Baptiste Chavillaz
Photo: WSOP.com

Today’s Boxscore

Baptiste Chavillaz $216,275 – WSOP-C Bicycle Main Event
James Henson $31,021 – WSOP-C Choctaw No Limit Hold’em
Ross Bybee $168,433 – WSOP-C Choctaw NLHE Re-entry
Erin Slaughter $23,660 – WSOP-C Choctaw Tubro
Kevin Eyster $27,573 – WSOP-C Choctaw NLHE 6-Handed

The first WSOP Circuit event of 2013 wrapped up this week with the Bicycle Casino Main Event which drew a nice 721 entrants, up from the 549 last year. Baptiste Chavillaz turned his first ever WSOP-C tournament cash into a $216,275 title and a seat in the National Championship. In almost bigger news, poker reporter/blogger/photographer/tweeter/hair model Jay “WhoJedi” Newnum managed to make it through most of the field to finish an impressive 57th. A close friend was quoted as saying “What a lucksack.” *

On the east coast, the Borgata kicked off their Winter Poker Open festival with a record breaking field. They opened with a $560 re-entry tournament with two starting days and a $1,000,000 guarantee that drew a huge crowd. By the end of registration there were 3,871 entrees which nearly doubled the guarantee. The BWPO continues in balmy, scenic Atlantic City until the WPT televised Main Event starts on the 27th with a $2,000,000 guarantee.

* – Guilty

Link Dump

Tweet of the Day – After going over the list of players in the National Heads Up Poker Championship, the most obvious omission was Vanessa Selbst. She answered all the questions in one simple tweet.

To answer people’s questions, I was invited to NBC HU but declined. Great tournament but decided to go to Aussie Millions instead this year.

— Vanessa Selbst (@VanessaSelbst) January 18, 2013

NHUPC 2013: Field of 64 announced – And here is the list, nicely typed out by Andrew Feldman. No real big eye raisers here except maybe the presence of Jean-Robert Bellande. He’ll add a little TV flair but at the expense of more deserving players like David “Doc” Sands and others. I like the inclusion of Shaun Deeb, Kyle Julius, Mohsin Charania, and Dan Smith.

The Best Poker Movie Scenes of All-Time – The Poker Archivist(tm) Nolan Dalla put together a great list of poker scenes. Give it a look and then your two cents.

Want This Job? Wear Your Poker Face – Caesars Entertainment running a management recruiting program dressed up as a poker series? Well played.

Sergio García: ‘I am as competitive as possible in anything I do’ – Garcia gave an interview to The Guardian while in the Bahamas for the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure where he talks about poker and competitiveness.

Photo: PokerStarsBlog.com

Today’s Boxscore

Vanessa Selbst $1,424,420 – 2013 PCA High Roller
Dimitar Danchev $1,859,000 – 2013 PCA Main Event
Travis Williams $49,581 – Delaware Park Winter Classic

The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure knows how to end things with a bang. After an entire festival of big results, it was the final tournament to supply the biggest story. Vanessa Selbst entered the $25,000 High Roller final table needing a 5th place finish or better to pass Kathy Liebert as the highest earning female poker player. Selbst did much better than 5th as she rolled to the title for another impressive victory putting her over $6,000,000 in lifetime earnings. The stacked final table included Shaun Deeb, Mike Watson, Chris Klodnicki, Brynn Kenney, Micah Raskin, and Tobias Reinkemeier.

Selbst adds the PCA High Roller victory to her two WSOP bracelets, two NAPT Mohegan Sun (back-to-back) wins, a Partouche Poker Tour win in 2010, and a boatload of other titles.

Interesting results during the 2013 PCA included wins by Scott Seiver, Peter Jetten, John Dibella, and Alexis Gilbard plus two trophies presented to Marcel Luske. With the wrap-up of the popular event, players will now take off for various parts of the world including the Borgata Winter Open, the LAPC, and getting ready for the Aussie Millions.

Link Dump

Tweet of the Day

RT @vanessaselbst: Ran hotter than the sun. Won the tournament.<~Congratulations Vanessa, Welcome to the women’s all time money lead.

— Matt Savage (@SavagePoker) January 15, 2013

PCA 2013: Vanessa Selbst makes history to win PCA High Roller – Might as well go to the experts on the Selbst victory, this time it’s Master Stephen Bartley at the keyboard with the tournament recap.

