I’m off to the premiere of Bet Raise Fold: The Story of Online Poker, at the Palms. Supposedly there’s gonna be a bitchin’ after-party, too. Supposedly I’m in it … but we never got around to a second interview, so who knows who makes it past the cutting room floor.

But assuming I did make the cut, maybe I’ll finally get a listing in the IMDB?

Bet Raise Fold is the second recent online poker documentary. I was in the other one, too. All In: the Poker Movie was abuzz at last year’s WSOP, and just last week made its small-screen debut, beginning a run on Showtime.

It’s not a surprise that All In made it first in the race to tell the post-Black Friday poker story, even though Bet Raise Fold was more than halfway done before Black Friday. All In was made by experienced filmmakers, after all, who simply jumped on the opportunity to put Leonardo DiCaprio Matt Damon in a YouTube freeze-frame, imho. But BRF was made by the minds behind the Micros — real poker players who know firsthand the impact of Black Friday — so I’ll be very curious to see if their deep connection to the storyline makes their movie better or worse.

Ravi Raghavan
Photo: World Poker Tour

Today’s Boxscore

Ravi Raghavan $1,268,571 – WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic
Marcin Wydrowski €325,000 – WPT Prague Main Event
Paul Berende €119,974 – PokerStars Hold’em Challenge
Dan Murariu €110,000 – Unibet Open St Maarten

The World Poker Tour and all those who call the shots must have been really happy as the WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic field played down to its final table and saw the names remaining. Just missing out on the TV table were Jon Aguiar, Jason Somerville, Yevgeniy Timoshenko, Freddy Deeb, Greg Mueller, Andrew Robl, and Scott Clements. They all crashed out on the final two tables but Antonio Esfandiari, Andrew Lichtenberger, and Shawn Buchanan will once again see themselves on the small screen.

Ravi Raghavan, recently of the Borgata Fall Open Main Event final table, was the last player standing as he knocked out Buchanan in 2nd place to increase his bankroll by nearly $1.3 million. Thanks to some structure tweaking and reasonable PR by the Bellagio staff, there was far less complaining about this year’s Five Diamond event as last year. Baby steps.

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Maria Ho Joins Heartland Poker Tour Broadcast Team for Season 9 – Good move by HPT because everybody loves Maria Ho. Those poor fanboy souls hiding in Iowa and Minnesota are going to lose their minds when she shows up in the their local poker room.

‘Isildur1’ Bests Dwan in $400k HU Match – Full Tilt Poker is back which means we now have the platform to witness huge HU matches between the biggest names in poker. This weekend it was Viktor Blom slicing off a piece of Tom Dwan.

Casino operators gearing up for online poker – Things are starting to move right along with online poker in Nevada. I’m still skeptical about how successful it will be but it’s better than moving backwards.

Women Business Execs Learn When to Hold and Fold ‘Em – Presented without comment, because I have no idea what to think about this article on ABCNews. I think I will wait until Amy Calistri straightens me out.

The Micros: The Lost Episode – They’re back! At least for one episode but tell me you didn’t miss the opening tune. Seems this episode has been steeping for awhile during the PokerStars/Full Tilt negotiations but it’s now ready for your viewing pleasure.

The Micros aren’t dead, even though American online poker kinda is (for just a little while longer?). But they do have, you can see, a new relationship with PokerStars — though they explain in the episode write-up that it’s just a one-off for now …

Spoiler alert: cameos this episode from Nanonoko, Negreanu, Phil Galfond, Vannessa Selbst, Chris Moneymaker’s bobblehead, and Noah Stephens-Davidowitz.

Extra LOL for As the Button Moves, a “Photoshopera” on the NVG network.

Robbie Renehan
Photo: PokerStarsBlog.com

Today’s Boxscore

Robbie Renehan $147,877 – LAPT Colombia
Blake Barousse $15,757 – $365 NLH WSOP Circuit Biloxi
Elisa Burkett $15,449 – $580 NLH WSOP Circuit Biloxi
Travis Johnston $7,956 – $365 NLH WSOP Circuit Biloxi
Caufman Talley $29,743 – $365 NLH WSOP Circuit Biloxi

There’s something pretty cool about a guy winning a poker tournament wearing a Big Lebowski t-shirt. If you’re going to dress down for a final table, at least be interesting. Also cool is a guy in Ireland winning an LAPT package on the cheap, travelling to the safest city in the world (Medellin Columbia is a walk in the park, correct?), and boosting his career tournament earnings from $5,000 to $150,000.

The Dude abides.

