradbury – 240,000

Jesper Jumps to PLO Lead

About 30 players in the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha returned from their dinner break a few minutes ago, with Jesper Hougaard is the current leader. Sorel Mizzi, Isaac Baron, Ralph Perry, David “Devilfish” Ulliot and Fabrice Soulier are some of the notables remaining in the field as they try to make the final table of nine by the 3am deadline.

$2,000 NL Holdem Update

A smaller than expected field of 1,695 started the $2,000 NL Holdem event at noon today, with less than 700 who return after their 90-minute dinner break. Some notables who will get to return: Svetlana Gromenkova, Shaun Deeb, Joe Sebok, Roy Winston, Eugene Todd, Maria Ho and Michael Binger.

Stud 8 or Better Update

The $10,000 Stud 8 or Better World Championship drew a field of 164 that started shortly after 5pm, who will play eight levels tonight. Daniel Alaei is the early chip leader, with Scotty Nguyen, Tuan Le, Scott Clements and Frank Kassela among the notables near the top of the leaderboard. Tom Schneider is currently listed at 22,000 in chips (players started with 30,000).

More updates during the evening can be found at www.wsop.com and Pokerati during the evening hours

Roland de Wolfe is at the final table in a $1,500 donkament, going for his second bracelet of 2009. Would be pretty cool to win one in a 198-player PLO-HL and a 2,095-player NLH.

The fact that I had him on my fantasy team in 2008 and not 2009 just further reassures me that I am a man ahead of my time.

Current final-table chip counts:

1. Jonas Klausen 2,849,000
2. Steven Bradbury 1,860,000
3. Eric Baldwin 1,700,000
4. James Taylor 1,200,000
5. Martin Jacobson 633,000
6. Roland de Wolfe 500,000
7. Andrew Youngblood 453,000
8. Benjamin Scholl 328,000

Click here to follow the action online.

And here (Bluff) or here (PKR) to watch it live.

Recapping the late Wednesday night WSOP activity…

WSOP Bracelet Touched by Angel

Angel Guillen picked up his first WSOP bracelet in the $2,000 NL Holdem event, defeating Mika Paasonen in a marathon heads up match to deny Finland a second WSOP bracelet. Guillen adds over $530,000 for first place, and throws his name into the Player of the Year race, as he had a 2nd place finish in the $2,500 NL Holdem event two weeks ago.

Mueller Musters a Bracelet

The $10,000 Limit Holdem World Championship ended with a 1-2 finish for Canada, as Greg “FBT” Mueller passed Pat Pezzin to win his first WSOP bracelet. Mueller, a former hockey player, mentioned he was inspired by the Stanley Cup making an appearance at the WSOP on Wednesday, saying it was his destiny to win after having made several WSOP final tables, and two second place finishes in previous attempts.

Klausen Claims Day 3 Chip Lead

The $1,500 NL Holdem event heads to its conclusion at 1pm today with 21 players remaining, and Dane Jonas Klausen holding the lead with 939,000 in chips. Swede Martin Jacobson starts in second (806,000) with Roland de Wolfe, (644,000), Eric Baldwin (610,000), Bertrand “Elky” Grospellier (414,000) and Young Phan (211,000) among the notables remaining. When they eventually make the final table, it’ll be streamed over the Internet at www.bluffmagazine.com/live and wsop.pkr.com.

Hougaard Adds to Dane Domination

Another Dane, Jesper Hougaard will lead the 64 returning players who resume at 2pm in the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha event with 208,500 in chips. Sorel Mizzi (177,000), Jeff Lisandro (162,500), Sandra Naujoks (157,000), David “Devilfish” Ulliott (140,000) and John Kabbaj (95,700) are some of the notables looking to make the money, which will be reached when 36 players remain.

Thursday’s Tournaments and Projections

Two tournaments kick off on Thursday, starting with the $2,000 NL Holdem event at 12pm, which was won last year by Alexandre Gomes in a field of 2,317. The $10,000 Stud Eight or Better World Championship commences at 5pm, which was won last year by Sebastian Ruthenberg in a field of 261 when the buyin was $5,000. The WSOP Staff Guide projects a field of 2,549 for the $2,000 NL (expect a field of 2,100), while the $10,000 Stud 8 World Championship field is projected at 150 (take slightly under, 135).

