Recapping Friday night’s WSOP tournaments with the two latest bracelet winners finally determined Saturday morning, but first some breaking news for Pokerati fans:

DonkeyBomber leads 1k Seniors’ field

Day 1 of the $1,000 Seniors’ No-Limit Holdem Championship concluded with 427 players remaining at the end of 10 levels of play. The reported chip leader is Team Pokerati/Loudmouth Poker pro Tom Schneider in front with 94,000 in chips. Other notables with chips when play resumes at 2:30pm: Berry Johnston (62,900), Lon McEachern (27,200) and Sam Simon (23,100). A full list of chip counts is now available at PokerNews.

Ellis wins bracelet #4 for the UK

The $1,500 No-Limit Holdem event reached a conclusion first as Mike Ellis overcame a large chip deficit heads-up against Christopher Gonzales to win the bracelet along with $581,851 as the Briton wins the fourth bracelet this year for the UK, moving them into second in the WSOP world standings. Gonzales earned $360,906 for the runner-up finish. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report are available at wsop.com.

Puchkov punches his way to HORSE victory

The $1,500 HORSE event finally concluded in the wee hours of the morning as Konstantin Puchkov defeated Al “Sugar Bear” Barbieri to earn $256,820 and a WSOP bracelet. Barbieri earned $158,647 for the second place finish. Full results and Dalla’s tournament report will be available at wsop.com shortly.

Lindgren, Nguyen feature final day of 5k NL 6-max

The final day of the $5,000 No-Limit Holdem 6-max event gets underway with 12 players remaining. Here’s how the field will be seated when play resumes at 3pm:

Seat 1: Orlando Delacruz – 301,000
Seat 2: Anthony Roux – 668,000
Seat 3: Evan Panesis – 299,000
Seat 4: Jeffrey “jpapola” Papola – 598,000
Seat 5: Mark Radoja – 1,493,000
Seat 6: Darren Elias – 841,000

Seat 1: Bruno Launais – 875,000
Seat 2: Men Nguyen – 264,000
Seat 3: Erick Lindgren – 1,165,000
Seat 4: Taylor Mcfarland – 848,000
Seat 5: Paul Sheng – 712,000
Seat 6: Lucas Greenwood – 425,000

Follow the updates of this event at PokerNews.

Velador and Chiu top two in 2500 PLO/PLH

Day 3 of the $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha/Pot-Limit Holdem resumes at 3pm with 14 players remaining. Jose-Luis Velador (455,000) and David Chiu (451,000) are the leaders, while Rob Hollink (423,000), Victor Ramdin (262,000) and Phil Ivey (207,000) also return. PokerNews will be there until a bracelet winner is determined.

10k NL Heads-Up down to final 64

Two rounds of play have finished in the $10,000 No-Limit Holdem Heads-Up Championship with 64 players remaining when the field returns at 3pm. The 32 round three winners will make the money, with some of the notables returning include: Phil Ivey, Gavin Smith, Phil Gordon, Antonio Esfandiari, Sorel Mizzi, Jonathan Little, Josh Arieh, Vanessa Rousso and Vivek Rajkumar. The full bracket for this event is now online at wsop.com.

Saturday’s tournaments

The 12pm tournament is day 1a of the fourth $1,000 No-Limit Holdem event of the WSOP, with a field of at least 3,000 expected over the weekend. The 5pm tournament is the $3,000 HORSE event, which drew a field of 452 players last year with Zac Fellows coming out on top for $311,899.

The All In for Cerebral Palsy charity tourney ran last weekend at the Hard Rock … and as any event-planning fundraiser can tell you, it’s been a little unnerving in 2009 wondering if people will actually show up to support your cause.

This was a $500 buy-in event (with $200 rebuys, an auction, and silent auction to boot) … and in the end turned out to be an arguably successful second-annual event — raising more than $58k for the One Step Closer Foundation while bettering its inaugural bar of $44k. Some 91 players competed for an $18,500 prize pool — including yours truly, who was in on a freeroll, but couldn’t resist making a tax-deductible, charitable donation to keep playing at a fun table with a PPA friend, Dennis Phillips, a CP-suffering beneficiary, and Ken Davitian (the fat naked guy from Borat) … especially with Davitian and another actor (whom I recognized but couldn’t name) being the weakest players yet having the biggest stacks as the rebuy period was coming to a close.

