As the Duke of Fremont gets ready for trial, Andrew and Dan are among a field of 200 playing $135 No-Limit Hold’em in the Golden Nugget’s $25,000 guaranteed weekender event. Dave meanwhile hooks it to Planet Hollywood in chase of the Caesars Megabeat (which pays better on a Wednesday afternoon) and damn, that’s a pretty good promo when coupled with their new 20 for 20 freeroll.

At Mandalay Bay this weekend it’s the $10,000 Tiger Jam, and is Wikipedia racist for thinking Phil Ivey = Tiger Woods? The WSOP lays out their summer plan with their annual media conference call. And we check in with David Clark, aka DC n La, from New Orleans, where the WSOP-NOLA circuit event is happening and the WSOP Circuit national championship takes place next week. And when a showdown reveals Dan’s 5c8c < 4s6s … he’s left asking Andrew if it was just an unfortunate river in the midst of sneaky button play or really, against a fellow Texan, just a late-position cliche …

Vegas Grinders 1.14: Going Continental
[audio: https://pokerati.com/podcast/VegasGrinders/VG1point14.mp3]

Resource Links

WhoIsDavidClark

WSOP 2013-14 Circuit Schedule

20 for 20 Freeroll

2013 WSOP Media Conference Call

The WSOP released the new Circuit schedule for the poker new year. They’ve added stops in Canada, Cleveland, and North Carolina … but perhaps the biggest move is relocating the Million-Dollar Circuit National Championship from Las Vegas to New Orleans.

More details here.

Oh the lol ironies as the WSOP-Circuit goes, shall we say, a bit NASCAR with the sponsorship of SoCo 100? But a beautiful evolution of the game, imho … as the Caesars Interactive Empire brings their brand of corporatized poker events to lower stakes players seeking an old-school rounders experience and maybe a Circuit ring to boot … presented by an extra-strong sweet American whiskey … but not to boot — drink and gamble responsibly! Coming soon to a neighborhood or Indian casino near you …

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The WSOP-Circuit has been good to many a Pokeratier and Pokeratizen alike. It’s a place where minor-league heroes are born … and some build the bankroll to live life as a real pro. With the Global poker year coming to a close this week, for so many serious players it’s time to think about starting all over and hitting the grind again.

(Only this go-round will be completely without Sunday Millions or Rush Poker bankroll supplements.)

Players get a month-and-a-half break … and then it’s off to Bossier City — “Shreveport,” we used to call it  — for the beginning of the 8th incarnation of the WSOP-Circuit season. (Texas politicians take note: the Dallas market alone is so juicy that the WSOP added a second stop to serve it.)

TOURNAMENT DATES	LOCATION
Sep 8-19, 2011	Horseshoe Bossier City (Louisiana)
Sep 29 – Oct 10, 2011	Horseshoe Southern Indiana
Oct 13-24, 2011	Horseshoe Hammond (Chicago)
Oct 27 – Nov 7, 2011	IP Casino Resort & Spa (Biloxi, MS)
Nov 10-21, 2011	Harveys Lake Tahoe
Dece 1-12, 2011	Harrah’s Atlantic City
Jan 12-23, 2012	Choctaw Durant (Dallas/Oklahoma)
Jan 19-30, 2012	Caesars Palace (Las Vegas)
Feb 2-13, 2012	Harrah’s Tunica (Mississippi)
Feb 16-27, 2012	Palm Beach Kennel Club (Florida)
Mar 1-12, 2012	Caesars Atlantic City
Mar 15-26, 2012	Harrah’s Rincon (San Diego area)
Mar 29 – Apr 9, 2012	Horseshoe Council Bluffs (Iowa)
Apr 12-23, 2012	Harrah’s St. Louis
Apr 26 – May 7, 2012	Harrah’s Chester (Philadelphia)
May 10 – May 21, 2012	Harrah’s New Orleans

Below the jump for the details on what’s different this year. New point system, adios $10ks, “12 rings in 12 days.” New stop, obv. It’s Rounders & Road Gamblers — hey, that sounds like “social gaming” — brought to you by the World Series of Poker!

