Discussing the weather is a national past time for the British. Entire friendships can blossom from the comparison of one year’s inclement summer with the previous year’s inclement summer. Weather is a pervading social lubricant that unites all classes, creeds, and religions. Simpy describe the current climate and you’ll be instantly engulfed by a torrent of meteorological exhortations. What I’m trying to say is, it’s become a bit colder lately. On with the news.

Esfandiari et al

Not so cold, both actually and figuratively, is everyone’s favourite magician-turned-poker player, Antonio Esfandiari. Fresh from his $18 million score in the WSOP’s One Drop event, the all-time leader in tournament winnings picked up his second bracelet in Event #2 at the WSOPE in Cannes, France. [Wicked Chops Poker]

The World Series also crowned its very first Tunisian tournament winner in the form of Ben Mahmoud. He picked up €147,099 for first place in WSOPE Event #1, a €2,700 six-handed NLHE contest.[ESPN]

Meanwhile Frenchmen all along the Croisette were tossing their berets in the air with joy as Gallic poker stalwart Roger Hairabedian picked up a bracelet of his own in Event #3. [ESPN]

WCOOP Main Event

If the WCOOP were a televised event this might have been another Moneymaker moment. A Russian player known as maratik battled his way to a $1 million score from beginnings so humble they make Oliver Twist look like a oiled-up oligarch. Despite typically sticking to buy-ins around the $1.50 mark, maratic managed to freeroll his way into the $5,000 main event and on to victory. [PokerNews]

PokerStars Announce Full Tilt Launch

Along with the announcement that PokerStars are preparing to re-launch Full Tilt in the first week of November the company also revealed their plans to reimburse every player whose money was locked away following Black Friday. Users from France, Spain, Denmark, Estonia, and Belgium will have to access their cash through PokerStars itself, while the rest of the world should be able to jump back into Full Tilt and see things just as they left them. That just leaves Italy, where the details are still a little hazy, and the U.S. – who need to have their reimbursements processed through the Department of Justice. [PokerStars]

Mickey Peterson Wins EPO

I first met Mickey Peterson two years ago when he was sleeping on a coach at my friends’ place. Since that day Mickey has gone on to win EPT Copenhagen and, most recently, the English Poker Open for a cool £78,660. Coincidence? You decide. [PokerPlayer]

Mixed News from India

Good news everyone! The Indian government has officially declared that poker is a skill game. Bad news everyone! They still won’t let you play it for money. This following a tentative enquiry by university graduates planning to start a website that allowed wagers on poker and other skill games, including chess. [India]

Now you’ll have to excuse me while I stare at some pegs and try to decide which thickness of coat to wear. It’s dangerously temperate out there and the wrong choice could cost me everything. If I survive exposure to London’s mild Autumn, I’ll be back next week with another sack full of poker news.

I almost didn’t realize that what heretofore had been the biggest online tournament series in the world — the World Championships of Online Poker — is underway throughout the non-American ether. Even with an American government-mandated “boycott” reminiscent of Moscow 1980, is WCOOP still the biggest? (My guess: probably so.) But without certain American players, do we still care?

That’s hard to say, but regardless, you can still look stylish in your nonchalance with this 2010 edition WCOOP T-shirt commemorating the events from back in the Poker Cold War days:

Generic WCOOP Shirt by Pokerati

The second Epic Poker League Main Event kicked off Tuesday afternoon with a field of 97 players, down 40 from the first event of the inaugural season. A crowded poker calendar with events in Barcelona, Paris, and Oklahoma and the PokerStars WCOOP tournament series helping contribute to the lower numbers. At the end of play 50 remain as Pro/Am “qualifier” Jaime Kaplan took advantage of a player disqualified from playing to end the day as chip leader.

The first EPL Main Event winner, Chino Rheem, was put on probation shortly after winning $1,000,000. Rheem is obligated to pay back players he owes money to with any winnings or he’ll no longer participate in EPL events. He finished Day 1 in 6th place after six levels were played Tuesday afternoon. The smaller field means twelve players will cash, with the winner earning $782,410.