Come back to Pokerati during the day for more WSOP stories, and follow the live updates at www.wsop.com starting at 12pm today.

Recapping the Tuesday night activities as we begin week four of the WSOP…

Van Alstyne Back in the Saddle with HORSE Triumph

James Van Alstyne, who finished second in the $3,000 HORSE event last week after holding the chip lead, came back in the $1,500 HORSE event to take down his first WSOP bracelet along with the $247,003 winnings. Tad Jurgens was runnerup, Mitch Schock finished third, and Bryan Micon, named one of poker’s “true anarchists” in Nolan Dalla’s final table report, finished fourth.

Boyes Buoyed by Chip Lead

The $2,000 NL Holdem event starts day 3 with 19 players remaining as they play down to a bracelet winner with Jason Boyes the current chip leader at 976,000. Finland’s Mika Paasonen is in 2nd place to try to be the 2nd Finn with a WSOP bracelet this year. Angel Guillen (496,000) and Peter “Nordberg” Feldma (486,000), and Daniel Makowsky (177,000) appear to be the most notable players remaining.

Limit Holdem Left with a Not So Dirty Dozen

The $10,000 Limit Holdem World Championship has twelve players remaining as they resume at 1pm today to reach the final table for a scheduled 2pm broadcast on ESPN360 and wsop.pkr.com. Here’s how the remaining players are seated with plenty of familiar names for the poker viewer:

Seat 1: Maria Ho – 228000
Seat 3: Greg ‘FBT’ Mueller – 485000
Seat 4: Pat Pezzin – 300000
Seat 5: Kenny Hsiung – 831000
Seat 6: Soheil Shamseddin – 385000
Seat 9: Jennifer Harman – 126000

Seat 1: Matt Glantz – 483000
Seat 4: Chad Brown – 545000
Seat 5: Matt Hawrilenko – 601000
Seat 7: Michiel Brummelhuis – 687000
Seat 8: Mark Klecan – 603000
Seat 9: Daniel Alaei – 330000

Unfortunately, Ville Wahlbeck finished outside the money, but maintains his WSOP Player of the Year lead.

The Pros Strike Back Against the Donks

The $1,500 NL Holdem event returns at 2pm with 240 players remaining, only 216 get paid. James Taylor, unfortunately not this James Taylor has the chip lead with 174,400. More notable names are near the top of the leaderboard include: Eugene Katchalov (90,600), Roberto Romanello (89,400), Phil Hellmuth (88,100), Pat Poels (84,500), Quinn Do (80,600), Roland de Wolfe (61,300), and Allen Cunningham (60,200).

Wednesday’s Tournament

Only one event again on the calendar today, with the debut of the $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha event. This event usually is played with rebuys, but their elimination this year makes this a new event. As usual, players will start with 5,000 in chips followed by two “free rebuy” chips to add to their stacks at any time in the first three levels. The WSOP Staff Guide projects a field of 250, but expect closer to 400 when play starts at noon this afternoon. Follow along with the action at www.wsop.com and return to Pokerati during the day for other stuff.

Here are some interesting numbers, from WSOP statisticians:

In Baseball Terms: A .300 hitter in baseball is considered special.  The below chart details those who are cashing at the WSOP at a similar clip:

NAME	CASHES	EVENTS ENTERED	CASH PERCENTAGE
Howard Boyd	4	12	0.333
Fabrice Soulier	4	12	0.333
Anthony Cousineau	4	12	0.333
Barry Greenstein	4	13	0.307
Roland DeWolfe	4	13	0.307
John Monnette	3	10	0.30

(Minimum 10 events; through Event #28)

Honorable Mentions: Ville Wahlbeck (cashes in 4 of 5 events entered; 80%), Darryl Fish (cashes in 5 of 8 events entered; 62.5%) and David Baker (cashes in 5 of 8 events entered; 62.5%) have all proven their mettle as well.

Click below to see who’s getting a lot of at-bats, but relatively few hits:

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Roland deWolfe, the most recent WSOP bracelet winner, representin’ the GBR Joe Elliot-style.

