Andreas “Skjervøy” Torbergsen

I swear I told’em it wasn’t necessary, but my good pals at CardRunners insisted …

Knowing I’ve been actively working on my PLO game, and that I have my first such “beginners” PLO tournament coming up Aug. 18 @detoxpoker, CR has signed Andreas Torbergsen (aka “Skjervøy”) as a dedicated PLO instructor and team pro. (He’s also been recently added as a Full Tilt Red Pro.)

Here’s an interview with the Norwegian grinder made extra-good … about taking his 1/2 PLO game to Vegas in 2005 and eventually juicing it up to a seven-figure bankroll. And kudos to the dude for not dropping out of university, apparently seeing the value of a marketing degree even though his current winnings could be enough to make most poker players say skøøl schmjool.

To get Andreas’ forthcoming instructional vids (for free) you can sign up for Truly Free Poker Training.

Unless, of course, you happen to play in the Pokerati game. If you do, then just ignore all this and continue to get it all-in with a weak pair and non-nut draw!

Slow action or not … that’s what TV editing is for, and makes me think some damn good poker is being played. (Ahh, how I’ve been corrupted from back in the day when I thought every final table should be shown live in its totality.)

Seriously, can’t wait to see it on TV. You’ve got bracelets out the yin-yang. Two November Niners. The father of the November Nine’s bad-guy. An epicurean old-timer Brit. Daniel Negreanu. International flavor. Accomplished young guns. Scandis. All in the pretty cool setting that is The Casino at the Empire.

It was a sexy, if not tough field to get through, too. The in-the-money fight from four tables down to one saw Doyle Brunson, Liz Lieu, EPL soccer legend Teddy Sheringham, Devilfish, Men the Master, Hendon Mobber Ram Vaswani, Steven Z for good measure, and plenty of valid others.

(Wouldn’t it be dandy if ESPN could show maybe an hour of lead-up, with two hours of final table? Just an NFL football game, ya know?)

@JeffreyPollack‘s been giving his eloquently bare-bones play-by-play.

And you can also follow via our pals at Betfair.

Click below to see a more detailed breakdown of the players of what may well be one of the most storied final tables of the year:

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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.

So wow, look at that California vs. Nevada battle … tight tight tight! And for real, where is the Poker Capitol of the World? So much taxable difference between Daniel Alaei and Daniel Negreanu.

California is the only region, btw, with someone to cash in every single event so far. Nevada players (mostly Las Vegans) have cashed in every tournament but one — the $1,500 7cs that Jeff Lisandro won (representing Italy).

“Europe” has cashed in every single event.

One of the biggest surprise shifts has taken place at the bottom of the table — could you theoretically have relegation in poker? — where the Latin Americans have come on strong to surpass the Asia-Pacifickers in bringing home the most skrilla. Most of this comes on the backs of Mexicans, specifically Angel Guillen’s $318k 2nd place score in $2,500 NLH, which a dozen Aussie ITM finishers and a Korean have not been able to match.

Click here to view the complete Pokerati’s complete 2009 WSOP World Standings.

Perhaps in the future the WSOP could take a note from Facebook, allowing players to enter both a current city and a hometown … so say a guy like Daniel Negreanu were to win, he would be tallied for both Canada and the USA, and would have a choice over what anthem he wants to play at his bracelet ceremony. Lots of potential “fun” controversy in that … and we’d finally get to see how good all those California-centric (but US-scattered) Vietnamese really are.

Some newcomers to the 2009 WSOP money:

Both Slovenia and Slovakia booked a cash.

Also … Rhode Island
Nebraska
Washington DC
Puerto Rico
Delaware

The UK is making a charge to challenge the Russians.

And where’s Denmark, who were certainly more than just Peter Eastgate last year? The Scandis would be doing little if it were not for a few Finns this year.

Texas is the top money-winner without a bracelet.

Mad props to the Hawaiians, who thanks to Lisa Hamilton’s bracelet in the Ladies event, silenced the Alaskans who briefly looked like they were gonna stake a claim to extra-continental American poker supremacy.

With just a few hundred dollars of separation, Maine and Spain are also in a kinda tight race money-wise. They rhyme.

Tom Dwan doesn’t slowroll, and you shouldn’t either.

My latest Bluff column is now up online … in this episode I call out the Scandis for potentially causing a violent international incident:

Without a doubt, for low stakes players MGM cash games can be a test of nerves…. Little did I know it would be a test of my sanity, not to mention my criminal intent.

The villain in this story is a slowroller, so I’m sure most will understand. Before the night was over he had an entire table plotting revenge. The plan was to gang-tackle him in an elevator, beat him senseless, take his money, then beat him some more, and then, just to let him know we weren’t really crooks, roll up the cash and wedge it in his facial orifices. Or at least that’s what one of us was thinking… that’ll teach him proper etiquette!

