Was just checking the GPI … with particular interest in the standings for American Player of the Year … you know, Election Day.  Actually I was curious to see, among other things, what kind of impact a WSOP main event had on player rankings. (Greg Merson moved up.)

But what stood out to me were the poker teams … and the presence of newcomer IveyPoker.

#8	—		Daniel Negreanu	Pokerstars	768.40
#9	—		Jason Mercier	Pokerstars	766.72
#10	—		Bertrand Grospellier	Pokerstars	752.53
#11	—		Joseph Cheong		748.61
#12	—		Jonathan Duhamel	Pokerstars	741.24
#13	—		Michael Watson		720.35
#14	—		Mohsin Charania		718.52
#15	—		John Juanda		714.42
#16	—		Phil Ivey	Ivey Poker	713.44

Long gone are the days of Full Tilt and PokerStars commandeering the WSOP main event final table. But will an online site bearing the name of the 11th best American this year be able to step in and successfully fill the Full Tilt void for US players?

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In case you’re just catching up … one of the big stories at this year’s WSOP has been the apparent surge of non-American players on the bracelet stage … at least that’s what I thought when I heard Hungary had won its second … and that the UK locked down a 5th. (The Brits got shut out in ’08, and won three gold bracelets in ’09.)

So far in 2010, through 41 (of 57) events, 14 bracelets have gone to foreign poker nationals … or 34 percent. I’m not sure how that compares with the percentage of non-American players in the worldwide WSOPopulation … but my guess is the number could be disproportionate in one direction or the other.  (The WSOP says they’ll eventually get that stat.)

Last year 15 out of 57 bracelets went to non-Americans, and in 2008, poker players not from the USA won 16 out of a possible 55. So we’re actually kinda in the same ballpark this year, though foreigners are on track to exceed previous results.

Click here to follow the WSOP World Rankings on WSOP.com, which isn’t too different from the WSOP World Standings you presumably began following on Pokerati in ’08 and ’09, except now they’ve got cool little flags and we’ve got a little note to self on making better friends with patent attorneys.

Country	Bracelets	Cashes	Earnings
United States	27	3,766	$56,122,111
Canada	4	311	$6,240,515
United Kingdom	5	151	$5,068,138
Russia	1	72	$2,971,461
Germany	0	70	$1,571,634
France	1	70	$1,215,580
Hungary	2	16	$871,022
New Zealand	1	2	$619,999
Sweden	0	31	$512,426
Ireland	0	20	$415,358

Recapping Friday night’s WSOP tournaments with the two latest bracelet winners finally determined Saturday morning, but first some breaking news for Pokerati fans:

DonkeyBomber leads 1k Seniors’ field

Day 1 of the $1,000 Seniors’ No-Limit Holdem Championship concluded with 427 players remaining at the end of 10 levels of play. The reported chip leader is Team Pokerati/Loudmouth Poker pro Tom Schneider in front with 94,000 in chips. Other notables with chips when play resumes at 2:30pm: Berry Johnston (62,900), Lon McEachern (27,200) and Sam Simon (23,100). A full list of chip counts is now available at PokerNews.

Ellis wins bracelet #4 for the UK

The $1,500 No-Limit Holdem event reached a conclusion first as Mike Ellis overcame a large chip deficit heads-up against Christopher Gonzales to win the bracelet along with $581,851 as the Briton wins the fourth bracelet this year for the UK, moving them into second in the WSOP world standings. Gonzales earned $360,906 for the runner-up finish. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report are available at wsop.com.

Puchkov punches his way to HORSE victory

The $1,500 HORSE event finally concluded in the wee hours of the morning as Konstantin Puchkov defeated Al “Sugar Bear” Barbieri to earn $256,820 and a WSOP bracelet. Barbieri earned $158,647 for the second place finish. Full results and Dalla’s tournament report will be available at wsop.com shortly.

Lindgren, Nguyen feature final day of 5k NL 6-max

The final day of the $5,000 No-Limit Holdem 6-max event gets underway with 12 players remaining. Here’s how the field will be seated when play resumes at 3pm:

Seat 1: Orlando Delacruz – 301,000
Seat 2: Anthony Roux – 668,000
Seat 3: Evan Panesis – 299,000
Seat 4: Jeffrey “jpapola” Papola – 598,000
Seat 5: Mark Radoja – 1,493,000
Seat 6: Darren Elias – 841,000

Seat 1: Bruno Launais – 875,000
Seat 2: Men Nguyen – 264,000
Seat 3: Erick Lindgren – 1,165,000
Seat 4: Taylor Mcfarland – 848,000
Seat 5: Paul Sheng – 712,000
Seat 6: Lucas Greenwood – 425,000

Follow the updates of this event at PokerNews.

