July 2006 Archives

They took part in a historic event and they all made it through. And now, like veterans of a war (which they pretty much are), the players of Table 249 are hoping for a reunion here at the WSOP. Dwayne "Barron5" Ronson and the guys from T249 all won seats to the main event in the PokerStars' 150 WSOP Seat Guarantee held on Sunday, July 16th - which just happened to be the biggest satellite in history.

Dwayne "Barron5" Ronson

So for these survivors (a total of 234 won seats), playing against a field of many thousands is nothing new. They have already beat off competition from 7,143 players and given that the WSOP field is only a thousand or so more than that, they probably won't be as phased by the sheer scale of the event as many out there in the Amazon Room. Although actually seeing thousands of other players, rather than sitting happily in front of your computer screen, will be a rather different experience.

So, Dwayne, a 38-year-old supervisor at the OLG casino in Brantford, Ontario, is keen to meet his co-winners and we have a tentative plan - guys, if you're reading this, please come to the PokerStars hospitality suite at 11am on Day 2b (Wednesday) and we'll see if we can hook you all up.

As it is, Dwayne is already $800 up on his trip to Vegas. He played a No Limit tourney at Caesar's a couple of days ago and came 16th out of a field of 360 players. And last year, he came 19th in a $1,000 WSOP event to win $5,000. Dwayne has been playing poker a long time - ever since his dad gave him a deck of cards and rack of chips for his sixth birthday. The entire Ronson family: Dad, Mum, three Aunts, four Uncles and 25 cousins all play poker - and every Sunday night, there is a Ronson home game at someone or other's home. In fact, the only Ronson who doesn't play poker is Dwayne's brother Michael. "He just never got into it", said Dwayne. "He likes to work out. That's his hobby."

And just to remind the Table 249 veterans, the meet-up will be at the PokerStars hospitality suite at 11am, Day 2b.

By Dr. Pauly

Several decades ago, author Hunter S. Thompson set out on a "A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream," which ended up being the tagline to his most famous body of work Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. By the end of his psychedelic fueled journey, Thompson was crushed to learn that the dream is only a myth. After the rebellious waves of the 1960s crashed somewhere in the Nevada Desert, the bright and glitzy lights of Las Vegas represented the highwater mark as the revolutionary tide rolled back into the Pacific Ocean.

For the last few decades, the eternal flame of the American Dream dulled to a tiny flicker. For millions of lost souls, they found themselves sleepwalking through life, unexcited about the things, places, and people around them. That was until a mild-mannered accountant from Tennessee by the name of Chris Moneymaker became the focal point of the gambling world. By now you know the story. Moneymaker won a seat into the 2003 WSOP via a satellite on PokerStars and parlayed a $33 investment into $2.5 million.

Maybe it's the name "Moneymaker" or simply timing, but Chris Moneymaker is often listed as one of the primary causes of the recent poker boom. It's not so much a boom as a viral infection or an epidemic and if you've walked down the hallways of the Rio Casino here in Las Vegas, you'll see the Moneymaker Effect in full force. Thousands of poker players from the farthest corners of the world have flown into Las Vegas for their shot at fame and glory. Corporations are lining up as official sponsors. Television companies and channels are churning out poker-themed shows. For a while, you'd have to stay up until 3AM to see a poorly edited episode of an old WSOP final table. Today all you have to do is turn on your TV and you'll find a high stakes game, celebrity poker, or multiple episodes of the WSOP.

If you've been playing on PokerStars over the last few years, you also know about the steady growth of players on the site. In 2005, PokerStars online qualifiers represented almost 20% of the overall field. This year, over 1,600 players won their seats on PokerStars, which is almost twice as many people that Moneymaker had to beat out in 2003 for his world championship.

Chris Moneymaker revitalized the American Dream. Underneath the bright lights of downtown Las Vegas, Moneymaker's run at the Horseshoe in May of 2003 captivated an international audience as he busted poker greats such as Phil Ivey and Humberto Brenes. Moneymaker survived an epic heads up battle against local high roller Sammy Farha, which gave poker players at home something that had been absent from their lives for a very long time... hope.

In physical appearance, Moneymaker looks like any guy in your homegame or in your office. He was clad in a PokerStars branded golf shirt and hat and wore sunglasses as he stared down the slick and cool Sammy Farha, clothed in an expensive black dinner jacket and his trademark unlit cigarette dangling from his lips. ESPN's cameras caught one of the greatest bluffs of all time from Moneymaker. It's moments like that which rattled the competitive juices inside everyone who watched.

Moneymaker represented the average Joe Sixpack and he took down a Vegas shark in Farha. Witnessing that epic feat gave other players encouragement to sit down and take a shot. Moneymaker was the snowball that launched the avalanche of televised tournament poker. He passed the torch along to fellow PokerStars player Greg "Fossilman" Raymer who would go onto to win the 2004 WSOP Championship. Not only did Raymer win his seat on PokerStars, he also won the last full World Series of Poker to be held at Binion's Horseshoe.

Raymer stood out from the rest of the pack of players by his unique holographic sunglasses that he'd slide on whenever he was in a hand. He was also one of the more intelligent players in the field and didn't just come out of nowhere. For several years, Raymer was a regular player at Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut and a frequent player at the tables on PokerStars. The gregarious and fan-friendly Raymer became the perfect ambassador for poker.



While poker's popularity was boiling over in America, the rest of the world started to catch the poker bug. John Duthie launched the European Poker Tour and was astonished at the large numbers of participants all over Europe. For the first time, it was evident that poker was just not an American fad because players from all over the world were just as fascinated and enraptured.

When Joe Hachem came out of nowhere to win the 2005 WSOP, he was thrust into the spotlight. His victory was indicative of the international flavor that the WSOP had attracted. The field of players in the 2005 WSOP represented six continents and several hundred countries. The media room at the WSOP resembled the United Nations with journalists and photographers from different countries. They spoke in their native tongues, although some words were the same such as "flop" and "all in."

In the press conference that kicked off the 2006 WSOP main event, Joe Hachem explained what his victory meant to poker in his native country of Australia.

"When I left Melbourne, there was just one card room. Now there's eight."



The Moneymaker effect eventually reached Australia, with Joe Hachem as the conduit. Over the past year, Hachem gladly accepted the role of poker's international ambassador. Today, he's going to be one of several thousand other dream seekers trying to survive the fist day of action.

The Post-Modern American Dream has been exported around the world as poker experienced a boom on the international scale. Poker is just not for Americans sitting around in kitchens chomping down on stale cigars and sipping cheap whiskey. The second season of the European Poker Tour grew faster than expected. The recent popularity and success of the World Cup of Poker proved that poker will continue to grow. Team Poland won the 2006 WCP dethroning two-time champions Team Costa Rica. And eyes are set on the newest market... Asia.

In the last three years, Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem have been the focal point of the poker world. Not only are they members of Team PokerStars and world champions, they have been an integral part of igniting the poker boom. Only a few years ago the American Dream had been flickering on the verge of extinction, now thanks to Moneymaker, Raymer, and Hachem... the dream is a raging inferno.

(All updates just below the photo)

1:15am

The World Champion has busted out yet another player during Level 5, which saw action at the feature table get a lot livelier.

Joe raised under the gun and it was folded around to Seth Entwisle in the big blind. Seth looked down, found AsQs, and re-raised all in for his last $5 000.

"You are joking" said Joe, staring him down.

And that's when Seth got that sinking feeling.

"As soon as I heard him say that, I knew he had kings."

His read was right, though too late. Joe flipped over red Kings and 33 year old Seth was heading back to his organic lawncare business in Springfield, Missouri.

Allyn Jaffrey Shulman, the only woman at the table, has been playing a short stack brilliantly for most of the day. She and William Deadwyler are the only two survivors to start the day on Joe's table.

She's been hitting cards, and hard, in the past hour. She's pushed all in five times during the last level, inducing near hysterics in her son Julian, who's watching in the bleachers.

At one point she tangled with Joe, calling his pre-flop raise. When the flop came 6h 8s Qc, he fired at the pot again, and Allyn called to her son, "any advice?"

As Julian shrugged helplessly Joe answered for him, "Allyn, don't call!"

She didn't.

She's built her stack to more than $30 000 and Julian has stopped hyperventilating.

I was hanging out on the bleachers with William Deadwyler's roomie from George Washington University in DC, and heard the extraordinary tale of how he came to be facing the World Champion across the table.

William and Dustin Beruta, also 21, met in freshman year over poker games in their dorm.

This year they decided to try their luck in Vegas over the summer with no intentions of playing in the WSOP. After a 27 hour driving stint, from Philadelphia to Denver, in May, they collapsed in their room.

William wasn't tired so he logged onto PokerStars and won a satellite to the Main Event.

His energy is flagging but his game is not and he is level pegging with Joe on chips.

Dustin's been promised that if William wins any serious cash, they're going to freight the car home and fly back to school.




10:40pm

Spectators in the bleachers are getting a little restive tonight, or the men are at least. The tv crew has been shooting reaction shots, and that's what we've been seeing on the monitors during Level 4. It makes it hard to follow the table action, but it is fascinating to see the nuances of emotion and decision flickering across the players' faces.

After about fifteen minutes of big close-ups on Joe there was a sigh from behind me.

"My oh my, but the scenery is pretty."

I turned around to agree and met Beverley Hoff. She's part of a Mum cheer squad, barracking for one of the three original players remaining who sat down with Joe at the start of the day.

Beverley plays a girls' home game in Dallas with Linda Johnson, who has come to Vegas with her girlfriends to support her 34 year old banker son, Zach.

And so they should, as the ladies taught Zach to play poker in the first place.

Sadly, Zach busted out a little later, another victim of PokerStars player William Deadwyler who is amassing a monster stack. Zach was all in with AQ against William's pocket 5s, which seem to be the student's lucky hand today. The board came 7 A 5 8 10 giving him a another set of 5s and sending Zach home.

Joe took down a big pot just at the end of Level 4. The under the gun player called, and was followed in by three more limpers.

It was Joe's button.

"I had 84 offsuit"

He raised, closed his eyes, stuck his fingers in his ears and hoped for the best.

He got callers and the flop came 6 6 4. It was checked around to Joe, who bet out again. They all folded and he showed his cards to the table.

Joe has $27 000.

Young William thinks he might have double that amount but wasn't keeping count as he went on his break.

"I still feel sick. I think I'll be nauseous until I bust out or win."




7pm

Joe has been chilling through Level 3, shoes off, feet up, 50 Cent on his iPod.

"I haven't seen any hands this round, I'm not getting involved."

So he's been doing something else he does very well, entertaining the table.

"Everyone's having fun, it's Joe, he's keeping it light" said feature table dealer Jason Bouslaugh, (whose alter ego is dealer floor coordinator).

While he didn't get cards, Joe did get away with a couple of moves to increase his stack by $1 000. He's headed up to his room to relax over the dinner break, with $20 500.

William Deadwyler has taken the table chip lead, with more than $27 500, but his nerves haven't calmed down since the start of play. Didn't the sandwich Joe bought for him help?

"It was nice", he said "but I'm so nervous I could hardly eat it".

William has gone searching the Convention Centre for chicken noodle soup but fears that may still be too much of a challenge for his tender young stomach.

Even so, the Economics Major from George Washington University, who won his seat on PokerStars, has cranked things up a gear in this level, attacking the blinds and winning a huge pot in an all-in showdown. He had pocket 8s against Qh3h, and made a set on the river.

Has he come with any supporters? Perhaps a girl?

"I'm single right now. It sucks. If you could find me a girl that would be sweet."

If he continues to play as well as he has so far, I suspect the girls will come find him.


5.05pm

Joe Hachem has almost doubled his starting stack and went into the last break with $19 500.

There's another new face at the feature table as 24 year old Cody Hutchings, from Turlock, California, has busted out. His QQ was no good against AA on a board of 8 J 4 2 J.

So how did he feel playing against Joe? "Intimidated" he said, before wandering dejectedly from centre stage.

The father in Joe came out during this level. He got up during play and strolled away, I presumed to stretch his legs, given the stampede of leg-stretchers bolting for the nearest facility on every break.

He came back with a bag of sandwiches, tossing one across the table to William Deadwyler.

"The kid said he was hungry. I wanted some gum, and I can't eat while others are hungry, it's a culture thing." (Thanks for the tuna salad Joe. Blogging and breakfast, and for that matter, lunch, don't mix.)

There were a couple of big hands that got Joe's stack up. He called a bet from his right on a flop of 5s 8c Jh, and when his opponent checked the turn, 7h, moved all in.

"But I can't tell you what I had."

A little later a player in middle position made a pre-flop bet of 600, which Joe raised up to 1 600, and got called. The flop came Q J rag, and the other player folded to Joe's bet of 3 500.

He says the complexion of the table hasn't changed despite the new players. William Deadwyler, our PokerStars qualifier from Philadelphia, is used to a little macho head-butting as he's on his University Rugby team. He's the other big stack at the table, and in one hand shortly before the break wanted to know if Joe had him covered.

He does.

2.34pm

Joe Hachem has claimed his first scalp in the closing moments of Level 1 and now has $15 500 in chips.

Joe bet out from early position, got one call and was then raised by the Small Blind. Joe looked at him, smiling, and raised it up again, forcing one player out and sending the original raiser into the tank. 26 year old Nick Voyatzis, from Los Angeles, looked at his cards and remaining $4 700 chips and pushed them all in, getting an instant call.

Joe turns over black Aces and the table sees Nick flip QQ. The flop comes Ace-high and Nick is going home.

Was it any consolation, being busted out by the World Champion?

"No" said Nick. "I feel terrible. Doesn't matter who it was."

Earlier William Deadwyler, the 21 year old who'd only vaguely heard of Joe until he sat down opposite him, took down his first big pot. He flopped a set of 5s against AK on a King-high board. As he gathered in his chips, laughter rippled around the table.

"What was the joke?" I asked Joe going into his break.

"The kid stopped breathing" he replied. "He got called by the tightest guy on the table. Even when he knew he was home he didn't breathe. I reminded him to start again, asked if he wanted a Valium."

Joe, fruit-box in hand, water bottle in the other, then went straight to wife Jeannie, sitting in the bleachers behind him with two of her cousins, Marlene and Samantha.

"It's nerve-wracking" Jeannie said, "I'm chatting to everyone so I don't watch him play. I know he's a big star, but to me he's just my husband. He's my baby."

1:00pm

A 21-year-old PokerStars qualifier was first to find his seat today at Table 155 and looked a bit stunned that it was centre stage, surrounded by cameras and bleachers full of people.

"Do you know who's on your table?" I asked William Deadwyler, from Philadelphia. "No ma'am".

"Joe Hachem" I said. "Oh yeah" replied William, "I heard he was some kind of celebrity."

You could say that. Everyone else looks petrified of the World Champion, who has a touch of Zorro about him today in black clothing and dark shades.

In the first 15 minutes of play Joe had won a pot, stealing the blinds with a pre-flop raise, and lost one when his bets from middle position were called down to the river by the button.

There was a bit of kerfuffle ten minutes later when a player acted out of turn, but the excitement was ended before it really began, by the floor supervisor.

There'd been an empty chair for 40 minutes, and it was a slightly sheepish looking young man who was led eventually to his seat. It didn't appear to me that he was doing a Hellmuth, but rather just got a bit lost when he found the real Table 155 empty.

Joe's taken down a couple more pots with pre-flop raises and generally play is tight, early on.

by Ali Lightman

All eyes are going to be on Joe Hachem today, and he knows it. Not only those of the other 2000-odd nervous contenders praying for an easy table, with Joe not on it, because it's also their first day of the Main Event.

There are some 2 700 who have made it through to Day 2 already, and about 3 300 whose dreams of winning the WSOP are over for this year at least.

There's the throng of supporters who queue as players enter the room, pointing out their favorites then waiting patiently, sometimes for hours, for a spot jamming the rails.

Hundreds of bleary-eyed reporters are camped at the Rio, feeding out the news to millions of poker fans around the world via the mainstream media and blogs like this.

Let's spare a thought for the marketeers poised with baited breath over their budget spreadsheets hoping Joe does, or doesn't, win it again.

And then there's Australia, his home, a nation that bets on two flies crawling up a wall. Poker exploded when Joe defeated 5618 people to win the bracelet, and $7.5 million, with his 7 3. Joe is big box office Downunder.

How did he sleep last night with all that pressure? Soundly, I am sure, with his wife Jeannie by his side and two youngest kids up the hall. The Joe I know will be thinking of his family.

He was doing so yesterday as his younger brother Tony and cousin, Billy, took their chances. Joe stayed in touch with both by phone, giving advice, and commiserating when Billy was knocked out late last night.

The Hachems are a close-knit extended family and it has been tough on them all, coping at home in Melbourne with long separations, as Joe worked far away playing tournaments and being roving ambassador for the WSOP and for PokerStars.

The forty year old has already proved he's no flash in the pan, with two final table finishes already under his belt in preliminary events to this year's big one. He finished 2nd in the $2 500 Short Handed No Limit Hold'Em ($256 800) and 4th in the Pot Limit Hold'Em ($90 482). No other reigning World Champion has done that since Scotty Nguyen eight years ago, when the fields were much, much smaller, and before the emergence of the internet player.

I don't know what it's like to face Joe across the baize. I do know what it's like to sit around the dinner table with him, and his family. We've spent several evenings together during this WSOP and back home in Australia.

He strikes me as a man happiest as the head of his family. Not in a Don Corleone way, waiting for supplicants to kiss him, but as a proud and contented family man who finds joy in simple things, like watching those he loves enjoy themselves.

Joe has found a serenity under pressure, you can see it in his eyes. But that has taken work. He's admitted in the past that, being a native of Lebanon, his blood is at boiling point when he's at rest.

But he will be patient today. That was the advice he gave his brother and cousin. He advised them to play each hand on its merits, and not to get involved in decent-sized pots with marginal hands. Don't be scared to re-raise, he told Billy and Tony, and use your position. Minimise what the hands are going to cost, stay calm, and enjoy it.

You can be sure Joe Hachem wouldn't say that if he didn't believe it, so I guess that will be the World Champion's game plan, today.

[Otis' Note: While Hachem may be the biggest Star of Day 1D, we'll still be keeping an eye on the remainder of our PokerStars qualifiers. Here's a list of the folks we'll be watching today:

612830
07shooter
10inchKen
1106
222much4u
3tomake5
4runner01
Acesupper
actyper
AdenDean
Agg!3
agissilaos
Aikinback
ajfennewald
AJGrogan
Alewyn
Alyeska
anakinso
AndersFriden
andurill
arookie
AsNas
astonwilli
atlantacd
baba13
Babysmooth99
BarFine600
Barman
barnsey
BARNUM413
Barron5
BeaSly79
Bedard
bellababy
Bertus
BetPot
Big_Kimo
BIGTALKER
BJDarter
bjlaz
blu_polanski
bmxreed36
booker4
BorisKarloff
botchman
BreakRibs
brsavage
bzola
Cafeblue
Callaway dds
calluch
camoflge
canalman
Cappy 33
Captain Fink
cardman61
Castor
cattaneo
ccmdsn
chukkieblack
cimoc
cottonbud
crackem
CTRLBREAK
CurtCurt
dafuzball
dagoo
daisy1299
DemonLS
dirkdigler
Ditech27
Don G
don_beppe
dtc1126
EasyEasyEasy
emily24
erbloore
EyeSpecs
F0LD--IT
f0tops
fadycool99
fearNgreed
flashbadger
FlushTheCat
For My Son
forcemajeure
framed.ca
gfabs5
Ghostbrook
gillete
gotaquarter
Gourlay
GrampyBobC
harrymike
highyield6
Honest Terry
hoopjones
IAMCY
iamlucky
Ian J
IceBear55
J. Hard
Jack3-9-95
JackBileDuct
jdeere5220
JJC02
JoeHachem
joel_f531
johnnysr
JOHNYBLUFF
jonspencer
Joseba
KDW^
kev1399
kls834
kotnutz
LeshIsMore
liggy
littlela
loboazul
LUHMAN
macmachine1
Marlowe
matoushek
Matt774
maxxscam
MEJG2
micon
mikef777
MM23
Money800
mortenbs
MrHarley
MrSweets28
needfood
NLarsen
NoMercy
Nordberg
OBJ!
opsco
PATNITROF
pearljam1012
PeterPaaPan
pktpower
PLAYBOY
pt213jek
Ratostrikes
REDFIR
Ribbens
RichieRich21
rjm98
ROCKET416
RODRIGO750
rounder81
rtmiddle
rynosandberg
sammyace101
SAMMYJF
saphaire
scottc25
sherman58
Shipitydoda
shoe45
slammedfire
Slaskmannen
slickrit
Snow Leopard
soulman92
SpecialEd65
spkplyr
StarGlenn
SteelWheel
swish3278
talmond01267
tballs808
TCMONEY16
tcoll17
Teejay6969
thebogieman
ThePokerShow
TheRoll
thestonk
TheWombat
Timetowaste
Tipsy
tironsi
Tommybelize
toolbox2
topfroggy
Toshiwonka
transit
trave
travertine
UB_Bone
utreg
V_Cash
viperbrad
vmheat01
W Snipes
wdeadwyler
weways
Wiz252
XUDavis
yelena
ykurtz
yornitemare
Zorix

WSOP SCOREBOARD (Days 1A, 1B, 1C)

Unofficial starting players in WSOP: 8,778
Players left in the WSOP: Less than 5000
PokerStars qualifiers remaining in the WSOP field: Approximately 1000
Average all WSOP players: $26,073

Note: These chip counts have been compiled to the best of our ability. We have found several instances in which names are spelled much differently on WSOP chip count lists than they are on PokerStars qualifier lists. We have made every effort to find the errors and correct them. If your name has been omitted, please let us know.

Day 1A, 1B, 1C Chip Counts

pelletier daniel $107,850
Jonathan Carlson $106,375
Dario Minieri $103,625
John Ambrust $95,325
Cory Butler $90,250
Brian Hanson $87,025
Matthew Maroon $83,150
Philippe Boucher $82,575
Jeff Banghart $80,775
Dmitri Nobles $79,450
Erik Friberg $77,675
Sean Johnson $73,925
Rob Lederer $69,475
Iago Lopez Gonzalez $68,725
peter falk $67,575
David Barrie $65,200
Jonathan Diamond $64,825
manelic Minaya $64,325
peder behr $63,475
Arnold Blenner $63,400
Russell Davies $61,300
Joseph Stachowiak $60,525
Mark Gilbert $58,400
Erik Gomez $57,775
Andrew Brokos $57,300
Lindell Coker $56,050
Paul Harkleroad $55,675
Lee Thomas $54,425
Mario Rodriguez $53,400
Andreas Villand $52,600
Jesse Martin $52,450
ROBERT SANCHEZ $51,525
Kyle Bowker $51,300
Chris Ellison $51,150
Quan Tran $49,575
Greg Raymer $48,500
Jon Lane $48,100
Ivar Borthen $48,000
Tobias Persson $48,000
Scott Clements $47,825
Paul Parker $47,350
Brian Kooperman $46,625
Rene Mouritsen $46,350
Stephen Garabedian $46,300
sidney hasson $45,625
Stephen Jones $45,400
Stephen Jones $45,400
WILLIAM NORTH $45,250
Paul White $44,450
Nam Le $44,300
Jon Nakatani $43,575
mark handley $43,500
Paul Greim $43,300
scott sweesy $43,075
albert srour $42,875
leonard loder $42,800
JAMES CALDERARO $42,725
Erick Sadler $42,525
David Zeitlin $42,500
David Murray $42,325
Bartholomew Tantillo $42,200
Joseph Cordi $41,800
Timothy McBride $41,625
alan resh $41,500
Mark Donahey $41,475
Craig Schewe $41,250
Ernesto Panno $41,200
larry levine $41,175
frank watkins $40,400
yaron wasserman $40,000
RAYMOND TICSAY $39,850
Jim Osmani $39,750
Ian Baker $39,050
Tom McEvoy $39,025
Matthew Rundell $38,875
Derek Schwerzler $38,800
Jay Lewman $38,450
ken Goldin $38,300
John Ma $38,275
Adrian Pitt $38,250
danny walker $38,150
DARRYL DARE $37,975
Simon Gatty $37,775
Tom Prokopenko $37,750
Dale Philip $37,425
Seth Cohen $37,350
Alan Fidelo $37,350
Alex Brigante $37,075
Mark Owens $36,675
john hutchinson $36,350
Tim Vance $35,925
Viet Tran $35,700
Chris George $35,125
moe parvan $35,050
Neil Butterfield $34,600
David King $34,500
Brian Garelick $34,500
Dov Markowich $34,475
Vaughn Sandman $34,225
Fred Lavassani $34,000
Paul Smith $33,775
Richard LeBleu $33,675
Joel Frank $33,500
christopher wilson $33,425
James Jordan $33,350
Chad Griffith $33,250
Jens Thoren $32,925
Steven Sharp $32,625
Gabriel LEOST $32,450
James Mcleod $32,400
scott deppe $32,300
Andrew Lawlor $32,225
Peter Sun $32,200
mathieu weissmann $32,150
Steven Goodemote $31,950
Matt Baltz $31,350
Supot Chaimungkla $31,325
Lawrence Frye $31,250
Joe Gualtieri $30,875
Glenn Matheson $30,575
steve lustig $30,550
brett hamburger $30,325
Richard Gooding $30,300
Josh Egan $30,125
Brian Baris $30,050
Scott Mighton $30,000
Chris Dow $29,900
Keith Alter $29,450
Brian Gass $29,300
Edwin Spencer $29,050
Vincent Iannuzzi $29,025
Robert Sanders $29,025
Gabriel Andersen $29,000
Darren Brandes $28,850
Justin Truesdell $28,650
Aaron Coulthard $28,475
jeffrey anderson $28,350
Walter Kusiak $28,300
Will Fry $28,250
Wilhel Hardenberg $27,900
Nick Egide $27,800
Jason Morgan $27,800
Morten Sivertsen $27,200
Kelly Contreras $26,875
Jarrod Tavares $26,875
Andy Donovan $26,800
gordon savage $26,800
patrick griffin $26,750
sherry saccamango $26,475
Kyle Finn $26,275
Dylan Dupuls $26,125
Bret Atiyeh $26,075
Ronald Sax $26,000
Adam Barnes $25,900
Ryan Even $25,875
Noah Schwartz $25,850
Raphael Doromal $25,725
John Coito $25,650
Mark Ader $25,350
Rafael Comas $25,350
michael edens $25,300
dan nassif $25,250
Byron Goff $25,250
Todd Nichols $25,075
Dean Johnson $25,050
Craig Hillier $25,000
Kevin Manley $24,850
Kirk Fellows $24,850
Mark Shoichet $24,775
Katja Thater $24,550
Andres Alvarez $24,550
Gary Jones $24,525
jeff littlefield $24,200
david mcbride $24,100
shaun king $23,700
George Magdas $23,550
JIM MORRIS $23,375
christopher abts $23,250
manuel labandeira $22,950
Cesar Giralt-Rivera $22,900
Eric Lynch $22,875
Ken Justin $22,775
Qasim Tiwana $22,725
Mats Nilsson $22,675
Runar Runarsson $22,525
Paul Shoquist $22,500
Jeffrey Mermelstein $22,350
Michael Hasday $22,325
Rick Mombourquette $22,250
Greg Giannokostas $22,025
Jeff Parcher $22,000
Andrew Gunderson $21,950
Lasse Ubostad $21,850
Sam Hiatt $21,700
Alfred Meier $21,650
Dan Heimiller $21,600
Ray Uy $21,550
Shane Fumerton $21,150
Jonathan Rego $21,150
Paul Heathcote $21,100
Kenneth Smarol $21,100
Paul Coles $21,075
patrick joyce $20,725
Aaron Baltzell $20,700
Joshua Bird $20,500
Tom Madruga $20,375
HARRY FITZPATRICK $20,350
Randy Hanley $20,350
Josh Brenner $20,225
Gunnar Rabe $20,050
Armando Munoz-Calero $19,675
Matthias Rohnacher $19,625
Charles Villano $19,550
James Goodman $19,450
ronald nixon $19,450
Leo Wolpert $19,400
Blake Buffington $19,275
Robert Morrow $19,225
Timothy Rausenberger $19,200
steve whitman $19,150
ray ryder $19,100
Christian Foster $19,000
john pires $18,975
Donald Fagan $18,725
Luke Creigh $18,450
gary ringhofer $18,425
Norman Bryan $18,400
Layne Black $18,300
zachary slobin $18,125
Brian Jacobs $18,125
Al Stonum $18,100
sol bergren $17,875
jonathan greenhalgh $17,750
Jason Cunningham $17,500
Bruce Frank $17,450
MARK GARNER $17,450
carlos neira $17,400
Johan Kretz $16,925
Noah Boeken $16,850
Dan Finkleman $16,750
Sunil Padiyar $16,425
Jan Johannessen $16,400
Brian White $16,400
Matthew Kalish $16,050
Marcus Bower $15,875
Gary Broaddus $15,700
wade graham $15,625
Mark Hanna $15,575
Toby Atroshenko $15,550
Patrick Sullivan $15,475
Kristian Ambrosius $15,375
Ryan Vickers $15,250
shawn glines $15,225
Vincent Lin $15,175
Sumit Kumar $15,150
eugene todd $15,100
kevin tanner $15,075
keith danielsen $14,950
James Mouch $14,825
Steve Smith $14,800
Casey Tuepah $14,700
John Duthie $14,675
Jack Wooden $14,675
gus pseekos $14,650
Desmond Chan $14,650
David Creeley $14,600
David Gallello $14,250
Paul Siem $14,250
Steven Dunkelberg $14,175
mark busnardo $14,100
Doug Ednie $14,100
rodney jennings $14,075
Tammy Rocco $13,875
edward atanasio $13,775
Kevin Barcellos $13,700
John Monnette $13,500
Rosendo Perez $13,400
Nath Pizzolatto $13,350
jeff new $13,300
Craig Bunger $13,225
mike marcus $13,200
Derek Feldman $13,200
George Grady $13,100
FREDERIC HEBERT $13,100
Jay Perkins $12,925
Adam Waldbaum $12,800
Tony Petruzzi $12,775
Jon Turner $12,725
david linville $12,675
Ed Latif $12,625
Jared Lissauer $12,175
Luke Chezick $12,150
Penny Clark $12,000
reuben peters $11,800
MARK VECCHIO $11,750
Thomas Bohmer $11,625
Rob Zimmer $11,525
Junhyung Kim $11,450
Brian Chike $11,300
Neil Channing $11,125
Scott Friedman $11,125
paul fury $11,025
Michael Meredith $11,025
Maxim Dolinsky $10,950
ANTHONY RAFTER $10,700
JEFF SLAYTON $10,550
David Penly $10,450
Matthew Glassman $10,400
phil mader $10,375
Wayne Cooper $10,350
Brett Abramovitz $10,275
James Chiara $10,025
Jimmy Dowda $9,950
robert johnson $9,775
Joseph Giudice $9,750
eric miller $9,750
Deric Senne $9,750
Dustin Mele $9,500
Andrew Kent $9,450
Mikael Frisk $9,225
Richard Rashid $9,175
Phil Cooklin $8,900
Elliott Drury $8,900
John Wooton $8,675
Chris Madrid $8,600
mark talis $8,500
dave fox $8,475
Adrienne Rowsome $8,250
Alexander Mitonidis $8,075
Marek Piecha $7,950
gary lundgren $7,950
hans talstad $7,775
Christofer Lindholm $7,775
Stewart Dobbin $7,650
Jeff Sluzinski $7,650
Brian Kent $7,650
Daniel Muncan $7,525
clayton davis $7,450
robert burton $7,425
Brent Fincher $7,325
Roger Dee $7,275
David DiBiasio $7,050
Joe ebanks $6,950
Mark Judycki $6,875
John Michael $6,650
William Liming $6,650
Jeremy Ausmus $6,575
Kyle Tymeson $6,575
harinam khalsa $6,525
Ben Branden $6,275
David Sanbonmatsu $6,225
David Simon $6,225
Sam Stevens $6,025
robert green $6,000
Kyle Rose $5,975
Cameron Warren $5,700
Charles Price $5,175
Jason Lee $5,175
Mark Heintschel $4,550
josh evans $4,350
Sanjay Patel $4,225
Gustav Dahlin $4,200
David Leighton $4,000
James Olson $3,990
Michael Thomas $3,750
HECTOR GARZA $3,650
robert barnard $2,475
David Atrubin $1,125

Raymer Makes Late Run -- Five Billion Hand Freeroller goes big

Five Billion Hand Freeroller goes big

When we met him today, he was a longshot. It's not that we didn't believe. Believing is part of what we do, after all. Still, if we were to put ourselves out as Vegas bookmakers, we might have set some long odds on Arnold Blenner finishing the day. Understand, we do believe. At the same time, we knew that some of the top professionals in the world wouldn't survive Day 1C of the 2006 WSOP. So, how could anyone bet Blenner would finish the day?