[Beow-neow-neow beow-neow neow … ]

The WPT has its own version of a lower-stakes Circuit tour, of course — in similar locations — and now Epic/Heartland seems to be stepping in to make something more of the recreational-to-semi-pro players who swarm from up to 250 miles away to compete in mini-poker festivals wrapped around a $1,500-ish main event.

It’s arguably the most competitive part of the live poker landscape in the US these days. Wonder if all WSOP Circuit events will offer free Wi-Fi.

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Haven’t been this interested in actual tournament results since ’06 … but if the run-up to the 2011 WSOP is any indication … everybody’s gonna win! No? Well there were a some notable finishes for a few people starting their summers off right:

Friendly Faces at WSOPC National Championship
Caesars Palace, LAS VEGAS
As far as Pokerati’s concerned, La Sengphet is the player who made the WSOP-Circuit most fun to follow. Whether it be strong-playing “the Hammer” or testing the limits of “the Harris” … not since Dwyte Pilgrim has there been such an engaging minor-league pro story. La criss-crossed the country for months to earn her seat, where she finished 4th for $100k this weekend — staking her claim as the #1 most successful female on the 2010-11 WSOP Circuit. Also notable at the final table was Josh Evans, longtime friend of Pokerati and frequent opponent of La’s back in the Dallas Jackie’s days. He won $135k, finishing 3rd. Television coverage of the WSOP-Circuit leading up to this event event airs on Thursdays on Versus, starting June 2. NOTE: La kept her winning ways alive, chopping an Aria nightly four ways for $1,600 the following day.

Orleans Open Raising
The Orleans, LAS VEGAS
Another strong Pokerati lady player proving she can compete against fields with or without penises, Stacey Nutini had been moneying often in recent months in various small tourneys around town, and even tore up events online post-April 15 to pad her theoretical play-money bankroll. But yesterday, the defending LIPS Grand Champion — who’s probably taken more Maven Training than anyone else — showed she could turn it on with real money on the line. @LasVegasPokers destroyed a 166-player field in the $550 main event at the Orleans Open this weekend for a solid, WSOP-warming $24k score.

Poker Pro Wannabe FTW!
Caesars Palace/the Rio, LAS VEGAS
When not working undercover to confirm the whereabouts of Howard Lederer, new Pokerati on-and-off-the-felter Marie-Lizette admits she still has “the dream” … and to that effort took down an $85 nooner at Caesars for a $1,440 bankroll boost, and then binked a single-table-satellite for a seat in today’s WSOP Event #1, the casino employees event. (Added props to Pokerati alum Kevmath, who won the same Caesars daily the night before.) @MarieLizette to see her excitable tweets from the WSOP.

Elsewhere …

PokerStars, Made in China
Grand Lisboa Casino, MACAU
With the Macau Poker Classic underway this week, PokerStars is essentially saying if they can’t have America, they’ll be in China before Caesars … establishing a foothold where the WSOP can’t by staging their second MPC in three months — complete with three events determining the APPT “Official” Asian Player of the Year. Click here for the latest standings, and remember to divide by 8 for a rough conversion from HK to US dollars.

High Schooler Wins WPT Spanish Championship
Grand Casino, BARCELONA
18-year-old Lukas Berglund from Uppsala, Sweden is the youngest champion in the history of the World Poker Tour after winning the Season X WPT Spanish Championship. Berglund, who graduates from high school this week, scooped €206,000 after crushing the field and knocking out every single player on the final table en route to victory.

Someone will win the first bracelet of the 2011 WSOP today, before registration opens for event #1. We listed about 13 percent of the field as people who might be worth watching, just because, and three of them made it to the final table and ITM of the WSOP-freeroll championship … which I’m not sure whether or not qualifies for POY points but obviously should. You’ll have to just believe us that the guy who woulda been my 14th pick on that list was Huy Nguyen, who ended Day 2 yesterday by banking $27,500 for 10th place.

So cards just got in the air for the first televised event of the 2011 WSOP, and of the 10s of thousands of players who had a chance to be here, three of them are from Dallas (though one has since moved to Las Vegas), and one has been part of Team Pokerati since she got a lotta chips in the 2010 WSOP ladies event.

LIVE UPDATES here.