Velador and Chiu top two in 2500 PLO/PLH

Day 3 of the $2,500 Pot-Limit Omaha/Pot-Limit Holdem resumes at 3pm with 14 players remaining. Jose-Luis Velador (455,000) and David Chiu (451,000) are the leaders, while Rob Hollink (423,000), Victor Ramdin (262,000) and Phil Ivey (207,000) also return. PokerNews will be there until a bracelet winner is determined.

10k NL Heads-Up down to final 64

Two rounds of play have finished in the $10,000 No-Limit Holdem Heads-Up Championship with 64 players remaining when the field returns at 3pm. The 32 round three winners will make the money, with some of the notables returning include: Phil Ivey, Gavin Smith, Phil Gordon, Antonio Esfandiari, Sorel Mizzi, Jonathan Little, Josh Arieh, Vanessa Rousso and Vivek Rajkumar. The full bracket for this event is now online at wsop.com.

Saturday’s tournaments

The 12pm tournament is day 1a of the fourth $1,000 No-Limit Holdem event of the WSOP, with a field of at least 3,000 expected over the weekend. The 5pm tournament is the $3,000 HORSE event, which drew a field of 452 players last year with Zac Fellows coming out on top for $311,899.

Oh, huh, whaddya know … another international team event. Yep, this concept of national pride meets team poker ain’t going nowhere. (You know who you are who said that, dumbshit(s) ha ha.)

We’ve got the Caesar’s Cup coming up at WSOP-Europe, PokerStars has their America’s Cup of Poker, there’s another new op taking shape called World Team Poker … and at the APT-Macau tourney going on right now, they just had the JBET Battle of Nations, where the Koreans — represented by Brandon Wong, Chino Rheem, and Steve Sung — outmuscled the Vietnamese Le brothers — Nam, Tommy, and Allan — to take down an HK$406,000 first prize. (US$52,400.)

I don’t quite understand how it worked — teams of 3 playing macro-heads-up on 6-handed tables? — but click below for more details … I’m sure it was a good time; team poker always is … and with all these events I think it’s clear that team poker will indeed become a part of the true-to-life poker landscape … making the real question now: which format is gonna stick? I dunno, maybe I’m jumping the gun … but the Winter Olympics, World Cup 2010 … how can flags not be coming into fashion on the poker table and off?

More…

Big news out of the Russian Federation, as the global (and inevitable) poker shakedown continues …

According to this PokerListings article translated via Google, the Ministry of Sport, Tourism, and Youth Policy have revoked poker’s status as a sport — making it illegal to play except for in four designated gambling zones, one of which happens to be in Siberia.

Some 70 Russian poker clubs face a shutdown as a result of the non-sport designation, and it’s not yet clear what this will mean for the fate of EPT Moscow, the next European Poker Tour event, scheduled for August, other than that the Pokerstarzistan-spawned tourney tour would likely have to cough up some extra bucks for appropriate licensing to play — as that event has been planned to take place in a Radison hotel, as opposed to a casino.

Fuckin’ commies! Russians won the fourth highest amount of money for any nation at the 2009 WSOP, and the Ruskie Federation finished 6th in the world in terms of bracelets and final tables.

Elky: Chipleader at the end of yesterday, sure … but what has he done lately?

There’s so much good stuff in here it’s hardly even excerptible. Nolan’s Official Day 3 Report (with help from Alan Fowler) gives you not just insight about who stands where in chips, but also info on records in play, historical perspective on how far being a chip leader early can take you, a breakdown of what countries are performing admirablybeing broken, an interview with celebrity big-stack (and Lodge poker alum) Lou Diamond Phillips, and a reference to how far he has to go to pass Telly Savalas:

Click below for all the data fit to cut-and-paste:

2009 World Series of Poker Presented by Jack Link’s Beef Jerky
Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino
Las Vegas, Nevada

Official Report
Event #57
World Championship
World Series of Poker Main Event
No-Limit Hold’em
Buy-In: $10,000
Number of Entries: 6,494
Players Remaining: 789
Total Net Prize Pool: $61,043,600
Number of Places Paid: 648
First Place Prize: $8,546,435
July 3–November 10, 2009

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Sorry for the delay in getting these updated — I blame blindness, which isn’t very conducive to intense spreadsheet staring and clicking. We’ll have some analysis soon … But in the meantime, check’em out. In a nutshell, America wins! But the rest of the world has done pretty well, too. And really, since only 2/3 of the overall WSOP prize money has been awarded through 56 of 57 events (does that tell you how big a deal the main event really is?) no one has yet to be mathematically eliminated from contention for ending up at the top of the leaderboard. So all Cameroon has to do is get about 400 of the top 600 spots, and they should be good to go.