We liked Blenner from the beginning. Why? Well, he was happily here on a freeoll. And not just a freeroll. He won a freeroll from a PokerStars.net play money game. As Team Blog's Craig Cunningham wrote in his first report on Arnold Blenner:

Arnold "jwblack100" Blenner was playing one day on PokerStars.net, engrossed in one of his favorites pursuits: Pot-Limit Holdem. He'd built his 1,000 in play money up to 700,000 virtual chips over the span of several months, and he enjoyed the challenges of pot-limit as a way to wind down from a long day as a utility worker in Queens, NY. As he was playing, his table was notified that they had been selected as part of PokerStars' 5 Billionth Hand freeroll tournament. "I thought there would be thousands of people in the tournament, but I say that there were only 238 players with three seats to the Main Event," said Arnold. "When the fourth player was eliminated on the bubble and everyone was congratulating each other, I didn't think it was real. When I got a check for $1,000 from PokerStars for travel expenses, that's when I believed."

That was a breakfast-time conversation. Who knew? Seriously. Who knew that toward the end of the day, Blenner would have nearly three times the average stack in the 2006 World Series of Poker main event? He finished with $38,000. It was a rough hit, but he is still sitting in good shape.


Arnold Blenner, PokerStars Five Billionth Hand Freeroll Winner

To be sure, there would be other stacks bigger than his when the day was over. At the same time, Blenner had beat not only the odds. He had outlasted more than 1000 people in Day 1C.

In the last break of the day, Brenner took time to talk to Team Blog's Craig Cunningham. It's a story you don't want to miss.

Five Billion Hand Freeroller Arnold Blenner Riding High

Raymer makes late run

The day had been one of so little excitement on The Fossilman Front, I had almost forgotten Raymer's storybook run to the final three tables of the 2005 WSOP. I had almost forgotten the excitement of Raymer ending one important day last year with the chip lead. I had almost forgotten the heart-sucking beat he suffered to end his 2005 run.

As the night neared its end, I wandered by Greg Raymer's table. He'd managed to work his stack up from $6,000 to $17,000. While impressive, it was no reason for celebration. He didn't seem at all worried.

As I stood next to him, he kept stealing glance at the rail. There, 20 yards away, his wife stood, looking tired, but determined to sweat her man.

"I'm looking for a chance to go kiss her goodnight," Greg said. "As soon as four people limp into a pot, I'm going over there."

I offered, "I'll go tell her you'll be over as soon as you can."

"Oh, she knows," Greg said. "But what you could do is stand here while I go and yell at me when the dealer starts to shuffle."

"Sure," I said.

I figured it would be a while. Instead, Greg folded under the gun, stood, and headed for the rail.

Suddenly, I felt a little sick. What if everyone folded? What if I couldn't yell loud enough--or soon enough--to get him back? What if he lost his big blind and it was my fault?

I breathed one sigh of relief as a player limped. Then another player limped. My pancreas rose into my throat. I knew what was going to happen.

In came a raise. Panic set in. I was sure everyone else would fold and Greg would be far away. To calm myself, I took a picture of Raymer's stack.



Just as I was about to start screaming, Raymer appeared from nowhere. To be frank, his speed scared me a little bit.

"Hmmph," he said. "Back before the flop. I could've stayed longer."

I wished Greg luck and went away to less pressure-filled duties. I figured Greg would end the day with around $17,000 and have a lot of work to do in Day 2.

Maybe it was that goodnight kiss. Maybe it was the knowledge that he had showed his wife he loved her enough to potentially sacrifice his big blind. Regardless, within the next two hours, Raymer had proved me wrong again. After hitting a lucky card to crack aces, Raymer went on a tear and worked his stack up to around $50,000.

Indeed, we'll all be on Fossilman Front come Day 2.

***

While Blenner and Raymer were our favorite stories of the day, there were tons of great tales that jumped out from Team Blog's coverage.

Comedian Louie Anderson was playing under the PokerStars' flag today. His day had barely started before he was walking around in the hallway outside. He hadn't lost his chips. He's lost control of his mouth. As Dr. Pauly quoted Anderson:

"I didn't think I did anything wrong. I muttered it under my breath and didn't think it was loud enough that anyone heard."

(Read Dr. Pauly's Louie Anderson story here)

After recovering from his early WSOP departure and a bout with a stomach bug, Wil Wheaton came back strong today and turned out some great tales for us today. He started by begging the game of Poker to forgive him and beating himself about the head and shoulders. Why? Well, that's just what Wil does sometimes.

I looked at my calendar and said, "Hey, I just realized that I've been here twenty-one days, today!"

Pauly and Otis looked up at me like the greenhorn I am, before they turned their bloodshot eyes back to their laptops.

"You're looking really great," Pauly said, dryly. "You haven't put on any weight, you don't have that one thousand yard stare . . ." rookie.

After a long day of reflection, Wil rebounded and turned out one of the best stories of the day. Together we met PokerStars qualifier Bret Atiyeh. Alone, Wil wrote, in part...

And that's when I found out that seat three of table forty is Bret "bati99" Atiyeh. Bret is a self-made man who earned enough money to retire at the age of 39. Rather than sit on his pile of money, or have money fights with his friends, or build forts in his living room with stacks of cash[1], Bret turned his attention to poker, a passion he developed over thirty years, since he started playing in home games for baseball cards in the seventies.

Here are all Wil's reports from the day:

Forgive me, Poker, for I have sinned (by Wil Wheaton)
The Frogurt is Also Cursed (by Wil Wheaton)
Meeting bati99, while Fossilman and Pokertrip Build their Stacks (by Wil Wheaton

In my favorite headline of the day, Howard Swains found a young Italian sitting next to one of America's better-known poker-talkers. He titled it:

Minneapolis meets Italia in Rio

Indeed, the stories from the day were many. Team Blog's C.J. Hoyt once again found the tables that were full of PokerStars players. Mad Harper tracked down Barry Greenstein and a host of other qualifiers. Ali Lightman found out the Hachem family has quite a reunion going on here at the Rio. And Max Shapiro discovered there's almost most as much fictional poker going on as the real stuff. If you have some spare time, I'd suggest going back to read all the tales from the day.

A PokerStars Record - Eight Stars at Same Table (by C.J. Hoyt)
The PokerStars Seven? (by C.J. Hoyt)
Barry Greenstein on TV (by Mad Harper)
Michael Matthews (by Mad Harper)
Mike "mman status" Meredith (by Dr Pauly)
Bobby Paine (by Craig Cunningham)
European Day at the WSOP (by Howard Swains)
You go your way, I'll go mine (by Howard Swains)
Tony Hachem and Rosa Bennett (by Ali Lightman)
Max Shapiro Goes to the Movies

Tomorrow (okay, today) we will shove aside the silly rumors and believe that Day 1D is, in fact, the final day of Day 1 play. By the time the event starts at noon, we will have finally seen all of the more than 8,600 players competing in the 2006 WSOP Main Event. Perhaps the biggest news heading into Monday will be 2005 WSOP champion's Joe Hachem's entrance into the room. Ali Lightman will be on the case all day Monday and will be tracking Hachem's play all day long.

Once again, congratulations to Arnold Blenner for taking his freeroll entry into Day 2 of the WSOP.

by Craig Cunningham

Arnold "jwblack100" Blenner started his day in the PokerStars suite, casually eating breakfast from the hot spread provided for PokerStars qualifiers. The story of how he got to the Main Event is incredible, and what he's done once he sat down has been truly amazing. Arnold built 1,000 play money chips into 700,000 virtual chips, enough to play his beloved Pot Limit Holdem at any play money table on PokerStars.net. A table he was playing on was selected for a 5 Billionth Hand freeroll, and he finished in the top three to win his seat at the Main Event. Read more of his story leading up to his first hand on Sunday.

By 1:00AM, Arnold had become Arnie. He sacrificed his twenty minute break after Level 4 to relax and talk about the day. He had cause to feel fairly comfortable, with his $80k stack of yellow, pink, and black chips. "It's been great, just great to play today," said Arnie. "I was pretty overwhelmed walking in and seeing people like Raymer and Daniel Negreanu. Once we started playing, I realized these were all regular guys like me."

Arnold Blenner, PokerStars Five Billionth Hand Freeroll Winner

New Yorkers are known for their fast chatter honed after generations of living in the rat race of city life. Arnie's accent is unmistakable, but his tone and manner is one that pulls you closer to him. He's not a guy who will talk your ear off; his is a conversation that is effortless, approachable, and above all humble. "I'm just plodding along. With my chip stack, everything I do at the table is magnified. I'm trying not to get too crazy, where every hand starts looking good. I'm not pushing that much, and when I do make a play, I get alot of respect. I'm taking a little bit here and there and not putting a lot in. A lot of folding."

Arnie talked about two key hands that were important for his stack as well as his knowledge. In the first hand, he held A-Jo and his opponent had pocket kings. He caught his straight vs. a set of kings, but he bet small to try and elicit an all-in move by his opponent. Arnie was just called. "I thought he had aces and would lay it down. If I'd known he had kings, I would have moved all-in." Later, he played Ah-2h on a board of 4h-5h-5-3. This time, Arnie put the player all-in and was called by 8-8. An 8 fell on the river, giving life to his opponent with his full house. "If I'd moved in on the first hand, the second hand wouldn't have happened. He's not here anymore, so that's fine now."

The day hasn't been without difficulties, but they've been more away from the table than at it. Arnie is diabetic and has to monitor his blood sugar as well as regularly inject himself with insulin. "I couldn't find a place to take my meds, but I felt that my blood sugar was up," explained Arnie. "I can't do it in the bathroom, so I had to search around until I found a place near the PokerStars suite. We play a home game, five or six guys and the game is limit, but low limit. I tend to stay sharp mentally while I may get tired physically, but I tend to scoop everything at the end of the night. The guys say, 'Look out, Arnie's had his insulin!'"

There are two stacks now at Table 52 that are significant to Arnie. Jon Greene from Wisconsin has been in the 6s the whole day, and his stack has grown to $50k. Johan Wemmenhag from Sweden hads $62k, and has shown signs of aggression. "I read a book on tells before I came along with Super System, but my game is still a work in progress. One problem is I've always played limit live, and always for small stakes." When you walk by Arnie, his face never changes, always serious and focused. In the recesses of his mind lies his dream: to get deep at the Main Event. With his back immediately to railbirds, he can't see what is becoming apparent: more and more railbirds are looking over his shoulder and sharing his dream. That legion will grow here as well as on PokerStars as he continues through the tournament.

UPDATE: At 3:40AM, the room was empty with all of the dealers stuffing sealed bags of chips into a larger bag for each table. The dealer at the table reported him at $38,300 after searching for his chip bag. Arnie's dream enters Phase II as he's made it to the second day of the Main Event.

by Craig Cunningham

By night, Table 168 is devoted to the lucrative NLHE cash games that go on at the Rio. It is a big part of the World Series of Poker experience, and spectators can become players for alot less than the $10k buy-in required to enter the Main Event. By day, this table was devoted to six PokerStars qualifers. John Rickard (1s, left) is from Blue Mounds, Wisconsin. When the glaciers retreated to form what is now Wisconsin, the land left behind formed chunky hills and depressions in the land. Kettle moraine is the geological term, and the cliffettes are quite distinctive. John was hoping to avoid any big spikes today, and he held fairly steady for much of the day. Tim Reynolds (2s, center) had doubled up early and looked to be a force.

David Rood, (2nd from left, Yankees cap) aligns himself with the Yankees since the Expos left his native Montreal. Unfortunately for David, he departed before the dinner break. FPP qualifier Raphael Doromal is a student at the University of Florida, majoring in Sociology. He doesn't miss the winters of Chicago, and the scenery can be pretty good on campus, too.

Arnaud Turpin from Paris survived something every poker player who's played for awhile has experienced: aces losing to kings. "He caught a king on the river for a set, and it knocked me down to $2,700 in chips." Arnaud had enough chips to keep playing, which can be the difference for those surviving Day 1. You want to have chips to weather the storm; without that, a bad beat can send you to the rail.

FPP Qualifier Jim Scherer checked out the iPod of Lynette Chan, an aspiring cash game player who's relocated to Las Vegas from LA this year. "I don't have much," said Jim. "I haven't bought a new pair of shoes in two years. If I make it the end of the day, I'm going to do something to my hair. If I make it to Day 4, I'll have some work done on my teeth." You can't help pull for someone like Jim, and we passed in the hall after the 11:00PM dinner break. Looks like I may need to set an appointment at the salon for him.

by C.J. Hoyt

For some people, it's hard enough to play in your first ever World Series of Poker Main Event. In fact, even if you have played in this before, you may still run into something you've never faced before.

Television cameras.

Playing at the final table is one thing, but playing out amongst the masses usually provides some degree of anonimity. For a few PokerStars qualifiers, they have no such luxury.

Vince "vinny_vegas1" Martignetti and Jules Sin found themselves just a few seats away from the newest inductee into the Poker Hall of Fame, T.J. Cloutier. He's kind of a big deal.

Jules Sim found out first-hand what it's like to run into one of the true greats. In the first hour of play, he found himself with a pocket pair of Aces. He put in a healthy raise, only to be called by T.J.

"I would have pushed all in if he came over the top of me," Jules said.

The flop came down J-high, with two hearts. Jules bet and T.J. called again. The turn was a Jack of hearts and this slowed both players down. When the river was yet another heart, Jules knew he was in trouble with his two black Aces. Jules checked and called a small river bet from T.J. who showed pocket Q's, including the Queen of hearts. It was the second time T.J. cracked Aces in the first hour of play.

Cory Zeidman and Halldor Mar Sverrisson ("casinoice") have spent most of their tournament with a boom mic inches above their head. That's because television-favorite Jen Harman was sitting right beside them.

This isn't the first time Cory has tangled with Jen Harman in front of the cameras. You may remember last year when Jen suffered one of the most brutal beats when Cory nailed his one-outer to a straight flush on the river. It was the hand that crippled her and sent her to the rail shortly thereafter.



Of course, if Cory had his way, he'd have sent her to the rail again. After coming back from a break, Cory looked down at pocket J's on the first hand. He raised it up to 1000 and was immediately raised by Jen Harman who pushed all in for her final 1375. Cory called, saying softly, "Jacks." Jen sighed and flipped over her pair of Jacks, too. She was clearly disappointed in the chop, but I'm guessing Cory was, too.

Finally, Scott "10avefrezout" Wanzer has gotten up close and personal with "The Unabomber," Phil Laak, who's sitting to his left.

"He was all the way down to 2500," Scott told me, "but he just tripled up to 7500. Now he's got chips to play with again."

by Wil Wheaton

I've had a rough day. Between beating myself up over my dismal play in the WSOP, and some questionable food last night, I've felt sick to my stomach for 48 hours, and I was very close to calling it an early night about an hour ago.

Just before I was going to leave, Otis passed me in the hallway, and we walked around the Rio for a few minutes, then went outside to commiserate about missing our wives and children.

"I'm going to walk the floor and get some check on our players," Otis said.

"I think I'll come with you," I said, "and peek in at Greg while we're out there."

We traded the ninety-four degrees of hot pavement in front of the poker kitchen for the quiet din of the tournament room, and noticed that they are still running satellites for Main Event entries. The cash games, while on fewer tables, are still taking up at least a quarter of the room though many tables are empty. (I note this because I thought that the entire room had been transitioned over to Main Event tournament play. Oops.)

On our way down the rail, as we got dangerously close to table 20 and my post traumatic stress disorder that was certain to ensue, we hung a quick right at table 40, where a couple of PokerStars players were seated.

One of the players looked up at us, and said, "Hey! Are you guys with the PokerStars blog?"

"Yes, sir, we are," Otis said.

"When are you going to come by and put us on it?" He said.

I don't know about Otis, but even though I know lots of people are reading our work, all the six digit stats in the world pale in comparison to the one guy who sees us walking past his table, and interrupts his play because what we do matters to him.

Otis pulled out his notepad and said, "I'll put your information on the blog the next time we update it, if you give it to me right now."

"Really?!" He said.

"Absolutely," Otis said.

And that's when I found out that seat three of table forty is Bret "bati99" Atiyeh. Bret is a self-made man who earned enough money to retire at the age of 39. Rather than sit on his pile of money, or have money fights with his friends, or build forts in his living room with stacks of cash[1], Bret turned his attention to poker, a passion he developed over thirty years, since he started playing in home games for baseball cards in the seventies. Our crack commando research staff (CJ) found out that Bret played at Annie Duke's table last year, and busted late on day one when QQ failed to hold up for him. In fact, ladies were his undoing in the 2005 WSOP. According to Bret, he could bluff everyone at his table except Annie, who called him every time.

Tonight, Bret has 23350 chips, which he counted out for us between hands. As a bonus for you, dear readers, I can report that we saw his stack dip from 23375 when he kicked in his ante. (Now that is some real-time action reporting, folks! Ding!)

Bret's table mate asked to remain anonymous, and Otis and I honored Mr. Hughes' request[2].

A few more tables into the room, we found ourselves next to Greg. He appeared to have more chips than his current count online, but he was in a hand -- cool fossilman glasses on and everything -- when we walked up, so we left him alone and continued to prowl the floor.

A few steps later, I saw that Greg's wife, Cheryl, was standing by the rail with her sister, so I zagged when Otis zigged, and walked over to talk with them.

"It looks like Greg has about 7500 or so," I said.

"He just texted me a few minutes ago," Cheryl said, "and he's up just over ten thousand."

"Oh? That's great!" I said. "I'm supposed to be covering him today, but I don't want to get too close while he's playing."

"Oh, you should just go over and talk with him. He likes you and it wouldn't bother him at all."

I didn't tell her that I'm convinced that if I walk too close to Greg, one of his opponents will pull an Aaron Kanter on him because I happened to be there. This is an entirely rational thought.

"I think I'll stay out of his way for the rest of the day," I said.

"Oh! Greg just won a pot," Cheryl's sister said.

I turned around, and Greg was raking some chips toward him. Table 36 is five or six tables in from the rail, near the center of its quadrant in the Amazon room, though, so I couldn't get even a rough estimate of the pot.

Greg looked up and smiled at his wife, who smiled back and waved. I've been around these two a few times since I joined Team PokerStars last year, and I don't think I'm revealing any big secrets when I tell you that they love each other. A lot. It's very cool.

Greg flashed a thumbs up, and went back to playing. I noticed, as I looked back at him, that an ESPN camera crew was hovering around him, and I wondered if that added any pressure to him when he got involved in a hand.

"He likes being on TV," Cheryl said, "I think it relaxes him to play while people are watching."

Aside: It seems counterintuitive, I know, but it makes sense. Greg likes to beat the hell out of his opponents and nobody wants to look stupid on TV. He can severely test people and they'll often fold a lot of hands to him, because they don't want to get caught with middle pair on a scary flop. Like all the top pros, Greg's game goes way beyond the cards.

The tournament director's voice filled the room, announcing that spectators needed to clear out, in advance of the players taking an end-of-level break.

"Are you guys going to meet up during the break?" I said.

"Not unless I can give him something to eat or drink," she said. "I just want him to be able to get up, relax, and make it to and from the bathroom if he needs to."

Now, I almost didn't report that last bit, but it's humanizing information: even the mightiest of champions need to see a man about a mule from time to time, and they are at the mercy of the break schedules as much as the rest of us.

She waved at Greg, and they made "I love you" motions at each other. Greg seemed really happy and relaxed, and I could see how proud of him she was. Even though my wife just got on a plane back to Los Angeles at seven this morning, I missed her as fiercely as ever in that moment.

The security goons began sweeping out the room, and I walked with Cheryl, her sister and her sister's husband, until we got to the intersection of Main Street and Wil Wheaton Kicks Ass Drive. They went down WWKAD, and continued down Main toward the hallway and media room, glancing at tables my whole way.

When I got to table 153, I saw Jon "pokertrip" Friedberg in seat 2, facing the rail.

His hands obscured his chipstack, but I noticed that he was wearing his bracelet, which made me very happy.

I watched a couple of hands, holding security at bay with my press badge, and Jon looked up and saw me. He smiled and waved, and I waved back. I looked at his chips and made the international face for "how many chips do you have? I don't want to walk over the rail and bother you while you're playing, and the stupid media rules prohibit me from explicitly asking you. Besides, you probably know and can just hold up a few fingers for me and make everyone happy while keeping us on the right side of the rules." This motion was accomplished by cocking my head to the right, and arching my left eyebrow. Yes, we actors can convey a lot in the most subtle of motions.

He held up his two index fingers, indicating eleven thousand. His huge smile indicated that he was very happy to have that stack in front of him.

I nodded my head, and wrote the information he shared with me in my notebook as the tournament director came over the loud speakers and shouted, "annnndddd GO! GO! GO! GO! Players, you are on a break for twenty minutes."

The players began to file out in a huge wave. I surfed it out of the tournament area, and into the media room.

For the last 48 hours, I've felt like a complete failure, and I really haven't liked it. After walking the floor with Otis, seeing Greg, talking with Cheryl and checking up on Jon, I feel like a writer again. I don't believe it's a coincidence that I don't feel like throwing up for the first time since Friday, either.

The next time I think about picking up a deck of cards and some chips, I think I'll reach for my notebook and pen, instead.

[1] Bret's post-retirement activities are exaggerated for comedic effect and to meet our self-imposed minimum of once gratuitous Simpsons reference a day.

[2]The player in seat four was not, in fact, Howard Hughes. Thank you for visiting Footnote Comedy Theatre.

by Ali Lightman

** 12:00 am **

Billy Sukkar just went out. It was a clash of the blinds. Billy, in the small blind had 22 and the big blind 10 10.

They both flopped a set.

Rosa Bennett was down to 9k and feeling frustrated after being moved 3 times in Level 4, and again just minutes into Level 5. She had lost two massive pots. "I just can't get a read on the table, moving all the time."

Tony Hachem had dropped down to 7.5k but is back up to 11k after taking down two consecutive pots with pre-flop raises.



Joe Hachem's mobile phone will be beeping about now with an incoming text message.

"I've got 27k, cuz!" it reads.

It's from cousin Billy, 31, who along with Joe's younger brother Tony sat down to play in his first WSOP Main Event today.

The two men are seated too far apart even to wave, and have been anxious for news of each other every time I check in with them.

They went into a huddle together on their break a few minutes ago, Tony frustrated with swings in his stack tonight. He'd just lost 12k on the last hand before the break, when he'd been holding KhQh and the flop came 7 T J with two hearts. He had plenty of outs but none of them came, and his opponent called him down to the river, to take the pot with QJo.

So, Tony is back down to 10k but ready to start grinding again.

Whenever they can, given Joe's hectic schedule, the men sit down with friends for a home game in Melbourne. Sit and go's at the kitchen table and on PokerStars are where they've both honed the skills that have got them through the first four levels of play.

Billy entered his first tournament this year, the Aussie Millions, and everyone sat up and noticed when he finished in 27th place. In his second tournament, the Melbourne Championships, he finished 22nd.

Joe had a few words with Tony about survival through this round, so has he been staying in touch with Billy today too?

"Yeah" he said. "He's been talking to me. But I play my own game, I rely on my own instincts" he said, before they headed back in to tackle Level 5.

by Howard Swains

Approximately nine of every ten articles written about poker in the mainstream press includes the word "boom". I know, because I am responsible for a number of them myself and am familiar with the tortuous struggle to find sufficiently incendiary word to explain what's gone on in the past five years. "Explosion", "eruption" and "boom". That's about it.

The evidence is easier to come by - and is right outside the door, right now. Not only are more than 8,000 players anxious to part with $10,000 to play a game of cards, but there is a poker exhibition at the Rio where there is enough free crap on offer from heavily branded dollies to fill the Grand Canyon. Twice.

However, while these are the obvious markers that bear witness to this, erm, boom, everyone who played the game during the pre-Moneymaker era has their own stories to tell from back in the day when a full house meant no more than simply folding out the sofa-bed in the spare room.

For me, I realised something was up when I first began hearing tales of success on the wider poker scene of players I had not only seen in the flesh but actually crossed swords with around the low-stakes tables. I usually lost (that much is given), but I have vivid memories of hearing that the chancers who frequented the same pub basements or South London kitchens as myself were now fully accepted as "poker players".

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that I used to play poker in small clubs in London with Dan Samson, David Flusfeder and Akshay Kumar, all of whom are now mixing it in the World Series of Poker, having qualified on PokerStars. We heard all about Akshay yesterday, but today we have both Dan and David, lost somewhere in the melee that is the day one dinner break; the usual ambling railbirds tripping over a swarm of players desperate to reach the buffet queue.

David spent the first few hours sitting to the right of John Gale, whose freshly acquired WSOP bracelet is dazzling from his left wrist. "You know, he also won the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in 2005," I told David. "Yes. Thank you. I get the point," he replied. But something Gale hasn't got that David has is the Avery Cardoza trophy, won at a hard-fought tournament in London a couple of years ago - and never given back. It now sits proudly in the Flusfeder bathroom as a defiant challenge to anyone brave enough to join his home game and take a leak.

Samson is equally tough. Known as "The Muscle", he has had 16 cashes in major tournaments over the past three years, all worthy of note on the major poker databases. He has made Luton, north London, his tournament venue of choice, but made the money in the Caribbean this year and has plenty of pedigree to go deep here.

