So many new podcasts. At least the voices in our heads are staying fresh … and there really is more news and analysis related to poker and gaming and casinos and gambling than you can read all over the internet.

Some shows I recently found and/or enjoyed … you may want to give a listen, and perhaps bookmark for recurring download:

Poker Fraud Alert Forum Radio — I try to steer clear of industry love triangles, but sometimes can’t avoid the latest Donkdown breakup story. New and clique-worthy from Druff and Drexel: the pilot episode of their version of the old show, complete with real newschat about a botched pepper-spray robbery for Bellagio cranberries (as per plans hatched on Craigslist), the felony arrest of alleged exposed Vegas scammer Peter Falcone, and informed tangential discussion of female biology on, off, and under the table. http://pokerfraudalert.com/forum/radio.php

Vegas Gang Podcast — Pub-style virtual roundtable, featuring gaming industry wonks talking about non-poker casino numbers and constructions stories with a little history and on-air smoking. http://www.vegasgangpodcast.com/2012/05/vegas-gang-78-may-17th-2012/

CEM Audio Edge — Twitter’s @GamingCounsel (and Pokerati’s own non-binding legal correspondent) Stu Hoegner takes the mic at Casino Enterprise Management for a guest hosting gig and Jersey-style cage match with DC lobbyist and iMega chieftain Joe Brennan, Jr. http://www.cemaudioedge.com/episode/gaming-law-news-guest-host-stu-hoegner

UNLV Gaming Podcast — Dr. David Schwartz’s advanced study of degen living, aka UNLV’s Center for Gaming Research, provides statistical data set to audio, and sometimes featuring research fellows presenting their findings on matters like, on the episide I heard, the sociology of gambling expansion. http://gaming.unlv.edu/podcast.html

Every week I open tab after tab and occasionally star a website intent on sharing it with you in some sorta blog capacity … hopefully before my browser crashes. So in an attempt to keep tabs on the poker-industry, here’s a grab-bag of relatively new (to me at least) and noteworthy sites to visit because either they’re really good or I owe someone a favor.

PokerFraudAlert.com

— Former Neverwin/Donkdown bandmate (and WSOP bracelet winner) Todd Witteles is going solo to be a crusader for clearing out the scumbags in poker. (And Dan Druff doesn’t need-no fancy “blog” or “forum” software to do it!)

LegalPokerSites.com — These guys hustle to stay on top of poker-related legal matters across America and worldwide … and provide a thorough rundown of the newsbuzz should a certain site’s editor need to catch up with what’s been going on!

StackemCoaching.com — Yet another training site … but this one (led by John Kim and Joe Tehan) focusses on live play and offers coaching via audio lessons and live sweats with their stable of pros. Their students (and coaches) make up many of the local grinder thugs, and thus SEC is shaping the way a certain sect of Vegas player handles their chips these days.

IGamingNorthAmerica.com — Politicians, regulators, and gaming industry nerds executives descend upon Planet Hollywood over the next few days for a boutique confab with Oscar Goodman introducing Caesars’ chief bean-counter to deliver the keynote. Who woulda ever guessed such a policy-wonk road show like IGNA (with panels on taxation modeling, regulatory timelines, internet security, and liquidity paradigms) would be such a hot ticket in 2012?

StupidBetz.com — Possibly in preparation for the inevitable legalization of making semi-obscene jackass-style prop bets online … or maybe just to encourage stupid behavior for money … this site pays out “stupidbuckz” for people to eat bugs, shave heads, and stick tongues in mousetraps.

All have heard by now about the constantly streaming broadcast by the Quadjacks crew … but before they existed, and perhaps giving them credibility from the get-go, the crew at Donkdown were the originators of raw poker radio. We used to never give much credence to anything live … if I couldn’t listen at my own convenience in podcast form, what was the point?

I’ll have to reassess my internet radio philosophy after the Pokerpacolypse dust settles … but in the meantime, I’m waiting in the wings now to go on the show where no one is supposed to be able to get away with any BS, but in exchange, anyone can get a say.

Should be a fun episode as some semblance of sensibility is starting to emerge. I suspect to be called out rather harshly for running an op-ed from a former UB lawyer telling people their money is presumably gone forever the day before the DOJ said they could get it back. (Clearly they’ve been reading and listening and didn’t want me to make any wagers, so thanks guys, for putting out such a statement before it was too late!)

Donkdown Radio Live. Listen here.

Day 7 Table Draw

Theo Jorgensen will lead the remaining 78 players of the WSOP Main Event when play resumes at the Amazon room shortly after 12pm today. Jorgensen starts the day with 9,300,000 in chips followed by Michael Mizrachi with 7,535,000 and John Racener with 7,200,000 with play starting today on level 26, 25,000/50,000 blinds with a 5,000 ante. Play will continue until 27 players remain, then return Saturday to play down to the November Nine.