Click here to view the Pokerati World Standings (presented by Betfair) to see how 56 bracelets, 465 final tables, and 5,608 ITM finishes have spread $112,970,324 around the poker planet.

The Brits have notched up their third bracelet of the 2009 WSOP following the victory of John Kabbaj in the $10,000 World Championship Pot Limit Hold’em event. Kabbaj, known as “large” to his London poker pals, had already gone close in two previous events this year. An 8th and an 18th in the $2,500 Pot Limit Omaha/Hold’em and $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha events respectively saw Kabbaj “in the zone” and he capitalised on his good form by taking down the $10k Pot Limit Hold’em tournament for $633,335. Russia’s Kirill Gerasimov was the unlucky runner up, for $391,369, in what was a European laden event. Davidi Kitai, from Germany took 4th place for $183,638. Further down the money list saw Swedes Ken Lennaard and Thomas Pettersson in very creditable 13th and 14th places.

The bracelet ceremony for Kabbaj was somewhat marred during the playing of the national anthem. Organisers decided to play the Sex Pistol’s version of God Save the Queen instead of the normal British national anthem. Following complaints, Jeffery Pollack apologised to Kabbaj and a new ceremony, with the correct anthem, was hastily arranged.

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The last week at the 2009 WSOP has seen some impressive performances from the European poker contingent. Europeans love to head over to ‘Sin City’ when the World Series of Poker is running and this year they’ve enjoyed great success with cashes and bracelets galore to be celebrated. When it comes to WSOP bracelets, what happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas!

Finland’s Mika Paasonen fell at the final hurdle in the $2,000 No Limit Hold’em event. Paasonen, who made a name for himself online before switching to the live arena, couldn’t overcome Angel Guillen, from Mexico City, in a tense heads-up encounter. Paasonen joins fellow Finn and possibly one of the players of the WSOP so far, Ville Walhbeck, in the top 10 European money winners for 2009 to date. Wahlbeck’s deep cashes and bracelet success sees the man from Helsinki sitting pretty on $849,793 in winnings so far. Paasonen is a respectable 8th on $333,593 following his three cash results.

Fabrice Soulier from France has continued his superb WSOP run of form. Following the $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha event, where the Frenchman finished in 21st for $14,433, Soullier led the number of cashes leaderboard with an impressive six. However, he has only made one final from his six cashes and, at the moment, his consistency seems to lack the killer instinct needed to win a bracelet.

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You may have noticed the Pokerati World Standings (presented by Betfair) for the 2009 WSOP (presented by Jack’s Links Beef Jerky) have been updated. Some interesting trends and plausibly coincidental occurrences over the past several events …

It took some time, but the Europeans have clearly arrived – now with more bracelets and final tables than California, and money won than Nevada.

Some of that came from Crocodile Lisandro, who claimed his first bracelet on behalf of Australia, but his second for Italy. Not sure how that will work out with taxes – but hey, if he wants to spread it around in the official standings, what can ya do? On that same day, Italy lost 0-3 to Brazil.

Similarly, we have our first big mistake (to be corrected on the next go-round) as it relates to Marc Naalden’s bracelet in $2,000 Limit Hold’em … which he won as a Belgian, but claims for the Dutch, the other country that runs through his border town.

ALT HED: Belgian Waffles, lol.

European newcomers to the world beyond the bubble include Portugal and PokerStarzistan Isle of Man.

Perhaps inspired and educated by neighboring Russians, Alaskans, specifically Alaskan’s from Wasilla, keep cashing.

Boooo Kentucky!

One of the other “bad” states representing at the WSOP is Washington. They had four players cash in $2k Limit Hold’em, which in and of itself would not seem like a major accomplishment in a 446-player field … but here all four made the final table.

In the way Northeast of North America, Newfoundland finally got on the board, as did Vermont — leaving Wyoming as the only state to not pop into Vegas and pick up some WSOP cash.

California is still unbeaten — batting 38-for-38 in this year’s WSOP — but just barely, thanks to Isaac Baron’s lone Cali-cash (10th place) in the $5k PLO.

When you’re done scrolling through the Standings, get your European poker news at Betfair.

WSOP Top 10: now in colour!

They’ve been updated through 33 events … and whether or not it matters to you, are now presented by our good even better friends at Betfair. (They were kind enough to pay for the little flags you can now see in the sidebar — because who doesn’t like little flags?)

Click here to see the Pokerati World Standings in further detail.

Obviously it’s all about the bracelets (and associated spoils) … because with a second WSOP victory, Canada has asserted itself as more than just a suburb of the United States. Not quite a poker superpower yet –but capable of outplaying nuclear-armed countries and just about all other icy, hockey-loving socialist domains.