Go La Sengphet! Also go Josh Evans! And though for a while I wasn’t sure if I had first seen him at Jackie’s in Dallas or maybe was just confusing him with a guy seen once at the Venetian, go Charles “Woody” Moore! All three of these players and the others are anything but luckboxes in a sit-n-go … they are real grinders and rounders with skill … and a win here, my contention, is a ticket to the real big leagues … as the winner of today’s event will be known all around as a real real player, and will have the bankroll — $300k for first — to prove it for as long as they can hold as a true and successful pro.

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Don’t wanna say too much because, you know, don’t want any cooler-jinx factor in play … but La Sengphet is the chip leader going into today’s action for the WSOP-C National Championship. 97 players started … (three no-shows) … 35 remain. Top 10 ITM, $300k FTW.

We’ll save for later discussion of there being more Pokerati patches in the field than Full Tilt wearers … as well as jokes about Allen Kessler and the EV of a 97-way chop. For now, the story putting at least a few butterflies in stomachs in and around Caesars Palace … from WSOP.com powered by PokerNews:

Headlining today’s field is La Sengphet with an amassed 165,000 mainly courtesy of a huge call with second pair on a four-club board on one of the final hands of the day. Only two other players sit in the six-figure club with Huy Nguyen (122,700) and Jonathon Poche (121,400) snapping at Sengphet’s heels.

Charles ‘Woody” Moore (95,100), Curt Kohlberg (94,600), Doug ‘Rico’ Carli (72,800), Bernard Lee (70,900), Dwyte Pilgrim (36,300) and Allen Kessler (23,100) are just a handful of notables still in contention for capturing the $300,000 first prize and coveted gold bracelet.

Traci Brown (the only other woman to qualify for this event) and Pokerati pal Josh Evans are also still alive — though both small-stacked with about 33,000 chips and a chair.

Blinds are 600/1,200 + 200 as play gets underway right about now 20 minutes ago!

They play down today to a final table of 9. Follow along here.

I have a feeling the inaugural WSOP million-dollar freeroll might feature some of the best poker we’ll see throughout the WSOP. The unofficial kick-off for the 2011 WSOP activities — and perhaps opening testament to the dramatically reduced relevance of typical patch players this year — gets underway this Friday.

Below is the official list of who gets to play — final save for point and money totals on the nine players who locked up seats yesterday and played (or are still playing) the Southern regional championship at Harrah’s New Orleans today.

NOTABLE:

98/100 qualifiers are men; the two women are both from Texas.

99/100 qualifiers are American; the other is from Canada.

Plenty of interesting names qualified for 1 of 100 seats over the course of the ever-expansive WSOP-circuit 2010/11 season. And I’m sure some of the best stories come from winners we’ve never heard of … but regardless, several well-known players and a few special-to-Pokerati players will be fighting for 10 payouts ranging from $27,500 to $300,000, including …

La Sengphet (one of only two women who qualified)
David Clark
Josh Evans
Charles “Woody” Moore
Dwight Pilgrim
Allie Prescott
Allen Kessler
Tim West
Bernard Lee
Ali Eslami
Traci Brown (the other female qualifier, also from Texas)
Brandon Adams
Shannon Shorr
Andy Frankenberger

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UPDATE: It’s official, both La n DC qualified! For the inaugural minor-league Champions League NIT 2011 WSOP-Freeroll World Championship. Whatever it turns out that people end up calling it … we can only hope here at Pokerati for a high-stakes poker lovers’ quarrel at the final table.

La N Dc
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!! Finally heading HOME! After 3wks of grinding I am happy and proud to say my Baby has successfully crawled his way into the 10k seat freeroll. Great job Baby, so proud of you!! 😀 We now have 2shots at 300k 🙂

For at least a few players, today is a day kinda like when high-school kids wait to get their college acceptance/rejection letters … waiting to see the final points tally to be official, so they know whether or not they qualified for the WSOP-Circuit National Championship — the $1 million freeroll that will kick off the 2011 WSOP.