Chip counts and progress reports will be here when we know them, brought to you by the person who sat around those tables once but was forced to admit: "I make more money writing about poker than playing it." "Wow, you must be a really bad player," came the retort.

They're not wrong.

by C.J. Hoyt

It's impossible to miss Table 163, and it didn't take the players long to notice either. PokerStars just about owns the table. Starting in Seat 1, it's Mike Jaeckels, in Seat 2 it's David Pendleton, then Samy "bebert004" Boulheouchat and Philippe "philledingue" Boucher in Seats 3 and 4, followed by Henric Strath in Seat 5 and finally Kevin "nobbyhayes" Hayes and Lon "lbfresh" Balter in Seats 6 and 7.

Mike and David have something in common besides qualifying for the Main Event on PokerStars. They both learned to play poker from their grandparents.

Mike already has his post-victory interview planned out, "I would want to go on the tonight show... Leno is so much better. He would ask me what the hell I was doing going all in with 7-2 offsuit and making my fullhouse to win the tournament. I would just tell him that I knew the cards were coming."

David has a bit more serious outlook on the tournament, "I have Crohn's disease and would love more research to be done on curing that disease. So if I were to win, I would put some money towards that cause." David's not too worry about the pros or the spotlights this time around, because he's used to it now. Last year in the Main Event, he busted on the first day at the featured table to Daniel Negreanu.

Samy has been an online poker player for two years, and this tournament will be a new experience for him. It's the first time he'll be playing live. Up to this point, he's only gotten experience playing online tourneys on PokerStars.

Lon's no stranger to competition. Not only does he have 10 years of poker playing experience, but he's a regular competitor elswhere, "I played several sports growing up and went to a Division 1 college on a baseball scholarship. I think it's this competitivness built inside of me that gives me the hunger to win in poker."

And so far today, there's been a lot of competition amongst our PokerStars players, but the good news is, they're all still alive. We'll see if the PokerStars Seven makes it as long as the PokerStars Five!

by Dr. Pauly

Comedian Louie Anderson participated in today's flight for PokerStars. Early on, the host of Family Fued found himself in a little hot water after he was issued a ten minute penalty for foul language. Louie Anderson fell victim to the controversial "F-bomb rule," where any player that uses the dirty word will be given a ten minute penalty.

"I didn't think I did anything wrong," Louie explained to me. "I muttered it under my breath and didn't think it was loud enough that anyone heard."

Actually the dealer heard Louie's F-bomb and called the floor over.

"You got to be f----- kidding me," Louie said in retort.

The floor person sent Louie to the rail for ten minutes. He took that incident seriously and realized that he needed to focus more at the tables.

"I can't believe I'm still in the World Series of Poker," he said.

Louie built his stack up to $12.5K after he took an early hit. He doubled up with 7-7 when he turned a full house when his opponent made a straight.

Louie is a definitely hit with the fans and spectators at the Rio. He's been stopped for numerous photo and autograph requests and has been always accomodating.

* * * * *

Barry Greenstein signed copies of his book Ace on the River for fans at the Poker Stars booth in the Poker Lifestyle and Gaming Expo.

In other Team PokerStars news, two former world champions played on Day 1C including Greg Raymer and Tom McEvoy.

Raymer had an up and down day. He was down to $3K for a while until he went on a run and had around $15K by dinner break. He eventually doubled up with Ad-10d against a fellow who had an open-ended straight flush draw. Raymer's opponent missed all of his outs while he turned two pair.

McEvoy caught some lady luck when he doubled up with a short stack. He cracked pocket aces with K-K.

Chris Bigler slowly added to his stack over the afternoon up to $20K, then took a hit a slipped down to under $10K.

by Howard Swains

The organisational secrets of the PokerStars blog team are not especially difficult to comprehend. Each member of our small army is allocated a particular trait to pursue: a European accent, an embroidered "Team PokerStars" shirt, a SuperNova qualification, or a huge stack of chips. We keep an eye open, grab the story, then file it back to Papa Smurf in the media room, who refines it for your delectation.

Sometimes - and it happens more often than you might think - a certain player ticks more than one box and finds himself the eye of a PokerStars blog storm. What happens when a European SuperNova builds a sizeable early stack in flight C? Ask Dario Minieri, from Italy, who is such a man and has earned both myself and CJ's attention this afternoon.

Minieri is sitting one to the left of "Minneapolis" Jim Meehan. It's unknown whether Dario and the charasmatic Meehan are exhanging much in the way of anecdote, but there is a certain flow of chips in Minieri's direction. The suave, young Italian has more than 36,000. Meehan does not.

Minieri has form in live events, having cashed in March at the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo for just more than $20,000. But that probably represents little more than change for anyone who has progressed to SuperNova status. Minieri may look small and young, but the gold bracelets and rings give some idea of his true standing.

It's a neat contrast to the Western fashions of Minneapolis Jim - and a table near enough to the railbirds have already found their afternoon's prey.

by Wil Wheaton

It's really hard to get close to the tables on the tournament floor, so I haven't been able to follow Greg and Tom as closely as I could in earlier events. According to the Intertubes, Tom has 4100 and Greg has 15200. It's been an up and down day for Greg, who really needs a pile of chips to play his aggressive game and beat the crap out of his opponents, and a pretty standard day for Tom, who is more steady and methodical, and doesn't take too many risks early on. If the cards come his way, he'll have chips, otherwise, he waits to pick his spots.

Without the ability to even get close to them on their breaks, I've been left adrift today, in search of a story. Of course, I found one, and as usual, Barry Greenstein was responsible.

I found myself in the expo, which is much more crowded today than it was last time I was in there on Friday. Like all trade shows, there are the obligatory booth babes, the thumping music and the piles of giveaways that will end up under the passenger seat and stolen by a car wash guy months from now. The difference between the relative tranquility where players are competing for their share of over eighty-six million dollars, and the chaos where online poker rooms, magazines, T-shirt vendors and others are competing for their share of a billion dollar industry was striking. With so much at stake, it's remarkable to me that anyone can be calm in any of the rooms here.

Aside: I've just found out that there's a monkey playing poker in the expo right now. Apparently, some genius tried to enter the monkey into the Main Event, and they were -- wait for it -- denied. Shocking. I'm not going to go back in there and watch for two reasons: as far as I am concerned, there is only one monkey who plays poker and, as one of my colleagues here just said, "Why play a monkey? If you win, so what; you beat a monkey. But if you lose? Dude, you lost to a monkey."
I saw my friend Chris on my way in.

"How are you doing?" He said.

"The same," I said.

"I'm sorry to hear that. Barry Greenstein is signing his book in the PokerStars booth, though, so you should go see him and get one."

I thought that was a great idea. If you haven't read Barry's book, and you have any intention of playing poker seriously or for a living, you must. If you enjoy poker and would like to see the most beautiful poker book in the history of life, you must pick up Ace on the River. If you are the kind of person who does what a blogger tells you to do, then you must send me a dollar, then pick up Barry's book.

I made my way to the PokerStars booth, just as Barry was finishing up his signing. In fact, I was the last in line.

I sat down and Barry asked me how our team players were doing.

I said, "I think you're the only member who is already through to day two, and Greg and Tom are in today."

"How are they doing?" He said.

I told him.

"Greg really needs to get chips to play his game," Barry said, "so I'm not surprised that he's up and down."

Barry picked up one of his books, and opened it up. Before I could say, "It's Wil with one 'L,'" he put pen to paper and began to write.

"This guy is a great writer," he said to the photographer, a pretty twenty-something blond girl who blushed and said, "can I have my picture with you when you're done? I had a huge crush on you when I was a teenager."

"Of course," I said. "It will be my pleasure."

Barry finished signing my book, and we posed for a picture. Then I stood up and posed for a picture with the photographer before I headed out of the booth and back onto the expo floor.

I made it about three booths away before the curiosity took over, and I opened up Barry's book. Inside the front cover it said,

Wil,

Thanks for all the great write-ups.

Barry Greenstein

I'm having a copy of Just A Geek sent out here, so I can write back:

Barry,

Thank you for all the great stories, and for spelling my name correctly.

Wil

The players are on the first half of a staggered break, so I'll see if I can grab a word with Greg or Tom before they head back into their tables.

Although he only started playing poker three years ago, Niclas Lundqvist, 34, from Stockholm is already made a pretty good living from it - not so much from winning at cards (although he's no slouch at the tables) but from the poker consultancy he has set up running poker events for businesses.

Niclas sussed out early on that many of the skills you need in order to be good at poker are also highly useful in business life - negotiating, reading your opponents and so forth. Scandinavian companies naturally jumped at the chance to include poker as part of their staff development strategies (hey, who wouldn't!) and now www.pokerevent.se is running up to five events a day.

The father-of-one (he and his wife expect their second child at Christmas) qualified for this year's WSOP in a PS $160 double shoot out. He also qualified on PS for last season's EPT in Barcelona but after ten hours' hard grafting experienced a horrible bad beat involving Q9 which he still finds hard to talk about.

Update:Niclas lasted seven hours into the WSOP but took a fatal hit when his set of 3s were trounced by a lucky straight.

Update as of 2:00am, Level 6

(selected chip counts are approximate and not official)

John Carlson $106,375
John Armbrust $86,000
Dmitri "dinodapro" Nobles $82,000
Brian Hansen $76,000
Jeff Banghart $73,000
ElkY $65,000
Dario Minieri $62,300
Lindell "bulld0g4life" Coker $60,000
Dan Heimiller $57,000
Manelic Minaya $55,000
Lee Thomas $54,000
Phillippe "philledingue" Boucher $53,000
Iago Gonzalez $52,500
Greg Raymer $50,000
Larry Levin $46,000
Mike "mman_status" Meredith $45,000
Andrew Lawlor $43,000
Brett "bigbrains" Hamburger $43,000
Kyle Bowker $39,000
Michael Laufer $38,000
Arnold Blenner $38,000
Bret "BATI99" Atiyeh $31,000
Gunnar Rabe $30,000
Tom McEvoy $22,500
Spencer Cosette $14,700

Update as of 12:15pm, Level 5

John Armbrust $82,000
Andrew Blenner $70,000
Phillippe "philledingue" Boucher $68,000
John Carlson $56,000
Dan Heimiller $54,000
Dario Minieri $51,000
Iago Gonzalez $50,500
Brian Hansen $50,000
Brian "LXIXME17" Hansen $48,000
Larry Levin $40,000
Manelic Minaya $40,000
Andrew Lawlor $39,000
Kyle Bowker $37,500
Lennie Duvdivani $35,000
Jeff "mrrain" Banghart $33,000
Ryan Even $31,500
Gunnar Rabe $31,000
Bret "BATI99" Atiyeh $27,000
Michael "mman_status" Meredith $24,000
David Nguyen $20,000
Tom McEvoy $19,500
Scott Byron $19,000
Greg Raymer $17,000
Tony Hachem $9,000
Rosa Bennett $7,000
Louie Anderson $5,000

Update as of 10:01pm

Arnold Blenner $60,000
John Carlson $59,000
Phillippe "philledingue" Boucher $57,000
Dario Minieri $55,000
Iago Gonzalez $54,000
Kyle Bowker $40,000
ElkY $38,000
David Nguyen $33,000
Michael "mman_status" Meredith $31,000
Dan Heimiller $30,000
Bret "BATI99" Atiyeh $23,350
Nam Le $22,000
Paul Heathcote $22,000
Danny Kaesser $20,000
Tony Hachem $16,000
Patrick Knight $16,000
Tom McEvoy $15,000
Scott Byron $12,000
Rosa Bennett $12,000
Jon "pokertrip" Friedberg $11,000
Greg Raymer $10,000
Louie Anderson $6,000

Update as of 6:03pm

Dario Minieri $49,200
John Carlson $37,000
ElkY $34,000
Jason Cunningham $33,550
Desmand Portano $30,000
John Cunningham $30,000
Kyle Bowker $29,000
Dmitri "dinodapro" Nobels $28,000
Jeff Banghart $27,600
Andrew "alaw911" Lawlor $27,000
John Armbrust $25,000
Vaughn Sandman $25,000
David Nguyen $25,000
"Lenny" $25,000
Iago Gonzalez $24,000
Andrew "gunduwarrior" $24,000
Gustav Dahlin $23,000
Chris Bigler $21,000
Bobby Paine $20,500
Manelic Minaya $20,000
Jonas "3moany" Ovestad $20,000
Arnold "jwblack100" Blenner $20,000 (5 Billionth hand freeroll)
Jeff "csonka39111" Eggenburg $19,000
Michael "mman_status" Meredith $18,500
Mike Jaeckles $18,000
Tony Hachem $17,500
Joe Sarausad $17,500
Steve Dunkleberg $17,500
Daniel Simpson $17,000
Brett "bigbrains" Hamburger $16,000
Greg "fossilman" Raymer $15,200
Philippe Boucher $15,000
Neil Channing $14,500
Nam Le $14,000
Louie Anderson $12,500
Serge "adanthar" Radushkevich $12,500
Peter Vu $12,000
Jorge Arias $11,000
Scott Byron $10,500
Lon "lbfresh" Balter $10,000
Spencer "scossett" Cossette $8,000
Mike "kidfrmtenn" Halford $7,100
Trish "DrewM" Forrestall $6,500
Tom McEvoy $4,100
Chuck "pokerhands" Agnew $5,000
Ash Hussain $4,650

Just logging on? Check out the links below the picture for all the coverage so far from Day 1C of the World Series of Poker.

PokerStars Qualifiers Updates

Main Event Day 1C Begins

Five Billionth Hand Freeroll winner takes a seat (by Craig Cunningham)

A PokerStars Record - Eight Stars at Same Table (by C.J. Hoyt)

Minneapolis meets Italia in Rio (by Howard Swains)

Meeting bati99, while Fossilman and Pokertrip Build their Stacks (by Wil Wheaton

The PokerStars Seven? (by C.J. Hoyt)

Team PokerStars and big name coverage

Forgive me, Poker, for I have sinned (by Wil Wheaton)

Barry Greenstein on TV (by Mad Harper)

The Frogurt is Also Cursed (by Wil Wheaton)

Louie Anderson's F-Bomb Penalty (by Dr. Pauly)

Player Profiles

Michael Matthews (by Mad Harper)

Mike "mman status" Meredith (by Dr Pauly)

Bobby Paine (by Craig Cunningham)

European Coverage

European Day at the WSOP (by Howard Swains)

You go your way, I'll go mine (by Howard Swains)

Aussie Coverage

Tony Hachem and Rosa Bennett (by Ali Lightman)

Max Shapiro Reports

Max Shapiro Goes to the Movies

by Mad Harper

Back in 2003, Canadian Michael Mathews was living in Vegas as a Sprint installation contractor. A keen card player - "I play everything", he said - he entered a $1,000 satellite at Binions for a seat in the WSOP. After many hours grinding at the tables, it was down to the last three.



Michael said: "Me and this other guy get the third guy out and then the remaining player asks me if I want to split it. But the dealer says we can't - at which point, the guy we've just busted offers to buy the seat off us for $9,600. So we sell it to him and split the money.

"I thought I'd be able to win another seat fairly soon but I've never actually managed it. So I was pretty pleased to win a seat in the PS satellite. It's great to be here." At the last count, Michael was holding steady on around $13,000.

by Ali Lightman

**9:45pm**

Rosa Bennett's table was the happiest I saw on my last lap of the room. Even though she's taking their money she's making them laugh.

And she has reason to be cheerful. Australia's Poker Princess went into the break having made a beautiful read on one of her opponents.

Rosa had bet 700 with KJ in early position, and it was folded around to the big blind, who re-raised, making it 1500 to go. Rosa flat called him.

The flop came T J 6, and Rosa fired 2600 at the pot. The big blind thinks and thinks, so Rosa gives him the tip "Ace Queen is no good".

He looks down at his cards and, as he throws them into the muck in disgust, flashes the cards to the rail revealing that he is in fact holding AQ.
He might think twice before tangling with her again.

Tony Hachem seems have slipped under the radar of the other players at his table, as he hoped, and they're yet to find out he's the younger brother of resigning WSOP Champion, Joe. He's just lost a sizeable pot and is down to 16k, but is remembering Joe's advice not to get involved in big pots with marginal hands, and to be patient.

Meanwhile Joe and Tony's cousin, Billy, is progressing steadily, and has 22k.

allways look, a member of Team PokerStars from New Zealand who tells me he is a "slightly talented amateur" is on 15.5k.

**update** 6:15pm

We've lost one from Team PokerStars New Zealand. 26 year old sales consultant, Shaun Gray, from Auckland, just went all in for his last 2k with AQ and was called by KT, but as Shaun said, he was getting the cards but not hitting the flops. KT did. He had a ball and is in no hurry to leave as his buddy from home, allways look, another member of Team Pokerstars NZ, is still in and sitting on 16k.

And it's a family affair for the Hachem's today. As well as Joe's brother Tony Hachem, their young cousin Billy Sukkar is playing. Both are holding their own, Billy has 12.5k and Tony's stack has risen steadily to just more than 15k.

And Rosa has been up and down a bit but she has 10k and is still smiling.


If your big brother was the reigning WSOP Champion, would you want your opponents at the table to know?

Not a chance.

"None of them know who I am" whispered Tony Hachem, early in Level 1 of play today. And that's the way the 33 year old from Melbourne wants to keep it.

Tony has a game plan, hatched with Joe, and he wants to act on it without other players taking shots at him, simply because of his name.

"I just want to feel the table for the first couple of hours, and stay above par. If they're aggressive, I'll stay behind the aggressor, and if they're tight I'll start attacking the table."



Tony woke up at four am today and went for a walk, where he bumped into a group of exhausted Aussies who'd just survived Day 1B. He knows it's going to be a long hard slog.

"We're talking about 14 hours of play" he said. "I'm a runner, so I look at this as a marathon. I'm going to pace myself, and I'm going to enjoy it."

"Joe told me to play each hand on its merits, minimise what it costs me, and stay patient."

Also playing today is the girl they call "Poker Princess" back home, (although I have also heard her described as Rosa "The Destroyer" Bennett, and said it myself when she booted me out of a Ladies Event.)

27 year old Rosa, the only female member of Team PokerStars Australia, learned to play poker during a holiday in Las Vegas a couple of years ago, and hasn't looked back.



She carves up the cash tables at her home poker room in Melbourne, and every now and then thinks about quitting her job in fashion retail, to turn pro.

She reckons she's made Aud $50 000 in the short time she's been playing, and that being female is a distinct advantage.

It's also an advantage being a woman journalist, because I can ask the questions men simply can't.

She knew I wasn't hitting on her when I asked her today if being a gorgeous looking woman is an advantage at the table. She looked me in the eye and said "yes. As a girl, they think I'm tight. I've raised 4 times already and only got one caller. They think I only play good cards. They have no idea I can bluff."

And the move she just made will reinforce any view they may have that Rosa plays tight.

She just won two out of three consecutive hands, with pre-flop raises. The last time she was on the button.

"You must be so sick of me stealing your blinds" she giggled to the men on her left. "But I've always got a hand" she said, flipping her cards to show the table KQo.

When you stop in the middle of the room and spin around, you'll be amazed at just how many PokerStars qualifiers you'll see. In fact, today we set a new record. Eight of the 10 players at Table 161 are all PokerStars qualifiers. I kinda feel sorry about the other two guys.

You may remember the last time I wrote about Table 161. It was Day 1A and the PokerStars Five were in seats three through seven. In fact, James "Chelse16" Goodman (FPP Qualifier), England's Matt Tailby and Nate "Jimmytogni" Kelley all survived to the 2nd day.

Here's who we're watching: Jonas "3moany" Ovestad, Serge "adanthar" Radushkevich, John "johnnyv5000" Vellios, Spencer "scossett" Cossette, Brett "bigbrains" Hamburger, Chuck "pokerhands" Agnew, Jeff "csonka39111" Eggenburg, and Todd "Todzila" Thomas.

Brett Hamburger


Jonas Ovestad


Spencer Cosette


Todd Thomas

Serge started playing poker with the boom a few years ago, but it didn't take him long to find success. His biggest cash is $112,000 after winning the Poker Stars Sunday Million. He put himself through law school playing poker and now works at a non-profit immigration firm. Even if things don't go well today, it's been a very successful month for Serge. He got married on the 22nd and this is his honeymoon.

John's been playing seriously over the past five years, learning on PokerStars and, he says, "hanging out in some places I shouldn't have when I was 16." Last year, he played in the $3000 NL Event but was knocked out when his pocket Kings ran lost to pocket 7's. For John this tournament isn't just about the cash prize, "In the end though, money is just money. It comes and it goes, I'm going out there to play for a bracelet."

There's a good chance Spencer and Brett have faced each other online. After all, they're both Supernova members of the PokerStars VIP Club. You don't reach that status without having a lot of success (and a lot of time on your hands). And if you have played with Brett, maybe you've faced his father Jim "downtheline" Hamburger, who's had plenty of online success himself.

Chuck wasn't sure he was ever going to play poker again. A heart attack put him in the hospital. But when he moved home to recover, he got back online and won his seat on PokerStars. He's been playing and dealing for more than 30 years. Two years ago he cashed in 82nd in the Main Event.

Todd has a really important reason to win. He's the father of twin 5-year olds who were both born with Muscular Dystrophy. When he wins the big prize, he plans to give $1 million each to two charities that have helped his family, the Scottish Rite Foundation and the MDA Foundation.

This group of PokerStars qualifiers is hoping for at least as much success as Day 1A's Table 161. In fact, they all plan on being part of a record number of PokerStars players at the final table.

by Dr Pauly

I had the opportunity to chat with another PokerStars qualifier at breakfast this morning. Michael "mman_status" Meredith is a recent college graduate from the University of Maryland. He currently lives in Hoboken, NJ.

Pauly: How did you win your seat into the WSOP?

Mike: I played about twenty double-shootouts and invested something like $3,000 to win my seat. I finally got in that way. I won a seat at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure last year. It took me only three attempts. I assumed that winning a seat to the WSOP main event would be a piece of cake. It wasn't. I didn't think I was going to win my seat, but I finally did.

Pauly: How did you do at the PCA?

Mike: I played super tight, which is not my game. I didn't make the money, but I survived about half the field. I had pocket Queens and even flopped a set but I was up against A-K of spades. There were two spades on the flop and he pushed all in. Of course he got there and I was busted. I had a great time and the majority of the field were PokerStars players.

Pauly: Is this your first time in Las Vegas?

Mike: I went to Vegas last year for the first time and didn't play much poker. This trip isn't all about poker for me. I'm taking time out to do other things. I'm here with friends and they aren't really into poker as much as me. I'm the only serious poker player out of all of them.

Pauly: Is this your first WSOP?

Mike: Yes, this is my first WSOP. Aside from the PCA, I haven't played in too many big tournaments.

Pauly: What's your tournament experience like?

Mike: I usually play the $300 MTT at the Taj Mahal. That's where I first started playing at in Atlantic City. My first live tournament was at the Tropicana and I made the final table. In my second ever live tournament, I played at the Taj and won it all. Playing live is OK, but I love PokerStars. I'm always playing tournaments there, especially the Sunday Million Guaranteed.

Pauly: What's your game plan today?

Mike: To see a lot of flops early since we have a big stack. Aside from that I'm just going to play my game and not get scared like I did at the PCA. I played way to tight and I'm not going to clam up today.

Pauly: Do you have a catch phrase or a motto?

Mike: "One Time!!"

Pauly: Any closing thoughts or comments?

Mike: Is the monkey playing today? Has he played yet?

Pauly: No way. They didn't let him play this year. According to Nolan Dalla, they will never allow a monkey in the World Series of Poker.

by Craig Cunningham

Bobby Paine is a songwriter from Nashville, Tennessee. Jeannie Hawkinson is a back-up singer with Bobby's band, International Country Underground. They've travelled to Las Vegas after he won a double shootout to win his seat to the Main Event. "I've been learning, watching a little," said Jeannie. She's here to support Bobby in his quest to hopefully join fellow singer Marcel Luske at the final table of the Main Event. I asked him what his plans were for today. "Win, man. Do whatever it takes. Just move and groove with the chips. I came here to play."

After finding him at Table 80 3s, I asked him how the first level was going. "This guy next to me caught a flush to take a pot from me, but I'm still doing well." He had taken a couple of pot through bold betting early on, playing to his own tune. Bobby's table lacks any big names, so he's hoping that his gameplan will hold up. He's a bit outgoing, a born entertainer and ready to play any role he needs to get through a hand. He's playing without fear, and why not?

When he finishes for the day, whether he busts out or bags his chips around 3:00 Monday morning, he'll have a song in his head and kisses on his lips. That should keep him going for a long time.

Every day during the WSOP, selected stars from the world of poker and beyond are making their way down to the corner of Harmon and Polaris, a couple of blocks from the Rio, to take part in PokerStars.com Vegas Daily, a TV show presented by "Shut Up and Deal" author Jesse May and sponsored by PokerStars.

So far Joe Hachem and Greg Raymer have already taken a spin on the red sofa, and others due to appear include British snooker champion Steve Davis, heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis, Daniel Negreanu, Chris Moneymaker, Vanessa Rousso, European Poker Tour founder John Duthie and Padraig Parkinson.

But today it was the turn of Team PokerStars' Barry Greenstein. Barry was a superb guest on the show - the word sagacity could have been invented for his measured attitude both towards poker and the lifestyle of a pro player. But he's also highly entertaining, keeping me scribbling furiously throughout his interview.

Barry on TV


Barry in make-up with make-up artist Carissa Ferreri

Jesse: How do you feel about the WSOP? Is it really just another day at the office for you?

Barry: "No, no way. The World Series main event is the biggest sporting event in the world. It's a big party, a very special event. But with thousands of people entering these days, it's a pipedream to think you might win it. All you can hope for is a run at it.

Jesse: You ended Day 1 with $28,500 in chips - are you ecstatic?

Barry: Well, not really because I had $40,000 at one point and you always want to keep building.

Jesse: Is the winner of the WSOP really the best player in the world?

Barry: No tournment in the world can test who the best player in the world is.. but you would certainly feel on top of the world after winning it.

Jesse: Tell me about your first WSOP...

Barry: Well, it was 1992 and I came 22nd. I was pretty upset because I really thought I had a chance to win it. In those days, coming 22nd, you didn't even get your buy-in back. There were only 201 entrants and I won just over $8,000. So I went over the road, from Binions to the Golden Nugget, and lost the lot in half an hour playing blackjack. And when I got home, my local club in Palo Alto - the Cameo (it's not there anymore)- had put a banner up saying "Congratulations Barry". But I was just really upset.

Jesse: "What do you think about the new generation of online players?"

Barry: "Well, these internet whizzkids - they're probably putting in a lot more hours than I do and to be honest, if they're playing in the games they're good at - they would probably beat me."

Jesse: What's your advice to younger players?

Barry: Read my book!!! (called Ace on the River) No, but seriously, I get about 50 emails a day from young players asking my advice, wanting to drop out of school, and I always tell them to get their education first. As we say in poker, you need outs. If you haven't got the discipline to get your education, then you don't have the discipline to be a good poker player.


PokerStars.com Vegas Daily is broadcasting daily during the WSOP in the UK and Germany with webcasts in Sweden, Denmark and Norway.

by Howard Swains

Flight 1C. Everything that can be said about the opening moments of the opening days has already been said several times. We are used to it: there are a lot of people, a frenzy of excitement, a buzz of anticipation and a clatter of chips. There are also these qualifiers and notables, among countless others, representing Europe and PokerStars this afternoon, eveing, night and tomorrow.

Stuart Beaton (Scotland) - a second-time PokerStars qualifier, he qualified through a field of 180 runners in a $33 tournament. Last year's World Series was his first live event and after 12 hours made a set on the flop with pocket eights. Runner-runner straight sent him packing.

David Flusfeder (England) - a novelist from London, David is playing in his first World Series but is a habitual final table finisher in various tournaments in the casinos and clubs of the south of England.

Bertrand Grospellier (France) - a former pro-gamer turned SuperNova extraordinaire. Needs little introduction to anyone at PokerStars; he won the SuperNova race at a canter and is one of the biggest online players in the world.

Neil Channing (England) - among the best-known and most popular London-based professionals, this former bookmaker, part-time writer and full-time raconteur is playing in his umpteenth World Series and has five cashes in various series events over the years.

Arshad Hussain (England) - last year's PokerStars qualifier is this year's sponsored player. And why not. Ash capped a spectacular year on the European circuit by placing second in the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo. He has been a consistent high-placed finisher and is currently No 1 in the European rankings.

Christian Grundtvig (Denmark) - Fierce and fearsome Danish pro, with a freshly gleaming WPT title to his name. Grundtvig triumphed in the main event at the Aviation Club de Paris in June to claim the $900,000 first prize. A serial PokerStars qualifier, he also finished fourth in the EPT Baden event last October.