Other notables returning today:

William Thorson – 6,525,000
Alexander Kostritsyn – 5,715,000
Matt Affleck – 5,315,000
Bryn Kenney – 3,830,000
Eric Baldwin – 2,135,000
Johnny Lodden – 2,105,000
Adam Levy – 1,685,000
David Baker – 1,635,000
Tony Dunst – 1,550,000
David Baker – 1,540,000
Hasan Habib – 1,165,000
Scott Clements – 1,085,000
Jean-Robert Bellande – 700,000
Peter Jetten – 675,000

Notable eliminations from last report:
Juha Helppi
Todd Witteles
Fokke Beukers
Christian Harder

Full results here, and follow the updates over at wsop.com.

Bellagio Cup VI results

Moritz Kranich, a previous winner on the European Poker Tour, added a WPT title by defeating Justin “Boosted J” Smith heads-up to win the Bellagio Cup VI Main Event for $875,150. Smith earned $594,755 for the runner-up finish, with Phil Ivey finishing third for $363,650. Full results can be found here.

Last Saturday, according to the Donkdown forum (some images NSFW), Lacey Jones let Brian Micon and Todd Witteles know she is no longer a part of Absolute Poker. Lacey will be appearing as a presenter for Full Til’s Doubles Poker Championship, airing in mid-July on GSN. Further details weren’t available, but I’d think they mention this news on DonkDown’s Cold Call show, airing Wednesday night around 7:30pm PT.

Unconfirmed … but that’s the word we’re spreading, based on possibly drinky information from a semi-reliable source, a presumably reliable source, and a plausibly reliable source.

The status of PokerPages has been up in the air ever since they announced they’d be closing up shop effective Oct. 31. That day passed and they still kept publishing — and even sent two reporters to cover the November Nine. But no original content has been put up on the site since Dec. 3. Everyone was expecting some sort of sale, and now that has apparently gone through.

PokerPages, of course, is one of the oldest poker information sites on the internet — having reported on tournaments since 2000 … and having built a massive tourney/player/results database in the process.

What PokerStars plans to do with a site they haven’t yet told many people they’ve bought (or intend to buy) remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, the transition from NeverwinPoker to Donkdown seems complete — with the old NWP forums successfully transfered over to their new home. Donkdown is now a Bryan Micon and Todd Witteles (aka “Dan Druff”) joint, with no more Tony G or Dustin Woolf, who is now the lone face for his namesake site.

Speaking of forums … 2+2 honcho Mason Malmuth has sued Dutch Boyd (and a guy named Anthony Scocozza) over domain squatting issues.

Oh, and our once-superbeloved PokerBlog.com … yeah, they’re apparently gone. For at least the past week, visiting the site gives you this message:

Fatal error: Table ‘./pokerblog/cache’ is marked as crashed and should be repaired query: SELECT data, created, headers FROM cache WHERE cid = ‘variables’ in /home/pokerblogcom/public_html/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 66

R.I.P. Yeah, seems kinda appropriate. PokerBlog was/is a PartyPoker operation … but now they seem to be focussing blogging efforts on their more official company blog.

UPDATE: PokerBlog is back. Looks like we can expect some WPT coverage there.

Tuesday night’s WSOP Main Event episode featured Norman Chad stating one sentence about the Ultimate Bet scandals as Phil Hellmuth and Todd “Dan Druff” Witteles were at the same feature table. Michalski noted in the comments, Mark originally “broke his silence” regarding the Absolute Poker scandal over at Raw Vegas back in 2007.

Watch The Toke – Absolute Poker’s Mark Seif on RawVegas.tv

In response to some of Seif’s comments, Todd “Dan Druff” Witteles offered a response on RawVegas.tv a few days later.

Watch The Toke – Dan Druff on RawVegas.tv

Todd Witteles is saying over at Neverwin that there’ll be another report on a “major network” regarding corporate greed — and part of the show will be mentioning the UB/AP scandal.

Doesn’t sound like necessarily new info — but regardless, the kinda rehash that both sides of online-poker legislation will try to claim as an example of why we need to legalize/ban online poker.

Recapping the rest of Friday night’s WSOP, and paying respect to the passing of Lee Munzer (1943-2009).

Habib Holds High HORSE Hierarchy

Day 1 of the $50,000 HORSE has 91 of the 95 original entrants remaining, with Hasan Habib holding the chip lead. The list of notables with chips is too many to mention, but you can see who else is remaining by checking out this link. Day 2 will begin around 2pm4pm with another sixfive levels of play scheduled.