Alas, QQ sometimes is < AK just minutes before the break. I shook off the tilt by wandering around with a (shaky) camera to give you a glimpse of All In for CP and the Las Vegas rounders who seem to continuously show up and spur donations via fun-times feelgood poker when called upon:

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Recapping the first half of Wednesday’s WSOP:

Lisandro Wins Bracelet #3, Wins Stud Triple Crown

Jeff Lisandro becomes the first player to win three bracelets in one WSOP after Chris Moneymaker initiated the poker boom in 2003, takes down the $2,500 Razz event, good for $188,370. Lisandro has won all three of his bracelets in stud events in each of the three disciplines of stud (Stud high, Stud Hi/Lo and Razz). Lisandro held the chip lead at the beginning of the day and was never seriously threatened. Michael Craig finished in 2nd, good for $116,405. Other notable finishes: Kenna James (6th), Al “Sugar Bear” Barbieri (10th), Ville Wahlbeck (12th) and Nikolay Evdakov (13th).

Seniors Six-Pack

Half a dozen players remain in the $1,000 Seniors NL Holdem World Championship, led by Scott Buller with over 2 million in chips. Michael Morusty, Charles Simon, Dan DeLatorre, Michael Davis and Barry Bounds make up the remaining players.

Thang Flung From Omaha-8

The $2,500 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better has 70 players remaining, only 45 get paid. The unofficial chip leader is Frankie O’Dell (109,000), followed by day 1 chip leader Josh Schlien (85,000), Pat Poels (71,500), Marsha Waggoner (54,000), Mike Matusow (38,000), and Max Pescatori (28,000) among the familiar faces. Thang Luu unfortunately was eliminated before the dinner break earlier today.

Brummelhuis Bringing It in Pot-Limit

The $10,000 Pot-Limit Holdem World Championship is down to 35 players, only 27 get to cash with day 1 chip leader Michiel Brummelhuis remaining chip leader (570,000). Isaac Haxton (450,000), Eric Baldwin (430,000), Darryll Fish (310,000), Vanessa Rousso (280,000), Sam Simon (173,000), and Eugene Todd (165,000) are among the remaining.

Mixed Holdem Brings Mixed Blessings

The $2,500 Mixed Holdem event drew a field of 527 players, of which just 184 remain. The unofficial chip leader is David Baker (unknown if that’s the one from Michigan or Texas) at 73,000. Eli Elezra (51,000), Marc Naalden (46,000) and Jean-Robert Bellande (42,000) are some well known folks with chips.

More updates during the evening over at www.wsop.com and Pokerati for more Lisandro stuff and other commentary about all things WSOP.

‘Nother Sam’s Game teaser … OK, gotta say, I’m kinda likin’ the show — at least in short, few-minute blips. Though I’ve hardly even seen any hands, I have totally dug the ones I have seen. Is it at all possible that lowering the stakes and adding in more profanity, smoke, and hooker references could ever pose a threat to High Stakes Poker’s televised hold’em supremacy?

Remember the good old days, when poker was in its boom period and the poker community was treated to shows such as Celebrity Poker Showdown, Hollywood Hold ‘Em, Hip-Hop Holdem, WPT’s Hollywood Home Game, etc. etc.? Celebrities playing poker makes its “comeback” with Sam’s Game — a new show on the digital channel that is also home to The Boy Nexxt Door, e-Rotic, and Show Us Your Wits.

The show features Simpson’s co-creator Sam Simon, along with comedians Artie Lange, Dave Attell, Norm McDonald and Jeffrey Ross. Also featured are Playboy personalities Brande Roderick, Deanna Brooks, Andrea Lowell, and Stacy Fuson; along with poker personalities as Phil Laak, Sam’s ex-wife Jennifer Tilly, and Jennifer “Jennicide” Leigh. The “action” takes place in Hugh Hefner’s villa at the Palms in Las Vegas, and Playboy TV has put up a few clips on Youtube as a preview for the shows debut June 11th. Above is the longest clip, featuring Artie and Norm in a big hand. The one thing that stands out right away is that I believe this is the first poker program to ever use a 4-color deck in the graphics.

Sorry for the slacking off on posting these GSN episodes from Youtube, but I’ve been busy with stuff. This week’s episode is the last of the day 2 lineup, as some new faces will join the established players seen on the first 10 episodes finish the season 5 run.

