WSOP Update #19

Money money money money... MONEY!

Day Three has come to a close, and 473 players remain. With the top 666 collecting from the prize pool, a huge sigh of relief was felt within the room when bubble boy Steve Chung was eliminated in 667th position. A break was called for all remaining players to celebrate, and not surprisingly, after playing Hand-for-Hand for the hours leading up to this, the play quickened, and almost 200 more players fell in the remaining hours of the day. Don't feel too bad for Mr.Chung, thanks to Milwakee's Best Light, Steve's entrance into next years Main Event is already paid for making 668th place the worst spot to finish.

Remaining Notables:

Jeremy Joseph 1,458,000 - chip leader by almost 400,000

Alexander Kostritsyn 887,000 - 6th cash in WSOP 2008

Shahram (Shawn) Sheikhan 724,000 - never won a WSOP title

Phil Hellmuth 475,000 - looking to become a 12-Star General

Victor Ramdin 471,000 - cashed 3 times in 2008 WSOP so far

Mark Vos 468,000 - one WSOP bracelet on his wrist

Hoyt Corkins 439,500 - 2 WSOP championships

Mike Matusow 438,500 - 3 bracelets, one this year

Evelyn Ng 414,500 - best finish is 24 in any WSOP tournament

Allen Cunningham 386,500 - My pick to win prior to the event

Gus Hansen 355,000 - No bracelets, finished 61st last year

Hevad Khan 338,500 - finished 6th last year

Chip Jett 318,500 - no bracelets

Thomas Keller 294,000 - "Thunder"-struck once in 2004

Johnny Chan 252,000 - 10 WSOP Champ, looking to tie Hellmuth

Kido Pham 228,500 - won $170,000 a week ago

Robert Mizrachi 138,000 - 1 title last year, 5 cashes this year

To start Day Four, the blinds are $2,500-$5,000 with a $500 ante, so all players on this list are ok for now. The next person eliminated, and there are several below the starting chip count of 20,000, will get over $27,000 for their trouble, and the minimum prize at the final table for finishing 9th is over $900,000.

The Spectacle of Poker

Poker has come a long way from the dingy, dark-alley-up-a-dark-staircase-into-a-poorly-lit-smoke-filled-room games that were played back when guys like Doyle Brunson, TJ Cloutier, Stu Unger and Johhny Moss were making a name for themselves. Finding the right game, travelling on buses, eating fast-food and worrying about getting beaten up or worse were just part of the lifestyle. You got in, made money, and got the hell out as fast as you could.

Luckily, thanks primarily to the invention of the hole-card camera and on-line play, Poker is celebrating a period of massive success. Today's top players can command appearance fees comparable to top TV & movie stars, musicians and athletes. They can be seen on TV, not just as participants in one of dozens of different televised poker games, but also in commercials for online poker sites. As the game gets bigger, so too do the egos of the top players.

Probably the best example of this is Phil Hellmuth. Possibly the best player in poker (just ask him, he'll tell you), Phil is also one of the most recognizable players. If he was successful at the table, but introverted and hiding from the spotlight, we would still know who he is for his 11 WSOP titles, but it's Phil's antics at the table and away from the table that make him the social phenomenon he is today.

Phil is known for never being shy about saying what's on his mind. In an age where most players have been trained to be aware that the media is always watching, Phil doesn't seem to care. When giving exit interviews, just after being eliminated from a tournament, Phil will say what's on his mind, even if it means calling his opponents donkeys, or worse. That's what makes Phil so great to watch, you never know what he's going to say or do, because he runs on emotion. He manages to control it while playing poker, just barely, and he loves the attention.

Last year, at the WSOP, he tried to make a dramatic entrance into the Main Event. Instead, he managed to destroy a race car, sponsored ultimatebet.net. Somehow, this actually worked in Phil's favor. All the media attention was on him, more so than if he didn't crash, and ultimatebet.net managed to use this to their advantage in TV commercials, saying unlike their cars, their website will never crash.

This year, with many people wondering what Phil would do to make his grand entrance, he did not disappoint. Phil arrive to the main event, fashionably late, of course, in a military vehicle that pulled up to the front doors. When Phil got out, he was wearing a 11-star military outfit, one star for each bracelet he's won at the WSOP. He was also accompanied by 11 ladies dressed in military fatigues, who walked him into the Main Event room, for all to see.

“I’m glad he didn’t crash this year,” said World Series of Poker commissioner Jeffrey Pollack. “If Phil was able to make an entrance that is bigger than anyone else’s entrance and do it without injuring himself or any of his colleagues, I think that’s a good thing.”

I wonder what's in store for 2009?

WSOP Update #18

All 4 Day Ones are complete, and some interesting statistics have been released. 6844 players have entered the tournament, and over half (3663) of those player managed to survive Day One. One table was so desperate to make it to Day Two, that they managed to make one hand last 10 minutes... and they never even saw a flop. There was only 30 minutes left in the day, but one player at the table was so infuriated with the slow play, he called a tournament organizer over to make a ruling. From that point until the end of the day, the dealer was instructed to give each player at that table no more than 30 seconds to make any decision.

With a total prize pool of more than $68,000,000, the winner receives $9,119,517. To prove that you do have to go through Hell to and back to win this tournament, the top 666 players make it in the money. Due to the massive size of the tournament, a lot of information is still unavailable, but once both Day Two's are over, the tournament should be at a more manageable size. Tournament organizers expect to have under 1500 players remaining on Day Three.