Also starting is the next round of WSOP Circuit events with a series of tournaments at the IP in Biloxi, MS. Not to be confused with the IP in Las Vegas where you’re more likely to get stuck to the floor before you lose your bankroll. On top of the great food and music, Biloxi will offer 12 tournament including the $1,675 Main Event.

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Exclusive: Michele Clayborne, Former Consulting Head of PR for Full Tilt Poker, Releases Statement – Part of her statement concerning FTPDoug: “Until this announcement, I too was not aware of this person’s identity”. Booshit. I knew she wasn’t FTPDoug but I would be damned shocked if she didn’t know who it was. There are plenty of stories about what a pain it was to deal with Clayborne and I have quite a few myself. Doubly painful since we were both collecting a paycheck from the same company.

Department Of Justice Looks For Aid With About 1.3 Million ‘Potential U.S. Victims’ Of Full Tilt Poker – CardPlayer reports the DOJ is looking for a third party processor to take care of the ~$139,000,000 of payments due former US players at Full Tilt Poker. They are saying potentially 1.3million possible “victims”.

Claims Administrator—Full Tilt Poker – Unemployed, the Department of Justice might have a spot for you. Double checking Michele Clayborne’s LinkedIn profile to see if she’s qualified.

If sports betting is so obviously beneficial to the sports leagues, why do they still oppose it? Insiders weigh in – Everybody from New Jersey to Washington state has taking their bats to the gaming industry and the boys at QuadJacks decided to take a look at why sports leagues oppose betting.

The Micros – The gang wants to take advantage of the PokerStars Full Tilt Poker buyout. For real, can someone please sponsor these guys again so we can get back to the episodes?

Be sure to check out our new sponsors at Face Up Gaming. Legal, subscription-based online poker with plenty of great prizes including cash, WSOP seats, and poker trips. Sign up with Bonus Code pokerati.

As Dan wrote yesterday, the WSOP-Circuit released it’s full 20 event schedule with a few new interesting stops, a switch up for the National Championship, and a very much approved (by myself) sponsor in Southern Comfort. Most of the standard venues are scheduled but they’ve added an event at Foxwoods Mammoth Resort Casino as well as tournaments in Cleveland and Canada.

The final circuit event will once again be held at Harrah’s New Orleans for one last binge of booze-poker-food before the players head to Vegas for the 2013 WSOP. The biggest change seems to be moving the National Championship from Las Vegas to New Orleans. Perhaps this change has something to do with their new sponsor. Southern Comfort was created, and widely consumed, in The Crescent City. Book your travel early and schedule a few days to enjoy the rest of the city outside their tiny casino.

In other news, Absolute Poker’s Brent Beckley was sentenced to 14 months for Black Friday role. Beckley was a co-founder of Absolute Poker and will be going up the Federal creek after pleading guilty to “conspiring to commit bank fraud and wire fraud”. Sooner or later the rest of the indictees will have to pay the piper including Beckley’s half-brother, and UB/AP archvillain, Scott Tom.

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Highlights from the 2012 WSOP – Gary Wise has a nicely detailed look at some of the biggest stories from the WSOP. It seems like it was a month ago (after the post-WSOP coma) but he brings up details lost in the glare of the Main Event. Would have liked to have seen Matt Matros mentioned for his 3rd straight year with a bracelet other than a parenthetical comment.

ROI at the WSOP – Old school blogger, and one of the best with the medium, takes a look at some ROI numbers from the WSOP after a 2+2 post listing how some of the top players fared this summer. Backers beware.

WSOP Photo Blog: A Look Back at the Summer – PokerNews had one of the best photographer teams at the Rio this summer with Joe Giron and Neil Stoddart. They put together a nice photo collection of the top moments of the 2012 WSOP.

What Happens to Poker Without Online Sponsorship? – Last week, PokerListings took a look at the poker environment around the WSOP Main Event now since the big money sponsors are no longer in the building (or in the country in some cases).

The Micros

Be sure to check out our new sponsors at Face Up Gaming. Legal, subscription-based online poker with plenty of great prizes including cash, WSOP seats, and poker trips. Sign up with Bonus Code pokerati.

Another weekend with little activity in the poker world except for the WPT Championship, the WPT Championship’s low turnout, Shaun Deeb acting a greedy player by winning again, and players whining about expired Diamond Cards. I’ll take the slow times this week as next weekend brings about a daily overload of WSOP events and before the degens go broke.

Shaun Deeb is just showing off now. Gave him props last week and I guess it was a little too early as he went one louder by winning the $2,100 H.O.R.S.E. for another $46,000 and change. With his other three titles this SCOOP series coming in Stud events, I’ll just make the assumption that he sat out during the Hold’em and Omaha portions of the tournament just to keep it fair.