For a brief time, next week’s episode of HSP was available on GSN’s Youtube channel. However, that’s been taken down to recirculate elsewhere on the darker corners of the Internet until it actually airs on GSN. Now that’s been rectified, here’s Sunday’s episode:

This week it’s a new lineup of players on High Stakes Poker, as the Day 2 taping series of shows begins with Antonio Esfandiari, Phil Laak, Sam Simon, Nick Cassavettes, Daniel Negreanu, Patrik Antonius, Howard Lederer and Joe Hachem trying to take each other’s money. Again, this week’s show was put up on Youtube by GSN in 3 parts, and appears to be missing a segment as it’s shorter than previous weeks.

Funny … have The Simpsons on in the background, and they just opened the show with a bit where Rev. Lovejoy had to explain to his religious superior why the church’s credit card was declined … he came up with a dismissive explanation of a security hold put on it by the bank after his wife joined an offshore poker club.

(The subtextual punchline being that they were talking about fireplace pokers.)

That Sam Simon … so nice of him to embed a joke just for us.

Ha-ha-ish.

I’m about to head over the the Golden Nugget (in an hour or so) … so then I’ll have an official count on who’s playing … but there were some last-minute swaps in play.

Yesterday, both Peter Eastgate and Barry Greenstein were hanging around waiting for an open seat. When Sam Simon decided to call it quits, Greenstein took it … seniority?

David Benyamine, Doyle Brunson, Ilari Sahamies, Eastgate, and Greenstein supposedly have their seats for today locked up. Eastgate was playing highest-stakes at the Bellagio on Friday in preparation, and lost $100k to Daniel Alaei and some player named “Brinn”. (My phonetical translation of what I heard from Eastgate’s heavy-accent recount.)

Phil Hellmuth was supposed to play today, but he backed out. Likewise for Phil Ivey. Ivan Demidov considered taking one of the empty seats, but ultimately declined. As of late yesterday, Chino Rheem was a probable, and Alaei was a possible.

UPDATE: Just got word from the set … players are late. Start delayed a half-hour.

CORRECTIONS: Tom Dwan took Sam Simon’s seat. Hellmuth was never officially on the sked. But somebody told me he might play. Perhaps he just felt the games on UB were better for him?

From an email from GSN:

GSN’S ‘HIGH STAKES POKER™’ HEADS BACK TO THE GOLDEN NUGGET HOTEL & CASINO WITH LARGEST EVER BUY-IN FOR ENTIRE RUN OF A TELEVISION SERIES

WHAT: GSN invites press to come watch the exclusive taping of the highly-anticipated fifth season of HIGH STAKES POKER™. The new season features the returns of poker stars Phil Hellmuth, Doyle Brunson and Eli Elezra, along with players new to HIGH STAKES POKER such as Tom Dwan and reigning World Champion Peter Eastgate, and recreational players like “The Simpsons” creator Sam Simon, Bob Safai and film director Nick Cassavetes. The stakes have never been higher for the players as the minimum cash buy-in of $200,000 is the largest buy-in for an entire run of a television series. The show returns to the Golden Nugget Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, NV where HIGH STAKES POKER SEASON ONE took place. Please see below for a preliminary list of players scheduled to appear.
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Keeping poker in pop culture …

In a sub-episode of tonight’s Simpsons Halloween Special XIX, Homer goes into the business of killing celebrities, the spirits of those he offs plot their revenge (with help from some historical ghosts) and come down from heaven to kill him, and — spoiler alert — when Homer dies he locks his already dead killers out of heaven, where he walks off into the sunset with Abraham Lincoln … and upon asking what’s on the night’s agenda, Abe says, “a poker tournament,” to which Homer responds, “Oooh!” before the great dead president grabs Homer’s ass.

Though I suppose it shouldn’t surprise us that anything to do with Sam Simon has poker on its mind, it’s good to see that sacrilege is still hip.

This one will make Dan smile.

The first annual “All In for CP” charity poker tournament was held at Hollywood Park Casino in L.A. this past Sunday and is being hailed as a total success. More than $44,000 was raised for Jacob Zalewski’s One Step Closer Foundation, which helps ease the lives of those afflicted with cerebral palsy, as well as researchers seeking a cure.

Numerous celebrities and poker pros attended to make the event a success, names like Montel Williams, Shannon Elizabeth, Miguel Nunez, Jamie Gold, and Barry Greenstein. And in the end, it was The Simpsons creator and Hollywood writer/producer Dan’s man crush Sam Simon who won the tournament and donated all of the winnings back to the charity. Awww!

Congrats to Jacob for hosting his first charity tournament! Sorry I missed it, as I heard it was great fun, but hope to catch the next one…