Eirik Kolaas (Norway) - Had a final table finish on the EPT last year, as well as a cash in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in January. Fresh-faced but dangerous at the tables, Kolaas is another of the Scandinavian contingent with every chance to transfer European domination to the United States.

by Wil Wheaton

For a room filled with over two thousand people, it is eerily calm in the tournament area today. The clatter of shuffling chips creates a white noise that reminds me of water washing over rocks, and the roar of media, fans, and hapless tourists clogging the hallways outside the Amazon Room recalls waves pounding on a not-too-distant shore. As I walk the floor and this image fills my mind, I glance at players shoving chips into the middle, staring each other down, and firing the first shots in a war for over ten million dollars. I think of Bikini Atoll.

I walked into the room to check on Greg Raymer and Tom McEvoy (who are both in search of their second bracelet today,) and the first thing I noticed after the eerie silence was the sea of PokerStars players. Some are clad in baseball jerseys, others wear T-shirts or football jerseys[1], but they are out in force.

In fact, CJ came back into the media room just after the cards flew into the air and said, "Is it just me, or is it an army of PokerStars players in there?"

"It's not just you," Pauly said.

"Yeah," Otis said, "we are out in force today."

It was nice to have a day off to enjoy my birthday yesterday, but it's even better to be back to work with these people; I feel as close to "at home" as I have since I got here three weeks ago.

Down the desk from me, Otis and CJ are attacking the monumental task of tracking down all the PokerStars qualifiers, while Howard, Pauly, and Mad all work on player profiles and stories. Ali just came in, and is unpacking her equipment. We're about to come together to form poker's Voltron.

I looked at my calendar and said, "Hey, I just realized that I've been here twenty-one days, today!"

Pauly and Otis looked up at me like the greenhorn I am, before they turned their bloodshot eyes back to their laptops.

"You're looking really great," Pauly said, dryly. "You haven't put on any weight, you don't have that one thousand yard stare . . ." rookie.

They all laughed.

Yeah, it's good to be back, and I'm really looking forward to writing for the remainder of the 2006 WSOP.

And speaking of writing . . . they say confession is good for the soul, and I hope they are correct, because I need to exorcise some poker demons now.

Forgive me, poker, for I have sinned against thee. It's been too long since my last confession.

I got eliminated from the main event because I got stupid. That's really what it comes down to. I got stupid, made two total rookie mistakes that I know not to make, and didn't even make it to the third level. I was the sucker. I was the dead money. I was the idiot who shouldn't even be on Celebrity Poker Showdown, because he fell in love with top pair -- twice -- early on in a deep stack tournament. And called off all his chips. Twice. Complete. Idiot.

The worst part of the whole thing is that I completely beat myself. I wasn't trapped, or tricked, or masterfully outplayed; I just got stupid and made two completely idiotic donkey moves. I played like a stupid celebrity poker player.

Every time it mattered in this year's World Series, in every event I played, I choked. I'm disgusted with myself. I let myself down, and I feel like I let PokerStars down (even though my friends who I work for and with will tell me that I shouldn't beat myself up about it, we all know I screwed up.) I'm sorry, everyone. To everyone who believed in me: I'm sorry. I sucked, and I blew it.

Okay, I can say fourteen Hail Harrington's and seventy-six Our Sklansky's, and after I get the Do not fall in love with top pair, stupid, tattoo on the back of my right hand, all should be forgiven.

Tom is at table 145, conveniently just inside the door and right near the rail. Greg is another story: he is at table 36, deep in the room and just a few tables away from my disastrous showing at table 20 two days ago. I'd better get that tattoo quickly, so I can get in there and bring you the story.

[1]That's football with a round ball that you can't touch, unless you're a keeper. I understand that there's another kind of football, but I'm not sure if I believe those rumours.

by Max Shapiro

With the year 2006 being all things poker, it's no wonder that so many poker movies are coming out. There are nearly as many of them in the works as there are entrants in this year's main event. A few months ago I watched a preview of a film called All In, featuring Louis Gossett Jr. It's about a young woman named "Ace" who learns how to play from her father, and pays her way through medical school by playing poker.

Interesting premise. I can just see it now. Doctor Ace is doing a heart transplant while simultaneously playing a $30 sit and go tournament -- at the PokerStars site, of course. Just as the critical moment in the surgery arrives, she hands the scalpel to a nurse and says, "You take over for a minute, Marge, I'm in a big hand right now."

Then, of course, there's the long-awaited flick, Lucky You, which opens in September starring Drew Barrymore and Robert Duvall, with a lot of big-name players in bit parts. Some film clips were shown during the WSOP press conference on Friday, with Miss Barrymore on hand to answer questions. From what I saw of it, it looks like a realistic poker movie. Of course, there's a scene where a player goes in for all his chips and a pawn ticket for his wife's wedding ring, as I recall, and Duvall matches his chips and throws in his watch as well. Well, it is a movie, after all.

Also, a few days ago a documentary about life on the poker tournament trail called No Limit: A Search for the American Dream, premiered at the Palms here in Vegas. It features producer Susan Genard as one of two single parents who document their eight-month odyssey on the high-stakes poker tournament trail. A whole slew of top pros have roles in it. I was invited, but was unable to make the showing. It was only afterwards that I learned that I was in the movie! I guess I was interviewed or something a couple of years ago, though I honestly can’t remember the shooting, or what I said. But people who saw it told me that I looked and sounded great in my 15-second spot. Well, of course. I'm a veteran actor. When National Lampoon filmed three strip poker productions at a nude beach resort in Jamaica a couple of years ago, my sweetie, Barbara Enright, was hired as technical adviser to teach the models how to play poker. (Kato Kaelin, the O.J. Simpson trial houseguest guy, was the comedy star.) I went along for the ride and ended up with a small comedy bit in which I get annoyed and push a young hottie into the pool when she invites me to have sex with her. (Obviously, a work of fiction.) Anyway, I was elated to be in No Limit, until somebody informed me that I was identified in the film as Max Stern. I don't know why people are always confusing me with the good doctor. I'm much better looking than he is. Anyway, Genard (herself a talented tournament player with several final tables to her credit) told me she'll fix the mistake.

Yet another poker film is in the works. This one is called Deal and will star Burt Reynolds as an ex-gambler who teaches a hot-shot college student how to play the player rather than just the cards. They later have a falling out and end up competing against each other in the World Series. Deal is being produced by magician/poker player/film exec Scott Lazar, who finished sixth in last year's WSOP main event, taking home $1.5 million. He tried to get Reynolds to make an appearance at the WSOP this year, but the actor was unable to.

As if that weren't enough movies about poker, I was walking through the Gaming Expo when a screenwriter/producer named Charles Polizzi handed me the script for a movie called Final Table and asked me to give him my opinion of it. The movie, he said, will be produced by Martin Ransohoff Productions. Ransohoff is perhaps best known for making The Cincinnati Kid. The script is about a top woman poker player named Ruth who retires from the game to do missionary work with her husband in Mexico, then later returns to action and ends up winning the WSOP's championship event. Well, why not? If Geena Davis could be president, why not a lady as World Series champ? Polizzi said he wanted to meet with Barbara next month. Will she be the one winning the big one, in the movie and/or real life? Who knows? She's still the only female to make the main event final table. I can just see it now: "Max, Max, I won the championship! Pack your bags!" "Wow! Where are we going?" "You're not going anywhere. You're moving out."

Well, see you at the movies.

by Craig Cunningham

Arnold "jwblack100" Blenner was playing one day on PokerStars.net, engrossed in one of his favorites pursuits: Pot-Limit Holdem. He'd built his 1,000 in play money up to 700,000 virtual chips over the span of several months, and he enjoyed the challenges of pot-limit as a way to wind down from a long day as a utility worker in Queens, NY. As he was playing, his table was notified that they had been selected as part of PokerStars' 5 Billionth Hand freeroll tournament. "I thought there would be thousands of people in the tournament, but I say that there were only 238 players with three seats to the Main Event," said Arnold. "When the fourth player was eliminated on the bubble and everyone was congratulating each other, I didn't think it was real. When I got a check for $1,000 from PokerStars for travel expenses, that's when I believed."

Arnold and his wife JoAnne, an Executive Assistant at a top Wall Street firm, live with their daughter Stephanie (15) and son Michael (11). "JoAnne isn't too big a fan of poker, but she's been very supportive and all for me doing it. I don't think they have very high expectations, but my son Michael, he really believes. He's already planning for the Lamborghini that he wants if I win the World Series." When Arnold was his son's age, he went to Shea Stadium to see his Mets with another friend who was 13 years old. "We would take a bus then walk to the stadium, stay all day, wait for autographs after the game. You couldn't do that today, of course, but we just lived at the ballpark then."

"This is something I've dreamed about, but I would have never done it on my own. If the people at PokerStars have enough confidence in me for me to be here, then I'll give it my best shot," said Arnold. He said that he'd been interested in poker since Robert Varkyoni from Brooklyn won the Main Event in 2002. "I can identify with him, and it showed me anything is possible." Arnold's plan: get chips early, don't get caught in hands with players who have him covered. Be aggressive, but not stupid. "I can go all-in vs. players who paid alot to be here. That's a big advantage for me." A tremendous adventure starts today for Arnold Blenner, compliments of PokerStars.

So, in terms of perception, PokerStars owns Day 1C before it ever begins. The room is a sea of PokerStars jerseys. Supernovas are everywhere. Team PokerStars players are everywhere. What's more, PokerStars Team Blog is everywhere. Caffeine is hypodermically pushing into our brains and the content is on its way. Keep it here all day, all night, and all tomorrow morning.

Here's a selected list of who we will be watching today:

Steve Dunkelberg
David Knight
Joel Frank
Jeff Banghart
BRIAN LINDSAY
Matt Sperling
ARSHAD HUSSAIN
Kevin Hayes
Matthew Moureau
Dario Minieri
Peter Davidsen
Patricia Forrestall
Edward Folks Jr
Joseph Giudice
Frederic Lacombe
Brady Street
Tom McEvoy
Steven Goodemote
Lon Balter
Shaun King
Gary Lundgren
John Hutchinson
Kenneth Smaron
Daniel Ek
Mark Heintschel
John Andrews Jr
Layne Black
Joseph Didonato
Michael Mathews
Frederick Shaffer
Jeff Eggenburg
Philippe Boucher
Halldor Sverrisson
Drew Mittelsteadt
David DiBiasio
LUIS JAIKEL
Nam Le
Søren Jensen
Craig Forde
Gary Bogdanski
Anuj Mickey Sirohi
Daniel Heimiller
Richard LeBleu
David Morand
Yuval Friedman
Mike Adamo
Eric Bewley
Fabrice Conraud
Michael Bech
Jules Sim
Danny Kaesser
Matt Mcfalls
Gabriel LEOST
Joseph Stachowiak
Penny Clark
Zelong Dong
Matthew LaGarde
Jeremy Tinsley
William Elliott
Jonathan Diamond
Jimmy Dowda
Donald Fagan
Kevin Kaikko
Dmitri Nobles
Christofer Lindholm
Alexander Mayr
Peter Athanasoulis
Michael Halford
Michael Kobzeff
Adrian Gavile
James Garwood
Ake Sundberg
Neil Channing
Andrew Lawlor
Michael Meredith
Michael Kuryllo
Russell McDonnell
Frank Impastato
Sam Mojtabai
Stephen Kmet
Robert Burton
Stephen Giufre
George Dickson
Kevin Barcellos
Dmitriy Kirin
Iago Gonzalez
STEVEN COULSON
Edward Atanasio
Sami Leino
Nate Bright
Alexander Mitonidis
Tomas Martinsson
John Monnette
Gustav Dahlin
Jameson Enoch
John Medlin
Vahan Amirian
David Flusfeder
Mike Marcus
Adam Barnes
Mark Judycki
James Jordan Jr
Dov Markowich
David Johnson
Eric Kettner
Anthony Kastelic
Henrik Strath
Robert Gerstenzang
David King
Thomas Coates
Sam Stevens
Martignetti
Curtis McDonald
François Bruno
Michael Graffeo
Jeremy Ausmus
Robert Barnard
Robert Hesslink
Darin Dalton
Steve Jelinek
Luke Chezick
David Barrie
Jochen Furch
CRAIG LESZCZAK
Michael Laufer
Svein Arnesen
Ryan Mott
Shaun Gray
Stephen Jones
Brian Derrick
Douglas Shanley
Daniel Pelletier
Michael Jaeckels
Lenny Duvdivani
ARTHUR AZEN
Tom Carman
Elliott Drury
Yassine Bounfour
Larry Levine
Jonathan Carlson
Manelic Minaya
Raphael Doromal
Andrew Kent
Christopher Abts
Argyris Argyrou
Michael Shenkman
Tom Madruga
Morty Benowitz
Louis Crispino Jr
Joacim Lowstett
Richard Kane
Sam Kim
Jason Igou
Pasquale Capasso
John Ma
Ryan Even
Bertrand Grospellier
Richard Abbamonto
Paul Heathcote
Eirik Kolaas
Kenneth Lyons
Robert Morrow
Kjetil Smith
Walter Kusiak
AJ McKnight
Dai Suh
Christian Grundtvig
Patrick Hocking
Justin Amann
Andrew Martinez
Tony Kunkel
Dan Boren
Mark Busnardo
TJ Cloutier
Brett Hamburger
Lindell Coker
Donna Meola
Phil Cooklin
Matt Doyle
Rosa Bennett
Adam Canter
Saman Babaei
Azad Ghazvini
Stuart Beaton
Peter Bodenheimer
Brian Hansen
Arnold Blenner
Jason Fishbein
Christopher Collins
Hyung Kwak
Jeffrey Anderson
Johan Kretz
Kevin Crager
Mitchell Mackey
Mark Sleet
Salvatore Calandra
James Baker
Davis Cantor
David Huber
Srikanth Bhagam
Pamela Campbell
Jose Kurkowski
Fred Ferrington
Chris Butler
Jeff Littlefield
ADIMUS MUHAMAD
Diego Cordovez
Jason Gillikin
Kyle Bowker
David Margolis
Steve Smith
Aaron Baltzell
Spencer Cossette
Andrew Gunderson
Bret Atiyeh
Randy Hanley
Johan Backfjard
JAMES CARROLL
William Handy Jr
Alberto Imperio
Amritraj Singh
David Leighton
Armando Munoz-Calero
Michael Kingsbury
Steve Lustig
Matthew Kirisits
Careen Foster
Paul Mashikian
Akio Ishige
James Meehan
Luke Creigh
Timothy Debenport
Aaron Coulthard
Donald Fabert
Pietro Cremaschi
Brent Fincher
Gustaf Bjornsson
Rene Mouritsen
Jason Cunningham
Stuart Dahlberg
Charles Agnew
Paul Siem
Maurice Harmon

WSOP End of Day 1B Scoreboard

Players left in the WSOP: 5,786
PokerStars qualifiers remaining in the WSOP field: 1,100
Average all WSOP players: $26,491
Average PokerStars players: $26,078

Cory Butler 90250
Matthew Maroon 83150
Erik Friberg 77675
Sean Johnson 73925
Akshay Kumar 70125
peter falk 67575
peder behr 63475
Russell Davies 61300
Mark Gilbert 58400
Erik Gomez 57775
Andrew Brokos 57300
Paul Harkleroad 55675
Mario Rodriguez 53400
Andreas Villand 52600
Jesse Martin 52450
ROBERT SANCHEZ 51525
Chris Ellison 51150
Quan Tran 49575
Jon Lane 48100
Ivar Borthen 48000
Scott Clements 47825
Paul Parker 47350
Brian Kooperman 46625
Stephen Garabedian 46300
sidney hasson 45625
WILLIAM NORTH 45250
Paul White 44450
Jon Nakatani 43575
mark handley 43500
Paul Greim 43300
scott sweesy 43075
albert srour 42875
leonard loder 42800
JAMES CALDERARO 42725
Erick Sadler 42525
David Zeitlin 42500
David Murray 42325
Bartholomew Tantillo 42200
Joseph Cordi 41800
Timothy McBride 41625
alan resh 41500
Mark Donahey 41475
Craig Schewe 41250
Ernesto Panno 41200
frank watkins 40400
yaron wasserman 40000
RAYMOND TICSAY 39850
Jim Osmani 39750
Ian Baker 39050
Matthew Rundell 38875
Derek Schwerzler 38800
Jay Lewman 38450
ken Goldin 38300
Adrian Pitt 38250
danny walker 38150
DARRYL DARE 37975
Seth Cohen 37350
Alan Fidelo 37350
Alex Brigante 37075
Mark Owens 36675
Viet Tran 35700
Chris George 35125
moe parvan 35050
Neil Butterfield 34600
Brian Garelick 34500
Fred Lavassani 34000
Paul Smith 33775
christopher wilson 33425
Chad Griffith 33250
Steven Sharp 32625
James Mcleod 32400
scott deppe 32300
Peter Sun 32200
mathieu weissmann 32150
Matt Baltz 31350
Supot Chaimungkla 31325
Lawrence Frye 31250
Glenn Matheson 30575
Richard Gooding 30300
Josh Egan 30125
Brian Baris 30050
Scott Mighton 30000
Chris Dow 29900
Keith Alter 29450
Brian Gass 29300
Edwin Spencer 29050
Vincent Iannuzzi 29025
Robert Sanders 29025
Gabriel Andersen 29000
Darren Brandes 28850
Will Fry 28250
Nick Egide 27800
Jason Morgan 27800
Morten Sivertsen 27200
Kelly Contreras 26875
Jarrod Tavares 26875
Andy Donovan 26800
patrick griffin 26750
Kyle Finn 26275
Ronald Sax 26000
John Coito 25650
Mark Ader 25350
Rafael Comas 25350
michael edens 25300
dan nassif 25250
Byron Goff 25250
Todd Nichols 25075
Dean Johnson 25050
Craig Hillier 25000
Kevin Manley 24850
Kirk Fellows 24850
Mark Shoichet 24775
Katja Thater 24550
Andres Alvarez 24550
Gary Jones 24525
david mcbride 24100
George Magdas 23550
JIM MORRIS 23375
manuel labandeira 22950
Cesar Giralt-Rivera 22900
Eric Lynch 22875
Ken Justin 22775
Qasim Tiwana 22725
Mats Nilsson 22675
Paul Shoquist 22500
Jeffrey Mermelstein 22350
Michael Hasday 22325
Rick Mombourquette 22250
Greg Giannokostas 22025
Sam Hiatt 21700
Alfred Meier 21650
Ray Uy 21550
Shane Fumerton 21150
Jonathan Rego 21150
Paul Coles 21075
patrick joyce 20725
Joshua Bird 20500
HARRY FITZPATRICK 20350
Josh Brenner 20225
James Goodman 19450
ronald nixon 19450
Leo Wolpert 19400
Blake Buffington 19275
Timothy Rausenberger 19200
steve whitman 19150
ray ryder 19100
Christian Foster 19000
john pires 18975
gary ringhofer 18425
Norman Bryan 18400
zachary slobin 18125
Brian Jacobs 18125
Al Stonum 18100
sol bergren 17875
jonathan greenhalgh 17750
Bruce Frank 17450
MARK GARNER 17450
Noah Boeken 16850
Dan Finkleman 16750
Sunil Padiyar 16425
Jan Johannessen 16400
Brian White 16400
Matthew Kalish 16050
Marcus Bower 15875
Gary Broaddus 15700
wade graham 15625
Mark Hanna 15575
Toby Atroshenko 15550
Patrick Sullivan 15475
Kristian Ambrosius 15375
shawn glines 15225
Vincent Lin 15175
Sumit Kumar 15150
eugene todd 15100
keith danielsen 14950
James Mouch 14825
John Duthie 14675
Jack Wooden 14675
gus pseekos 14650
Desmond Chan 14650
David Creeley 14600
David Gallello 14250
Doug Ednie 14100
rodney jennings 14075
Tammy Rocco 13875
Rosendo Perez 13400
jeff new 13300
Craig Bunger 13225
Derek Feldman 13200
George Grady 13100
FREDERIC HEBERT 13100
Jay Perkins 12925
Tony Petruzzi 12775
Jon Turner 12725
david linville 12675
Ed Latif 12625
Jared Lissauer 12175
reuben peters 11800
Thomas Bohmer 11625
Rob Zimmer 11525
Junhyung Kim 11450
Brian Chike 11300
Scott Friedman 11125
paul fury 11025
Maxim Dolinsky 10950
ANTHONY RAFTER 10700
JEFF SLAYTON 10550
David Penly 10450
Matthew Glassman 10400
phil mader 10375
Wayne Cooper 10350
Brett Abramovitz 10275
James Chiara 10025
robert johnson 9775
eric miller 9750
Dustin Mele 9500
Mikael Frisk 9225
Richard Rashid 9175
John Wooton 8675
Chris Madrid 8600
dave fox 8475
Adrienne Rowsome 8250
Stewart Dobbin 7650
Jeff Sluzinski 7650
Daniel Muncan 7525
Roger Dee 7275
Joe ebanks 6950
John Michael 6650
harinam khalsa 6525
David Sanbonmatsu 6225
David Simon 6225
robert green 6000
Cameron Warren 5700
Charles Price 5175
Jason Lee 5175
josh evans 4350
James Olson 3990
HECTOR GARZA 3650
David Atrubin 1125

PokerStars chip counts for Day 1B will be availble once they are released by the WSOP and compared with PokerStars lists.

by Brad "Otis" Willis

After watching, breathing, eating, and sleeping poker for the past fifteen hours (lo, the past five weeks), even I find it odd that, as I type, I have the 2003 World Series of Poker on in the background. In my room, a respite from the exciting and sometimes sick action downstairs, I can't help but look back on the event three ago and think about how it changed this old gamblers' convention. Moneymaker's win just changed everything.

In Day 1B of this 2006 WSOP, once again, more than 2000 players sat down to fight for their posisiton in Day 2.

In a late-night chip count taken just before players broke for the night, Team Blog's C.J. Hoyt found a number top players still in action. Among them, Team PokerStars' Humberto Brenes, Eric "Rizen" Lynch, 55Lucky55, Sean "Biggies05" Johnson, Ashkay "groupco" Kumar, Mark "sideshowgil" Gilbert, and Rob "ledstudent" Lederer.

However, the story of the night for the PokerStars players was Cory Butler, who by night's end had worked his stack up to almost $100,000.

Cory Butler

For much of the tournament's late hours, the story was about an action-packed player from England, Akshay Kumar. As Howard Swains reported in this story about about Kumar:

"He only hit one two outer!" cheered a supporter as Akshay popped out for a break an hour or so ago. He was referring to one of those dreaded kings against aces showdowns so popular at the main event of the World Series, accounting for what seems to be about 90 per cent of bust outs. The blinds were just 100-200 at the time, Akshay was all in. And he had the kings.

By the end of the night, Kumar's stack had dropped back, but he still had a better than average stack.

Indeed, this entire day was about seasoned pros and relative amateurs vying to be the next Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, and Joe Hachem (who happened to be hanging out at the PokerStars booth at the Gaming Expo). Team Blog kept an eye on as many as we could. In fact, Mad Harper wrote of Kyle Finn: "It's a familiar story - accountant does well at poker and gives up job. Except - unlike Chris Moneymaker - PS qualifier Kyle "phidelt799" Finn has decided to jump ship before winning the World Series, rather than after."



Here are all the PokerStars qualifier updates and profiles from Day 1B:

The Breakfast of Future Champions (C.J. Hoyt)
The Best of Times the Worst of Times -- Hugh Kirton (Howard Swains)
Poker Royalty -- Tom Parker-Bowles (Howard Swains)
PokerStars Qualifiers Meet at Chris Ferguson's Table (Craig Cunningham)
Catching Up With the Joneses (Howard Swains)
Among the chip lead: Chris Ellison (Craig Cunningham)
Dinner Break Chip Counts (Dr. Pauly and C.J. Hoyt)
Sitting with Phil Ivey (Craig Cunningham)
Action stations and Akshay Kumar (Howard Swains)
In the Steps of Moneymaker - Kyle Finn (Mad Harper)
Late night chip counts (C.J. Hoyt)
The Boys from Down Under (Ali Lightman)
Ron Hewlitt (by Mad Harper)
Thang Tran -- 1K FPP qualifier (by Craig Cunningham)
Eric "LavaDrake" Zabek (by Dr. Pauly)
Lee Sullivan (by Mad Harper)

C.J. Hoyt kept tabs on the featured table today and took a liking to an admittedly likable Steph "windough" Klempner. He wrote: "If you're wondering how I got all this information without talking to her, it's easy. She's got the biggest gallery of fans of anyone at the TV table. Her parents, Bernie and Barbara Greenspan, are in from Cleveland. Her sister, Becky Nessel, is here from San Francisco. And about a half dozen more friends are here from her home games in New York."



Here are the reports C.J. wrote on the featured table today:

Flushed Out -- Mike Conti (C.J. Hoyt)
The Featured Table's Best Feature (C.J. Hoyt)

Once again, it has been another long 15-hour day and the 900 or so players who made it through to Day 2 will finally get to pick up a little rest.

To catch up on everything that happened during Day 1B, visit the following links:

WSOP PokerStars Day 1B Photo Gallery

PokerStars Day 1B Coverage Index

Update: 3:23am PT

(selected chip counts are approximate and subject to late changes--full chip counts will be available once the WSOP releases the confirmed numbers)

Cory Butler $93,000
Sean "Biggies05" Johnson $74,000
Ashkay "groupco" Kumar $70,000
Mark "sideshowgil" Gilbert $60,000
Rob "ledstudent" Lederer $60,000
Christopher "chizzer" Szuchy $55,000
Frank Watkins $55,000
Chris "stiff" Ellison $52,000
Stephen "Vegassk2005" Koblos $50,000
Ray "mickeyriv" Ticsay $44,000
Joe Versaci $42,000
Nick "profpolo" Montuori $42,000
Jason Lee $40,000
Bob "scsuhockey10" Lauria $39,000
Freddy Lavassani $38,000
Eric "Rizen" Lynch $35,000
Spiro Mitrokostas $31,000
Paul White $30,000
John McLaughlin $28,000
Brian "brianbeeper" Baris $28,000
Pat Bozeman $27,000
Humberto Brenes $25,000
Kyle Finn $25,000
Ethan DeCoste $20,000
Rafael Comas $20,000
Jan-Christoph von Halle $10,000
Steph "windough" Klempner $10,000

by Howard Swains

Akshay Kumar goes by the name "groupco" on PokerStars, but at London's Gutshot card club, where he plays the majority of his bricks and mortar poker, he goes by something different.

A mild-mannered accountant by day, he can be seen darting into a phone-booth en route to the tables from which he emerges as "Action Akshay". Today, the action has followed Action to table 143 of the World Series, where Akshay sits with more than 86,000 chips and is somewhere very close to the chip lead.

"He only hit one two outer!" cheered a supporter as Akshay popped out for a break an hour or so ago. He was referring to one of those dreaded kings against aces showdowns so popular at the main event of the World Series, accounting for what seems to be about 90 per cent of bust outs. The blinds were just 100-200 at the time, Akshay was all in. And he had the kings.

But while anyone can get lucky once in a while, it's what you do with the fortune that counts. Akshay has taken those foundations, built on them, and is now a shoo-in for Day Two. Better still, he has a couple of days to sleep; having been delayed in New York yesterday, he only arrived to Vegas late last night and managed just three hours sleep before taking his place in flight B. But there's an understated, grounded, grit about Akshay that gives genuine cause for encouragement.

"I'm playing from my gut and really trying to put people on hands," he explained. "My original table had ten online qualifiers on it and while it wasn't weak, there were people who had never played live before. It's easier to read what they have and so far the instincts have been right."

It's no real surprise to anyone who has played against him. Akshay was a regular winner at the low-stakes club, where yours truly regularly donates. But Akshay has progressed to the 100-pound monthly comps and then a 750 pound freeze-out in Brighton, on England's south coast. There he scored the largest victory of his career, chopping a festival event for 13,500 pounds.

He is no stranger to the winner's circle, but refuses to get carried away himself.

"This tournament has only just started and there's no point getting excited yet. It's where I am at the end of next week that matters."

That's true, of course, and let's not overstate matters. He is among the chip leaders as the end of the day approaches. That is just a fact.

Click here for update

It's a familiar story - accountant does well at poker and gives up job. Except - unlike Chris Moneymaker - PS qualifier Kyle "phidelt799" Finn has decided to jump ship before winning the World Series, rather than after. With more than $54,000 in chips towards the end of Day 1, this could prove to have been a most prescient decision.

The 24-year-old from Burnsville, Minnesota, has been playing online poker for around four years. For the first couple, it was just pocket money. But by August last year, his winnings were up to double his income - and now it's around ten times.

He said: "I handed in my notice two weeks ago but it's actually a coincidence that I won my WSOP seat at the same time as I've been planning to turn pro for a while. The fact is I enjoy playing poker a lot more than being an accountant."

Kyle's entry to the WSOP was via a $16 tournament on PokerStars which took him into a WSOP 150-seat guaranteed satellite. He's never played at the WSOP, in fact he rarely plays tournaments. He said: "I don't really like the swings of tournaments. They're feast or famine whereas cash games give me a steady income." That might be the usual way of things, but judging from Kyle's stack right now, it's a veritable all-you-can eat buffet.