National Heads Up Poker Championship confirmed list – (Seriously, the list was released as a Google doc?) The popular NHUPC is back after a year off and we now know the first 32 confirmed players for the event including one Mr. Phil Ivey. No big surprises so far but it’s good to see Will “The Thrill” Failla and Maria Ho in the first release. A few other names have already stated they received an invite including Weeds producer Matt Salsberg.

WSOP Asia-Pacific Announces 2013 Schedule – Another big festival is now officially scheduled for Melbourne, Australia following the popular Aussie Millions. There will be 5 events including the Main plus a $50,000 High Roller (with rebuys) plus another go at the Caeasars Cup Invitational.

PCA 2013: High Roller Champion Vanessa Selbst – Kristy Arnett from PokerNews caught up with the winningest (is that really a word?) female poker player in history.

Marcel Luske
Photo: PokerStarsBlog.com

Today’s Boxscore

Marcel Luske $18,500 – 2013 PCA H.O.R.S.E.
John Dibella $69,780 – 2013 PCA NLHE Turbo
Vladimir Zakharau $68,200 – 2013 PCA PLO Turbo
Christopher Frank $55,720 – 2013 PCA NLHE Bounty

The 2013 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure is well underway with the Main Event down to 30-ish some players depending on when/if you read this. Owen Crowe is the big name up on top of the leaderboard with Joe (don’t you dare call me Sebok) Serock and Eddy Sabat among the names on his tail. The Main drew 987 entrants this year, down a bit from last year which drew over a thousand, and the winner will have to figure out how to get $1,859,000 out of the Bahamas.

The next big tournament stops include the WSOP Circuit events at Choctaw, a WPT Regional event somewhere in Florida called Coconut Creek, and the return of the WPT big production to the Borgata Winter Open. Things are definitely back in full swing with the new year.

Link Dump

Tweet of the Day – The Heartland Poker Tour made the big announcement today, their structure for the upcoming season has been updated by none other than Daniel Negreanu. The new structure is a great tweak to an already fantastic tour, but no word from top shelf nit Allen Kessler.

HPT Unveils New Structure Designed by Daniel Negreanu fb.me/2yYTZewG5

— HPT-Heartland Poker(@HPTPoker) January 11, 2013

Lottomatica, Golden Gaming recommended for interactive gaming licenses – Two more companies, Lottomatica and Golden Gaming, received recommendations for online gaming licenses by the Nevada Gaming Commission. The players are starting to take the field, will be interesting to see how this all turns out.

What It’s Like to Be a Woman Who Plays Professional Poker – The Atlantic published a fairly comprehensive piece on uber-grinder Vanessa Selbst and her place in poker.

Michael Phelps is playing poker, looking interesting – God bless the USA Today for completely missing the point that a top class athlete was in the Bahamas competing the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure, instead focusing on how he was dressed.

International Stadiums Poker Tour Changes Format – The ever changing ISPT is back at it again, this time announcing that “Day 1” will be played online between Feb 3rd to May 19th. Innovative or nuts? I guess we’ll find out.

PCA 2013: Michael Phelps & Jeff “PBF” Gross – Kristy Arnett from PokerNews caught up with 18-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps and Jeff Gross.

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.

Amanda Musumeci
Photo: WSOP.com

Today’s Boxscore

Vanessa Selbst $90,693 – Festa Al Lago $5,000 NLH
Melanie Weisner $41,289 – WPT Johannesburg $1,000 NLH
Amanda Musumeci $31,851 – WSOP Hammond $580 NLH
Greg Raymer $72,089 – Heartland Poker Tour Iowa

It was a very good weekend for the fairer sex* at the poker tables, with three of the top women poker players earning victories within hours of each other.

Online grinder Melanie Weisner picked up her first open tournament victory in the $1,000 No Limit Hold’em side tournament at the World Poker Tour South Africa event. East coast grinder Amanda Musumeci won her first WSOP Circuit ring at the Hammond Horseshoe, defeating Wendy Freedman heads up to collect. Finally it was uber-grinder/mad poker machine Vanessa Selbst casually winning the $5,000 No Limit Hold’em tournament at the Festa Al Lago series against a few decent players like Negreanu, Justin Young, Andrew Lichtenberger, Dan Shak, and Chris Bjorin at the final table.