Click here for the national leaderboard to see who’s got a seat for sure, and who looks likely as we wait for WSOP officials to turn orange squares into red

Team Pokerati’s La Sengphet is a lock (8th among non automatic qualifiers with 155 points, 2 rings, 7 cashes, $67k) … yay La! You go girl! … and, of course, she also won a non-points pendant for her 1st place finish in the WSOP-Caesars ladies event. And it looks like her other half, David Clark, also will make the cut but just barely (112.5 pts – 1 ring, 9 cashes, $59.5k) … DC made a final table in a non-ring PLO/8 event at WSOP-NOLA for good measure without the points … and he finishes just ahead of Steve Zolotow, who qualifies with the same point total, no rings, just 3 cashes, and $43k in earnings to give you an idea who got in at the bottom of the field.

At the very bottom, interestingly enough, with 100 points, is John Riordan, who won a ring and $210k in Florida. But he will not get a seat this year because he is not yet 21. Will be curious to see how the WSOP handles this case … will he simply get a rain check for when he comes of age? Because if so, when will we see bona fide WSOP-Teen events?!? You know, of course, that I am in the minority willing to admit that I think poker is good for kids.

Another late qualifier is longtime friend of Pokerati’s Josh Evans … who finished 3rd in the WSOP Southern Regional championship last week at Harrah’s New Orleans. Thrilled about that, as it gives us another excuse to re-run that highly acclaimed but not quite award-winning film we created about Josh as he got 6-figure deep in the ’07 main event:

[CORRECTION: Josh got 3rd in the WSOP-NOLA $1,600 main event … which still gives him enough to qualify (140ish pts, 7 cashes $81k) but did not give him the guaranteed seat as just making a Regional Championship final table does.]

Is it too early to call her the Dwyte Pilgrim of 2011?

We were just telling you how well La Sengphet was playing … when boyfriend David Clark gave me a buzz to let me know, yo dude, don’t hate on the short bus! But lest he start thinking he could keep up with his better half … yesterday she took down her second WSOP-circuit ring of the season — winning the last event of WSOP-St. Louis, a $345 NLH.

Not sure on the number of players or payout yet … we’ll of course let you know. And pretty sure that’s another 50 circuit championship points, too, which would put her 4th in the pool of 34 potential non-automatic qualifiers. And depending on the other deep runners in her event and the main … it looks like she may well have won the crown for Harrah’s St. Louis “casino champion” … which would guarantee her a seat in the WSOP’s million-dollar circuit freeroll in late May.

Meanwhile, they are celebrating La’s victory all across Laos … though we did just learn they aren’t doing this all for La … it also happens to be Laotian New Year all week.

CORRECTION: Turns out we overlooked two cashes for David in St. Louis and one in Florida. Pokerati regrets the error(s) … and, of course, basing the entire premise of a post around them. WSOP.com still working to rectify their contribution to the misinformation.

When resident Team Pokerati lovebirds La Sengphet and David Clark started off their 2011s with matching WSOP circuit rings, we thought we might see another Sosa/McGwire sitch … a back-and-forth poker slugfest propelling the Dallas couple to seats in the new WSOP Circuit National Championship million-dollar freeroll that’ll kick off the 2011 WSOP in late May. It seems we were at least half-right.

Most recently, La made a final table in a $345 Omaha Hi Lo event in St. Louis and followed that with a 13th place finish in a $345 NLH — enough for her to surpass her boyfriend’s total winnings for the year. But perhaps more important — and a more exciting reason for me to be paying attention to relatively minor events at Harrah’s Mid-America — she played her way to 30 more WSOP circuit points!

Of those who don’t automatically qualify, there’ll be some 34 seats won … and La is currently tied for 16th. Click here to understand how WSOP circuit points work. (I just learned myself.) And click here to see the current national leaderboard.

At this point, with just three more circuit stops left — Caesars Palace, Chester, PA, and a regional championship in New Orleans — there’s an extra level of intensity to these otherwise smaller events. Not sure if the national championship, which should prove to be one of the more skill-packed tourney fields of the year, is helping create a new generation of rounder pros, or just answering their call. But either way, with so much on the line for these minor leaguers hoping to build a career … how awesome is La’s hat?

See below, the 2011 family scorecard for Pokerati’s favorite poker couple currently on tour:

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