Greetings from sunny Southern Florida. I’ve finally thawed myself out from the permafrost of this New York winter, and I’m looking forward to the WSOPC’s first stop down in Florida. In the meantime, let’s look at what’s happened this week.

Vinnie Vinh Makes Day 2, Shows Up, Wins
LAPC – Los Angeles, California
Vinny Vinh is an enigma in the poker world over the last several years, and rumored debts and drug issues have caused some well-publicized incidents at the World Series of Poker. On two separate occasions, Vinh made Day 2 of a WSOP event, only to no-show under mysterious circumstances. This year’s LAPC is a different story, though, as Vinh decided playing a tournament to completion might be a novel idea, and it worked out pretty well for him. Vinh took down Event 29 last week for a cool $12,000. If you still don’t believe that Vinnie Vinh is anything beyond a figment of your imagination, here he is taking with the great Matt Savage.

In other LAPC news, Tony Ma took down the Tag Team Championship with Restituto Bagaygay, defeating the Road Warriors with a double powerbomb 82 other teams in the process. Jamie Shaevel is on fire, winning three different events at LAPC to lead the Player of the Series race, overtaking Brian Brubaker and David Levi, who won a PLO8 event this week, at two wins each.

Pokerati Player Gets a Ring, too … Circuit Ring, That Is
WSOP Circuit – Tunica, Mississippi
Team Pokerati juggernaut La Sengphet got matching rings this Valentine’s Day weekend, but La earned it on the felt. After her boyfriend David Clark won a WSOP Circuit event in Choctaw a few weeks ago, La won Ring Event #8 in Tunica, pocketing more than $30,000 and becoming the first woman in nine months to win an open WSOPC ring event. La also ran deep in the Tunica main event, finishing 10th — just a bad beat away (A10 < K10) from another final table and a chance to lock up her seat in the WSOPC million-dollar freeroll. Fossilman Beats DC Politicos
Washington, D.C.
Most of the attention that Greg Raymer has received in the last few weeks has been about his departure from PokerStars, but it hasn’t stopped him from continuing the cause for the legalization of online poker. At last week’s CPAC conference, the PPA ran a charity event to help raise awareness and preach limited government to conservatives. It remains to be seen how effective this message was, but Raymer, as per usual, just seems to keep on winning, no matter what he plays.

Gareth Walker Steals From Rich, Gives to Self in Nottingham
UKIPT – Nottingham, England
This UKIPT £500 Main Event set a record with 1,058 players, the biggest field ever for a tournament on British shores. There were no Robin Hood sightings, but there was quite a bounty for Gareth Walker, who walked away with £109,000, the biggest prize in the history of the UKIPT.

Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza Draws Big Names
Las Vegas, Nevada
At the moment, the Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza is the biggest game in town when it comes to tournaments, and some big names have made some deep runs in these events. James Van Alstyne finished second in a $1,000 event for just under $20,000, with Dennis Phillips finishing in the money in 13th place in the same event. Joanne “JJ” Liu seems to cash wherever she goes, finishing third in an Omaha 8//b event for over $4,000.

I didn’t get to the Rio until way late yesterday — like 11:30 pm — so you’re getting yesterday’s episode today … which seems strangely appropriate considering in this episode Dr. Pauly and I are watching Vinny Vinh and his ever-encouraging railbirds at and around the final table in the $1,500 limit event from the Milwaukee’s Best Light No-Limit Lounge.

Episode 3: Milwaukee’s Best Vinny

BREAKING NEWS: GSN does not exercise Season 7 option for GSN. Talks ongoing with GSN to possibly air “parts” of season 7. Press release from WPTE

Happenings from yesterday at the WSOP:

The other final table of yesterday concluded earlier this morning, as Jimmy Shultz took down Event #12 ($1,500 Limit Holdem), eventually beating Zac Flowers in a heads-up battle to win a bracelet along with just over $250,000. Upon his victory, he announced he was donating 25% of his win to the Charleston, SC Fire Department , who lost nine firefighters June 18, 2007. Vinny Vinh, along with his “associates” railing him, finished 3rd.

More info after the jump:
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Happenings this evening, while I make this part small so you can read all the good stuff below:

The $5k NL Shootout final table is down to headsup. The current chip leader winner is Phil “The Chairman” Tom. His son, Scott, was the founder of Absolute Poker, and we know how that turned out. (Readers may want to insert their own superuser jokes here). Greg “FBT” Mueller is in a close finished 2nd, while Leo Wolpert was recently eliminated in 3rd.

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Teddy “The Iceman” Munroe: Watch out for this guy. Tough to play against.

Tom is was the chip leader in the $2k Omaha Hi-Lo. That’s pretty cool.

UPDATE: Tom is out. Not cool.

And that limit event he busted out of yesterday … Erick Lindgren just missed the final table, which is now set with some interesting players, including Teddy Munroe, Ali Eslami, and Vinny Vinh. (Teddy and I go way back — last year I’d be typing outside and “The Iceman” would fill me in on the $100-$200 cash action while taking a piss on the tournament tent air conditioners. “Makin’ money, baby!” he’d say before shaking himself dry and heading back to the table.)

Even the $10k 7-Stud World Championship is getting interesting … with Doyle still alive and both Bob and Maureen Feduniak with the potential to become the first ever husband-wife presumably non-collusive team at the final table. Never mind. Since typing this, all the above-mentioned have been eliminated.