Here’s the top 10 in chip counts going into Day 2:

1. Jaime Kaplan – 324,600
2. Dan O’Brien – 321,400
3. Alec Torelli – 231,500
4. Mike McDonald – 199,600
5. Nam Le – 176,300
6. Chino Rheem – 173,300
7. Sean Getzwiller 165,400
8. Andrew Robl – 149,700
9. Adam Levy – 145,400
10. Marco Johnson – 145,200

Day 2 updates available starting from 12pm PT at www.epicpoker.com

EPL Preliminary Action

The $1,500 Pro/Am event featured an overlay of nearly $50,000, meaning only nine $20,000 Main Event seats were available when the field was down to 9 players. The event earned points towards the Global Poker Index, giving players incentive to play down to a winner. Greg Mueller defeated Nam Le heads-up to become the official winner with Phil Hellmuth finishing 3rd. Brandon Meyers and Sean Getzwiller each qualified for the Main Event for the second straight Pro/Am, but Meyers was eliminated on Day 1.

Jaime Kaplan was the 10th place finisher in the Pro/Am, but he earned a Main Event seat when qualifier Michael DiVita chose not to participate in the Main Event after information about his being a convicted child molester came to public light.

After the Pro/Am concluded the EPL held a charity event for Fallen Heroes USA, an organization dedicated to assisting families of law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty. Epic Poker’s own Michael Craig took down the bracelet, defeating Phil Hellmuth heads-up as $25,000 was raised for the charity.

The £10,000 + 350 Main Event has now reached the final table of nine, returning Tuesday afternoon at 12pm UK time/7 am ET/4 am PT to play down to a winner, who’ll earn a coveted WSOP gold bracelet and over £830,000 (~$1.3m US). Several big names fell short of reaching the final table, including Phil Ivey (19th), Viktor Blom (16th) and Barny Boatman (13th). Here’s how the final table will be situated, with just a few minutes remaining in level 20: 10,000/20,000 with a 3,000 ante:

Seat 1: Roland de Wolfe – 1,377,000
Seat 2: Marc Inizan – 349,000
Seat 3: Nicolas Levi – 428,000
Seat 4: Fabrizio Baldassari – 697,000
Seat 5: Brian Powell – 842,000
Seat 6: Dan Steinberg – 1,520,000
Seat 7: James Bord – 1,331,000
Seat 8: Ronald Lee – 1,899,000
Seat 9: Dan Fleyshman – 1,946,000

Streaming of the final table, with hole cards, on a five-hour delay will be available at www.espn3.com and www.wsop.com for European viewers. For those looking to follow the action live, PokerNews and WSOP.com will constantly be providing live updates.

Elsewhere …

TJ Cloutier Choctaw Poker Classic – Durant, OK :: Sudhakara Kattamuri takes down the $1,500 + 100 Main Event for $73,127.

Big Poker Oktober – Bicycle Casino :: Small buy-in series of tournaments through Oct. 9, NAPT in November.

PokerStars WCOOP $5k Main Event: Under 125 players remaining, one of them tbvle, winner of hand 50,000,000,000 on PokerStars at a 2/5 cent table, which included a WCOOP Main Event ticket. He’s turned that into at least $17,711 and is looking for more. The PokerStars blog is providing live updates as they play down to a winner by Tuesday morning.

Day 3 of the £10,000 + 350 Main Event concluded with 22 players remaining, playing down to the final table starting at 12pm London time Monday afternoon. A reminder, a stream with hole cards (plus 5 hour delay) will be available at ESPN3.com in the US, Latin America, Brazil, New Sealand and Australia. The same stream will be available at WSOP.com for European viewers. The chip leader is Ronald Lee with 922,000 in chips. Other notables returning: Andrew Pantling (Event #1 runner-up to Phil Laak) – 821,000, Viktor Blom – 705,000, Phil Ivey – 657,000, Hoyt Corkins – 566,000, Barny Boatman – 379,000, Victory Poker CEO Dan Fleyshman – 336,000 and Roland de Wolfe – 113,000. Table draw available at WSOP.com .