The only other events of note leading to the WPT Championship this weekend were the Cal State Poker Championship and Heartland Poker Tour Main Events. 316 players entered the Matt Savage operated Cal State Main Event and Nathan Bjerno won the Big Bear trophy and $133,075 after a heads up chop. Just missing out on the final table were David “The Dragon” Pham*, Allen Cunningham, and Gavin Griffin.

The latest Heartland Poker Tour stop was at the Majestic Star Casino located in lovely Gary, Indiana (aka East Chicago). HPT has been running hot this season and just missed a record field at this event, although they topped their numbers from 2011. Daniel Acevedo was the last player standing at the televised final table and picked up $133,081.

* – Not a real dragon

Photo: WhoJedi

This Week’s Boxscore

Shaun Deeb $46,325 PokerStars SCOOP $2,100 H.O.R.S.E.
Nathan Bjerno $133,075 Cal State Poker Championship
Daniel Acevedo $133,081 HPT Majestic Star

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White House Responds to Online Poker Petition – Thousands of poker players (but not tens of thousands) signed a capitlization-challenged petition calling on the US Government to licence and regulate online poker. Brian Deese, Deputy Director of the National Economic Council, responded with a 339 word “thanks but no thanks”. I’m sure Gaming Counsel might have a more articulate read than mine.

New World Series of Poker Bracelet – The WSOP unveiled their newest champion’s bracelet, which apparently diminishes the accomplishements of THE previous Main Event winners.

Wait until you guys see the WSOP Main Event bracelet.Let’s just say this is THE year to win the Main Event. #blingerisbetter

— WSOP(@WSOP) May 17, 2012

I realize it’s just a marketing blurb meant to pump up the excitement, but I imagine the bracelet could be the most hideous piece of jewelry in the world and it wouldn’t stop players from trying to win the Main Event.

WPT Championship Numbers Down – I meant to write a few words on the significant decrease in the WPT Championship field size but ESPN Poker’s Andrew Feldman 1) beat me to it and 2) is a better writer than this hack. He lays out several reasons for the decline including SCOOP, Black Friday, and the Bellagio treating the event like crap. It will be interesting to see the numbers from the WSOP this summer.

The Micros are back! – A kind of back. The brilliant minds behind the popular web series released a comic the other day to which we can all relate. Enjoy.

Click image to embiggen

Be sure to check out our new sponsors at Face Up Gaming. Legal, subscription-based online poker with plenty of great prizes including cash, WSOP seats, and poker trips. Sign up with Bonus Code pokerati.

Jeesh, everything’s so serious these days … or stupid. Either way, it’s been too long since we forgot to tell you about the latest from The Micros. It really was a funny episode a month ago. But like always, lol because it’s true!

And we have a bonus late episode — the Micros’ pitch for people to vote for them in the 2011 Bluff Readers Choice Awards, where Rose, Chase, and Tommy somehow got lumped in with all the podcast/video/live radio newsy shows (in the category The Poker Beat always dominated) and cleaned up.

Enjoy, if you haven’t already.

Say what you will about Full Tilt Poker, but you can’t deny that they played a key role in forever changing the nature of poker entertainment. Even post-Black Friday they continue to do so … only instead of bankrolling the creative efforts, now they merely inspire them (whether all lines are deserved or not):

Song: Full Tilt Poker Blues
Artist: The Donks
Genre: Blues
Release: Sep 2011

It was the other Black Friday … I mean Cyber-Monday … er, Merry Christmas / Happy Hannukah! Whatever the day, here’s Pokerati’s guide to some rather unique poker player shopping specials that we are pretty sure are still valid … though the last readily available but still legally questionable space chips will probably be in the hands of an Asian whale before the end of the day.

CHIP UP: Plaque Attack

American players don’t only miss out on online play, but they seldom get to use the larger, squared “plaques” used for extra-high-denomination chips. But now they can play like a Euro-shark in their home games while taking their chip-shuffling skills to a new level.

Use promo code “pokeratigo” at Outplay Poker for a discount on your purchase.

RUN-GOOD: The Micros, Clothiers

It’s becoming common knowledge that players showing up to tournaments big and small have been going deep while dressed as their favorite online poker cartoon character. Just recently poker media yeoman Jay Newnum took down a double-stack turbo tournament at the Commerce Hold’em Series, and then followed that up by winning a table share of the progressive bad beat jackpot Live at The Bike (seat 6) … while wearing his now-lucky shirt. New Micros designs are a sure-hit with the kids, too!