Update: Kyle finished off Day 1 with $26,275 and will be back in the Amazon Room tomorrow (Tuesday).

by C.J. Hoyt and Dr. Pauly

Updated 12:41am PT

The action has been fast and furious since the dinner break and PokerStars players are on the move. Some of them literally. Steph "windough" Klempner finally picked up pocket Aces and scored a nice little pot to climb to 13,000. Right after the hand, she had to pick up her chips and move from one corner of the poker room to the other, where she found Howard Lederer waiting in Seat 1. Yet again, Steph oulasted a professional as Lederer ran into PokerStars qualifier Ronnie "rkl2226" Kincaid and his Broadway straight. Ronnie is at 29,000.

Here are the rest of the chip counts:

Ashkay "groupco" Kumar $86,000
Kyle "phidelt799" Finn $53,000
Chris "stiff" Ellison $52,000
Joe Versaci $42,000
Nick "profpolo" Montuori $42,000
Jason Lee $40,000
Bob "scsuhockey10" Lauria $39,000
Rob "ledstudent" Lederer $39,000
Freddy Lavassani $38,000
Eric "Rizen" Lynch $35,000
Spiro Mitrokostas $31,000
Paul White $30,000
John McLaughlin $28,000
Brian "brianbeeper" Baris $28,000
Pat Bozeman $27,000
Ethan DeCoste $20,000
Rafael Comas $20,000
Jan-Christoph von Halle $10,000

We'll be back with major updates when there's a PokerStars player makes a big move and a full update at the start of the next level!

by Howard Swains

Yesterday it was Gary, today it's Steve and Iwan. Jones is a common name on the right* side of the Atlantic - and it's a seemingly sure-fire route to PokerStars qualification.

"Are you with PokerStars this year?" I asked. I was checking with Iwan, from Cardiff, Wales.

"Of course. I always am," he replied - and he's right, whether it be for the WSOP or various EPT events, where ijsj2003 has become a serial qualifier.

But my question was legitimate: Iwan Jones is a well-known tournament pro in his own right (ie, away from PokerStars) and last year won the inaugural London Poker Open. That cost him $10,000 to enter. He picked up $750,000. You see, he doesn't necessarily need to qualify for ten bucks.

But Iwan is, indeed, back under the PokerStars banner and there's every chance he'll go deep here. He has two cashes in this year's series to date - and few would bet against him in the main event.

Steve Jones (no relation) is the flipside. Here's a qualifier from the old school (ie, if it wasn't for PokerStars, he would not be here.) Steve took up the game just two years ago, watching friends playing seven-card stud, then joining the action himself, progressing around various online sites before winding up at PokerStars with $215 and a seat in the $1 million guaranteed.

Steve, a property developer from Southport, England, placed 99th for $800, then joined the $100 re-buy the next day. That offered the first taste of a final table, where his seventh place was good for $1,800.

"I like the idea of turning $10 into $15,000," he said. "That's why I entered a $2 re-buy event, then the double shootout and won my place. I've only played live once before, but I won that."

Keeping up with the Jones's is tough enough. First you're going to need to catch them.

(* geographically, that is)

Here's a look at some photos from around the room in Day 1B.

by Craig Cunningham

You surely can't win the WSOP Main Event on Day 1, but you can definitely lose it. Ask Phil Hellmuth that. Chris Ellison, PokerStars qualifier from Detroit, hasn't lost it today, but he has built a sizable stack to put him among the chip lead by 10:00 PM Saturday evening. Chris qualified through a double shootout and stood at $45k behind PokerStars qualifier Akshay Kumar at $68.5k. "I built a big part of my stack on a key hand," said Chris. "I limped in with 4-5s, and a good sized stack called. The flop came 3-4-5, I led out, he raised to $4k, and I called. 2 came on the turn, I checked, and he checked. River was a 5, I went all-in, and he called with pocket 3's. The bigger boat got me up to $30k, then I took more when I busted brettfavre from PokerStars. I had A-J, flop came A-J and some rag, turn was a rag, I moved in, and he called me with A-K." PokerStars cannibalism is inevitable, but at least Chris is planning to put them to good use.

by C.J. Hoyt

The ESPN television table was supposed to feature noted poker brat Phil Hellmuth today, but, as usual, he didn't show up for a few hours. And when he finally did, he was gone before the next break. That left sometimes poker pro Randy Jensen as the "feature" of the featured table. He lasted just a little longer before his QQ went down to AQ. A look at the table now finds faces few fans would be able to pick out of a lineup.

One stands out, however. Steph "windough" Klempner.

She's a long way from her Manhattan home, and her NYC home games, but she's had little trouble settling in. Five cameras and a microphone might push some players towards tilt, but Steph is loving it.

"I'm having a great time!" she tells me.

I haven't had much time to talk to her myself, but that hasn't stopped me from gathering a lot of information.

Steph is a vegetarian who raises money for animal charities and fosters dogs. She's VP of marketing and business development for an educational company that helps restock libraries in inner-city schools. When she's not playing poker, she's training for a triathalon, or doing her favorite activity: Yoga. Her card-capper is a little Buddha statue. She listens to Velvet Underground and Jack Johnson on her iPod when she's playing. And apparently, one of her nicknames might be "The Slicer."



If you're wondering how I got all this information without talking to her, it's easy. She's got the biggest gallery of fans of anyone at the TV table. Her parents, Bernie and Barbara Greenspan, are in from Cleveland. Her sister, Becky Nessel, is here from San Francisco. And about a half dozen more friends are here from her home games in New York.



She's not just a pretty face, either. Steph won her seat with a $60 shootout to the $650 qualifier. She's just started playing tourneys in the New York area after doing pretty well at the NL tables.

"She's a really, really good tournament player, really patient," friend Edward Liu tells me. Her mom agrees, telling me she's been excelling at games of all kinds since she was 5-years old (like Atari, her sister chimes in).

Her skills have shown early on. Just a few hands in, she picked up a nice pot when she flopped a set of 4's against her opponent's flopped two pair. Only a four-card straight on the board kept her from winning more there. Another time, her A8 turned Aces full of 8's against her opponents 8's full of Aces.

It's been a grind. At 4:30, she looked over to her friends and family and mouthed, "I'm bored." She was sitting at 15,000 chips at the time, so it couldn't be that bad. That's been her high water mark for the day.

After giving a little bit back, she found a big hand to cripple poker pro Randy Jensen. He raised preflop and Steph called from the SB. The flop came down A77. Steph lead out enough to put Randy all-in, and he went in the tank. He eventually mucked pocket Kings face up, and busted shortly thereafter. That was the second pro she outlasted.

Unfortunately, she's back down to just under 12,000 now at the dinner break. She made a couple of calls preflop after raises, but apparently missed. When they get back from dinner, the level will be 100/200/25, giving her plenty of chips to play with.

When she won her seat on PokerStars back in May, she immediately called all her friends and they celebrated with a night out on the town. Just imagine what might happen if she makes a deep run in the Main Event!

Players returned from dinner break a few moments ago. They are currently on Level 4. The blinds are $100/$200 with $25 antes. This level will last two hours and action will not stop until the completion of Level 6.

Here's an update on chipcounts (as of 9:45pm PCT):

Akshay "groupco" Kumar $66,000 (Table 143)
Kyle "phidelt799" Finn $50,000 (Table 153)
Paul "prestoet" White $46,000 (Table 68)
Nick "Profpolo" Montori $42,000 (Table 26)
Pat Bozeman $35,000 (Table 26)
Chris "stiff" Ellison $45,000 (Table 14)
Cesar Giralt $40,000 (Table 22)
Anders "bingobent" Kuhl $34,000 (Table 117)
Craig "cbunger" Bunger $34,000 (Table 70)
Eric "Rizen" Lynch $34,000 (Table 77)
Leo "pechorin" Wolpert $30,000 (Table 153)
Joe Versaci $30,000 (Table 38)
David "geneticfreak" Erickson $27,500 (Table 77)
Vanessa Rousso $16,000 (Table 9)
Humberto Brenes $15,500 (Table 34)
Steph "windough" Klempner $12,000 (featured table girl, Table 89)
Steve Paul-Ambrose $8,500 (Table 48)
Spiro "Spiro55" Mitrokostas $5,500 (Table 55)

Eric "Rizen" Lynch had one of the bigger stacks this afternoon and for a while sat in the top 20 in chips. Askay "groupco" Kumar is leading the pack with 66K and is among the overall chipleaders.

by Craig Cunningham
l to r: Ashley Liu (Toronto), Travis Remmert (Iowa), Adrian Pitt (Sydney).

If you've ever won a seat and trip from PokerStars, or even if you've railbirded a friend online, the chat box is filled with familiar chatter after the prize bubble is burst. "No ****in way!" "I can't believe this!" Yessssssssssssss!" "See you in Vegas!" Ashley Liu (1s) and Travis Remmert (2s) sat next to each other for the first five hours, but until I asked how they qualified, they didn't know that indeed they had both qualified in the same event on PokerStars. They may well have typed see you in Vegas! in the chat box after they won their seat to the Main Event. From the same event to sitting side by side at their first table in the Main Event: what are the odds of that? Adrian Pitt hails from Sydney and qualified through PokerStars $3 re-buy tourney. He made fast friends with Travis and Ashley, and they laughed and chatted hand after hand after hand.

Tommi Romppainen from Sweden must have been a bit bewildered as all of the chatter went back and forth to his right by his fellow PokerStars qualifiers. He couldn't turn off the chat feature and didn't bring out the noise-cancelling headphones, so he must have been fine to take it all in. His stack was in good shape, so he didn't seem to mind.


Cliff Conners (center) sat in the 9s next to Jason Lester. Lester won his first WSOP bracelet this year, but Cliff was hardly intimidated. This 1k FPP qualifier was more than holding his own and hardly intimidated by his surroundings. Plattsburgh, New York is almost as far away from Las Vegas as you can get in America, just a stone's throw from Vermont and Canada. Cliff doesn't look out of place; he looks like he's lived at these tables in Las Vegas all his life.

Steve Vassillaros made his way to Table 112 6s, looked at the seat cushion, and tried to get comfortable prior to the start of the Main Event. Ye Xugang, like Steve a fellow PokerStars qualifier, snuck into his seat in the 8s, his game face on. Players were milling around and walking behind the two of them, as their table was on the far end of the Amazon Room near a player walkway. Other players filtered in and took their seat, but it became apparent who would be sitting between these two: Phil Ivey.

Ivey is taller in person, but his game is beyond that. If players voted for who they wouldn't want to have at their table to start their first Main Event, it would be the gentleman between these two players.

Steve is from Austin, and we talked a bit about how the first hours of his play went. I dutifully noted how he'd doubled up with aces, lost chips when he flopped a set of jacks only to see four cards to the straight on the board. I then asked him what he thought when his new neighbor Ivey sat in the 7s. "I thought Oh crap," said Steve. Ye Xugang qualified after a $16 investement on PokerStars. He had less to say as he looked down at Ivey who was sitting waiting for play to resume. "He plays good," said Ye. Quite possibly the understatement of the World Series.

Chris "spankme" Jenkins pulled an accidental Hellmuth. Chris arrived at the table ninety minutes late. When I asked him what he thought of the guy in the 7s, he said "I was so out of it, I didn't realize who was sitting down there for probably ten or fifteen minutes." Chris got a bit more focused in his 3s after figuring out who was at the end of the table.

Evan Oxfeld started at Table 9. "I liked my table," he told me, and he had a good gameplan until his table broke and he got the card for Table 112 8s. When I asked him what he thought when saw the player two to his right, he just pulled his cap over his head a little more snuggly. By 9:00PM, Steve had been knocked out, but the other PokerStars qualifiers were still sitting tight, waiting for a chance to accumulate chips while Ivey's stack continued to grow.

WSOP PokerStars Day 1B Photo Gallery

Poker Gaming and Lifestyle Expo and Moneymaker Millionaire (Dr. Pauly)

PokerStars qualifier updates

The Breakfast of Future Champions (C.J. Hoyt)

The Best of Times the Worst of Times -- Hugh Kirton (Howard Swains)

Poker Royalty -- Tom Parker-Bowles (Howard Swains)

PokerStars Qualifiers Meet at Chris Ferguson's Table (Craig Cunningham)

Catching Up With the Joneses (Howard Swains)

Among the chip lead: Chris Ellison (Craig Cunningham)

Dinner Break Chip Counts (Dr. Pauly and C.J. Hoyt)

Sitting with Phil Ivey (Craig Cunningham)

Action stations and Akshay Kumar (Howard Swains)

In the Steps of Moneymaker - Kyle Finn (Mad Harper)

Late night chip counts (C.J. Hoyt)

Feature Table Coverage

Flushed Out -- Mike Conti (C.J. Hoyt)

The Featured Table's Best Feature (C.J. Hoyt)

Team PokerStars and big name coverage

Paul Azinger plays for PokerStars (Craig Cunningham)

Aussie Coverage

The Boys from Down Under (Ali Lightman)

Player profiles

Ron Hewlitt (by Mad Harper)

Thang Tran -- 1K FPP qualifier (by Craig Cunningham)

Eric "LavaDrake" Zabek (by Dr. Pauly)

Lee Sullivan (by Mad Harper)

WSOP Insights from Max Shapiro

Another Day at the WSOP

By Dr. Pauly

The WSOP main event tournament room at the Rio convention center is buzzing with the ambient sounds of clattering chips and dealers shouting "Seat open!" after players are eliminated. Down the corridor in another huge area, you will find the Poker Gaming and Lifestyle Expo which features everything possible about poker including books, chips, tables, t-shirts, magazines, card protectors, playing cards, and sun glasses.

If you are coming to the Rio to check out the WSOP, I encourage you to stop by the PokerStars booth at the Expo because you never know who might run into. Several members of Team PokerStars are around at different times such as Isabelle Mercier or John Duthie. Plus, you might have the chance to meet one of the last three World Series of Poker Champions.

Today was a special day because all three champions were at the booth taking photos with fans and signing autographs. Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer, and Joe Hachem also played a series of round-robin heads up matches on PokerStars.net called Battleship.

Hachem


Raymer
Comedian Louie Anderson, who'll be playing in the main event for PokerStars, was also in attendance. After Joe Hachem beat Greg Raymer heads-up, Hachem took on Louie Anderson who had Chris Moneymaker in his corner giving him advice.

"Where's my help?" joked Hachem.

PokerStars is one of the sponsors for the Aston Martin's racing team and you can catch a glimpse of the sleek race car on display at the booth in the Expo. You can also have a shot to own your very own Aston Martin DB9 as part of the winner's package for the Moneymaker Millionaire.

If you don't know, the PokerStars Moneymaker Millionaire is the largest poker freeroll in the world, with over $2.5 million in cash and prizes being given out to PokerStars members. In addition to cash and the Aston Martin, you also have the opportunity to win a trip to the luxurious Atlantis Resort & Casino in the Bahamas and a seat in the WPT PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.

by Mad Harper

When Lee Sullivan won her seat at the WSOP, she did three things.

a) tell her boyfriend Joe (well, he was sitting right next to her).

b) ring her parents (she left a message which they didn't understand; they thought she wanted to borrow $10,000 to play poker -- which they weren't happy about)

c) tell the Straight Dope message board.

For those who don't know (I didn't), Straight Dope is a syndicated Q&A column from the Chicago Reader. Lee's been a signed-up member for ages and a keen participant in the regular Thursday night, 5c buyin (yup, 5 cents!) online SB tournament. I am slightly amazed that these guys (probably all fearsome academics) are prepared to spend two hours playing in a tournament for a possible first prize of 50c -- but Lee loves it. Two of her friends from the game -- "Duke of Rat" and "Yeticus Rex" have even come out to Vegas cheer her on, the first time she has ever actually met anyone from SB in person.



Lee's involvement in the SB tourney is part and parcel of her Jekyll/Hyde existence. By day, this willowy sandy-blonde from Alexandria, Virginia, is an academic carrying out historical research for corporate clients. She studied Medieval Christianity at university and has an MA in Medieval Studies. Her boyfriend Joe is a political consultant.

But by night, Lee is out with the lads. She said: "All my interests are guys' interests. And when I get into something, I really want to master it. The first time I ever played poker was when I went with friends to Atlantic City. I bought a book on Hold'em before we left. When I took up pool, I really worked at it and was team captain within a year. When I took up Ultimate Frisbee, I ended up on the South Bend team, travelling the state for competitons."

Lee's bible for poker is Harrington on Hold'em so she's a little bit freaked out that he got busted last night. But her strategy remains the same: survival. Normally her top limit is 25c cash games and $10 touraments (biggest win to date: $350) so today is going to be quite a ride. She qualified on PS in a 4000 FPP tournament. Sitting next to her at Table 109 is Horace, the teddy her parents sent her for good luck. On the rail are "Duke of Rat" and "Yeticus Rex" -- plus most of my male co-bloggers who have fallen in love with Lee and are pestering me for her cellphone number (I am not releasing it!). Boyfriend Joe isn't here because he's tied up with a house sale back home but I have a message for him: if Lee makes it through Day 1 - please, you just have to come out here! Lee also has her own blog knowholdem.blogspot.com



Note: While getting her money in as a 2-1 favorite, Lee couldn't make it to the dinner break. Though she was too polite to say so, she fell victim who thought a check-raise would work against her top two (after she had already opened the pot and bet the flop). Still, we like her quite a bit and look forward to seeing her again.

by Howard Swains

Tournament poker is the most level of playing fields, where one man's chips are as good as another's; once your 10,000 are gone, so are you. Reputation counts for little, social standing means nothing. Royalty around the poker table is measured in bracelets.

Among the hundreds seeking one of those through the same means as all others today is Tom Parker-Bowles, chef, writer and famous son. He has a few connections and knows a few people, but he's here to play cards.

Commissioned to write for The Mail on Sunday, Parker-Bowles was able to warm up for today's main event with a World Series debut in Thursday's celebrity and media tournament: journalists and c-listers proving why they haven't yet given up their day job. Our man Tom in particular - first hand, all-in, all out. "He had pocket kings," Tom said. "Of course he had pocket kings."

That, however, was then. This is now. Tom was safely asleep early last night and has his game face on today. We're just taking the first break - and he's sitting comfortably with the same stack he started with. Lesson learned.

With all the action, we're just catching up to Max Shapiro's insights. Enjoy.

WSOP: Just Another Typical Day

By Max Shapiro

What a way to start the day on Thursday. Not much past dawn, the security alert system at the Rio blasted off: WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP! "This is a security alert. Something's happening, but we're not sure what. It might be a terrorist attack, or it might be that someone hit a slot jackpot and we don't have enough money to pay it off. But we'll let you know as soon as we figure out what the problem is."

This ear-shattering and rather idiotic message is then repeated, not once more, or twice more, but three times more! Finally, after cussing and then fitfully falling asleep, I'm blasted awake again with another WHOOP! WHOOP! WHOOP! Alert 10 minutes later:

"This is a security alert all-clear. Nothing to worry about, folks. We've figured out the problem. Somebody threw up in an elevator.'

Groggily getting up a couple of hours later, I head down the corridor to the pressroom to sign up for the afternoon media/charity tournament. Walking down the passageway, I see a line of people stretching all the way down the hall and out the door to the parking lot area. It's the opening of the WSOP Lifestyle show. Last year everyone was forced to detour through the show to get to the tournament area, and it's the same this year. Talk about a captive audience! Fortunately, I was able to skirt the line and walk directly to the pressroom by showing my media badge. A couple of hours later, though, when I try the same tactic, I'm told that now, even the press has to walk through the Lifestyle show. Hey, don't you know who I am? (Maybe if they did, they might not have let me in at all.)

The Lifestyle show is even more overwhelming than last year and is prime evidence of how poker has grown into a major industry. Just walking through briskly, I was besieged with tee shirts and various offers and forced to take a photograph with some near-nude model named "Amber," Miss January on a calendar for some online site. In a subsequent article, I'll try to report on what's going on at the show.

HOW TO GET STAKED DEPARTMENT: Later I ran into Greg Grivas, a friend of mine from the old Oceanside Card Club days. Greg has since worked at the Bellagio and the World Series. He was beaming all over. Seems he was having a chicken parmesan sandwich at the poker kitchen when a stranger noticed his World Series bracelet. They got into a conversation, and he offered to stake Greg in the main event. "Are you kidding?" Greg asked. He wasn't. He called his secretary, and the next thing a stunned Grivas knew, he was signed up, on a 60/40 basis.

Then there's Frankie O'Dell. He was standing at a urinal when a stranger offered to stake him in a super satellite. Frankie played, and ended up winning a seat. Seems like a new twist on the legend of Lana Turner being discovered at Schwab's drug store.

NEWS FLASH: I just heard that they may take away Phil Hellmuth's 10th World Series bracelet. It seems that he tested positive for steroids!

Later in the day, I attended the WSOP press conference, where they announced that Billy Baxter and T.J. Cloutier were being inducted into the World Series Hall of Fame, offered various statistics such as an anticipated total prize pool of about $150 million, and showed clips from the upcoming poker movie, "Lucky You," with Drew Barrymore in attendance. But for me, the major news came when a reporter asked if was true that a chimpanzee would play in the main event, and WSOP Poker Commissioner sternly replied that no chimp had been signed up, "Nor will there be one." Oh, well, there goes my big interview story.

Later in the day I played in the media/celebrity charity event. They had a few poker-connected names in the event such as Jennifer Tilly, Cindy Margolils,and James "Maverick" Garner. Also playing was Ron Jeremy, the well-known porn star. I couldn't figure out what his connection to poker was until I realized that his industry was the inspiration for such poker terms as "Don't limp," "Play hard," and "I'm all in."

The media event wasn't exactly a championship structure: Blinds started at $25-$50 and doubled every 15 minutes. I lasted two hours, but went out in style. I limped with an A-4 suited, check-raised all in when ace flopped, and was called by a player with a monster draw who proceeded to make a royal flush on the river! I suppose I could say that I deliberately busted out so I could finish this report, but nobody would believe me.

by Craig Cunningham

PokerStars players flew in from around the world to take on Chris "Jesus" Ferguson at Table 88.

Jessica Bian (1s) is ready for action. She hails from Toronto, a poker hotbed in the Great White North.

Richard Redmond (2s) bought into the Main Event, but can you blame him? He cashed at the World Series this year as well as at a Bellagio tournament Tuesday, but his real score was in the PokerStars Million, taking down $262k with the victory.

Stephen Devlin (4s) from Ireland is a financial advisor by day, so he might find a new client in Redmond or Ferguson.

Eric Zabek (5s) from Utica, New York, is a commercial underwriter. He brought $13 to the table in a PokerStars Double Shootout, and here he sits three seats away from Ferguson (8s). Hung La, a top Las Vegas pro with one cash this year, sits next to Ferguson. David Colclough sits to his left in the 6s. Known as "El Blondie," Colclough is to be respected at any table.

Mats Nilsson (right, in 9s) has these tough players to his right. This Swedish cartoonist will work hard to make sure that today's work has a nice run throughout the next two weeks. Who wants a one-day story?

***updates below***

I'll be getting fit while I work today following eight players from Team PokerStars Australia and New Zealand as they are spread from one end of the vast tournament floor to the other.

There are two guys I'll keep a close eye on, as they're feared on the tournament scene at home and have youth and stamina on their side.


29 year old Russell Davies and I have history. He was on my right at a final table during last year's Victorian Poker Champsionships, and knocked me out fifth. But I forgive him, especially as he went on to show how strong a player he is at the Aussie Millions this past January.

That event, the richest Downunder, was eventually won by our own Lee Nelson (on his birthday) and Russell finished in 6th place, his biggest payday so far.

"I'm just treading water for now" he told me, sitting on an average stack. Poor guy is suffering a head cold and has a bagful of medicine at his feet.

Russell used to go to home games with Toby Atroshenko, a 33 year old pro player who now lives mostly on Koh Samui Island, Thailand, and brings a chilled out attitude to the table.



"I certainly won't be getting involved like Emad yesterday" he told me. "I'll just try to play solid cards today". Toby's biggest cash finish to date was 1st place in a tournament at The Bicycle a couple of years back, and he has cashed in plenty back home in Australia.

Internet legend Johnnybax was on Toby's table but just busted out. Crippled when he ran pocket Aces into a set of eights, Johnnybax was all in with AK, which didn't improve, against pocket nines.

Another Australian player, Peter Sun from the Gold Coast has been using creative visualisation to give himself an edge. He runs a motivational business coaching franchise operation back home, and says he's been picturing himself next to a huge pile of cash.

"It helps" he said, "I used it at the British Open and came 12th."

**update** 3:40pm

I've done a lap around the floor and our Aussie and Kiwi players are holding their own - or most of them. I think we might have lost Damon Alcock much earlier on, there was an empty seat where he used to be.

Toby has 9.6k, Josh Egan from New Zealand has 11.5k, Russell has 13k, Peter Sun is visualising his way towards 50k tonight and is currently on 12k, and George Magdas is sitting on a solid 17k after taking down lots of smallish pots.

**update**

Toby Atroshenko has doubled up and went smiling into the break minutes ago.

"I got lucky, I'm too embarassed to tell you" he said. So I twisted his arm.

It was Toby's button and he had AQ, with the Ace of spades. He bet 900 and was called, and happy about it when the flop came Qs 9s 3s. He check-raised with top pair and the nut flush draw, and induced an all-in bet from his opponent, who had fl0pped a set of nines. Toby's flush came on the river.

He now has 25k.

Russell Davies is still treading water with around his starting stack, but just made a great laydown. He only had pocket 33 but made a full house with three tens on the board, and something told him the other guy was holding the fourth one. When he bet the river Russell mucked, and sure enough, the other player showed him quads.

**update**

Ray Sukkar, from Sydney, is out. He had struggled to get much beyond his starting stack. He found pocket QQ and was called by AK in the big blind. He bet out on a flop of 2 3 4, and checked when an Ace fell on the river. Hoping his ladies were good he called an all-in bet and was busted out.

**update** 9:40pm

A useful skill picked up from CSI, along with lots of other things Vegas, is the grid search. I've just combed nine-tenths of the floor increasingly worried I was looking for a corpse.
Happily Toby Atroshenko had just moved tables, and not out the door. He's got 26k but feeling exhausted, after not sleeping last night.

Another big PokerStars player, Sam Khouiss, from Sydney, has just taken a huge hit. He had around 45k, and got 20k of them into a three way pot with the second nut flush. The trips were no issue, but the nut flush was in there too.

Russell Davies is leaking chips, down to 4k after a series of small losses. Josh Egan and George Magdas are steady Eddies, hovering around 13k and 17 respectively.

**update 1230 am**

A post-it note is being blinded out on table 103 and and 12 hours into Day 1B, has outlasted about a thousand people. But with 875 chips it seems unlikely to find its way into Day 2.

On the same table is a man widely regarded as one of Australia's best live players. Sam Khouiss is old school and always entertaining. He has a string of final table finishes under his belt back home, most recently 1st in a No Limit Hold'Em event during the Aussie Millions in January 2006 and a 2nd place in the 2 Card Manila during the same tournament series.

This is his second outing to the WSOP. His first was in 1997, where he was an early chip leader and clashed memorably with Stu Ungar, who went on to win it. I'll catch up with Sam and see if he'll share that story with us.

Meanwhile, in less than 90 minutes of play tonight Russell Davies chomped his way through a bag of hard candies and transformed his mini-stack of 4k into more than 30k. It's not all sugar rush either, I watched him fire 6k at a pot (finding out later he was King high on a flop of 8h 8s Ac), and a couple of hands later bet out big with pocket Aces, but his ploy to lure in someone with a suspiciously large bet didn't work that time and just took the blinds.

Toby Atroshenko ran into trouble and has halved his stack but still hovering around 10k, and George Magdas had a solid 18k or so.

Josh Egan from New Zealand has 12k.

by C.J. Hoyt

Mike Conti is no stranger to the World Series of Poker. Although it's been a long time since he found himself in the spotlight. Back in 1982, Mike finished 2nd in the Limit Draw High event to David Sklansky. Today, Mike found himself at the featured table with ESPN cameras all around.

At 73 years old, Mike says has been playing poker since he was 13, and he's been finding success. He once played a Triple Draw Lowball tournament at the Four Queens and found himself at a final table with the likes of Daniel Negreanu, John Juanda and Men the Master. He bested them all, finishing first.

"I've been making dough for 40 years in the bakery business so it was an easy transition to poker to make more dough," Mike says.

The pressure of tournament poker is nothing new to Mike. He's probably the only WSOP entrant who's also played in five World Bocce Championships. In fact, he's won several National Championships and was the president of the U.S. Bocce Association for 8 years.

"Playing in world competion with the very best bocce players in the world, makes it easy for me to play with some of the best poker players in the world," Mike says. "Bocce is a game of great concentration and I am sure it can also be used in poker."

Mike had big goals if he had gotten deep in the tournament. With 17 grandchildren, he hoped to pay for a lot of college tuition. Unfortunately, the cards didn't fall his way.

In early action, Mike was unable to find the action he wanted, and the hands he did play turned up being no better than second best. A litle more than an hour into play, he was down to 7,200.

Then it happened.

Mike raises from early position with AhQh. A player in late position calls and the BB decides to stick around, too.