The £10,000 + 350 High Roller NL Heads-Up event finally has a winner, as Gus Hansen defeated Jim Collopy in the 3rd and deciding match to earn his first WSOP bracelet along with £288,409. Here’s how the final hand played out:

Elsewhere …

PokerStars LAPT Grand Final – Rosario, Argentina :: Martin Sansour defeats Bolivar Palacios, earning $322,280. Matthias Habernig’s bid for back-to-back LAPT wins fell short, finishing 6th. PokerStars Blog has the final table report.

TJ Cloutier Choctaw Poker Classic – Durant, OK :: Cloutier finishes 17th for $3,673, play down to 4-handed. www.roundersradio.com covering the FT action.

PokerStars WCOOP $5,000 Main Event :: 2,443 entries, first pays over $2m, 2nd and 3rd $1m+

The final table has been set at the WSOP Europe Event #3 – £1,000 + 75 NL Holdem as the defending champion, JP Kelly, is in contention to defend his bracelet triumph at last year’s WSOPE. If Kelly won, he would also become the first player to defend a NL holdem bracelet since Johnny Chan back in 1987-88, and the youngest player to win three bracelets. That distinction belongs to Phil Ivey.* Here’s how that final table will be seated when play resumes at 2pm:

Seat 1: Karim Jomeen 109,000
Seat 2: Scott Shelley 148,000
Seat 3: Nicholas Katz 150,000
Seat 4: Paul Ian Pitchford 77,000
Seat 5: Jeppe Bisgaard 171,000
Seat 6: Mehdi Senhaji 369,000
Seat 7: Kaveh Payman 434,000
Seat 8: JP Kelly 242,000
Seat 9: Jack Lyman 55,000

* Credit to Donnie Peters at PokerNews.
Follow along in the updates at PokerNews or WSOP.com

Event #4 will take place at 5pm London time Tuesday, the £10,000 + 350 NL Holdem High Roller Heads-Up event. The field will contain a maximum of 128 players with registration closing when the tournament starts. In case of an unevenly sized field (more than 32, 64, or 128) there will be byes for round 1.

Elsewhere…

WPT Borgata Poker Open – Atlantic City :: Day 2 underway, just over 200 players remaining with the top 100 making the money. A brawl almost takes place just before dinner as described by BJ Nemeth here. Other updates and goings-on here.

Heartland Poker Tour – Black Hawk, Colorado :: The poker tour that people forget keeps chugging along with Mark Dunbar taking down over $180,000 in defeating a field of over 400 players. HeartlandPokerTour.com has the recap.

T.J. Cloutier Choctaw Classic – Durant, OK :: Week-long series of tournaments w/ $1,650 Main Event Sept. 25-26 – Schedule

PokerStars WCOOP :: Jason Mercier and Chad Brown in the top 30 of 1k NL event, winner takes down nearly $500,000. RaiseOnce, allegedly Phil Ivey, takes down $25,000 HU title. PokerStars Blog

On this day nine years ago — September 11, 2001 — cards got in the air for a new online poker site called PokerStars.

The best multitable tournaments, player loyalty rewards, stats, and seeing your own picture at the table were the vision unleashed on the world on September 11th. Click to look back at the site as it was then.

It was just for play money at first, but the timing would prove fortuitous. People seemed to enjoy the software and were telling their friends … as online poker seemed to provide a much-needed escape from the ever-more-difficult to swallow news of the day.

More…

The WCOOP has reached day three, but already some noise has been made outside the hundred of thousands of guarantees that Stars is running each day. No fewer than three pros are no longer signed with Pokerstars, and all without much fanfare or even explanation from Stars as to why they removed them from their rosters.

Hevad Khan, core reason behind the “Hevad Khan” WSOP tournament rule, out.

Gavin Griffin, first player ever to lock up an unofficial triple crown, consisting of a WSOP bracelet and WPT and EPT titles, gone.

Peter Eastgate, 2008 WSOP Main Event Champion, sayonara.

In the end, these three all seem to make some sense. Peter Eastagate has quit retired from poker, though its anybody’s guess how long this haitus retirement is going to last. And if Hevad’s and Gavin’s Hendon Mobs are any indication, neither player has done anything particularly spectacular in the last two years. This coupled with high profile signings of David Williams and Vanessa Selbst earlier this year may have prompted Stars to trim the fat with regards to its pro holdings. Whether they stop here or not is anyone’s guess, but it will be interesting to see if at least the non-retired pros get picked up by a new site in the near future.