WSOP Update #17

Day One B has come to an end, and this time a lot of the big names managed to survive the land mines and make it to Day two. 615 players still remain, after starting off with 1,158. Among those still alive are:

Robert Mizrachi - 142,400
Erick Lindgren - 92,325
Barny Boatman - 80,600
Tony Hachem - 76,050
Hal Lubarsky - 70,700
Hoyt Corkins - 67,525
Erik Seidel - 64,925
Patrik Antonius - 64,125 (who lost over 35K on the last hand of the night)
Vanessa Rousso - 48,450
Alex Kravchenko - 45,300
Hoyt Corkins - 67,525

The dearly departed include:

Humberto Brenes
Ross Boatman
Orel Hershiser
Ram Vaswani
Greg Raymer
Dewey Tomko
Tuan le
Daniel Negreanu
Andy Black
Ted Forest

WSOP Update #16

Day One Begins!

After much anticipation, the first day of the WSOP $10,000 Main Event has begun. 1,297 players started off on Day One A, and they now expect to have around the same number of entrants as last year (approx 6,500) compete in this years event, meaning the Top prize for winning will likely be somewhere around $8,000,000. Each player starts off with $20,000 in chips.

As the tournament is so massive, not all the details are available, but here's what I have been able to find out so far.

Notables still in the hunt:

Mark Garner - $194,900 - Leads after day 1

Ray Romano - $61,000 - Yes, the actor

Barry Greenstein - $20,000

Notable Eliminations:

Alan Smurfit

Josh Arieh

Gavin Smith

Phil "OMGClayAiken" Galfond

Katja Thater

David Benyamine

David "Devilfish" Ulliot

Freddy Deeb

Eli Elezra

Mark Garner, the Day One A chip leader, finished 25th in this event 2 years ago. Not many players, even the biggest names in poker have that kind of experience, it will be interesting to see if he can use that experience and the early chip lead to improve upon his performance in 2006.

WSOP Update #15

2 events closed out yesterday, and David Daneshgar has added a WSOP bracelet to his impressive list of accomplishments. David won the $1500 No-Limit Hold'em event, and is taking home his biggest prize to date with the top prize of over $625,000. He managed to out-last 2692 players and overcome a 2-to-1 chip deficit heads-up, eventually winning the tournament with pocket Tens.

Although not a household name like Hellmuth, Brunson, Negreanu or Ivey, Daneshgar has been successfully playing poker at the highest level for more than 4 years, and has cashed in at more than 20 major poker tournaments in that time. Previously, David's greatest poker accomplishment was winning the 2006 Bellagio Five Diamond World Poker Classic and the grand prize of more than $330,000.

In the other event, Matt Graham won his first WSOP title, and $278,180 in winnings after beating 822 others in the $1500 Limit Hold'em Shootout tournament. Matt has been having a fairly successful 2008 WSOP campaign, as this is his 4th time cashing in, but his at the final table, and he made it worth while.

Similar to Daneshgar, Graham has been playing top-level poker for several years, and has made various final table appearances in some pretty big tournaments, including a victory in the 2008 World Poker Challenge.

Finally, play has begun for Day One of the Main Event. No word yest exactly how many players are involved in the first day of action, but as they entered the room, and the chaos as everyone tried to find their seats, the players were greeted with a free bottle of All In energy Drink or All In water and Everest Poker seat cushion, all for just $10,000. Tournament Director Jack Effel is trying to direct traffic, getting everything ready to go, including setting up the feature table for Day 1, which will rotate as the day goes on, trying to include various celebrities and top ranked poker players.

WSOP Update #14

With the 2008 version of the World Series of Poker gearing up for the massive $10,000 Hold'em Main Event, a few other tournaments have come to a close, and a couple of notable names came close to victory.

In the $1500 H.O.R.S.E. event, Phil Hellmuth came very close to bracelet number 12, as he finished in 3rd place, losing to eventual winner James Schaaf. In a field of more than 800 players, Phil has (possibly) silenced his critics who say he is a Hold'em specialist. In a career that spans 20, this is just the 4th time Phil has finished in the top 3 of a major non-Hold'em event

Phil Hellmuth's non-Hold'em accomplishments:

2nd - 1993 WSOP No Limit Deuce to Seven Lowball - $5,000 buy-in

2nd - 2001 WSOP Limit Omaha Hi/Lo - $5,000 buy-in

3rd - 2003 WSOP Limit Omaha - $1,500 buy-in

3rd - 2008 WSOP H.O.R.S.E. - $1,500 buy-in

Also, Michael "the Grinder" Mizrachi finished 3rd in the $10,000 World Championship Pot Limit Omaha tournament. Eventual winner Marty Smyth won the tournament and the grand prize of over $850,000 after making a flush on the river. He and heads-up opponent Peter Jetten had both flopped the straight holding K-J and two irrelevant cards with a flop of Qc-10c-9h, but Smyth's K-J both happened to be clubs giving him the open-ended straight flush draw. The turn was a blank, but the 6c fell on the river. Smyth wasn't even aware he'd made the flush and won the tournament, as he thought the split was inevitable. This is Mizrachi's 5th cash-in of the 2008 WSOP, but easily his biggest one, grabbing more than $320,000 in profit.

Tomorrow is Day One A of the Main Event, the first of 4 Day Ones to come. Even Day Two will be split into two different groups (meaning they're actually days 5 & 6) and Day Three (also know as Day 7) will be the first day all remaining players will gather in one room. As they anticipate cutting off the buy-ins at 12,000 this year, and setting a new record for largest live poker tournament in WSOP history, predicting a winner here seems almost impossible. This tournament has a recent history of making names out of nobodies, so good luck to the next nobody to become the somebody everybody wants to be.