The flop is 6h8c6s. Everyone checks. The turn is the 3h. The BB leads out and Mike calls. The late position player lays down his hand. Mike figures at this point that he's got the nut flush draw and there's a good chance no one has a 6. That means his A and Q may be live, too. That's 15 outs, he figures.

The river is the 4 of hearts. Mike has made his flush. The BB leads out again, and after a moment of thought, Mike decides to raise him. This time, the BB has to think about it, and finally decides to push Mike all in.

It's not what Mike wanted to see. The problem here is that with a paired board, his flush may not be good. Finally, Mike decided he was willing to put his tournament life on the line, and he called.

The good news is that the BB did not have a full house. Instead, he flipped over 5h7h.

Mike had run his flush right into a straight flush. It was the only card in the deck that would make his hand, but also send him home. It's the kind of luck that can kill anyone's Main Event.

Mike shook hands with the rest of the players at the featured table, and took his leave. I'm guessing it won't be the last time we hear his name in a big tournament.

Rob Hewlitt has only played in two live poker tournaments before reaching Vegas but they were both -- in their different ways -- momentous occasions. I'll start in reverse order because ... well, because it's funnier.

Tournament No. 1 took place last November and was held at the Shaftesbury Casino in West Bromwich which is somewhere in the middle of England and just up the high street from where Rob lives.

Just to give you an idea how big the Shaftesbury is, it has 12 slot machines. Yup, that's it, 12 -- oh yes, and a couple of card tables, but no dealers (you deal yourself at the Shaftesbury).

Anyway, Rob and his mate Matt Wright had been lured to the £5 pot limit event not by the prospect of making big bucks, but because the casino was offering a free steak dinner to anyone who turned up. It was enough to get 40 people out of their homes on that wintry evening -- creating a gigantic prize pool of, ooh, £200.

Rob did pretty well in the tournament and made the final table. He didn't actually win any money because he came sixth and the pay-out was only to the top 5. And he didn't get the steak either - because he was still playing cards when dinner was served. Nor did he get on television, because they don't actually have camera crews at the Shaftesbury -- although Rob thinks some of his play might possibly have been accidentally picked up on the casino's CCTV system.

On to Tournament No. 2, which actually took place before Tournament No. 1 -- about a week after the end of last year's WSOP. Rob had won a free-roll to a seat in the London Open and headed down south. Suddenly this 32-year-old PE teacher finds himself sitting a table with Mel Judah, Gus Hansen, Willie Tann, Scott Fischmann, Carlos Mortensen, Dan Alspach and the comedian Dave Gorman. He's finding it all a bit intimidating until he opens up his packet of wine gums. "Oh, I'll take one of those," says Scott and suddenly Rob is sharing candy with some of the best players in the world.

Ice broken, he's even happier when Dave Gorman gets knocked out ahead of him -- until Dave's seat is taken by the Hendon Mob's Joe Beevers, that is.

Anyway, I'd like to tell a fairy story here and say Rob outlasted everyone, won the London Open and is now superbly rich. But I can't. Rob was unlucky, busting out 20 minutes short of the end of Day 1 when his pocket Kings lost to Willie Tann's Qs.

His WSOP 2006 seat came courtesy of winning a PokerStars freeroll tournament, run in conjunction with Poker Player magazine. His appearance here means he's missing the family holiday with wife Becky and sons Charlie and Fred -- but Becky doesn't mind. In fact, she doesn't even mind if he misses the couple's wedding anniversary on August 5. At least, he'll be in the right place -- the couple married here in Vegas four years ago. So good luck, Rob -- and hi to Becky! Hope you're still here on August 10th.

For more news on Rob, check out his website: www.orcapoker.com

by Craig Cunningham

Paul Azinger playing for PokerStars

What is the right poker analogy to use when looking at PGA Tour Paul Azinger? You could compare him to Jennifer Harman, as both have come back from signficant illness to return the competition each loves. Harman underwent a kidney transplant, while Azinger was treated for lymphoma found near his shoulder blade. You could compare Azinger to Juan Carlos Mortensen, as both are fierce competitors. Azinger famously gutted out a birdie on the 18th hole of the 1993 Ryder Cup match against a similar bulldog, Nick Faldo. The birdie halved a match rendered meaningless after the US had clinched the Ryder Cup. It was meaningless to everyone but Azinger and Faldo. Which poker player went through the struggles that Azinger did after his battle with cancer, struggling to get back on track then losing some of his closest friends when Payne Stewart, Robert Fraley, and Van Arden passed away in a plane accident? Who worked through sickness and death and failure at the poker table for seven years like Azinger did before winning again at the 2000 Sony Open?



PGA Tour Pro Rocco Mediate played in last year's Main Event, making it into Day 2 before finishing out of the money. One of the new friends he made as part of Team PokerStars was 2004 Main Event Champion Greg Raymer. Raymer sweated Mediate at this year's Masters as he shot a 68 in the first round and stayed in contention through Sunday. Zinger would love to match or surpass both of Mediate's performances, contending in a major in the next twelve months and making it deep in this year's World Series of Poker. He may not have the experience that some of his fellow players have, but no one will doubt the heart of this lion.

by Howard Swains

The best thing about Day 1 of the main event of the World Series is that it goes on forever. We were playing yesterday, we will be playing today - and tomorrow we will be playing again. And the next day. Yesterday's broken dreams are today's fresh hopes. We have lost a few we loved but have found new friends.

The worst thing about Day 1 of the main event of the World Series is that it goes on forever. We were playing yesterday, we will be playing today - and tomorrow we will be playing again. And the next day. We are still only a quarter of the way through the earliest despair. We feel as though we have been moving forward although we have been standing still.

But let's focus on the bright side. Another day, another ten thousand dollars and another chance to grow acquainted with some qualifiers and hope they stay for keeps. Hugh Kirton, from London, is certainly easy to grow acquainted with. Whether he stays for keeps is another matter.

"This could be the shortest World Series I've ever played!" he bellowed across the Amazon room a moment ago. "Look! Look, I'm all in," he said.



Duty bound, I trudged in his direction to see his entire stack sprayed across the baize. The board showed 4d-9d-Qs. His opponent was in the tank. Hugh, conspicuous in resplendent pink bandana and PokerStars basketball vest, was grinning. "I call," said the adversary and flipped over pocket four for bottom set.

Hugh, as many who play regularly against him in Britain, doesn't necessarily have to be holding much to make this kind of play. But in this instance he had outs. Several. In fact, his 10d-Jd gave him plenty of possibilities, but when the turn was a blank, the "Iron" Kirton was standing and heading back to the craps table and cash games, where he had spent most of the night.

That is, until the king spiked on the river, making the straight for Hugh and outdrawing those fours.

"Oh," he said. "I'm back." Then he let us all in on a secret. "Loose weak! That's the style," he admitted. "Loose weak."

We haven't heard the last of this.

By Dr. Pauly

I headed to the PokerStars breakfast buffet for qualifying players. Over scrambled eggs and bacon, I found myself talking to Eric "LavaDrake" Zabek. Usually players look nervous on the morning of the WSOP main event championship, but not Eric Zabek, who won his seat on PokerStars in the largest ever WSOP online satellite around two weeks ago. He had an air of confidence about him as we chatted about a few things.

Eric "LavaDrake" Zabek

Pauly: Is this your first WSOP? Have you played any other events?

Eric: This will be my first time at the WSOP and my first WSOP tournament. I won a double-shootout which got me a seat in the 150 Seat Guarantee. I placed and won my seat that way.

Pauly: Where are you from and what do you for a living?

Eric: I'm from upstate NY. I live in Utica and I'm an insurance underwriter.

Pauly: Did your boss give you any problems taking off on short notice?

Eric: he was cool with it. I told him I needed a week off and if I went deep into the main event, that would mean I wouldn't need my job anymore and I could quit.

Pauly: Ever play at Turning Stone?

Eric: Yeah, it's thirty minutes from my house. I play there frequently so I have plenty of experience playing live poker. I've done well in the tournaments up there.

Pauly: What's your biggest finish prior to wining your WSOP main event seat?

Eric: I took 4th place in one of the Sunday Guaranteed tournaments on PokerStars.

Pauly: What's your poker specialty?

Eric: SNGs and MTTs mostly. I prefer No Limit games. Limit Hold'em is brutal to stomach.

Pauly: What's your outlook for today?

Eric: I feel good. I'm going to give myself a good shot to win. My attitude is that I'm going to win. I know that I'm gonna need a lot of luck. I heard that you need to win all of your races and coinflip situations, around 10 to 15 of them if I want to go far. I'm going to have to play my best poker for two weeks. I'm ready.

Pauly: Which pro do you admire the most?

Eric: Barry Greenstein because he's an excellent player in both tournaments and cash games. He donates his tournament winnings to charity and good causes.

Pauly: Do you have a regular homegame?

Eric: I'm a pat of a monthly homegame with about 10-15 guys from work. We call it PIG which is an acronym for Poker for Insurance Guys. We play a tournament then cash games. It's a lot of fun and a way for all of us to get together especially since we all work in the same industry.

Pauly: So who's the best player n your homegame?

Eric: Well... (pauses) I guess it's me. They call me "The Shark."

by Craig Cunningham

Thang Tran qualified for his second straight WSOP Main Event through PokerStars, but he arrived with a seat in a situation fairly common to many of us but with a twist most of us would never expect.

Thang is a dentist in Houston, living in his hometown with his wife Christina, an optometrist, and their four-month old baby girl. "The first two months were really hard," he said. "She slept during the day then was awake from 9:00 at night until 6:00 in the morning. With two offices to keep going, it was a tough time." His poker time was understandably cut down, from 4-6 hours a day to 1-2 hours every few days. Through a series of bad sessions, his online bankroll got down to $1. Busy with diapers and dentistry, he decided to take a break.

One weekend morning, he opened PokerStars and found 14,000 in Frequent Player Points. On a lark, he decided to play in a 1k FPP tourney to qualify for the Main Event. "I thought it was pretty pointless, to spend so much time with one chance to win a seat. I didn't really have the time to spend, but I decided to just give a shot." Several hours later, he had earned his second trip to the Main Event.

"Last year was my first live tournament, and I was scared back then," Thang said. "On the first hand I played, I flopped the nuts. I checked, and this aggressive guy who'd been betting at everything bet, and I called. I was so scared I was shaking, and on the turn the guy bet but I said 'Hey, it's my turn to bet.' I bet, and that slowed him way down. He just called, then he folded on the river. I could have won a bigger pot if I'd been more comfortable." Thang made it close to the cash bubble last year, although he didn't know he was close. "I played until 3:00 in the morning on the first day, and by the time we'd bagged chips and gotten to the cab stand, it was a two hour wait for a cab. Then I had to be back at 11:00 that morning for Day 2. It was draining, but it was such a great experience."

Christina is flying in this afternoon around 3:00 to join him, giving them some quality time together with their daughter in safe hands back in Houston. Thang has high hopes that he'll make it through today with plenty of time to rest this time before Day 2.

DAY 1B Begins

by C.J. Hoyt

It's a nervous breakfast. Perhaps eggs and grease aren't the best antidote for butterflies, but that's exactly what the hundreds of PokerStars qualifiers are eating this morning. There's still another hour or so before cards go in the air, but it's clear these players are ready.

Colin "nairobi" Thomson

"My Dad is a better poker player than I am," Colin told me. Of course, it's Colin who's playing in the Main Event and not his father, not that his father didn't try.

Colin spent 80 FPP in a 40 FPP rebuy to win a spot in a 4000 FPP satellite. He turned that into a free seat in the WSOP.

"It's not really free," he told me, "My wife wanted to come along." And it's a long way from Colin's home in Scotland.

This is, as you would expect, Colin's first WSOP event, and, in fact, he tells me he hasn't played a whole lot of live poker in his life.

"I've probably got a million tells!"

Tomorrow, Colin has a seat in a PokerStars online satellite to the Barcelona EPT event. He didn't spend any money on this one either, just more FPP's.

"That one's a little closer to me, and it's a little nicer there."

Steve, Bill and Dan

They don't know each other, but found themselves at the same breakfast table. For each of these guys, it's their first World Series of Poker Main Event.

Steve "steveo72" Vassilaros is here from Austin, TX. Bill "llbilly" Crouch lives in Chicago. And Dan "forkpens" Kaplan flew in from New York.

They didn't seem nervous, but it's still early. They all know it's going to be a long event, but they're confident enough to talk about what they'll be doing on their days off. Good luck!

PokerStars Five Update

I wrote about these guys quite a bit yesterday so when the final chip count list finally showed up, the first thing I did was try to find out who survived. There's good news!

Nate "Jimmytogni" Kelley got just the double up he was desperate for. At the end of Day 1, he's at the low end of the totem pole with 12,300 chips. The only other survivor of our PokerStars Five is England's Matt Tailby. He's sitting at 14,295.

Here's a few other PokerStars qualifiers I mentioned yesterday:
Tammy "bighearted" Rocco: 13,875
Sumit "Pool_shark_1" Kumar: 15,150
Wade "Wader" Graham: 15,625
Ray "kgbs nutz" Uy: 21,550

Editor's note: Here's a list of PokerStars players we'll be watching today in Day 1B:

**JML***
1eyd willie
4BETUONTURN
55lucky55
5thSt.Felon
AaronLoew
abbeyroad99
acbgo
acekingqq
Acey-Deucey
Aholibah
allabob
ALLin2k5
allinstevie
AlmostFamous
andaw
ascott67
attytess
AudiTT1
babyjess28
badkad
BadLarry
Bastien
bates35
beach03
beanie35
bestofphx
Bigdaddydvo
BigDennys
bigdog414
biggies05
BigRiskky
bingobent
bl0wback
BobOjedaFan
bocaorange
BOCCE
Born2DogBaby
bostonfred
Brett Favre
brianbeeper
Brownshoe
Buckohfive
Bushman
Casey ATB
casinoroyale
cbunger
chizzer
chubick
Ciaranstout
clarsonx
CoachMarshal
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Marcus Bower (by Mad Harper)

Irishlust (by Mad Harper)

Rob Hewlitt (by Mad Harper)

Thang Tran -- 1K FPP qualifier (by Craig Cunningham)

Eric "LavaDrake" Zabek (by Dr. Pauly)

Lee Sullivan (by Mad Harper)

Robert Cohen (by Mad Harper)

Michael Matthews (by Mad Harper)

Mike "mman status" Meredith (by Dr Pauly)

Bobby Paine (by Craig Cunningham)

Peter Vu (by Mad Harper)

Arshad Hussain (by Mad Harper)

Niclas Lundqvist (by Mad Harper)

Kyle Finn (by Mad Harper)

Michael Matthews (by Mad Harper)

Mike Meredith (Dr. Pauly)

Bobby Paine (by Craig Cunningham)

[Note: Chip counts can be found below

by Brad "Otis" Willis

Fatigue is such a subjective thing. For the poker media, the next four days are an endless cycle of Day 1s. For the Day 1 players, fatigue is a 15-hour day of pure concentration. For the dealers, floor people, and cocktail servers, fatigue is a seemingly endless stream of shuffles, decisions, and Red Bulls.

But then think abut the firefighters who are working to put out a huge gas fire sparked by lightning on the other side of town. Or think about the guy in the lobby of the Amazon Ballroom. He's trying to set a record by playing more than 72 consecutive hours of heads-up poker.

Fatigue is a really subjective thing.

As Day 1A of the 2006 World Series of Poker main event draws to a close, we can look back on 15 hours of reports that tell the story of the first batch of PokerStars qualifiers who are vying for a huge $10 million first prize.

The Amazon Ballroom


The line to get into the WSOP tournament room

Pre-game

As we started the day, it was almost sure this event would exceed our expectations. Team PokerStars' Wil Wheaton worked to silence the voices of self doubt. In an interview with Team Blog's Dr. Pauly, Wil gave his fellow Team PokerStars' members a great chance this year.

"Mathematically we're in a very good position to put someone deep into this tournament," Wil said. "Some of the best players in the world are members of Team PokerStars so you can't count them out. From a strict odds point of view, we have a great shot this year." (Read the Wil Wheaton Interview)


Team Blog's Dr Pauly interviews Team PokerStars' (and Team Blogs') Wil Wheaton

While everyone waited for the doors to open, Team Blog's Craig Cunningham stalked the hallways and helped ease the players' anxiety. He wrote, "For those qualifying through PokerStars, these last couple hours were times to rest, relax, and chat with new friends. Michael Edens, David Daniel, and Hector Garza hail from Iowa, Tennessee, and Texas respectively. The only time they'd huddle together would be learning the game at PokerStars or sitting on a bench waiting for their dreams to become reality." (Read Craig Cunningham's report)

Over all, the beginning of Day 1A was just what we all expected: completely unable to predict and completely full of things we didn't expect. (Read Day 1A Begins)

PokerStars Qualifiers

Without question, the biggest story of the day was the absolute sea of PokerStars players in the field. (See the Day 1A photo gallery). It seemed there was no table in the room that didn't have at least one member of the PokerStars family in a seat. Team Blog's C.J. Hoyt took to the task of meeting as many of those folks as he could throughout the day. Early on, he found a table he couldn't help but appreciate. He dubbed half the players "The PokerStars Five."


The PokerStars Five

Outfitted with five PokerStars youngsters, the table quickly became Team Blog's favorite. At one point in the evening, C.J. heard Nate "Jimmytogni" Kelley say, "We don't want them to separate us."


Nate Kelley

C.J. spent the day tracking as many PokerStars qualifiers as he could find. If you were playing in Day 1A, you shoud check out all of these reports he filed.

PokerStars: It's Everywhere
Don't get involved too early
Furious Action
The Hot Glare
Is the Luckbox Unlucky
Quad Queens for "toocharming"
Suited Aces for Nate Kelley

Team Blog's Mad Harper spent the day doing what she does best: using her ever-lovin' charm to chat up some of PokerStars players and get the real story on how they got here. Check out her reports on:

Marcus Bowers
Irishlust

As the day drew to a close, Team Blog checked out the late-runners. Craig Cunningham found a few players who had maintained their silence throughout the day, including one woman who refused to count her chips.

Perhaps the most successful PokerStars qualifier of the day was Peter "jaxtraw" Falk. Late in the evening, Falk had nearly octupled his stack and was telling jokes at the table. (Read about Peter "jaxtraw" Falk here)



PokerStars Players on the Featured Table

As Craig Cunningham wrote, "After players register, they receive a card that indicates their table and seat assignment. The tables have signage hanging overhead, all tables except for one. Table 67 has scaffolding and lighting above it, and it sits on a raised platform surrounded on two sides by bleachers and all sides by cameramen. Table 67, you see, is the ESPN Feature table."

Poker is hard enough without all the lights and pressure of the hole card cams. At the same time, sitting at the Feature Table is a ticket to instant fame. No doubt, these were players we were going to keep an eye on. Cunningham made it a point to keep his eyes peeled (so much so that he figured out the table was playing the wrong blind levels even before the floor man did).

Check out Cunningham's reports:

Where's Table 67? Oh, yeah! Under the lights.
Sometimes Survival's Enough
Feature Table Becomes Must Move

Team PokerStars

While PokerStars qualifiers received a lot of attention today, there was still a great necessity in keeping track of PokerStars big names in the field. Team PokerStars has high hopes for this WSOP and we're not about to ignore them. Wil Wheaton had a disappointing early day and was out before the dinner break. Bill Chen never really could get his day going. Luca Pagano suffered much the same fate. Barry Greenstein had a rollercoaster day and survived late into the night. Katja Thater doubled her stack early and then turned very quiet as the night drew late. Team Blog was on the case all day. Check out these stories on Team PokerStars:

Wil Wheaton Pre-Game Interview (Dr. Pauly)
Keep Cool With Luca Pagano (Howard Swains)
Zen Patience and Barry Greenstein (Team PokerStars update) (Dr. Pauly)
Late night Team PokerStars update (Dr Pauly)


Luca Pagano


Bill Chen

Covering the Aussies

With Joe Hachem reigning as the world champion, there's a lot of attention being paid to the Aussies today. Our Aussie on the case is Ali Lightman. She spent the day keeping tabs on Emmad Tahtouh, the man who inspired Joe Hachem to enter the WSOP last year. At one point, Ali found Tahtouh in quite a pickle. She wrote:

Emad Tahtouh seems less worried about his short stack he has to play this afternoon, than about the razzing he's going to get from Joe Hachem, when the World Champion finds out about the bluff that has decimated his, earlier, very healthy stack.

"I made a crazy move", he said "Joe is going to kick my arse".

Emad Tahtouh

Check out all of Ali's Aussie reports from Day 1:

Emad Tahtouh Update
Emad's Crazy Bluff
If a butterfly flaps its wings (a goodbye to Emad)
Gary Benson exits early

What's amazing about everything you just read is that it is only 25% of the action we'll see before we actually get to the official Day 2. It will be Tuesday of next week before any of the today's Day 1A players will play in the WSOP again. In the meantime, we'll turn our attention to the Day 1B, 1C, and 1D players. With 8610 players registered (and apparently more coming in every hour), there is no telling how big this tournament will be before the end of the weekend.

See the whole PokerStars 2006 WSOP Day 1A Index

Day 1A Chip Counts:

(please note, omissions or additions may have been made due different name spellings on WSOP lists)

MATTHEW MAROON $83,150
AARON CLARK $78,925
ERIK FRIBERG $77,675
CUONG VAN DO $73,125
PETER FALK $67,575
ERIK GOMEZ $57,775
ANDREW BROKOS $57,300
PAUL HARKLEROAD $55,675
ANDREAS VILLAND $52,600
JESSE MARTIN $52,450
ARTURO MORALES $52,200
RYAN YOUNG $50,575
JOHN MAGILL $50,275
BRIAN KOOPERMAN $46,625
SIDNEY HASSON $45,625
WILLIAM NORTH $45,250
ABOUAF DAN $43,625
JON NAKATANI $43,575
MARK HANDLEY $43,500
ALBERT SROUR $42,875
CRAIG SCHEWE $41,250
YARON WASSERMAN $40,000
IAN BAKER $39,050
MATTHEW RUNDELL $38,875
DEREK SCHWERZLER $38,800
JAY LEWMAN $38,450
DANNY WALKER $38,150
DARRYL DARE $37,975
GORDON CROSS $37,625
ALAN FIDELO $37,350
SETH COHEN $37,350
ALEX BRIGANTE $37,075
MARK OWENS $36,675
VIET TRAN $35,700
CHRIS GEORGE $35,125
MOE PARVAN $35,050
BRUCE S. COPELAND $34,225
PAUL SMITH $33,775
STEVEN BOYLE $33,400
DOUGLAS KIM $32,800
JAMES MCLEOD $32,400
SCOTT DEPPE $32,300
MATT BALTZ $31,350
SUPOT CHAIMUNGKLA $31,325
RICHARD GOODING $30,300
SCOTT MIGHTON $30,000
CHRIS DOW $29,900
BRIAN GASS $29,300
ROBERT SANDERS $29,025
VINCENT IANNUZZI $29,025
DARREN BRANDES $28,850
NICK EGIDE $27,800
KELLY CONTRERAS $26,875
PATRICK GRIFFIN $26,750
JOHN COITO $25,650
MICHAEL EDENS $25,300
GREGORY T. SPENCE $25,250
DEAN JOHNSON $25,050
KEVIN MANLEY $24,850
KIRK FELLOWS $24,850
KATJA THATER $24,550
GARY JONES $24,525
JIM MORRIS $23,375
MANUEL LABANDEIRA $22,950
QASIM TIWANA $22,725
RICK MOMBOURQUETTE $22,250
GREG GIANNOKOSTAS $22,025
SAM HIATT $21,700,
RAY UY $21,550,
JONATHAN REGO $21,150,
PAUL COLES $21,075,
JOHN EILERMANN $20,650,
JOSHUA BIRD $20,500,
JOSH BRENNER $20,225
C. SHAWN STEWART $19,925
JAMES GOODMAN $19,450
RONALD NIXON $19,450
BLAKE BUFFINGTON $19,275
RAY RYDER $19,100
CHRISTIAN FOSTER $19,000
JOHN PIRES $18,975
KENNETH J. RALSTON $18,725
GARY RINGHOFER $18,425
NORMAN BRYAN $18,400
SOL BERGREN $17,875
JONATHAN GREENHALGH $17,750
NOAH BOEKEN $16,850
DAN FINKLEMAN $16,750
SUNIL PADIYAR $16,425
THOMAS J. ADAMS $16,350
GARY BROADDUS $15,700
WADE GRAHAM $15,625
MARK HANNA $15,575
JOHNNY L WOOD $15,300
SHAWN GLINES $15,225
SUMIT KUMAR $15,150
EUGENE TODD $15,100
JACK WOODEN $14,675
JOHN DUTHIE $14,675
JOSEPH CORDI $14,675
DAVID GALLELLO $14,250
TESTUD PAUL $14,250
RODNEY JENNINGS $14,075
TAMMY ROCCO $13,875
TONY PETRUZZI $12,775
JON TURNER $12,725
ED LATIF $12,625
JARED LISSAUER $12,175
REUBEN PETERS $11,800
THOMAS BOHMER $11,625
< MAXIM DOLINSKY $10,950
DAVID PENLY $10,450
ERIC MILLER $9,750
JOHN WOOTON $8,675
BILGER RAPHAEL $8,625
CHRIS MADRID $8,600
ADRIENNE ROWSOME $8,250
MICHAEL A KINGSBURY $7,750
JOE EBANKS $6,950
JOHN MICHAEL $6,650
HARINAM KHALSA $6,525
DAVID SANBONMATSU $6,225
CAMERON WARREN $5,700
CHARLES PRICE $5,175
JAMES OLSON $3,990
HECTOR GARZA $3,650
DAVID ATRUBIN $1,125

by Craig Cunningham
Sam "vegassami" Seegars lives in Las Vegas, but this is her first World Series event. The PokerStars qualifier had her back to the ESPN Feature Table all day and night. She never had a huge or short stack, treading water late into the evening. She was still going strong as they reached the 91 table mark.

Hector Garza from Texas started the day at the Rio on a bench next to two fellow PokerStars qualifiers. With his unique hair, Hector was difficult to miss as I wondered the floor. His stack got up to $24k but by midnight it had slipped to $15k.

Kelly Contreras from Lake Stephens, WA hauled her brother to the Monte Carlo this week to share in the World Series of Poker experience. The PokerStars qualifier had a novel approach to her table: she never wanted to know her chip count. "You can count it, but don't tell me!" she told me. I did, and $28k before the dinner break counted for alot. She was still alive and kicking after midnight, although she may not be able to tell you exactly how many chips she has. With yellow and pink chips in front of her, maybe it didn't matter too much after all.

by Brad "Otis" Willis

He's not a British politician. He's not a character from a Grateful Dead song. The man who calls himself "jaxtraw" on PokerStars is one thing: one of the Day 1A chip leaders.

Funny thing about this stock trader: you can't think about his screen name or his real name without thinking about a Dead tune or an old school, one-eyed detective.

Who are we talking about? That's right. Peter "jaxtraw" Falk.

"My mom saw the name in lights and liked it," he said of his name.

So, he's a joker, he's just a transplant from New York to Florida, he's another one of the $33 rebuy qualifiers who made into the 2006 WSOP.

Oh, and one more thing...

As we enter the final level of the evening, Peter Falk has a monster stack of more than $80,000 in chips.

At this point in the night, everybody knows it is late. What's more, everyone knows it is early...in this event anyway. This tournament will go on for another two weeks before somebody wins it. What's more, it will likely be the middle of next week before we even hit the money.

But for now, nearly 1am on a day that started 13 hours ago, Peter Falk can feel pretty good about his day here.

by Craig Cunningham

After the dinner break, the ESPN Feature Table looked a bit different. The lights were doused, cameras were covered, and staffers were ready to move on to coverage around the poker room. Waiting for the players was a new table, Table 6. It sits between Tables 5 & 7, thirty yards away from the ESPN Feature Table. For PokerStars qualifier Randall Hughes, it brought him closer to the exit as he busted out shortly after the break. For PokerStars qualifier Robert Burns (above), it was ninety feet away from the exit. By the last break of the night, Robert had built his stack back up to $10k. He was back where he started but better than he'd been. More importantly, he was still here.

Of the ten players who'd started at together under the lights, only four remained. PokerStars qualifier James Olson (above, in cap) was up to $30k, back to a good foundation to make a return to cash a second year in the Main Event. Scotty Nguyen looked in good shape as well. These two may see more of each other before this tournament is done.