And speaking of … Sweden showed up in the Top 10 this week, letting us all know that there’s more than just Finland and Denmark (sooo 2008) to Scandiland. But the big arrival, in the eyes of this Nevada-based Texan, is Mexico. Hmm, wonder if a recent surge in Latino marketing by poker bizzers has had an effect … or vice versa.

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Twenty-seven events are already in the books at the 2009 World Series of Poker and, so far, European players are having one of their best Series’ to date. As you might expect, it is the Americans that are dominating the majority of events but we’ve seen some spectacular results from British and European players.

The 2009 WSOP started in earnest with the $40,000 buy in No Limit Hold’em Anniversary event back on May 28th. Vitaly Lunkin, from Russia, took the honours and a $1,891,018 pay day after fighting his way past a plethora of world famous poker players. Lunkin has been in red hot form in 2009 and his victory brings his WSOP bracelet tally up to two following his success in the $1,500 No Limit Hold’em event here last year.

UK players have been enjoying a great Series so far. According to the Pokerati 2009 WSOP Standings table players from the UK have made 72 cashes, 9 final tables and won 2 bracelets to date.

So who are the British bracelet winners? It was JP Kelly that was first to register on the WSOP bracelet radar. Kelly, despite his baby-face looks, has been a regular on the international poker circuit for a while now but he has been suffering a dry spell of late. With only two cashes in 2009, it was unlikely John Paul went into the $1,500 Pot Limit Hold’em event on June 9th brimming with confidence. What a difference a tournament can make! Kelly took command of the final table with a power-packed display of aggressive poker like a player who has a sock drawer full of WSOP bracelets at home. Despite Erik Seidel (7th) in menacing mood and, fellow Brit’, Aaron Virchis (5th) looking dangerous there was simply no way Kelly was going to be denied the title and a $194,343 win. Credit should also go to second place player Marc Tschirch, from Germany, who pressed Kelly all the way in the heads-up stages.

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Roland deWolfe, the most recent WSOP bracelet winner, representin’ the GBR Joe Elliot-style.

One of today’s bracelets goes to Sweden. Any chance Tomas Alenius will request the Finnish national anthem be played — you know, to make things right in Scandiland? Doubt it …

In addition to Alenius’ bracelet, the UK picked up two in recent days, and Canada one — making things start to look a bit more normal … it’s not all about the Russians this year. In fact, are they still here?

And though Europe has caught up with the two US powerhouses (Nevada and California), they actually lost a bracelet (and some other cashes), as we’ve corrected Jeff Lisandro’s results to show up on behalf of his new homeland, Australia. (This way this data is collected, player info comes from whatever’s attached to their Harrah’s Total Rewards card … so if they haven’t updated their info in, say, several years … the old address is what’s on record.)

Lisandro’s defection from Italy to a land down under also altered the tertiary emerging market standings — with Asia-Pacific re-taking a slight lead over Latin America — despite Chile and Bolivia getting their first cashes of the year.

Texas has finally taken down a bracelet, btw.

And a player from Wasilla, Alaska, finished in the money — there’s a town we wouldn’t have taken note of in last year’s WSOP. It’s Canadian neighbors in the Yukon Territory also got on the board.

Hong Kong also made some money.

And though we don’t really track by cities, apparently Chicago is really good at sit-n-gos, as the Windy City sat three players at the final table in the $1,500 NLH-Shootout. Could just be variance, of course, but for now we’ll pretend it’s not.

We’re more than a third of the way through the Series, and here are some interesting stats through 20 events:

1. Most Events Entered – Individuals
2. Money Leaderboard – Individuals
3. Money Leaderboard – By Location
4. Highest Cash Percentage to Entries – Individuals
5. Lowest Cash Percentage to Entries – Individuals
6. Highest Cash Percentage to Entries – By Location
7. Lowest Cash Percentage to Entries – By Location

Total Entrants thru 20 events – 21,047
Total Prize Money Awarded – $42,094,034

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I guess it shouldn’t come as a surprise when international players only send their best overseas. But here’s an interesting addendum to official WSOP worldly statistics:

When it comes to ratio of players to wins and cashes, Finland appears to be winning the international race. Russia is a close second. Consider that 14 players from Finland have registered for events played thus far. Six have cashed and one player won. Among Russians, 42 players have entered to date, and 16 have cashed, with one victory. Contrast this with the United States, which has produced 10,344 entries, with 1,691 cashes and 15 wins. This breaks down as follows:

* Six percent of the Finnish players at this WSOP have won a gold bracelet.
* 43 percent of the Finnish players at this WSOP have cashed.
* 2 percent of the Russian players have won gold bracelets, but 38 percent have cashed.
* By contrast, .001 percent of American players have won gold bracelets and 16 percent have cashed.