One of today’s bracelets goes to Sweden. Any chance Tomas Alenius will request the Finnish national anthem be played — you know, to make things right in Scandiland? Doubt it …

In addition to Alenius’ bracelet, the UK picked up two in recent days, and Canada one — making things start to look a bit more normal … it’s not all about the Russians this year. In fact, are they still here?

And though Europe has caught up with the two US powerhouses (Nevada and California), they actually lost a bracelet (and some other cashes), as we’ve corrected Jeff Lisandro’s results to show up on behalf of his new homeland, Australia. (This way this data is collected, player info comes from whatever’s attached to their Harrah’s Total Rewards card … so if they haven’t updated their info in, say, several years … the old address is what’s on record.)

Lisandro’s defection from Italy to a land down under also altered the tertiary emerging market standings — with Asia-Pacific re-taking a slight lead over Latin America — despite Chile and Bolivia getting their first cashes of the year.

Texas has finally taken down a bracelet, btw.

And a player from Wasilla, Alaska, finished in the money — there’s a town we wouldn’t have taken note of in last year’s WSOP. It’s Canadian neighbors in the Yukon Territory also got on the board.

Hong Kong also made some money.

And though we don’t really track by cities, apparently Chicago is really good at sit-n-gos, as the Windy City sat three players at the final table in the $1,500 NLH-Shootout. Could just be variance, of course, but for now we’ll pretend it’s not.

The morning update for those that didn’t stay up all night to watch…

Zac Attac!

Zac Fellows took down the $3,000 HORSE event in a marathon final table just a couple hours ago, outlasting James Van Alstyne to take a bracelet home to Canada along with $311,899. With five players left, Van Alstyne had over half the chips in play, while Fellows was extremely short stacked. Eventually he worked his way to heads-up with Van Alstyne, the stacks nearly even. After nearly two hours of heads-up action, Fellows would finally finish off Van Alstyne, leaving him drawing dead in the holdem round to finish 2nd, good for nearly $200,000 and take him over the $3m mark in career tournament earnings.

Shootout at the Rio, Day 3

The final table is now set in the $1,500 NL Holdem Shootout with these 10 players left for a bracelet returning at 2pm to air on ESPN360 (wsop.pkr.com for those outside the US, and as always links courtesy of The Hendon Mob database:

Seat 1: Jason Somerville – 450000
Seat 2: Christopher Moore – 450000
Seat 3: Joseph Cutler – 450000
Seat 4: Jeffrey Carris – 450000
Seat 5: Michael McNeil – 450000
Seat 6: Joshua Tieman – 450000
Seat 7: Eugene Katchalov – 450000
Seat 8: Ralph Shannon – 450000
Seat 9: Andrew Margolis – 450000
Seat 10: Brandon Wong – 450000

2-7 NL Draw-ing to an End

The final table of the $10,000 NL 2-7 Single Draw World Championship finished with 10 players remaining when play ended earlier this morning. Here’s how these players are currently situated:

Seat 1: Justin ‘BoostedJ’ Smith – 122500
Seat 2: Steve Sung – 212500
Seat 3: Nick Schulman – 300000
Seat 5: Archie Karas – 264500
Seat 6: Vince Musso – 765500
Seat 7: David Benyamine – 139000

(Table 151)
Seat 2: Michael Binger – 108000
Seat 3: Ville Wahlbeck – 481000
Seat 5: Roland de Wolfe – 102000
Seat 6: John Juanda – 387000

Ville Wahlbeck continues his impressive run in World Championship events this WSOP, cashing in his fourth $10k buyin event. Steve Sung started play on Thursday 57th out of 57 players with just 6,100 in chips.

Donks Down!

The $1,500 NL Holdemevent finished exactly on the money as 270 players remain when play resumes at 2pm this afternoon. Glenn McCaffreywill start the day as chip leader at 187,800. Some of the notables who will also return on Friday: Dean Hamrick (134,700), Anthony Yeh (111,400), Kara Scott (81,700), Nam Le (57,000), and Thayer Rasmussen (50,200).

Half and Half

Day 2 of the $2,500 Omaha 8/Stud 8 resumes at 2pm with 153 players returning, 40 of which make the money. Veteran pro Can Kim Hua starts the day chip leader at 51,800. Notables trying to surpass him include: Jon Turner (43,300), Shirley Rosario (36,200), Phil Ivey (33,600), Chad Brown (31,200), and Shawn Sheikhan (29,500).