There’s a lot going on going into this (American) Labor Day Weekend. Some happenings in poker you may want to follow, or follow up on:

On the tournament trail …

WSOP Circuit Council Bluffs, Iowa Blair Hinkle wins $1,500 Main Event, Robert Georato “Casino Champion”, qualifying for $1m National Championship at Caesars Palace in May. WSOP.com

PokerStars.net EPT Vilamoura, Portugal :: Toby Lewis takes down the title, football legend/MBE Terry Sherringham finishes 5th. PokerStars Blog.

WPT London :: Final table set, Party qualifier eligible for $500,000 bonus with win, £15k High Rollers starts this afternoon PartyPoker Blog

Partouche Poker Tour, Cannes :: Over 750 players, prize pool nearly €6 million, live streaming w/ hole cards starting Monday at Partouchepokertour.com. Follow along en Francais w/ Benjo at Winamax.fr

The River – Winstar, OK :: Raymer, J. Mercier, Chainsaw, G. Smith, Flack among hundreds of North Texas locals fighting in the $2.5m guaranteed main event this weekend

Commerce Holdem Series :: – Encouraging numbers halfway through 500k guarantee opening event despite rumblings of a boycott. Commerce Tournaments

UPDATE:

Gulf Coast Poker Championship – Biloxi, Mississippi :: $5,000 Main Event starts Saturday. BeauRivage.com

Elsewhere & Also …

PokerStars’ WCOOP gets underway Sunday.

WSOP Circuit Horseshoe Hammond tournaments to add more than 40 $10k Regional Championship seats to their tournaments – WSOP.com

Jennifer Harman, Kathy Liebert and Billie Brown get inducted into the Women in Poker Hall of Fame tonight. US Ladies Championship Saturday at the Golden Nugget. Women in Poker Hall of Fame

And Tatjana Pasalic spends three minutes with Phil Ivey

It feels good to run good … and because it’s important to know whom you’re up against, here are six players you may wanna congratulate/look out for at the tables live and online, as their most recent noteworthy successes suggest they are running particularly well.

Mary Joe Belcore-Zogman
Heartland Poker Tour’s “The Grand Series”
Onamia, Minnesota

Bested 201 players to take down $85,723 — making her the second woman to win an HPT event, and part of the first husband-wife team to both win on the Heartland Poker Tour. Dan Zogman won $220k in Gary, IN, last year. The Zogmans hail from McHenry, IL, about 60 miles outside of Chicago.

More details about her win at HeartlandPokerTour.com

Phil Ivey
Full Tilt Million Dollar Cash Game
London

Made a stab at his 6th bracelet in the £2,500 HORSE at WSOP-Europe (banking more than US$25k for 6th place), and while overseas was the big winner in the million-dollar cash game against his fellow Full Tilt pros and other highest-stakes players. Finished +$536,400, dominating the competition for the second time in the event’s 3-year history.

Live-blog coverage from Michael Craig (relevant posts start in the #520s)

More…

An email from Shamus last night:

Am live blogging the WCOOP Main Event tonight for PokerStars. I tell [Mrs. Shamus] that Tom is playing.

“What is his name, again?” she asks. “Love handle?”

He outed himself.

After Dan tried to delicately give “luvgamble” kudos for winning the WCOOP Event #24 ($530 NL 2-7 Single Draw) without giving away his real name, as no one likely caught the clever “Schmonkey Schmomber” clue, Tom Schneider gave his real name when doing the winner’s interview piece for PokerStars.

In the piece written by Falstaff entitled, “Oops! I Won Another Bracelet! Tom ‘luvgamble’ Schneider Takes Down Event #24,” the Donkey Bomber discusses the key to his WCOOP success.

Schneider, who has had tremendous success in live tournaments with 2 World Series of Poker bracelets in 2007 and the WSOP Player of the Year title for that year, says “I like games that don’t have any educational material available. I believe that my advantage is that I’m able to figure out games without having to rely on written material.”

Ahhh, not reading. That’s the key! Duly noted.