* – Yes, I am a knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing, neanderthal

Their success overshadowed another top result for 2004 WSOP Main Event champion Greg Raymer, again capturing a title at a Heartland Poker Tour stop. He topped the 185 player field in metropolitan Altoona, Iowa for his third HPT title in his last three attempts. Not a bad batting average. Raymer’s last four results:

1st place Heartland Poker Tour Albuquerque – $71,875
35th place The River Poker Series – $1,288 (slacker!)
1st place Heartland Poker Tour St. Louis – $121,973
1st place Heartland Poker Tour Iowa – $72,089

Link Dump

Tweet(s) of the Day – The twitter world got their haunches up when a Mr. Howard Lederer decided to play Festa Al Lago at the Bellagio. Christian Harder was the first I saw mention it, including standing next to him in line, but word spread quickly. This is the first time he has been seen in a tournament room, although Lederer has been seen playing cash games recently.

Howard Lederer is in the building, rumor is he will play. — Christian Harder (@realcharder30) October 23, 2012

Howard Lederer is next to me at the cage. Just asked if you sign up for the tournament here so I’m guessing we will see him in there. — Christian Harder (@realcharder30) October 23, 2012

And Howard appears at my table. — Christian Harder (@realcharder30) October 23, 2012

Sorry, Mr. Online Poker. Nobody Cares About You – Most have already put eyes on this article but it’s worth a rehash. PLO expert Jeff Hwang penned this article DailyFinance.com looking at the real numbers behind possible online poker legalization/regulation.

Would Romney Smack Down Online Gambling? – A look at how a Mitt Romney win in the Presidential Election might impact current/future online gambling bills.

EU tightens up online gambling controls – Looks like the European Union will turn the screws a little more, all in the name of “money laundering” and “match-fixing”. Tough to feel bad for our Euro friends since they can still access PokerStars.

Full House with Johnny Chan – This trailer for a new poker show with Johnny Chan is horrible beyond words, not even the good kind of unintentional comedy horrible.

Now when they break a table, it stays broke
Photo: WSOP.com/Jay “WhoJedi” Newnum

It was Moving Day at the WSOP Main Event, where players are already in the money so they work to build a competitive stack or get out of Dodge. While this should have been the top story, a lot of time was spent discussing a player named Jarrett Nash. He had only $3k in tournament winnings on his résumé but was already in the money for the Main Event. He drew all the attention because he never returned to play his Day 5 stack and word quickly spread (thanks to a barely accurate forum post) he was not playing for religious reasons.

Turns out he left his stack around the dinner break on Day 4 after telling the WSOP staff he would not be returning until after 8pm on Day 5, even providing his Total Rewards cards for when he was blinded out. His stack never made it to 8pm so he officially finished in 171st for $44,655. Of course it just took the mere whiff of this for the forum trolls and Twitter jockeys to latch on like pitbulls. Because, according to those “smart folks”, any decision made without looking strictly at your Expected Value is clearly insane.

More information on Mr. Nash below in the Link Dump

The Day 5 stories that should have made the most splash included three former November Niners returning, five female players finishing the day with major chips, actor Kevin Pollak getting knocked out dirty with QQ vs QQ, and Joseph Cheong’s incredible Main Event streak.

Fun Fact: Joseph Cheong’s last 3 WSOP Main Event results are 3rd place in 2010 ($4,130,049), 114th place in 2011 ($54,851), and 116th place in 2012 ($52,718).

Some big names/big stacks in the list of 97 players returning to play on Day 6 include chipleader Kyle Keranen, Gaelle Baumann, Amnon Filippi, Elisabeth Hille, Yuvee Bronshtein, Eric Buchman, Amit Makhija, and Jason Somerville. Play on Day 6 will go five levels or 27 players, which ever takes longer.

Link Dump

Tweet of the Day

I’m also in awe of the hubris and myopia of players who are using Nash’s choice to laugh at religion and people who think it trumps poker.

— ebhizzle (@ebhizzle) July 15, 2012

Player Skips WSOP Main Event Day 5 – The gang at CardPlayer caught up with the mysteriously absent Jarrett Nash about his decision to not play Day 5.

Harry Reid and Jon Kyl Agree on Internet Poker Bill – Senators Harry Reid and Jon Kyle reportedly agreed on terms for an online poker bill. Of course that means absolutely nothing until they get off their tails and do something more than talk.