Day 1A Chip Counts:

(please note, omissions or additions may have been made due different name spellings on WSOP lists)

MATTHEW MAROON $83,150
AARON CLARK $78,925
ERIK FRIBERG $77,675
CUONG VAN DO $73,125
PETER FALK $67,575
ERIK GOMEZ $57,775
ANDREW BROKOS $57,300
PAUL HARKLEROAD $55,675
ANDREAS VILLAND $52,600
JESSE MARTIN $52,450
ARTURO MORALES $52,200
RYAN YOUNG $50,575
JOHN MAGILL $50,275
BRIAN KOOPERMAN $46,625
SIDNEY HASSON $45,625
WILLIAM NORTH $45,250
ABOUAF DAN $43,625
JON NAKATANI $43,575
MARK HANDLEY $43,500
ALBERT SROUR $42,875
CRAIG SCHEWE $41,250
YARON WASSERMAN $40,000
IAN BAKER $39,050
MATTHEW RUNDELL $38,875
DEREK SCHWERZLER $38,800
JAY LEWMAN $38,450
DANNY WALKER $38,150
DARRYL DARE $37,975
GORDON CROSS $37,625
ALAN FIDELO $37,350
SETH COHEN $37,350
ALEX BRIGANTE $37,075
MARK OWENS $36,675
VIET TRAN $35,700
CHRIS GEORGE $35,125
MOE PARVAN $35,050
BRUCE S. COPELAND $34,225
PAUL SMITH $33,775
STEVEN BOYLE $33,400
DOUGLAS KIM $32,800
JAMES MCLEOD $32,400
SCOTT DEPPE $32,300
MATT BALTZ $31,350
SUPOT CHAIMUNGKLA $31,325
RICHARD GOODING $30,300
SCOTT MIGHTON $30,000
CHRIS DOW $29,900
BRIAN GASS $29,300
ROBERT SANDERS $29,025
VINCENT IANNUZZI $29,025
DARREN BRANDES $28,850
NICK EGIDE $27,800
KELLY CONTRERAS $26,875
PATRICK GRIFFIN $26,750
JOHN COITO $25,650
MICHAEL EDENS $25,300
GREGORY T. SPENCE $25,250
DEAN JOHNSON $25,050
KEVIN MANLEY $24,850
KIRK FELLOWS $24,850
KATJA THATER $24,550
GARY JONES $24,525
JIM MORRIS $23,375
MANUEL LABANDEIRA $22,950
QASIM TIWANA $22,725
RICK MOMBOURQUETTE $22,250
GREG GIANNOKOSTAS $22,025
SAM HIATT $21,700,
RAY UY $21,550,
JONATHAN REGO $21,150,
PAUL COLES $21,075,
JOHN EILERMANN $20,650,
JOSHUA BIRD $20,500,
JOSH BRENNER $20,225
C. SHAWN STEWART $19,925
JAMES GOODMAN $19,450
RONALD NIXON $19,450
BLAKE BUFFINGTON $19,275
RAY RYDER $19,100
CHRISTIAN FOSTER $19,000
JOHN PIRES $18,975
KENNETH J. RALSTON $18,725
GARY RINGHOFER $18,425
NORMAN BRYAN $18,400
SOL BERGREN $17,875
JONATHAN GREENHALGH $17,750
NOAH BOEKEN $16,850
DAN FINKLEMAN $16,750
SUNIL PADIYAR $16,425
THOMAS J. ADAMS $16,350
GARY BROADDUS $15,700
WADE GRAHAM $15,625
MARK HANNA $15,575
JOHNNY L WOOD $15,300
SHAWN GLINES $15,225
SUMIT KUMAR $15,150
EUGENE TODD $15,100
JACK WOODEN $14,675
JOHN DUTHIE $14,675
JOSEPH CORDI $14,675
DAVID GALLELLO $14,250
TESTUD PAUL $14,250
RODNEY JENNINGS $14,075
TAMMY ROCCO $13,875
TONY PETRUZZI $12,775
JON TURNER $12,725
ED LATIF $12,625
JARED LISSAUER $12,175
REUBEN PETERS $11,800
THOMAS BOHMER $11,625
< MAXIM DOLINSKY $10,950
DAVID PENLY $10,450
ERIC MILLER $9,750
JOHN WOOTON $8,675
BILGER RAPHAEL $8,625
CHRIS MADRID $8,600
ADRIENNE ROWSOME $8,250
MICHAEL A KINGSBURY $7,750
JOE EBANKS $6,950
JOHN MICHAEL $6,650
HARINAM KHALSA $6,525
DAVID SANBONMATSU $6,225
CAMERON WARREN $5,700
CHARLES PRICE $5,175
JAMES OLSON $3,990
HECTOR GARZA $3,650
DAVID ATRUBIN $1,125

by C.J. Hoyt

It's probably a first in the history of the World Series of Poker Main Event. PokerStars Qualifier, and member of the newly named PokerStars Five, Nate "Jimmytogni" Kelley looked down at his hole cards and looked at a most unusual site, suited Aces.

"It was the first pocket Aces I've been dealt all tournament, and they were both spades," he told me. There was no word on how long they were playing with an extra Ace in one deck and a missing Ace in the other.

And to make matters worse, the PokerStars Five was forced to say goodbye. The quickly approaching break table overwhelmed our bonded group of qualifiers, scattering them across the room.

Nate wound up at Table 127. "It's a morgue, and the players are all good." He's yet to win a pot there and is down to about 12,000. James "Chelsea16" Goodman has traveled over to Table 157 where he's moved up a bit to 11,000. Matt Tailey moved over to Table 134, where he's still around 15,000. And Chad "Nofoldit" Deschene is at Table 129 where he's maintained his 20,000 chip stack.

That leaves Chris "TheDon5156" Lowrie. I think tragedy struck, turning the PokerStars Five into the PokerStars Four. I spent about 15 minutes going table to table looking for him, with no luck. Perhaps he's out there and I've just been unable to find him. That's what I'm hoping.

And maybe if we're really lucky, we'll find all of them at the final table. Now that would be even more impressive than Suited Aces.

By Dr. Pauly

The insanity and circus-like atmosphere of the first day of the WSOP settled down after dinner break. Hours earlier it would take you several minutes to walk down the congested hallways. They finally emptied out with spectators and fans. For the first time all day you could actually feel the air-conditioning. Frenzied fans clogged the aisles snapping photos of their favorite pros as they soaked up the Championship event in the tournament area. With most of the crowd evaporated, the Amazon Room could be navigated with more ease.

The few people who remained after dinner break were poker enthusiasts and family members sweating their relatives and spouses from the rail. Even the scantily clad leggy models in the hallways pitching different poker paraphernalia went home for the day.

Official numbers were announced for Day 1A at the 2006 WSOP. 2,138 players including alternates bought in $10,000 for the first day of action at the main event championship. After dinner break, only 1,500 remained as 30% of the field were eliminated.

One of those casualties was Norm MacDonald. At one point around 4:30 in the afternoon, he emerged as the chipleader after he flopped trip aces. MacDonald had been running over his table, amassing almost 50K in chips. Unfortunately his table broke and he found himself in unfamiliar territory with was 2006 WSOP bracelet winner Mark Vos seated on his left. MacDonald lost a huge chunk of his stack when his pocket Aces were cracked by Vos' Q-Js. Vos flopped two pair and doubled through MacDonald, who was left with 15K in chips. A few hands later MacDonald busted out.

Bill Chen had an up and down day as his stack took a rollercoaster ride. His stack slipped to 7K early on, then he jumped up to 25K in chips when he tripled up. Chen moved all in on a flop with a nut flush draw against two flopped sets. He promptly caught his flush on the turn to triple up. Chen was down to about 7.5K after dinner and bottomed out at 3K at one point.

"The stack has been going up and down all day. I'm getting my chips in play when I can," he said.

Chen was eventually eliminated when he moved all in with a short-stack from the blinds. His A-4 lost to A-Q.

EPT creator John Duthie scooped a pot with quads earlier in the day. Duthie flopped a set with 5-5, then turned quads. He built up his stack to over 35K. Barry Greenstein hovered around 15K for most of the early evening and got as high as 19K.

by C.J. Hoyt

If you had to pick one way to get welcomed to a new table, there's not really a better way to do in than doubling up with Quad Queens's. I suppose you could triple up with a Royal Flush, but we don't want to get crazy here.

Brian "toocharming" Vaughan spent 40 Frequent Player Points and found himself in the World Series of Poker Main Event. When he got moved to Table 146, he had barely made any headway from his starting stack. That's when he looked down at two lovely ladies. The flop brought a third Queen and the turn brought the fourth. And with that, Brian was feeling a lot better about his 23,000.

Travis "travdawgks" Garrod has been at Table 146 all day, and he's hoping his 16,000 will be enough to get him to Day 2. Brian "Showbizzzz" Gass isn't nearly as worried. He's worked his stack up to an impressive 40,000 chips.

Table 135

Ted "$urebet" Spencer has been dying to give me updates all day. Unfortunately, he hasn't quite found the right hand. This last time I walked by, he gave me a frown and fingered his small stack.

"I'm still at about 10,000..." he said, trailing off. I could sense the disappointment. It could have been much worse, though. The other PokerStars qualifier at his table, Ariel Schneller was out.

Table 162

This is the last update you'll get from this table. In fact, by the time I'm done typing this, there won't be a Table 162 anymore. It's the next table to break, and at this stage in the tournament, players are dropping fast.

Gordon "blotzilla" Cross had trouble counting his chips. It wasn't a math issue, there were just so many. With 35,000, he's in great shape. Endre "Loss Vegas" Eikeseth is still searching for his big hand at 14,000. Jim "Mooknows" Morris is in trouble. One big pot was pushed to the other guy in the hand, and Jim's down to just 5300. Sumit "Pool_shark_1" Kumar has worked his way up to 17,000.

The newcomer to the table is Stanley "StanDman" Statkiewicz. He says he plays only the biggest cash games on PokerStars. I'm not sure if that's for the other players at the table's benefit or not. Either way, Stanley's got a solid 19,500 at the moment.

Table 60

Adrienne "talonchick" Rowsome didn't think she was going to last very long. She took a huge hit when her set ran into a bigger set. It's one of the worst feelings in poker. You see just what you want, and still lose a big pot. There's not a whole lot you can do.

"I actually feel pretty good, considering," Adrienne told me. She's got 11,000 and hoping to do some damage soon.

Table 123

At one point, they had more PokerStars players than any other table in the room. Seven of them were fighting for each other's chips. There's always a winner and loser in poker, however, and three of them are out.

Harinam "Gyr1" Khalsa is just hanging on with 8000. Team PokerStars member Emad Tahtouh is on a bit of a roller coaster, but he's up to 18,000 now. FPP Qualifier Tony "irishlust" Mucci is still rolling along with 25,000. And Seth Cohen is up to 15,000.

-----------

All of these players now have one goal in mind: Day 2. With the clock winding down, no one wants to risk working all day just to have to go home now. But sitting back isn't going to win you money. It's a tough choice, but these players are looking for that perfect spot in the middle.

The table chat was driving him nuts so Emad dashed to his room at the dinner break and with his iPod attached, feels less like he's playing in a cageful of canaries.

Tonight he's concentrating on getting his stack back up where it should be, after reducing it by three-quarters on what he admitted was a crazy bluff.

"I don't like to look back on what might have happened if I hadn't done that, if I might have had 40k by now. Who knows? I believe in chaos theory."

He had a better appetite for supper, having doubled through just before the break, against the player who rivered a flush against him earlier.

Emad limped from second position with pocket 8's and when the flop came J 4 4, bet 600 and found a caller.

He made a boat when the turn card brought an 8 , and just checked, hoping the other guy had something worth betting.

And it worked, as his opponent bet out 1 000k. Emad called, and when the river came another 4, he pushed all in for his last 5k.

His opponent couldn't get his chips in fast enough, as he was holding pocket QQ, but Emad's higher full house took the pot and put him right back where he started, all those hours ago, on 10k.

And when I checked a few minutes ago he'd turned that into 18k, after taking down a few pots with pre-flop raises with AK and AQ, and taking 3k with a hand he couldn't describe in front of the others.

From a conversation I just overheard, it seems like a little fatigue, and a lot of computing power players are devoting to their game, is hurting their ability to do a simple sum.

A tournament official wandered past as I was watching Emad's table, so I asked her what they would do if the field wasn't whittled down to 900, as planned, by Level 6. She said they'd have to play on.

"How many, 900? asked one of American players. "That's right" said the guy to his side. "So, how many tables is that? he wanted to know. A heavily pregnant pause before his answer, "90?"

Update: 10:30

Well it's not good news. I went back to Table 123 to check up on Emad and found him staring gloomily at a tiny heap of chips, 1675.

So what on earth had happened? He got them all in pre-flop with AK in the cut-off.

"I'd raised this guy five or six times before. He made it 1000k and it was folded round to me so I raised it up to 3500. He re-raised me another 3500k, with 9k behind, so I pushed all in for 12k and he called."

The other player turned over a pocket pair of sixes.

The flop came 10 2 3....and then the turn brought a six. He was drawing dead, and so upset he didn't even see what was on the river.

"I can understand him calling my first raise, because he was annoyed with me stealing blinds. But to go all in with 66?"

To make it worse, players were then sent on a 20 minute break and Emad had to stew over the play, knowing he was coming back with a mountain to climb.

With the blinds up to 150-300 he was going all in at the first opportunity, and as I watched, decided KhQh was the hand.

He was called by Ad9c and stood up to watch the flop come down..8d 2d Jc..the turn was a 9d and the river no help, 5h, sending him out on Day 1 of his first WSOP Main Event.

Emad is a gracious, good-humoured guy, with an ability already proven by his 7th place finish in the $5 000 Pot Limit Hold'Em.

His demeanour didn't slip for a second. He wished all the other players good luck and wandered off the floor, telling me he was thinking about entering a tournament tomorrow.

by Mad Harper

Click here for update

It's the phone call every mother dreads. The phone call when you discover that all your hopes for your hard-working, academic, college-attending son have come to nothing. The phone call when said son announces that, he's really really sorry Mom, but he's dropping out of college and becoming a poker pro.

This is what Rita Bower went through last Autumn when son Marcus finally realized that he could make more in a week playing poker online than most people make in a year. But like many Moms the world over, Rita wants her son to be happy. He said: "I was really dreading telling my folks. My Mom was worried about my poker-playing even last summer and at that point I was only in 25 cent games. My parents are both teachers and my brother's a doctor and my sister's at college so you can imagine, it wasn't an easy call to make. I was almost having a breakdown about it actually but my Mom could tell I was really upset so she just said that if it was what I really wanted to do, then I should go ahead and do it."

Marcus Bower

For Marcus -- known as "allin2k5" online -- turning pro was not a decision he regrets, however difficult it was to tell his family. He reckons his winnings this year alone have come close to $100,000. He is thrilled to be appearing in the PokerStars blog. He said: "I always read it. And now I'm in it -- I'm psyched to be in the blog." As luck would have it, Joe Hachem was on the PokerStars stand when Marcus and I dropped in to pick up a baseball cap -- so it was a double bonus for the Pennsylvania 22-year-old: a picture with the current World Champion, which is being published in the PokerStars blog.


Update: Marcus survived Day 1 and will be going into Day 2 on Tuesday with nearly $16,000 in chips. His survival is impressive given that, according to his email to me this morning, a pair of 9s was the best hand he had all day.

by Howard Swains

As some of my colleagues may have intimated, the Amazon Room at the Rio is a lot like a convention for PokerStars fashions; anywhere you turn there is the familiar logo, frequently behind a tower of chips. Spotting the generic PokerStars qualifier is less a case of finding a needle in a haystack than trying to spot the hay.

Identifying the country of origin of these various needles is, however, a different story and the European reporter (c'est moi) must be ready to be pricked. While our transatlantic cousins relish the publicity and chase after their chance to appear on the blog, the reserved European takes shelter in the crowd and only agrees to appear under duress. "Are you from Europe," I ask of the assorted T-shirts. "Might be," they reply in a peculiar accent, telling me all I need to know.

This is only partially the natural European politeness. Occasionally it is because they know who they're talking to - and the dangers my presence can confer. Anyone who reports on sport - poker very, very much included - lives in fear of the commentator's curse: that moment when the reporter arrives just in time to witness a horrific suck-out, sometimes feeling as though he is the cause.

"Hey! Stand right there only until I get involved in a pot." This was Ferit Gabriellsson, from Stockholm, Sweden, a PokerStars FPP qualifier for the second year in succession. Last year things were going just fine for Ferit until yours truly strolled by to check on his progress. I watched one hand, one big slick hit a king on the flop, one check-raise and one excellent call. Ferit had the top pair, top kicker, his foe had K-Q for top pair and junk. The turn was a queen, the damage was done and Ferit was out soon after. Well done me.

So, Ferit was right to frown at my approach today and I did the decent thing and scuttled away when he put in a pre-flop raise and found a call. I have no idea how things turned out, but I skipped past a moment or so a go to see more than 25,000 in front of him. My absence makes the stack grow stronger.

Curse update: Luca Pagano has bitten the dust. It was the words "he'll be around for a few hours yet" in the last post that knocked him out.

by C.J. Hoyt

Those that know me from my online persona know my nickname is "The Luckbox." I have a slight tendency to get in behind and suckout. It's kinda my thing. It's what I do, so I've moved past apologizing for it.

It seems, however, that an apology is in order. Earlier this evening I told you about Table 16. It's where actor Matthew Lillard was holding court. He's long gone, but three PokerStars players are still there, including "amichaikk."

"Since I talked to you, it's gotten worse and worse and worse," he told me. His chip stack sits at about 10,000. It had been as high as 26,000, so he might have a point. Greg "Kode" Severson has seen his stack dwindle from about 15,000 down to only 4000. Even Team PokerStars player Katja Thater hasn't been able to climb much above 20,000. Hopefully things turn around while I'm gone.

Table 119

Last time I caught up with Adrian "ach3" Herr, he was just joined at the table by Clonie Gowen. Well, Clonie is long gone, but Adrian is not. Unfortunately, flopping a set with your pocket pair and turning your boat isn't always a good thing. Especially when your opponent turns a better boat. Adrian is now fighting back from 4,000.

Table 161

I probably shouldn't play favorites, but there's not a table I like more than this one. These 5 guys have been together since James Garner shouted, "Shuffle up and deal!" And more than 9 hours later, they're still together.

The PokerStars Five

"We don't want them to separate us," Nate "Jimmytogni" Kelley told me. He's still got 19,000, but looking to move up. His table mates are all in similar situations. James "Chelsea16" Goodman is at 10,000. Chris "TheDon5156" Lowrie is at 9,000. Matt Tailby holds about 15,000. And Chad Deschene is doing the best of the bunch with about 20,000.

Unfortunately, time is against them. The WSOP folks are breaking down tables as people bust and there are just two tables between them playing together and them saying goodbye. I don't think there will be tears, but it will make it a lot harder for me to follow them!

Table 138

Tammy "bighearted" Rocco is at 20,000, but that doesn't mean she's happy. Since a little before the dinner break, she's dropped about 6,000 chips. Her PokerStars tablemate Assani "jwvdcw" Fisher is also treading water at about 10,000. The real mover at this table is Ray "kgbs nutz" Uy.

When I first stopped by the table, he had gotten himself up to about 18,000. When I worked my way through the room and got back to his table, things had changed. Perhaps some of The Luckbox was rubbing off on him.

"I had Ace-Queen with the Ace of spades and he had King-Jack with the Jack of spades. The flop came down 234, all spades. I bet, he put me all in, I called. There was a Jack on the turn, but a 9 of spades on the river," Ray told me. He's now up to 25,000.

The PokerStars Blog has assembled a team of the best bloggers and writers around to cover the 2006 WSOP main event. Here are the people bringing you coverage from the 2006 WSOP.

Brad "Otis" Willis

Brad "Otis" Willis--The man they call Otis has served as PokerStars chief blogger since January 2005. A long-time broadcast journalist, he's spent his recent years traveling to poker tournaments all over the world. He's reported on PokerStars players for several magazines, radio shows, and web sites. This is his second year reporting on PokerStars WSOP qualifiers.





Wil Wheaton

Wil Wheaton--Wil Wheaton is a writer and actor from L.A. While famous for his roles in "Stand By Me" and Star Trek TNG, Wheaton has achieved equal or greater fame for his work as a writer. Wheaton is a member of Team PokerStars and a full-time member of PokerStars' Team Blog.




Howard Swains

Howard Swains--A journalist and poker player from the U.K., Howard Swains has served as a co-blogger on the PokerStars blog since its inception. Swains has blogged events on the European Poker Tour and the WSOP for PokerStars. This is his second year covering PokerStars qualifiers at the WSOP.




Mad Harper

Mad Harper--Mad Harper has been telling stories on the PokerStars Blog nearly as long as Brad "Otis" Willis. A long-time journo and story-teller, Mad lives up to her name. She'll take you to the best parties, into the best stories, and introduce you to the people you need to know from PokerStars.




Dr. Pauly

Dr. Pauly--Paul "DrPauly" McGuire is a writer from New York City and is the author of the Tao of Poker blog. He's been covering various events on the World Series of Poker, European Poker Tour, and the World Poker Tour for the last two years and is a frequent contributor to Fox Sports, Poker Player Newspaper, Lasvegasvegas.com, and Poker Pro Magazine. He's been playing on PokerStars since 2003 under the screen name DrPauly.




C.J. Hoyt

C.J. Hoyt--C.J. Hoyt was a blogger before blogging was cool. His poker blog Up For Poker is among the most popular poker blogs on the internet. When he's not blogging, he saving the world from corruption as the news director of a television station in the south.




Craig Cunningham

Craig Cunningham--Craig Cunningham's poker writing explores some of the challenges that players face in daily life; e.g., How do we balance poker with the important people in our lives? Can we pursue excellence and success in poker while remaining functional people? Additionally, his interviews with aspiring pros as well as WSOP bracelet winners bring insight and understanding into these individuals. In his day job, Craig is president of a consulting, research, and marketing company serving Fortune 500 companies around theworld. Whether he's in Shanghai, London, Amsterdam, Dallas, or New York, he either sneaks in a trip to the local poker room or flips open a table on PokerStars. You can read Craig's other work at Quest of a Closet Poker.




Alison Lightman (with husband, Sarne)

Alison Lightman--Alison Lightman joined PokerStars from a career in journalism, which began in her native Australia and took her around the world, most recently making investigative documentary films in Britain, her home for 17 years. Career highlights were winning the Silver Medal for Best Documentary film at the New York Film & TV Festival and hosting current affairs talk programs. Televised poker got her interested, and she really fell in love with the game after moving home to Sydney. No-one was more surprised than Alison when, last year, she won the biggest cash field tournament held to date in Australia. Writing for PokerStars unites her passions for Poker, journalism and, happily, her husband Sarne Lightman, our Manager for Australia and New Zealand.




Max Sharpiro

Max Shapiro--Max Shapiro is poker's most noted humorists. His tales range from Barstow across the desert to Las Vegas. If there is an alternative insight to be had in poker, Max offers it. If you have't already read Max's work in CardPlayer, you're missing out.


Team Blog also wishes to recognize photographer Rob Gracie. If you're looking at a good photo on the blog during the WSOP, chances are Rob or one of his fabulous colleagues from IMPDI took it.

by Craig Cunningham

Halona Hughes sat in the bleachers behind ESPN cameras with her mother-in-law, Germaine Littlebear. The two of them had snuck into the stands as her husband, PokerStars qualifier Randy Hughes, sat in the 8s, his back to the bleachers. To say he was focused would be an understatement as he never knew his wife and mother were ten feet away. His wife doesn't play online, but her life isn't too different than six-tabling on PokerStars. Halona has four children underfoot while working as a nurse. She and her husband are from the Oglala Lakota tribe, a member of the Great Sioux Nation. Randy owns his own computer engineering company. His firm designed and implemented the 911 system on the reservation in Pine Ridge.

Randy was one of the players at the table who had sat across from a WSOP bracelet winner before. He finished runner-up to Vince Burgio in a tournament at the Plaza fifteen months ago. Today Randy got short stacked, and he got all of his chips in the middle with Beth Shak. She had him covered, and he turned over A-Ko to her pocket queens. He stared at his last $3.5k in chips as the flop came. I asked him at the dinner break about the flop. "It was an ace, and I can't remember anything else. She did pick up a flush draw on the turn, but then the river was a brick." Beth's husband Dan was sweating her, his start date Saturday for the Main Event. Halona's joy was Dan's heartache, but Beth sat at $6k and was still alive.

Randy's double up followed a big hand that gave Scotty Nguyen the chip lead and saw the table's first new member. Scotty raised pre-flop, and Michael Chow (above) re-raised, then Scotty called. The flop came 3-6-6, Chow bet $3k and Scotty raised him all-in for another $6k. Chow is unmistakable with his neon pink spiked hair, and it glowed a bit more as he deliberated for five minutes. He made the call and turned over K-K, waiting to see if Scotty had the 6 or worse. Scotty flipped over 4-5, and Chow's stomach hit the floor when a 7 came on the turn for the straight. He needed a king or 6 on the river for a boat, but neither came. He made $90k in this year's World Series, but this will be a bitter one to get over.

Alan Adler took his seat, another solid player a WSOP cash this year and two last year. It looked like another seat might open as PokerStars qualifier James Olson called Jenny Kang's all-in after a flop of K-10-10. Olson turned over K-J to Kang's K-9, and Olson was well ahead. 6 came on the turn followed by a disappointing card for Olson, an ace. His better kicker gave way to the board, and the pot was chopped instead of going to him. Maybe worse for him, Kang held onto chips. Having her to his right and Scotty Nguyen to his left meant this was not really a table for chip accumulation. Olson had gotten down to $7k early in the day, but he sat comfortably at $15k by the dinner break.

PokerStars qualifier Robert Burns had long forgotten about chip accumulation. "You've seen the cards I've gotten," he told me before heading to eat. "I've had absolutely nothing all day." As he left, I put my arm over his shoulder. "You're playing great just to be right here." He's at $6.8k, about the same as Randall Hughes. Sometimes, survival is enough in poker.

by Mad Harper

Only three people in the world know that "irishlust" is here at the World Series - and if irishlust had had his way, only one person - his wife - would have known. But unfortunately Ann told her mum and dad so now it's practically a crowd rooting for the 43-year-old Indiana chef.

It's not that irishlust is modest, but my god, he's superstitious. He's doing pretty well now on Day 1a with around 28,000 in chips so there was no way he was taking off his own t-shirt when I offered him a PokerStars one. He just popped the PS one on top.

Ok, lots of players don't like to change outfits if they're doing well. And lots of players also don't want to give their real names - which is another of irishlust's superstitions. But most people would probably tell their children or work colleagues or, jeez, maybe a couple of friends that they had just won a seat at the WSOP after an investment of precisely zip. Not irishlust. He told Ann. She told her parents. And that's it. He told the staff at his 120-seat restaurant in Indianapolis that it was "a family emergency."

What is also quite remarkable about irishlust is that he's only been playing poker three months. He said: "I saw it on TV everywhere and thought I'd give it a go." He set up a PokerStars account and was soon enjoying modest success in the smaller $4, $10 and $20 tournaments. He said: "I'm a grinder, I don't gamble. I sit and wait for the right cards. I'm doing OK online. I have had some good wins." Irishlust is here in Vegas courtesy of a 150FPP tournament. He made the top four which put him in a double shoot out which he also won. He said: "I am thrilled to be here but it's odd. I just knew I was going to win the seat. It was instinct." Well, irishlust, fingers crossed for success - and no walking under ladders.

I first met the lovely Ash Hussain a year ago, right here in Vegas after he qualified with PokerStars for the WSOP 2005. At the time, he was still running the family’s cushion-making business in Accrington, Lancashire, England, had only been playing poker a couple of months and was in Vegas “for a bit of a laugh”. He didn’t even mind when he was knocked out half way through Day 2.

It’s all a lot more serious this year. After a quite spectacular six months at the tables, Ash is now ranked No. 1 in Europe.

Ash said: “I had a horribly bad beat in last year’s WSOP but it really didn’t bother me. I had a great time and a big smile on my face the whole time. Then I got back to the UK and had a really bad six months. I didn’t win a thing and, to be honest, I was about to quit the game.”

Then in February this year, Ash made the final table in a £500 tourney in Birmingham, England. It wasn’t a big win money-wise but it gave him the confidence to keep going. The big one came in March when Ash was a PokerStars FPP qualifier at the European Poker Tour Grand Final in Monte Carlo. He came second, won a massive €492,000 and catapulted straight to No. 3 in the European rankings.

This gave Ash the kind of bank roll he needed to start playing major events. He said: “To be honest, I don’t really like using my money to play poker. Well, not hard-earned money that is.” Next stop was winning the Irish Open in April – add another €39,315 to the Hussain bank roll. And, since then, he’s made the final tables at a further four European ranking events, notching up another $40,000 or so in winnings. He is here at this year’s WSOP as a sponsored PokerStars player. If you’re here in Vegas, look out for Ash – he’s playing on Sunday, Table 79, Seat 4.

For the first 18 years of his life – well, at least since he was old enough to pick up cards – Peter Vu has been playing poker with his family at their home in south London, England. The Vus – Peter, his brother Tony, their four sisters plus Mum and Dad – used to spend hours sitting around the kitchen table playing Chinese poker (a bit like five-card stud) for an average buy-in of 1 pound.

Peter is the first to admit that he wasn’t actually very good in this home game – in fact, he was rubbish. He couldn’t take the smallest pot (and we really are talking real small here) off anyone in the family. Nevertheless, at age 18, Peter found himself heading down to the local snooker club to play in the back-room, quasi-illegal (no, make that massively illegal) one-table cash game.