Cantu Leads PLO 8 Final Table

The final table of the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha 8 or Better has been established and Brandon Cantu has maintained his lead, with the final table seated as follows when play resumes at 2pm:

Seat 1: Lee Watkinson – 412000
Seat 2: Steve Jelinek – 260000
Seat 3: William McMahan – 168000
Seat 4: Brandon Cantu – 1025000
Seat 5: Ted Weinstock – 250000
Seat 6: Aaron Sias – 353000
Seat 7: Jacqmin Mathieu – 552000
Seat 8: Ronnie Hofman – 76000
Seat 9: Tommy Vedes – 334000

Day 2 of Limit Holdem Shootout

64 players remain from the starting field of 571 in the $1,500 Limit Holdem Shootout. Among the first round winners: Jean-Robert Bellande, Nick Binger, Humberto Brenes, Dan Heimiller, Juha Helppi, Greg Mueller, Marc Naalden, Brock Parker, Tom Schneider, David Williams and Todd Witteles. Eight eight-handed tables will play down to a winner starting around 2pm Saturday, with the eight winners returning Sunday.

Saturday’s Donkament

The only tournament starting today is the penultimate $1,500 NL Donkament, starting at noon today with a projected field size of 2,800 taking the felt, which will surely delay the other three tournaments that are scheduled to start later this afternoon. Last year’s version of this event was won by David Daneshgar in a field of 2,693, taking down over $625,000.

A WSOP record 7 bracelet events were underway on Wednesday afternoon, three of them eventually reaching their conclusions. As noted in my report last night, Jason Mercier got some success in the US, taking home a bracelet in the $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha event, my report is up on PokerNews now. The $1,000 NL Holdem Stimulus Special was won by Steve Sung, taking home over $770,000 and his first WSOP bracelet. The very occasional PokerRoad blogger was under 1m in chips when play was 7-handed but went on a rush to take the chip lead in just under a blind level. Final table chip leader and occasional web page designer Dan Heimiller would finish in 6th place, one of many to succumb to Sung’s success. “Pete the Greek” Valindos was the final victim denied a chance at this 2nd WSOP bracelet, when his pocket eights weren’t good enough for Sung’s pocket kings, but Vilandos does have over $470,000 to cushion that blow. More details on how that final table went down will be up on PokerNews later today.

The $10,000 7 Card Stud World Championship was a battle of the ages, literally. In what appears to be a record for a non-senior event, Freddie Ellis (74) bested Eric Drache (66) to take down the title as Ellis becomes the sixth African-American (Phil Ivey, David Williams, Walter Smiley and Carolyn Gardener being the other five) to win a WSOP bracelet. As Nolan Dalla noted in his tournament report, the distinction all six players have is that they each have won a bracelet in seven card stud. Here’s a bonus piece by Benjo on Eric Drache, from the Tao of Poker site.

The $1,500 NL Holdem event wasn’t able to reach their final table, as 33 players were left at 3am. They get to return at 1pm today to play down to a final table. This final table was scheduled to be streamed later this afternoon at bluffmagazine.com, but that’s definitely not happening at the scheduled 2pm start time. Follow them on Twitter for the latest updates on that situation. Notable names remaining: Michael Martin, Francois Safieddine, and Jeremy Joseph.

One final table that is known is the $2,500 NL 2-7 Lowball Single Draw event. When play began Tuesday afternoon, there were several big names among the 35 remaining. Those players all fell by the wayside, except for Phil Ivey, here’s how the final table will look when they come back at 2pm today.

Seat 1: Raphael Zimmerman – 238,000
Seat 2: Eric Kesselman – 119,400
Seat 3: John Monnette – 259,000
Seat 4: Rodeen Talebi – 94,500
Seat 5: Yan Chen – 159,000
Seat 6: Elia Ahmadian – 136,900
Seat 7: Phil Ivey – 106,300

Today’s other events on the next page:
More…

They report, you decide:

Watch CBS Videos Online

As has been discussed earlier, Mike Sexton, Greg Raymer and Linda Johnson were also interviewed for the story. In this web exclusive, Steve Kroft discusses tells with them, which seems silly to talk about in reference to online poker.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Tonight’s goings-on at the WSOP:

The one final table of today is down to heads-up play, as the $2,000 Pot Limit Holdem event is down to Chris Bell and Davidi Kitai. So far during heads-up play, there have been 10 lead changes as they’ve battled back and forth for over 3 hours, covering about 120 hands at this time. Follow along with the live updates at the WSOP website here.

Other action from today at the jump:

More…

In one corner, we have Mark Seif. He is an attorney and poker pro sponsored by Absolute Poker. His silence at the beginning of the recent AP scandal was viewed as suspicious by many online players, though he did speak with Pokerati nearly two weeks ago to express his concern over the situation. He then sat down with the Raw Vegas crew and made a statement, including some harsh words about Dan Druff, one of the players who has been investigating the cheating allegations.

In the other corner, we have Dan Druff, who is really Todd Witteles, an online poker pro who is part of the NeverWin Poker team. He met with Raw Vegas to record his rebuttal, saying that he has never accused Seif of anything, only presented the facts and asked that Seif come clean about his involvement or lack thereof.

So, who is the winner in this round? Could it be that this is only the beginning and the gloves haven’t come off yet?