Year of the Woman Continues at the WSOP – BJ Nemeth takes a look at the Year of the Woman for 2012 and lists the Last Woman Standing in the Main Event during the Moneymaker era.

2012 WSOP: Brokedown Palace – I have been remiss in my linking up the great work Brad “Otis” Willis and Stephen Bartley have been doing over on the PokerStarsBlog. The latest gem takes a look at how the Rio Convention Center becomes a ghost town as the Main Event moves along.

Explain This: Amanda Leatherman – Everybody loves Amanda, and now Lynn Gilmartin of PokerNews gets the inside scoop on some of her interesting Twitter/Facebook pictures. Not remotely WSOP related.

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.

Last table standing in the Pavilion Room
Photo: WSOP.com/Jay “WhoJedi” Newnum

It’s finally time for the money day at the WSOP Main Event. 666 players are going to be happy, the 667th player out is going to be disappointed, the 668th player is going to be crushed. It’s become a tradition to easy the pain of the player going out short of the money by giving them a buy-in to next year’s Main. This is all very nice but it really just creates another bubble for the player who bubble’s the bubble. Perhaps there will be some trickle down in the future, give that guy a hearty handshake and a case of Ripple.

All 720 remaining players on Day 4 will be sitting in the Amazon Room and things will go smoothly enough until they approach the magic number. Then the pace of play will grind down to a crawl, media will be banished to the sidelines, and players will still inexplicably stall during hand-for-hand action.

But after the field is in the money, we’ll hear a steady call of “Payout Table XXX” while the shorty survivors dump in their last few chips.

David D’Alesandro will start as the Day 4 chip leader with 1,100,000 followed by Sean Rice, Jacob Balsiger, and Leo Wolpert as the only other players over a million. Other notables near the top include Paul Volpe (820,000), Vanessa Selbst (814,000), Sorel Mizzi (738,000), Vivek Rajkumar (678,000), and Jason Somerville (637,000). WSOP has the rest o the starting Day 4 chip counts.

Interesting side note from yesterday’s action. With Ben Lamb’s elimination from the Main Event, he became the first WSOP Player of the Year to not cash in a WSOP event the year after winning the title. Lamb is a cash game lover and only played in a handful of events this summer.

Link Dump

Tweet of the Day – You just can’t make this stuff up. At least you know the producers of Millionaire aren’t recycling every question on their show.

Turned on TV in Rio room, this was 3rd quest on millionaire #rioallsuites #anyguesses? #willtweetanswersoon lockerz.com/s/223976244

— Scott Augustine (@Mr_Hoes) July 11, 2012

Poker star’s divorce case fuels Nevada Supreme Court arguments – Phil Ivey is back in the news, but this time it’s the Washington Post and has nothing to do with his game at the tables. His messy divorce hit the Nevada Supreme Court this week with talk of improper campaign contributions and free speech.

Ryan Eriquezzo Wins WSOP National Championship – It’s been an interesting week for Eriquezzo, but he finished it off by capturing the WSOP National Championship in front of friends, family, and the ESPN cameras.

Biggest Hands from Week 6 – Chad Holloway takes a look at some of the biggest hands over the last week, spread across different event and various games including Terry Grimes who shipped his chips in on the last hand of the night. Right into Aces.

Nevada Gambling Revenue Sees Sharp Decline In May – Things were not all shiny in Nevada this spring as Nevada’s gaming revenue dropped a huge 10% in May based on year-over-year comparisons. Julio Rodriquez at CardPlayer has the details.

BLUFF Main Event Trivia – I’m only including this BLUFF Trivia video because I was off to the side trying to 1) make WhoJedi laugh and 2) feeding him the answers. Surprised you can’t hear me signing the Jerry Yang song in the background.

Vanessa Selbst wins the 10-Game Mix 6-Handed Event
Photo: PokerNews.com

Today’s WSOP Bracelet Boxscore

Pete Vilandos $952,694 – Event #50 $5,000 No Limit Hold’em
Yen Dang $170,587 – Event #51 $1,000 Ladies Championship
Vanessa Selbst $244,259 – Event #52 $2,500 10-Game Mix 6-Handed

48 insanely rich (or insanely backed) poker players gathered on the stage yesterday for all the pomp and circumstance required for a $1,000,000 tournament. Group photos, individual player introductions, weird looking dudes in loincloth, and a really big ass drum Click image above for a shot of the scene during the group shot, courtesy my trusty iPhone Pano app. The number of people lined up along the rail was impressive but most of them dispersed once they realized watching live poker at the start of an event is pretty boring.