I learned about this 7-Stud shape-up from the a WSOP-TV vid. And though I tend to detest any lack of imbeddability, I gotta say I like a lot of what this ESPN/WSOP/Bluff (?) crew has got going here. For example, Harmonie Krieger does a basic feature video interview set on the different jobs people come to the WSOP from. Nice enough, right? — but very real when one of the guys she talks with is Jay Columbo, who ran the legendary Mayfair and Playstation poker clubs in New York City, legally questionable status notwithstanding.

And then, perhaps most shocking to me, I enjoyed Jean-Robert Bellande’s “Surviving the WSOP” — where the young, aspiring Eskimo Clark chronicles his ups and downs at the World Series while his video-podcast editors comment Pop-up Video-style — follow along as he hustles high-rollers for buy-ins.

Even learned something from Phil Ivey’s less exciting V-log … and that is that he’s playing so many big-field, low-buy-in donkfests because he has a lot of side action pending on whether or not he’ll win a bracelet this year. We’ll see if we can’t find out more about this.

Speaking of donkfests, the Ladies Event has already lost 2/3 of its starting field, and of those still remaining, at least three of them are Pokerati MySpace friends: Lacey Jones, Kathy Liebert, and Mandy Baker are looking strong and pretty much representing the spectrum of all that is good about women. Go girls! I mean chicks … er babes .. uh bitches?

UPDATE: Lacey is nursing a short stack. Poker Roadie Amanda Leatherman has come on strong, however, and picked up the aggressive pace. Michele Lewis, Tiffany Michele, and PokerNews editrix Haley Hintze are all out.

In the meantime, primarily because it is awesomely embeddable, check out the debut episode of The Degenerate Report, from Neverwin Poker:

What’s happening at the WSOP while I go looking to buy some vurry expensive watches :
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One of today’s final tables just concluded, event #10 ($2,500 Omaha 8/Stud 8) as Farzad Rouhani ran over the final table, eventually knocking out Tom Chambers in a brief heads-up battle. “Miami John” Cernuto took 3rd. The other final table, event #9 ($1,500 NL 6-max) currently is down to their final 3. Rep Porter is the current chip leader, Devin Porter (no relation) in 2nd, Nathan Templeton 3rd.

The $5,000 NL shootout has their final table, they’ll get underway Sunday at 2pm, and it will consist of:
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Vinnie Vinh has yet again graced us with an empty seat. Chops of WCP interviewed Vinnie earlier when he showed up for today’s Main Event. Growing his stack to 25k he failed to return after the dinner break. Word around the Amazon hallway is that he’s tired (seriously, no joke). But that’s no surprise as most people up here are exhausted, exhibited by a few sleeping on benches and the floor.

So, basically we’re writing about how Vinnie Vinh was tired and went to bed for a nap and ignoring the nameless that decided to roll around on the carpet.

UPDATE: Vinnie’s stack was closer to 36k at dinner time.

Day 1A is underway at the 2007 WSOP and it’s a madhouse. Mel Judah, Liz Lieu, Johnny Chan, Tobey Maguire, Jeff Gibralter (Dallas player) and Pokerati’s Tom Schneider are playing today. Vinnie Vinh did an infamous no-show and received a refund thanks to Houston’s Jimmy Tran. “The Poker Biz” has the story on Vinnie Vinh’s stack here.

Three more days make up the first round and the growing field has rumors of a sold out Monday.

LAS VEGAS – Last night I avoided the Rio (in fear of being accused of hooking) and joined some friends for the $200 NL Hold’em tournament at the Venetian. Arriving on time I was disappointed to learn I would be alternate 25ish. Deciding to wait until the end of level two, my name was quickly called and I soon found myself seated in the ten-seat (perfect, since I forgot my glasses in the midst of changing handbags).

The Lowdown…It was card dead with a big stack going all-in every hand so NO MOVES were allowed. I did managed to flop an ace against this guy who passed over a few chips but I was still stuck with an infamous alternate short stack. After a table move, things proved to be better when I made the decision to move in with the next decent hand, oops I looked down at aces and tripled up. Long, boring story short…I proudly took home 20th with money going to the top 18 places. I nursed my growling stomach with a warm slice of pizza and went home. Although a couple of women cashed…my friends were disappointed there was no sign of Brandi Hawbaker nor Vinnie Vinh.

BTW – The noon tournament with 700 players started a shouting match about a 40-person chop. They argued for an hour until they convinced the chip leaders to make a bad decision (first place was 100k) finally settling on a 30-way chop. Roughly 8k went to the field with the top five taking 11k-ish.

It was good times, fun poker but a late night in Vegas.

LAS VEGAS–New episode of Beyond the Table is up. I’m listening in pop-up right now … you should do the same. Or you can download the mp3 here.

On this week’s special edition — recorded in Las Vegas, Las Vegas, and Las Vegas — you get to hear Tom, Dan, and Karridy muse about:

• Tom’s bracelet win in an event he tried to get out of
• The mathematics of backing percentages
• Karridy’s sojourn to Vegas with $65 in his pocket and roulette dreams
• Deadbeats trying to borrow money from Tom
• Vinny Vinh karma
• Doyle Brunson cruising hotties on his scooter
• Interview with Fake Doyle Brunson / Barry Greenstein’s baby-making abilities
• Tom on stiffing angry Russian mobsters cab drivers and making them like it
• Tasty game of 1-to-1000