Friday’s Tournaments/Projections

The 12pm tournament will be the $1,500 Limit Holdem event, which was won last year by Jimmy Schultz for over $250,000 in a field of 883. The 5pm event makes its debut, $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha 8 or Better. The WSOP Staff Guide projects the $1,500 Limit Holdem event field as 880 (taking the under, 804 is my guess), while the $5,000 PLO 8 event has a projected field of 150 (take the over, 168 being my estimate).

More news during the day here at Pokerati, so come back several times during the day.

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.

A recap of the events from earlier this morning, trying something new to avoid the wall of text my morning reports have become:

Harb-oring a bracelet

Congratulations go out to Anthony Harb who took down the $2,000 NL Holdem event for $569,254 earlier this morning, outlasting Peter Rho and Jim Geary. All three players had cashed in earlier events in the WSOP as Harb and Rho cashed in the $1k NL Stimulus Special), while Geary finished 7th in the $1,500 OHL event.

Off to a Flying Finn-ish start

Onnittelu to the first Finn to win a WSOP bracelet, as Ville Wahlbeck, who had an earlier 3rd place finish in the $10,000 7 Card Stud World Championship bested David Chiu in heads-up play to take home the bracelet that eluded him earlier in the week, collecting nearly $500,000. He also moves into the lead in the WSOP Player of the Year race with 160 points, ahead of Phil Ivey and Vitaly Lunkin’s 110 points.

Another Finn looking for some glory of his own will be Tommi Horkko, who is the chip leader (509,000) with 11 left when the $2,500 Limit Holdem 6-max event gets underway at 1pm today. Daniel Negreanu (470,000) is close behind in 2nd place. Barry Shulman, Brock Parker, Shawn Buchanan and Nikolay Losev are the more notable names remaining in the compact field.

NAFTA: $2,500 NL version

The $2,500 NL Holdem event will also return at 1pm today with 20 players returning to play down to a winner. It”ll be like the Ross Perot v Al Gore debate all over again as Texan Gregg Merkow starts play as the chip leader (932,000), with Mexico’s Angel Guillen (860,000) and Canada’s Bahador Ahmadi (800,000) are the top three stacks fighting it out in the name of free trade and poker supremacy. Other international invaders who’ll be trying to take the bracelet to their own trade zone includes the UK’s Roland de Wolfe (400,000) and Russia’s Kirill Gerasimov (390,000).

Brazilian waxing 5k NL holdem

Brazilian Clemencau Calixto, not to be confused with the New Mexico band Calexico, is the chip leader (186,300) at the end of day 1, as 164 players will return at 2pm. Frere Jacques Faraz Jaka is 3rd in chips at 172,200. Other notables who are in the top half of the field: defending champion Scott Seiver (118,600), Jimmy “Gobbo” Fricke (112,200), Isaac Baron (101,300), David Benefield (85,200), Gavin Griffin (69,100), Erik Seidel (65,900), and Dan Heimiller (56,200).

$1,500 7 Card Studs

From a field of 359, only 97 will make their way back into the Rio at 2pm to attempt to reach a final table. The day 1 chip leader is David Levi (49,600). Among those in the top 10: Dutch Boyd (47,700), Jeff Lisandro (40,700), Jason Mercier (35,000), and Eli Elezra (31,100). Other notables include: Sam Grizzle, Nick Frangos, Pokerati’s own Robert Goldfarb, and Barbara Enright.

Hey Ladies!

Today’s event at 12 noon is the $1,000 NL Holdem Ladies’ World Championship, which was won last year by professional Svetlana Gromenskova in a field of 1,190 to collect just over $220,000 in cash. It remains to be seen if any guys will attempt to enter the field like last year, but it’ll surely make a great photo op for someone bold enough to give it a try.

Omaha, 8? You better!

The 5pm event today will be the $10,000 Omaha 8 or Better World Championship which was won last year by David Benyamine in a field of 235 to add over $535,000 to his tournament stats.

Projections

$1,000 Ladies World Championship – 1,190 (take the over, saying 1,254)
$10,000 OHL World Championship – 247 (take the under, guessing 231)

Follow the updates at www.worldseriesofpoker.com and Pokerati for the other stuff.