Today, Schneider started out at the top of the leaderboard of the WCOOP $5200 NLHE main event. Keep up with his progress as live bloggers track all of the happenings. (Side note: If Schneider stays in long enough, I’ll likely write some witty blog entries about him during the late shift tonight, my last of the WCOOP.)

click to enlarge

Well whaddya know … Pokerati fave [name deleted] still plays poker … and last night he (“luvgamble”) won WCOOP event #24: $530 NL 2-7 Single Draw. (Which really is the best psychology-based poker game of all.)

308 runners, 49 in the money. First Place paid a nice $42k … glad to see [name deleted] finally book a noticeable win in 2008, which will make me feel better taking a chunk of it in our presidential election wager.

The one unfortunate thing … [name deleted] always liked to play anonymously, and wouldn’t even tell me his PokerStars screen name for fear that I’d publicize it. But now, as it goes in poker because I have no conscience he actually won a semi-public event, I get to out him, and the “Shmonkey Shmomber” is stuck playing a Googleable screen name into perpetuity. Ha ha, er, I mean congrats!

Other notable money finishers with trackable screen names:

newhizzle – Mark Newhouse
Bill Chen – Bill Chen
GavinGriffin – Gavin Griffin
KidPoker – Daniel Negreanu
BeL0WaB0Ve – Kevin Saul

Meanwhile, here’s a moment of Zen from 10th-place finisher Bill Chen, speaking on “The Power of Acceptance”, and even the necessity of embracing plausible death:

There’s a lot of action going on, now and into this weekend …

First off, in the online world, the WCOOP (World Championship of Online Poker) is going on on PokerStars. You can rail it live as an observer on PokerStars itself, of course, or if you’ve got an offline life you can follow it semi-live on the PokerStarsBlog in the capable hands of our own California Jen and some of your other favorite bloggers (Change100, Tuscaloosa Johnny, Otis).

Believe it or not, they’ve also got “TV” coverage of these big online tourneys — they’re about halfway through 33 of them. Check it out right here if you’ve got a half-hour to kill:

The new PokerStars TV will also be all over the EPT Barcelona, which just got underway — including some live video coverage viewable on the internet, along with more traditional blog-coverage and chip updates.

On the salty side of the pond, the Borgata Poker Open is getting heated in Atlantic City. That’s where Pauly’s at. And he’s covering all the action (along with the ever-illustrative Tropical Steve and poker-media journeyman Michael Friedman) on the official Borgata Blog. The WPT main event kicks off on Sunday. The WPT has their own blog-crew coverage, too — something called “The Muck”.

Meanwhile, I’m stuck here in Vegas, where it’s a Freerollin’ Saturday for me:

I start the day in Event #2 of the PokerListings Run Good Challenge. Supposedly we’re having some blind-structure issues with PokerStars, but regardless, it will be a chance to redeem myself from my lackluster Event #1 performance.

Then, later tomorrow evening, it’s the grand-opening tourney at the Hard Rock, where I’ll be playing against Phil Hellmuth, Anjela Brunson, Rick Fuller, Scott Fischman, Scott Ian (of Anthrax), Jeremiah Smith, Andre Agassi, Montel Williams, Randy Couture, Jermaine O’neal, Paul Pierce, and others for an important motorcycle. Will be texting in updates via CSR should you care to follow my quest against a field that should be a combination of great and terrible, with a less-than-skill-friendly blind-structure.

Click below for more detailed info on the event itself, and the motorcycle.

It really is shaping up to be a Good Poker September.

More…

The World Championship of Online Poker (WCOOP) begins its seventh installment of the annual poker tournament series today on PokerStars. Event #1 of 33 total started at 2:30pm ET, and Event #2 gets going in a few minutes. The WCOOP will run through September 22nd.

I mention this for two reasons:

1. The WCOOP is a big friggin’ deal. It happens only once a year, which makes the anticipation factor high, and it was the original online poker tournament series. Big numbers are expected, as evidenced by Event #1, the NLHE six-max, which has 7,217 players with a prize pool of $1,443,400.

2. PokerStars has a live blog running for all of the events, from beginning to end. I’m one of the slew of bloggers tracking the tables/players and posting updates. It’s something new for PokerStars and most of the writers, but it’s looking like it will be a great endeavor. Stop on by and check out the action if you have nothing else to do enjoy online poker.