Phil Hellmuth slipped into the field at the last minute by “winning” the MGM VIP satellite Saturday evening. Rumors are circulating he made a deal with the final 8 players where he won the seat in exchange for a piece of his action. Gus Hansen also earned his way into the tournament but in the more traditional sense of winning. He made a heads up deal with Shaun Deeb where Hansen would get the seat while Deeb would get a cool million and listed as an alternate.

Interesting twist to the Deeb situation was when he tried to cash out his satellite winnings at the cage on Sunday. Some poor Rio employee told Deeb he could only cash out in tournament lammers, meaning he would have to rid himself of two thousand $500 tournament buyin chips before the Main Event when they would become useless. Thankfully saner heads prevailed and he successfully cashed out. See link dump below for the money shot.

~

Downside to most of the attention being directed at the Amazon Room three ring circus was the overshadowing of Vanessa Selbst winning her second WSOP bracelet. What should have been a grand celebration of the feat was pushed to the tiny feature table in the Pavilion while Selbst destroyed her final table. Two WSOP bracelet, over $5,000,000 in career earnings, and one of the top players in the world. She deserved more attention for the accomplishment.

As Matt Savage commented on Twitter, “Sat next to @VanessaSelbst in the 10K HORSE last year and she admitted not knowing some games. Now she is 10 Game Champion. #Legend #Boss“.

~

In other news, Full Tilt Poker’s Ray Bitar surrendered to US authorities today.

Link Dump

Feds Arrest Full Tilt CEO Ray Bitar – St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland, and now the DOJ has finally pulled Ray Bitar from his spider hole in Dublin. He sent an email to remaining employees saying he “returned to the US to deal with civil and criminal case that are pending against me in New York.” And if it’s on 2+2, it must be true. Makes me wonder whether Isai Scheinberg is feeling a little squirmy today.

Tweet of the Day – They finally decided to pay Deeb properly. That’s a lot of cheddar and I hope I run into Shaun at the bar before he “Deebs” it off.

They ended up giving me the 3 c’s twitter.com/shaundeeb/stat…

— shaun deeb (@shaundeeb) July 2, 2012

Secondary Tweet of the Day – Doyle telling it like it is. Selbst deserved better and at least people are noticing the lack of appreciation.

Why isn’t a lot more attention payed to @VanessaSelbst for her 2nd bracelet? A second for a young lady isn’t worthy of publicity? Wow! — Doyle Brunson (@TexDolly) July 2, 2012

WSOP Photo By Numbers: Controversial $50k Hand – Remember the silly $50k Players Championship hand where three players were all-in but not really? BJ Nemeth has a nice recap of the action complete with photo for those who often type TL;DNR on forum posts.

BLUFF Challenge — Charania Vs. Harder – That’s enough with the serious news. Finishing up with a little fun time between Christian Harder and Mohsin Charania in a hockey shootout contest brought to you by the fine video folks at BLUFF.

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.

Vanessa Selbst didn’t hide her professional poker career from professors and classmates while attending Yale Law School.

She just put the game on hold for a couple of years. Selbst closed out her online accounts and stayed away from the tables.

“When you’re in poker, you’re really into it and you want to play all the time,” Selbst said. “I tried to force poker from my mind. I pretty much had to remove myself from that while I was in New Haven (Conn.)”

More…

2012 World Series of Poker is underway and there’s already been some complaints and controversy. Plus the return of Phil Ivey. The WSOP always likes to make a big pop with their first open tournament and 2,101 players showed up for the $1,500 NLHE Event #2 on Monday. During these large events over the last few years, the WSOP staff (or perhaps it’s a Rio decision) had a policy to change the women’s room into a men’s room to accommodate the large field.

It’s a foolish thing to do and always draws well deserved complaints. This year it didn’t take long for the anger to force a change in policy after Vanessa Selbst, Linda Johnson, Jan Fisher, and a stream of players to raise their voice. Now we should cross our fingers and hope they don’t repeat the silly flash mob before the Ladie’s Event.

Tempest in a teapot controversy seemed to be John Kim accusing Casey “bigdogpckt5s” Jarzabek of incorrectly tweeting his bustout hand in Event #2 to deceive backers. Turns out it was the crippling hand he reported but it just means players are now policing the statements of other players spewed out on social media. Thank god we live in the future.

