Old news, but first time I’m seeing it … (thanks KevMath for the embed code) … a very positive-for-poker segment on Good Morning America, with George Stephanopolous playing a private Poker After Dark sunrise sit-n-go against Annie Duke, Phil Hellmuth, Jason Lee, and Steve Begleiter. George played admirably and finished 3rd, after getting it in with the best hand.
Nice. What I couldn’t help but notice:
Sweet mini-gig for Ali Nejad, getting to host an event on Good Morning America.
Duke, who understands a thing or two about Washington and proper patching up, wore no UB.
Hellmuth did however — and not just UB.net, but dot-COM. Did Phil miss a memo or something?
Seriously, not to take away from the respectability of this sorta TV play … nice job by all, and hearing Stephanopolous declare his excitement about playing Ante Up for Africa-DC probably couldn’t have been a better result. But really … UB.COM? Notably either bold, ignorant, or inconsequential.
Linda Tran delivered the harsh bad beats to Phil Ivey, Steve Begleiter, and in the hand pictured here, Jeff Shulman.
This is her second time dealing the WSOP November Nine … it was her birthday … and I caught up with her (on a ledge actually) to find out what it’s been like to (repeatedly) deliver the bad news, perhaps to the detriment of dealer tips.
Not sure where he’s headed … gotta think Bellagio, right?
Anyhow, as we all know by now, Phil Ivey got bad-beated by Darvin Moon — AK < AQ -- to finish in 6th place ... which is five whole places from the win ... and ESPN musta known what was up ... he darted left, when the ESPN exit interview stage was right ... but the savvy, seasoned production crew cut him off at the pass and dragged him in front of the cameras.
He looked disgusted, to say the least. Will be interesting to see what he has to really say. (Body-language translation: hey, that's poker, but otherwise fuggoff!)
Anyhow, that's the set up ... apparently Nolan Dalla and Lacey Jones each got a question or two. PokerNews and the rest, however ... sorry, no dice.
HAND UPDATE: Steve Begleiter all-in QQ vs. (again) the AQ of Darvin Moon.Looks like the hands hold up the way their supposed to this time. Ace on the River!!!!
Begleiter out.
Moon, btw, hardly getting up and moving during it all. Should make for interesting TV.
CNBC sports business reporter Darren Rovell has been very busy today reporting from the Penn & Teller Theatre at the Rio as ESPN and the WSOP staff are busy preparing the final table to resume Saturday at 12 noon Pacific time.
Rovell has done brief interviews with WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack, chip leader Darvin Moon, and former Bear Sterns executive Steve Begleiter. The Pollack interview appears below, with the other two interviews after the jump:
The long wait is almost over as the November Nine take their place at the final table Saturday afternoon. The following look at stack sizes, seat position, blind levels, M, etc. is part of a much larger post I made over at 2+2 regarding the final table, the information taken from the WSOP November Nine Media Guide:
Final Table Details
1 – Darvin Moon 58,930,000
2 – James Akenhead 6,800,000
3 – Phil Ivey 9,765,000
4 – Kevin Schaffel 12,390,000
5 – Steven Begleiter 29,885,000
6 – Eric Buchman 34,800,000
7 – Joseph Cada 13,215,000
8 – Antoine Saout 9,500,000
9 – Jeff Shulman 19,580,000
Good article. Semi-interesting guy. Neato that the writer is in Begleiter’s extended home game and therefore has a piece of him.
Overall, the press coverage seems more extensive this year than last … I’m predicting growth in ESPN (and Harrah’s) numbers. Not huge (except maybe in Europe), but noticeably needle-moving. The diverse and topical nature of each player in the November Nine class of 2009 likely has much to do with that.
Still up for grabs: the vaunted poker yarmulke awarded to Last Jew Standing.
Here’s a storyline that ESPN somehow missed/didn’t feed us on the media-prep conference call … It’s a very Jewish WSOP main event final table.
The Jewish Daily Forward points out what may or may not be a statistical anomaly: Four of the November Nine — Jeff Shulman, Steve Begleiter, Eric Buchman, and Kevin Schaffel — happen to speak Hebrew, at least during family holidays.
From a stack perspective, these Jewish players control 49.6 percent of all the chips in play. How stereotypical …
The J-article also offers a rich history of Jews in the game … from Jack Strauss to Jamie Gold … and most recently Barry Shulman’s Yom Kippur victory at WSOP-E. Back in the day, of course, the World Series was all about Jews vs. Texans, but Texans have been sucking it up in recent years now the game has a more widespread international appeal that has prevented any one region from owning pwning it.
Full Disclosure: I used to make an annual pilgrimage to a Dallas synagogue in an effort to bring people with money to the Lodge convert non-gentiles to the poker way. So yeah …
Here’s the latest edition of PokerStars.net’s Inside Deal, with November Nine participant Eric Buchman:
In other November Nine news, Kevin Schaffel and Steve Begleiter are 2nd and 3rd with just 24 players remaining at the WPT Legends of Poker at the Bicycle Casino in Bell Gardens, California. Todd Terry is the current chip leader with 850,000. Follow the live updates starting at 3pm PT over at the WPT live updates page as they play down to the final six players.