Get yours from The Micros Online Store.

WTF? Burmese Wooly Space Chips

Made from slices of solid meteorite that fell to Earth some 800,000 WSOP’s ago, these poker chips are so hot they’re illegal in the US, and expected to fetch HK$1 million at auction later today. (No prob with the gold, diamonds, or emeralds that encircle each chip, but because the rubies come from Burma, importing the set would be a crime.) The case is hand-stitched Swedish calf skin with reindeer suede lining and 18K white gold hinges and locks. But even more outrageous, included is a set of ivory dice made from … we shit you not … wooly mammoth tusks. Apparently a species can’t be endangered when it’s already extinct — but auctioneers do warn that some customs agents in some countries might not have Googled around enough to realize that prehistoric pachyderm is real, and all the rage.

More details at JamesList about the auction at Christie’s later today.

SELL-OFF: Full Tilt Swag

If diamond-crusted Kryptonite tournament chips are a bit out of your range, head over to eBay for what may or may not become collectible memorabilia from a defunct poker site. For sale are plenty of poker chips, a steel watch ($1.01 minimum bid, $3.99 to buy-it-now), a black velour bathrobe (new, never worn), travel mugs, keychain bottle openers and more. Whether it’s general distaste for FTP or out-of-work red pros trying to scratch up some cash, a lot of great junk promotional gear branded with the ubiquitous red triangle of Full Tilt Poker is on eBay these days at bargain-basement prices.

Get the most Full Tilt stock you can at eBay.

PLUS EV: Annie Duke Fantasy Camp

Annie Duke is offering her fans a taste of high-stakes professional poker with a fantasy camp connected to the upcoming Epic Poker event at the Palms Casino Resort on December 10. More than just the usual boot camp, this package includes hands-on training and entry into an Epic Super Satellite. Attendees also get a signed copy of her book, Decide to Play Great Poker, two nights at the Palms (with buffet) and sundry Epic Poker gear, including a hoodie and hat, none of which, by the way, is up for sale yet on Ebay.

Escape for a poker weekend with Annie Duke; better than half price with Living Social.

The first Epic Poker League tournament of their first season ended with Chino Rheem overcoming the rungood of Jason Mercier, Erik Seidel and The Micros to win the first Main Event, earning a cool $1,000,000 defeating the Seiborg heads-up. The final table last over 200 hands, recap the blow-by-blow action starting here or just read @AlCantHang’s recap.

According to Ben Lamb, he was paid in full for money he was owed by Chino. Others, not so much. The forums were no different “congratulating” Rheem on his win.

Final table results:

1st: Chino Rheem – $1,000,000
2nd: Erik Seidel – $604,430
3rd: Jason Mercier – 360,970
4th: Hasan Habib – $237,560
5th: Gavin Smith – $154,260
6th: Huck Seed – $107,980

It’s not The Micros, and I still think the guys at Quadjacks are a little off with their anti-Full Tilt fury … but still, their new video comic has potential for recurring humor with the occasional splash of satire … and years from now will probably be a reminder of the uncertain poker times we’re currently living in. (But hey, at least we can laugh at how stupid we all were … not to mention the clothes lol!)

Episode 1 here … we’ll see where they are by episode 5. They being the Quadjacks creators and/or Team Full Tilt. Meanwhile, still looking forward for sure in a different way for the next episode of The Micros …

Remember how awesome SNL and the Onion were when they finally re-emerged after September 11th? Kinda the same thing, but with less death to navigate in the punchlines. Possibly the best episode yet, imho. (And a reminder for all that while we may take our poker seriously, we prolly shouldn’t take ourselves too seriously unless you want to end up like Durrrr and his flamingo.)

I won’t even list the humorous nuggets embedded in the Chase vs. ROFLs matchup … just watch and occasionally press pause when you see small print for refreshingly funny stuff.

The news won’t stop breaking … and just because American online players may be crying in watered down beers … that’s not gonna stop one magnetic on-camera Croatian from signing a player sponsorship patch deal with Bodog, the original American-friendly online gambling operation to officially go rogue:

Not their funniest effort, but expresses the insta-change in the poker world well. Some things are just made for cartooning:

Effin’ funny as usual. Looking forward to Chase, Tommy, and Rose’s adventures at or distinctly not at the 2011 WSOP. Be sure to keep your eye on the news ticker and other small insertions for extra fun. Pretty sure Doyle Brunson isn’t really dead yet, ha ha! And because it’s a special day, also click here.