The big story was the long awaited return of Phil Ivey to the WSOP after staying away in 2011 because he’s a douche “I do not believe it is fair that I compete when others cannot.” Twelve months later and the Full Tilt players haven’t been paid back but Ivey’s righteous rage disappeared along with his lawsuit. Ivey has been back in full force playing every event he can fit into his schedule including double dipping today in the Stud/8 and Pot Limit Hold’em. No stories yet of big talking internet kids confronting Ivey.

Photo: WSOP.com

No open bracelets have been awarded yet but Event #2 will play out later tonight with Vanessa Selbst, Brent “bhanks11” Hanks, Andrew Badecker, and JP Kelly still in line for the title. Chiab “Chips” Saechao, a blackjack dealer from California, won the Casino Employees Event #1 for $70,859 and bragging rights for the year.

Today’s Boxscore

Chiab Saechao $70,859 – WSOP $500 Casino Employees
Phil Hellmuth $7,204 – Record 86th WSOP cash

Link Dump

Explain this Shaun Deeb

$25k Fantasy – This has been running for a few years, a bunch of degens with cash burning a hole in their pocket getting together for a little fantasy poker along with the real deal poker. 11 teams put up the money to draft 8 players auction-style. Phil Ivey was the top player picked followed by Jason Mercier and Daniel Negreanu. Track along as you see fit. BLUFF Magazine’s Lance Bradley handicapped the teams and it looks like Casey Katz is the early favorite.

WSOP By the Numbers – These articles caused one of the sillier WSOP arguments in the media last year. Who cares who started it (or made the most from creative cut/pasting WSOP docs), Jess Welman always did it best. You say Jess isn’t doing them on BLUFF this year? Still worth the look.

Tweet o’ the Day – Brought to you by @killahmcgillah

gotta love @WSOP: largest concentration of poker wealth of the year & the standard uniform is “sweatpants you’d wear to paint your garage.”

— addy litfin (@killahmcgillah) May 30, 2012

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.

According to Team Pokerati local femme fave @LasVegasPokers, today is “girls day” in Las Vegas. Currently running is the Ladies event in the Caesars Palace Kickoff Classic (a $130 NL event) … and then at 7pm is a $105 Pink Ladies $1000 guarantee at the new Tropicana poker room. (Yay?)

Today is also the final table of the Epic Poker League’s 8-handed NL event. No woman has yet to cash in an Epic event, save for maybe in a satellite to a $1,500 pro-am. In fact, only one woman two women entered this week’s $20k Epic event (J.J. Liu and Vanessa Selbst) … and only one woman cracks the Global Poker Index’s ranking of the top 150 players in the world (Vanessa Selbst #20). Not sure what that says about the only poker league run by a woman save for maybe Pink Ladies … but listen to Epic Commish Annie Duke’s keynote address last week at the Women in Poker Hall of Fame ceremony, where she speaks to essentially the Vegas-to-LA power poker sister set — a potentially hostile audience considering Annie’s public opposition to Ladies Events in the past.

CORRECTION: Vanessa Selbst also entered Epic’s 8-handed event; she was one of the first players eliminated. ALSO: LIPS and HHPT are poker tours or leagues run by women.

MORE CORRECTIONS: Vanessa Selbst also cashed in the first Epic Pro-Am, making Epic a little less women-dry than suggested above.

(Sexist to say rrreow?)

1. Annie Duke: Women in Poker Hall of Fame ceremony, 2011 – 15:50
2. Jan Fisher, emcee follow-up – 1:50
[audio: https://pokerati.com/podcast/pokerati-raw/AnnieDuke_wiphof.mp3, https://pokerati.com/podcast/pokerati-raw/JanFisher_wiphof.mp3]

More…

PokerStars EPT London final tables for their £5,000 Main Event and £20,000 High Roller are both set for Monday afternoon at 12pm London time (7am ET). Live streaming of the 5k final table will be available at www.eptlive.com and www.pokerstars.tv. First, here’s the lineup for the 5k final table with the winner earning £900,000 with updates available at PokerNews and PokerStarsblog.com:

Seat 1: David Vamplew – 3,670,000
Seat 2: Tom Marchese – 1,480,000
Seat 3: Fernando Brito – 1,100,000
Seat 4: Per Ummer – 1,245,000
Seat 5: Artur Wasek – 2,250,000
Seat 6: Kayvan Payman – 1,295,000
Seat 7: Kyle Bowker – 7,165,000
Seat 8: John Juanda – 7,075,000