One of Pokerati’s WSOPals is up for an award: Lina Olofsson is a finalist for Scandinavian Female Poker Player of the Year in some Scandi Poker Awards from PokerStars. Honestly, though I know she had some good success at the tables last year, I don’t know much else about her play other than that she cashed in a $2k NLH at the ’08 WSOP. So here’s what they’ve got to say in PokerStars Scandiland about the poker media’s favorite Swede:

Lina placerade sig i pengarna i ett WSOP-event efter att hon även lyckats vinna två säten till WSOP Main Event till ett värde av totalt 28 000 dollar. Hon gick sedan långt i online-SM där hon kom på 22:a plats av 1788 startande. Lina kom också 4:a i Casino Cosmopols stora turnering i Göteborg, Spring Poker Week och vann 99000 kr. Hon har spelat in över 160 000 kronor på turneringar under 2008.

Right on. I couldn’t agree more. Especially the Spring Poker Week. Sweet as pie, and talented writer and photog … so we’re giving her the offiicial nod. You should, too.

Click here and scroll down to vote.

Ylon Schwartz check-raises with nothing into the nuts of Peter Eastgate, and Pauly and I begin the countdown and begin speculating on what two Eurokids (and maybe even Dennis Phillips) will mean for poker/PokerStars … and where poker is in Europe these days. But are Russians dead money or just scary? Maybe a little bit of both? Plus advanced blogging strategy by Dr. Pauly.

Book 4: WSOP Final Table
Episode 4.9: The Novembrists 5:31

[audio:tao/TOP-4-9.mp3]

At this moment, Dennis Phillips is drawing dead with one card to come. That will be 3rd place for him — his boisterous crowd and his Red Hat Brigade are honoring him the way friends of someone who has just won $4.5 million should. (That’s Greg Raymer money.) Lots of applause.

Heads-up will be Ivan Demidov vs. Peter Eastgate (who stands to be the youngest player ever to win the main event).

Year of the European Young Guns, it turns out to be.

Most of the under bets, by the way, regarding time, win … except for Jen, who took the under on 10 pm. (What was she thinking!)

Chip Counts

Peter Eastgate – 79,425,000
Ivan Demidov – 57,800,000

Clearly anybody’s game. Russians vs. Scandis. I’m going with Demidov, though. As we know, the Russians were the ones that really made a showing at the 2008 WSOP, regardless of how tomorrow turns out. Scandis were like so 2007.

We’re coming into the homestretch, and it will take some big finishes for any nation/state to make a big move. Looked like Cali might give Nevada a run for its money, but shortly after John Phan won his bracelet (and $151k) for the Golden State in Event #40, the Silver State more than caught up when Joe Commiso booked a $911k win in Event #46.

To keep up-to-date with the full list of WSOP results by country, state, and in some cases protectorate, bookmark this page here.

Just for the record, we ganked some prize dollars from the LV cashout base. Shannon Shorr is now a full-blooded Alabaman an David Benyamine a Frenchie. So far have not heard any Las Vegans protest the transfers — but Mayor Oscar Goodman could persuade us to reconsider. Hoyt Corkins is still split — with two cashes going toward Las Vegas, and one to Alabama — torn on what to do with him … will try to track him down and ask him directly. As things stand with 9 events and 10s of millions in prize money remaining, only about $1 million separates the two real contenders for Poker Capital of the World — and while both have about the same number of final tables, California has four fewer bracelets but about 200 more cashes than its eastern neighbor.

Texas, meanwhile, sits strongly atop as the best of the second-best — banking the most money of all the places without a bracelet under its 2008 belt.

The Euros have made really strong showings over the past few days … and seemingly going deep in any event that rewards aggression (like 6-handed NLH). Either the events cater to their playing style, simply more are arriving, they’re coming in fresh off the bench, or some combination of all of that.

Likewise, a Canadian may have won event #44, but the Danes dominated it — I suppose it shouldn’t surprise us that the Scandis know quite a bit about rebuys.

New appearances in the standings:
Czech Republic
Cayman Islands
Newfoundland, Canada

Lebanon also posts its first 2008 cash — not in anything recent, but we just figured out that Naji Hajjar, who finished 73rd in Event #6 ($1,500 Omaha Hi-Lo), was from there.

By the way, speaking of … if anyone knows the hometown locations of any of the players below, please let us know so we can better classify these unknowns:

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Found this vid, shot at the EPT Championship last month in Monte Carlo … where Daniel Negreanu pwns a Scandi reporter (new word for me!), or maybe it’s the other way around:

There’s question whether or not it was staged. In Las Vegas I am pretty sure his shove would be considered assault, but maybe not so in Monaco? Either way, my experience at the tables tells me that 2 in 12 to 14 Scandis are slowrollers … so that suggests it’s statistically possible it was an authentic provocation.

I think this story — about the Austrian state gambling entity going into business with the Swedish online poker oligarchy — will go under the radar but is much bigger than it appears for the future of poker … in a good way.