Here’s the final table for the High Roller event with £556,000 going to the winner (updates available at PokerStarsblog.com)

Seat 1: Matt Marafioti – 96.000
Seat 2: Pierre Neuville – 110,000
Seat 3: William Molson – 126,000
Seat 4: Andrew Robl – 835,000
Seat 5: Fabian Quoss – 605,000
Seat 6: Jani Sointula – 320,000
Seat 7: Jose Ignacio “Nacho” Barbero – 464,000
Seat 8: Vanessa Selbst – 1,262,000

Elsewhere …

WSOP Circuit – Southern Indiana, Elizabeth, IN :: Action got away Saturday for a month of WSOP-C action in Indiana with 570 players taking part in the first ring event, $350 NL holdem. Check out WSOP.com for results on Monday.

Is this news only to me?
UPDATE: Question mark removed. Williams and Selbst signage confirmed by Williams’ agent and PokerStars marketing exec.

David Williams, 2010 WPT World Champion, apparently will be donning the Spade-and-Star of PokerStars during the WSOP main event. I’m pretty sure you can bet on it …

Maybe I just missed the announcement, or any telltale patchwork in the Amazon room … but I hadn’t yet heard whom he’d be allying with, and this morning got an email invite for a little media meet-and-greet with:

Joe Cada: 2009 Winner – World Series of Poker
Vanessa Selbst: 2010 Winner – North American Poker Tour at Mohegan Sun
David Williams: As of 2010, his total live tournament winnings exceed $7,893,000

A formal invite is below, please let me know if you would like to RSVP for this event!

Figured it had to be them or Full Tilt … maybe Victory, but probably not, as Williams, upon becoming a free agent this spring just after winning the $25k WPT Championship, seemed to be one of the very few pros with the right combination of image and cred to make him extra-marketable.

All makes perfect sense really. As powerful a duo Williams could make with Antonio Esfandiari, it seems much cooler to match him up with two other current and defending big-event champs.

I just voted for the Maven Awards. Not usually my bag to give out all my confirming email data (in a time-consuming way) that lets someone else plausibly sell or profit from my internet ID. In fact, many know I consciously chose not to vote for the WSOP-TOC because I couldn’t help but see that as an email harvesting operation for WSOP.com, done in a way that trivializes the value of sites like Pokerati when it comes to someday sending players to the WSOP for online poker play.

(Also, by standing on such principles, I didn’t have to tell Tom he had a more promising future in selling pants than trying to qualify for the TOC.)

However, because the Maven Awards presumably isn’t looking to open an online poker room in the near future, and because, frankly, I was feeling bad for women in poker after the punk-bitch episodes in this year’s WSOP-Ladies event … I decided to give up my IP address to support the cause … somebody’s cause … in a way that seems like a good step toward someday negating the need for a separate Women in Poker Hall of Fame.

Much to my plausibly noble delight, it turns out The Maven Awards has an anonymous voting option that still does a decent job of preventing blatant ballot stuffing. (I tried; would require too much work for me to vote twice.)

I’m not sure when their voting deadline is, but it’s gotta be soon … so I encourage you to get your votes in, too, by voting here. Below are whom I voted for in each of the 14 categories and why:

More…

The PokerStars.it EPT San Remo reached their final table earlier and the most notable player remaining in the field when play resumes Wednesday afternoon (6am ET for those in the US) will be Liv Boeree. Following the wins of Annie Duke at the NBC Heads-Up and Vanessa Selbst at the PokerStars NAPT Mohegan Sun event so far this year, could Boeree follow in their footsteps tomorrow? The final table will be seated as follows:

Seat 1: Claudio Piceci – 4,460,000
Seat 2: Alexey Rybin – 1,890,000
Seat 3: Atanas Gueorguiev – 2,520,000
Seat 4: Jakob Carlsson – 13,525,000
Seat 5: Giuseppe Diep – 1,830,000
Seat 6: Liv Boeree – 3,440,000
Seat 7: Toni Pettersson – 5,035,000
Seat 8: Michael Piper – 4,600,000

Updates will be available over at PokerNews, along with live streaming video of the final table over at www.PokerStars.tv at 6am ET.