According to Peter, he wasn’t much good there either but he and his mate Charlie “Chan” Phong had a great time - splitting buy-ins and time at the table - at the regular Monday night get-together.

Then came the Big One. Charlie won £1,500 in a cash game. It was a turning point for young Peter and suddenly the young accountancy student was down at the Snooker Club every night –– and regularly benefiting from Charlie’s skill at the table. Hard to consider this a turning point, given that it was Charlie who was winning all the time. And you might also wonder how Peter ended up in Vegas. Did Charlie win the seat but give it to Peter? How on earth did Peter get out here?

Well, the fact is, that Peter’s 20-year bad beat ended the very first day he started playing online. From the start, he was coining it in. Tournaments, cash games – he just couldn’t lose, and in the last few years, he’s won dozens of $50+ Sit n’ Gos as well as many other tournaments. He's now playing full-time (bye-bye, accountancy) and is making a decent living.

But for Peter, now 28, the best win of all is his seat at this year’s WSOP. For a whopping investment of $15 (a $5 tournament with rebuy and add-on, which took him into a $160 double shoot-out, which he won) Peter has found himself at the biggest sporting event in history. Good luck, Peter Vu! I hope you do brilliantly.

Update:After four hours' play, Peter has already built up a $19,000 chipstack and is being dubbed 'Pocket Aces' by the others at his table. Grinninng broadly, Peter said: "Yeah, it's going well. Three pocket Aces and three pocket Jacks."

by Ali Lightman

I've just heard that one of Australia's best known poker players, and one of our own on Team PokerStars, was knocked out today on a horrible beat.

I'd been searching the tables for Gary Benson, who has cashed in many a tournament Downunder, and 1996 won Australia's first ever WSOP bracelet, in Limit 7 Card Stud , and just learned why I couldn't find him.

He flopped a set of tens earlier on today and was all in with an opponent who'd found trip 7's, when the unthinkable happened, and the only card that Gary didn't want to see - the fourth 7 - came on the river.

I called Gary a little while ago to ask him about it but he wasn't answering his phone. Much as I'd like to write up the story, who could blame him?

Otis' Note: I'm so pleased with Team Blog, I can barely stand it. The bloggers on this team are kicking out the best coverage I've seen in ages. If you're trying to catch up, here's a list of all the news from the first half of Day 1A. Players are headed on a 90-minute dinner break and will return at 8:30pm PST

DAY 1A Photo Gallery

Pre-game

Silencing the voice of self-doubt (Wil Wheaton)

Itching to play (Craig Cunningham)

Begin the beginning (Howard Swains)

Main Event Day 1A Begins (Brad "Otis" Willis)

PokerStars Qualifier Updates

PokerStars: It's Everywhere (C.J. Hoyt)

Don't get involved too early (C.J. Hoyt)

Furious Action (C.J. Hoyt)

The Hot Glare (C.J. Hoyt)

PokerStars at Featured Table Coverage

Where's Table 67? Oh, yeah! Under the lights. (Craig Cunningham)

Team PokerStars and Big Name Coverage

Wil Wheaton Pre-Game Interview (Dr. Pauly)

Emad Tahtouh Update (Ali Lightman)

Emad's Crazy Bluff (Ali Lightman)

Keep Cool With Luca Pagano (Howard Swains)

Zen Patience and Barry Greenstein (Team PokerStars update) (Dr. Pauly)

by C.J. Hoyt

You don't have to be at the featured table to find yourself on the other end of an ESPN camera. They're roaming the floor looking for the unusual and the celebrity. And many PokerStars Qualifiers have found themselves right in the middle of it.

Table 119

Adrien "alh3" Herr had been finding small pots all day and working his stack mostly upward. Then he found himself in a huge pot. He thought is Aces full of Queens had to be good, and they were against his opponents Kings full of Aces. Suddenly, he's up to 24,000. You'd think that'd be enough excitement for one day, until a certain blonde pro sat down in the 1 Seat. Now's his chance to knock out Clonie Gowen.

Table 18

"I'd have about 30,000 if it weren't for the good sister," Patrick "pwr14224" Reichmuth told me. And we he says "good sister" he's talking about a nun. Well, maybe not a real nun, but she's playing the part well, and some higher power is helping her to a huge stack. Patrick, however, is still going strong at 21,000.

You'd think having a member of the so-called "Crew" at your table would bring enough attention, but the cameras couldn't resist seeing Gank and the nun next to each other. Thankfully, Patrick doesn't seem to mind the cameras.

Table 16

"I do yoga," PokerStars qualifier "amichaikk" said.

"Why are you so fat?" Matthew Lillard, of Scream and Scooby-Doo "fame," responded. (For the record, "amichaikk" isn't fat, but Matthew's a "comedian.")

"Hey, I'm still a good-lookin' man!" And he also has a stack much bigger than the actor, sitting at about 26,000. "I don't like the cameras," he told me, "but you gotta do what you gotta do."

In fact, it's a popular PokerStars table. Sitting next to "amichaikk" in Seat 8 is Greg "Kodie" Severson. He qualified through PokerStars for the second year in a row. In fact, Greg qualified in the very first hours that PokerStars opened it's WSOP qualifying. He's doing pretty well at 15,000.

The most recent addition to the table is the lovely Team PokerStars member, Katja Thater. "Miss Slick" has a solid 21,000 stack and is looking to do some damage. If the cameras show up to this table, I'm sure she'll get more face time than Matthew Lillard!

Table 138

The cameras haven't arrived at this table, but the three PokerStars qualifiers here don't seem to mind.

Assani "jwvdcw" Fisher hasn't gotten involved in too many hands, but finds himself with 11,000. Ray "kgbs nutz" Uy is doing even better, sitting at about 15,000. And Tammy "bighearted" Rocco is ruling the table at about 21,000.

Her stack was even bigger until her pocket Q's ran into a set of 8's. You know what they say about those Hiltons...

Don't miss C.J. Hoyt's PokerStars qualifier update below

by Dr. Pauly

I spent about twenty minutes watching Barry Greenstein from the rail. There are several things you'll quickly notice if you get to see Greenstein at the tables. A copy of his book Ace on the River always sits underneath his chair during tournaments. He gives away his book as a bounty to the player who eventually busts him. The other thing you'll notice is that Greenstein looks fatigued. Most of the time it's because he's tired after staying up late playing in the biggest cash games around town.

With the World Series of Poker running for several weeks, the pros who make their living off of cash games are frothing at the mouth as hundreds and thousands of players from all over the world fly into town with combined bankrolls worth millions of dollars. Sometimes it's hard to pass up an appetizing meal like all the dead money swirling around Las Vegas.

Greenstein sat at a table with five guys around his son Joe Sebok's age. They played in a lot of pots, while Greenstein sat back and read a copy of Poker Player Newspaper. He'd look up to peek at his hands and return to reading after he'd muck them. At last check, Barry had about 8K in chips as he patiently waited for a hand.

In other Team PokerStars news...

Katja Thather has about 23K in chips. She's at the same table as Clonie Gowen. If I were to write a Victorian novel featuring Katja's table, I'd call it a Tale of Two Blondes.

Bill Chen tripled up a few moments ago when he faced the abyss of elimination. He had As-8s and was all in on the flop of 9s-7s-4d. Two of his opponents called. One had 7-7 and the other had 9-9. He was up against two flopped sets. Chen turned a flush and his hand held up. Chen's stack increased to 25K.

John Duthie is sitting pretty with 25K. Terrance Chan has about 20K in chips after he flopped a straight with Jh-8h and doubled up. The board read Qh-10h-9s, which gave Chan a straight flush draw. He moved all in and was called by a guy with K-9. Chan didn't need any more help as his straight held up.

Norm MacDonald flopped trips with A-8 and built his stack up to 39K. He got as high as 48K which put him among the chipleaders. MacDonald's rush ended after an unfortunate hand when he his pocket Aces were brutally cracked by Mark Vos' Qc-Jc. Vos flopped two pair and doubled through MacDonald, who slipped to 15K in chips.

by C.J. Hoyt

It's begun. We've moved past the first-date-find-out-how-she-feels-about-me stage. The players are now looking for a serious relationship with a lot of chips, perhaps even marriage with a shiny bracelet if things go their way. Here's how some of our players are doing:

Table 161

The good news is that our five players are all still alive and none of them are near the felt. Things can change quickly, but Nate "Jimmytogni" Kelley tells me, "This is the slowest table you'll find. No one is playing any big pots."

Nate Kelley

Of course, as he tells me this, England's own Matt Tailby gets into a hand with a guy that, according to Nate, has only played two hands all day.

"He's got a monster," Nate whispers to me about Matt's opponent. The flop was T93 rainbow. Matt leads out at it and gets called. The turn is a J. This time Matt checks and calls a nice-sized bet on the turn. The river is another 3. Matt checks again and his opponent puts a T3000 bet out there.


Matt Tailby

"This is the biggest pot of the day," Nate whispers to me. Matt is clearly wondering if his hand is still good. In the end, he decides he's either winning a bit pot or paying off his opponent. When his opponent lets out a big sigh, I'm pretty sure Matt's hand is going to be good.

AK suited. It was a straight bluff from the tightest player at the table. Matt flips his Hilton Sisters (pocket Q's) and the pot is his. He's in great shape now.

Table 162

Gordon "Blotzilla" Cross has himself up to about 19,000. Unfortunately, Ron "Super Ron" Blount is having much less success and is down to just 3,000.

"The guy in the 10-seat busted because the only player he could take a pot from was me," Ron tells me.

Sumit "Pool_shark_1" Kumar is a little over his starting stack, but it had been ugly. He was knocked all the way down to 5500 before finding pocket Aces. He decided at this point he wanted to risk trying to win a big pot and he just limped. After the flop, he got all his chips in against a flush draw and doubled up.

Gus Echeverri is also around his starting stack. He's been in the middle of two set-over-set confrontations so far, winning one and losing the other.

Table 189

Nadejeda "Jenna Fan" Abelli has hit a bad stretch. Her 16,000 is now down to about 9000. She took a big hit when her two pair ran into a better two pair.

Shawn "cstu82" Stewart has gone the opposite way. He was down to just 4000 when his luck took a turn for the better. He hit a full house and is back up to 16,000.

The king of Table 189, however, is Wade "Wader" Graham. He also won a huge pot when he turned a boat and is up at about 20,000.

Table 146

Travis "Travdawgks" Garrod was in trouble, but he's feeling a lot better now. After finding himself bleeding chips, he managed to flop a straight and is back up to 11,5000.

It's a similar story for Edward "Xerxes757" Ihre, who was getting closer and closer to the felt. When he finally won his first pot in a long time, he got himself back up to 9,500. "I can finally start playing again," he told me.

The most interesting day goes to Brian "Showbizzzz" Gass. He's been in a lot of big pots, but for 10 minutes, he wasn't allowed to play.

"I got an F-bomb penalty. I was just kidding with the guy," he pointed to the guy to his right. "He pulled a four flush on the river and I just said 'You're f-in kidding me.'"

The 10-minutes didn't hurt, however, because Brian's got himself up to 28,000 after busting two players. Maybe the rest of the table is lucky he was gone for a short time.


Brian Gass

by Ali Lightman

**see below**

Emad Tahtouh seems less worried about his short stack he has to play this afternoon, than about the razzing he's going to get from Joe Hachem, when the World Champion finds out about the bluff that has decimated his, earlier, very healthy stack.

"I made a crazy move", he said "Joe is going to kick my arse".

Emad Tahtouh

Emad was in very good shape sitting on just over 20 000 chips.

He was in the cut-off with Jh9h, and limped in. The small blind made a small bet of 200. The big blind folded but the bet was was called by another limper in middle position, and by Emad.

The flop was K 7 3, with 2 clubs.

The original raiser and the limper just checked so Emad bet out 600 thinking he could take the pot there and then.

That got rid of the limper but the original raiser called him. The turn card was a third club, the 10.

It was checked back to Emad who had another pop, betting 1200.

The other guy thinks and thinks, looks back at his hand a couple of times, and reraised to 2400.

"It was a weak raise" said Emad."I knew he always bet his draws and so I was sure he didn't have the flush. "

That's when he made the decision he'll be thinking about for a long time.

"I made it 5k more".

It puts the other guy goes back in the tank. "I had him on AK, KT or AT, with one club. I'm sure he doesn't have it."

The river card is 8h, and Emad moves in, provoking the other guy to comment "I have to call you. If I'm beat I'm going", before flipping over KT to take down a huge pot with two pairs, and cripple Emad.

Emad lost 75% of his stack on that hand, and doesn't think those chips are coming back from the winning player. "Now he has 30k and he's just sitting there counting them over and over and too scared to play. I'm furious!"

He made back 900, betting his Ace high just before the last break and took it pre-flop.

His confidence hasn't been too badly knocked around. " I was short-stacked for three days in the $5 000 Pot Limit Hold'em", which he went on to finish in 7th place. "One double-up and I'm back to average."

PS obviously in the heat of battle things can get a little confused. I've been back through my notes having reported this hand directly from the horse's mouth, but it's clear Emad could not have had a 9 with his J or he would have won the hand..next time I see him I'll ask him.

by Howard Swains

There are some poker players who need no introduction. Others deserve none. Some, however, don't really require any formalities, but can quite happily be introduced time and again, such is their enduring appeal. You'll find Luca Pagano in group three.

Regular followers of the PokerStars blog, particularly those who tune in when the operation decamps across the Atlantic, will have heard plenty about the young Italian's impeccable demeanour, exquisite appearance and ice-cool temperament. They may also have heard a thing or two about his poker-playing exploits.

Luca made two final tables during the first season of the PokerStars European Poker Tour (EPT), and cashed in a third. During season two, he went deep twice more, adding a further couple of paydays. There are also two WSOP-endorsed cheques with Luca's name on them.

Luca Pagano

And today, Luca has taken his place on table 58 in flight A of the World Series, carrying the joint hopes of his nation and PokerStars. As usual, this is all being taken very much in his stride.

Spectators were allowed into the Amazon Room for the first time an hour or so ago and Luca has a seat by the rail. In fact, those rubber-necked railbirds are peering straight over his shoulder, whispering their ill-informed reads and tells to one another, enough to distract any marginally less composed individual. But look up cool in the Italian dictionary and you'll see a photo of Luca. He's sitting comfortably behind a stack similar to the one he started with a few hours ago. I've seen him play one hand. He won it. He'll be here for a few hours yet.

Speaking of 100 per cent hit rates, Katja Thater, another friend of PokerStars from Germany, is sitting pretty with about 18,000. "I played five hands, I won five hands," she understated. "Nothing special."

At the other end of the same table, Clonie Gowan sits in similar silence with about 3,000. Whether the two non-stories are related is not for me to speculate.

If a picture speaks a thousand words, I'm about to offer you the "War and Peace" of photo galleries. Here's a look around the room at some of PokerStars players in the mix today.

Luca Pagano


Gary Jones


Jason "strassa2" Strasser


Nate Kelley


Sigi Stockinger


Ariel Schneller


Brian Gass


Chad Deschene


Chris Lowrie


Mike Edens


Emad Tatouh


Gordon Cross


Harinam Khalsa


Jason Hahn


Jim Morris


Matt Tailby


Robert Matos


Seth Cohen


Irish Lust

by C.J. Hoyt

"I flopped the straight but... ...I can't believe he played J7 suited under the gun... ...I knew he hit the flush on the river, what a donkey..."

When the sounds of chip-shuffling ends, it's replaced by a million and one poker complaints. Few players rush to recount the big hands they won, but they surely remember the ones that went wrong.

They've played for two hours now and not a single PokerStars qualifier I've come across is in desperate shape. In fact, some of them have even started to chip up. When it's your first Main Event, it's easy to sit on your chips until pocket Aces finally come your way, but it's a little hard to go deep in a tournament waiting on one hand.

Nadejda "Jenna Fan" Abelli is doing just fine. She's chipped up to about 16,000 and is having a great time. PokerStars has hundreds of qualifiers, and you can expect the women to be well-represented. Sitting next to her in Seat 2 is Wade "Wader" Graham, who was still at about 10,000 at the break. And in Seat 4, Shawn "cstu82" Stewart is up to about 14,000.

All the action, however, was over at my favorite table, Table 123, and the seven PokerStars players there. Team PokerStars Australia player Emad Tahtouh was the last PokerStars player to join the table, but he hasn't been shy about getting into hands. Ali's already recounted his two big hands here. I can tell you that the big flush he ran into was none other than FPP qualifier Tony "Irishlust" Mucci, who's got himself a nice stack after the first break.

Just logging on? Check out these posts from the day so far...

Silencing the voice of self-doubt (Wil Wheaton)

Itching to play (Craig Cunningham)

Main Event Day 1A Begins (Brad "Otis" Willis)

PokerStars: It's Everywhere (C.J. Hoyt)

Begin the beginning (Howard Swains)

Don't get involved too early (C.J. Hoyt)

Emad Tahtouh Update (Ali Lightman)

Where's Table 67? Oh, yeah! Under the lights. (Craig Cunningham)

Wil Wheaton Pre-Game Interview (Dr. Pauly)

By Dr. Pauly

I had a chance to chat with Wil Wheaton a few minutes before the start of Day 1A in the media room. I frequently play poker with Wil especially in his weekly WWdN tournaments at PokerStars. He's developed into a skilled NL tournament player and has been working on his PLO game. Wil looked a little tired after a restless night and vacillated between calmness and severe anxiety.

Pauly: On a scale of 1 to 10, how nervous are you?

Wil: I bounce around. My baseline is basically a 5. Occasionally I spike up to 11, then I drop back down. I have the same series of emotions and same physiological response right before I play a part in a movie or if I'm ready to go on stage for the first time when we're opening up a show. I know what to do. I've done it before. But I'm always excited. I'm always anxious. And I'm always nervous. I want to do my best. The real challenge for me is to get out of my own way and have fun. When I have fun, everything else comes together.

Pauly: Do you have any last longer bets with any of the other members from Team PokerStars?

Wil: I didn't make any last longers with anyone else. I'm pretty sure I'd be taking the bad end of that. They'd have to give me odds if we did any last longers. Like 16-1 just to break even.

Pauly: Out of everyone on Team PokerStars, who has the best shot of winning the main event?

Wil: Isabelle Mercier wants it the most. It's impossible to deny Greg Raymer's phenomenal, phenomenal ability against large fields. And Joe Hachem has really been on a tear. He's been running hot and playing well. When it takes two bad beats to knock you off a final table, you're doing something right. I would have to go with Isabelle because she wants it so badly.

Pauly: How about Bill Chen?

Wil: Bill Chen is scary smart. He's terrifyingly smart. His ability to understand game theory is unparalleled. Only a couple of people can do that as well like Howard Lederer or Paul Phillips who get game theory as much as Bill does. Not accounting for that weird land mine X-factor that we experience in large field tournaments, I like Bill's chances as well.

Pauly: He's got two bracelets this year. He's been dominating.

Wil: He has been. And he's probably the one guy in the room who is a bigger geek than me. And I always put my money on the geeks.

Pauly: PokerStars has roughly 1,600 players who qualified to the main event. About two players at every starting table is from PokerStars. What are the chances of a regular guy from PokerStars who won a satellite going all the way like Chris Moneymaker or Greg Raymer did?

Wil: Mathematically we're in a very good position to put someone deep into this tournament. Some of the best players in the world are members of Team PokerStars so you can't count them out. From a strict odds point of view, we have a great shot this year.

Pauly: What's the biggest difference in your poker ability and approach at the game from last year compared to this year?

Wil: The thing that is fundamentally different from this year to last year is that I have a strategic plan going into the tournament. Last year I just sat down to play cards. I have a plan for a deep stack tournament. I'm a better player this year and I have much more experience that last year. Instead of trying to psyche myself up and give myself the rather unrealistic goal of making the final table, I'm not going to assign myself arbitrary goals like... "Make it to the end of the day," because I don't think that's any good and might cause you to make poor decisions. I'm definitely playing for the money. And if I make it to the money, I'll play to try to make it deep. It's not like the preliminary events when I was trying to make the final table. I'm definitely playing for the money. I know what my goals are this year and what my strategy is. All I can do is my best.

Pauly: Greg Raymer told me that tournament poker is about making good decisions at any given time. How has your decision making changed over the last year?

Wil: I've become decision-oriented instead of results-oriented. I approach it the same way as I approach auditions. The similarities between auditions and tournament poker are stunning. When I go to an audition I can't think, "I have to get this job." Because then I get nervous and mess up. I have to think that I prepared myself for this. I know who this character is. I put in my time studying. I've logged hours on the set of other things to gain this experience. This is how I'm going to do it. I'm going to go in and give it a good performance, whether I get the role or not. When I played in the $1,000 NL event I felt happy until the point where I got blinded down because I was afraid to make a move. I've added making a move to my game plan after talking to Barry Tannenbaum and Barry Greenstein. I'm excited about that. I was very unhappy about how I played in the $2,000 event. I talked myself into making a bad call that I should not have made. Since I'm focused on making good decisions and playing smart, the results don't matter. If I'm not playing poker then I can come back and write with you guys.

Pauly: But Wil, we'd rather be playing in the main event, then sitting on the sideline. Any closing thoughts?

Wil: I have the biggest one in four counties.


Editor's Note: At 3:45pm, Wil was eliminated from the main event. He built his stack up to 14K early on, then ran into a set when he had top pair. He slipped down to 6K shortly before the break. He busted out when he found Kh-Jh from the big blind and called a small raise. He flopped a pair on a King high flop and his opponent rivered a set with 8-8. Wil will post his recap shortly.

Frenchman Robert "Le dangereux" Cohen is a well-known figure on the European poker circuit. Larger-than-life, great fun and seemingly ubiquitous, the ebullient Parisian can always be found hanging around, laughing loudly and generally having a high ol’ time with his close friend, French poker champion Pascal Perrault.

Robert turned pro just eight years ago after selling up his chain of Paris-based car showrooms. But the 58-year-old is a veteran player – he took up the game as a 12-year-old and was soon playing in dodgy back-room games in cafes all over Paris. His online career took off three years ago and he’s here in Vegas as a PokerStars FPP qualifier.

His biggest win to date was 2nd in the Master Classics of Poker in Amsterdam in 1999, picking up nearly $40,000. He won another event there the following year to take home nearly $30,000.

I have to admit, I'm a massive Robert Cohen fan and will be rooting for him strenuously. He’s open, super-friendly and a tremendous flirt - all qualities that go down very well with this particular blogger. He wasn’t really sure what table he was sitting on when I saw him this morning but I know I’ll find him. It’ll be the table having a high ol’ time.

by Craig Cunningham

After players register, they receive a card that indicates their table and seat assignment. The tables have signage hanging overhead, all tables except for one. Table 67 has scaffolding and lighting above it, and it sits on a raised platform surrounded on two sides by bleachers and all sides by cameramen. Table 67, you see, is the ESPN Feature table.

Table selection is based on a random computer program, so some tables as CJ has written may be filled with PokerStars qualifiers while others may have a mix of grinders, satellite winners, and folks willing to put up their own hard earned $10k. This table wasn't one for the faint of heart. Some of the players at the first ESPN Feature Table: Robert Burns (1s), PokerStars qualifier from Los Angeles; Jenny Kang (2s) with two cashes this year ofalmost $70k; James Olson (3s, shown above), PokerStars qualifier and 91st at the 2005 WSOP Main Event for $77,710, as well as won $53,900 as first prize of a Reno tourney; Michael Chow (7s), with a final table this year in the $2k NLHE as well as cashing last year in the Main Event; Randall Hughes (8s), PokerStars qualifier from South Dakota; Beth Shak (9s) earned her second WSOP cash this year; Dean Hamrick (10s) with his first cash earlier this week.

The 4s sat vacant for the first twenty minutes, and for the players who had lived under a poker rock, they could at least figure out that this person was someone they should respect as they saw the bracelets adorning each wrist. Scotty Nguyen (4s, shown above), 1998 WSOP Main Event champion, holds four bracelets and twenty-eight cashes overall. The first smile hit the faces of these focused players as he took his seat, looked around the table, and said, "Good luck, babies." He then pulled his Ralph Lauren shades tightly to his eyes, and got to work.

Sometimes, poker can seem like a made-for-TV reality show. This afternoon, the ESPN Feature Table played even more like that. 217 of the 218 tables in the room started the day with blinds of $25/50. The exception was this table, incredibly playing $25/25 blinds for the first ninety minutes. Much like the Sports Illustrated reporter who sought out an LPGA official about a rules violation on Michell Wie, I asked a tournament official to check on the blinds as I watched small blinds check and single chips thrown into pots checked by big blinds. Indeed, somehow the first dealer started blinds of $25/25, and it was repeated through several other dealers.

Alternates huddled in the bleachers, waiting for their table to be called. One PokerStars qualifier was sitting in the stands, unusual for an alternate. Joel Wertheimer from Boston had qualified several months ago, then wrote Harrah's to request Day 1A as his start. He's starting a new job as an LSAT tutor and must make his first day of work. Harrah's agreed to put him into Day 1A, but after receiving his seating card, he noticed it said Day 1B (Saturday). "I'm a mild mannered guy, never return soup at a restaurant, but I went ballistic," said Joel. He was told he had three options: play Saturday, play as an alternate today, or don't play. He was called to Table 5 today after waiting over an hour, deciding to play today as he'd originally planned.

After two hours, the ESPN Feature Table went on break. Robert Burns was down to $7.5k in chips, a little more than James Olson and less than the $11k stack of Randall Hughes. "I kept getting big hands cracked," said James. "Jacks twice, but it's OK. The break's coming at a good time." He'll need solid patience at this table, as this is hardly a school of fish sitting around him.

by Ali Lightman

While many of the PokerStars players are trying to avoid getting involved too much early on, Emad Tahtouh, who's already got one final table finish under his belt for Team PokerStars Australia (7th in the $5 000 Pot Limit Hold'Em) has already felt the adrenalin rush in just the first two hours of play.

And that's in just three hands.

The 25 year old from Melbourne found pocket nines and and when the flop came 10 8 4 with two clubs, made it 350 to play. The turn brought the Ad, and both players checked. The river was As, and Emad bet 600. He was called, and when he showed his pocket pair the other guy mucked.

That took him up to 11, 000 but a chunk of that stack disappeared on the next hand.

"I bluffed with nothing and got called" he told me on his break moments ago.

The flop was J 7 4 with with two spades and the turn brought another spade, the 8.

"I check-raised" he said, "the other guy bet 150 and I made it 600".

The board paired when the river came Js, and with a four card flush down Emad bet 1100 and was called instantly.

"The other guy had AK with the Ace of spades."

That move left Emad around 8000 chips, but after sitting quietly for a few hands he decided to call a raise of 300 after finding 67o on the button.

The big blind also called and to Emad's joy, he flopped a low straight when the dealer turned over 8 9 T.

The original raiser checked, and the player on Emad's right made a move, betting 700. Emad raised it up to 1900 total, and it was folded to him.

So he went to his break with a sense of relief and about 13 000 to play with.

So what's his strategy for Day 1 of his first World Series of Poker Main Event?

"I'm just playing it like a series of 4 day tournaments right now, if you start thinking about it as a ten day event you'd just snap."

"The only problem so far is all the table talk, it's really irritating, even one of the dealers is getting in on it. I'm trying to ignore that and to pace myself, and not bluff off any more of my chips!"

[Otis' note: C.J. Hoyt is a career journalist and longtime poker player. Hoyt works in the broadcast news industry when he's not using his luckbox powers to suck out on the people at the tables]

by C.J. Hoyt

That's the word from Eric "saintclarky" Clarke. And it seems to be a theme with the PokerStars qualifiers I've come across. They don't want to get in a big pot early and find themselves losing a lot of chips. It's probably the best way to go. As they've watched other players risk their chips without the best of it, it gives them even more reason to wait for the right spot. Eric is joined at Table 184 by PokerStars qualifiers Chuck "wineguytx" Barnes and Brian "Koop78" Kooperman.

It's PokerStars convention at Tables 161 and 162. Sitting in a row from Seats 3 to Seat 7 at Table 161 are James "Chelsea16" Goodman (a FPP qualifier), Chris "TheDon5156" Lowrie, Matt Tailby (from England), Chad "Nofoldit" Deschene, and Nate "Jimmtogni" Kelley.

Table 162 does them one bettert with six qualifiers. Gordon "Blotzilla" Cross in Seat 1, Ron "Super Ron" Blount in Seat 2, Endre "Loss Vegas" Eikeseth in Seat 3, Jim "Mooknows" Morris in Seat 6, Sumit "Pool_shark_1" Kumar in Seat 7 and Gus Echeverri in Seat 9.

Inevitably, there's going to be a bit of PokerStars cannibalism going on. At 161, the five guys in a row seem to be having a good time. James Goodman told me that at least three of PokerStars guys from his table will be at the final table. He also gave me another tip, "He's (Matt Tailby) is from England, so he doesn't talk much." The laughter from the table was genuine, and in this charged atmosphere, that's a good thing.

C.J. Hoyt

[Otis' note: Howard Swains, a longtime member of Team Blog, is back with us for the WSOP. Howard will be keeping a keen eye on our European qualifiers as the WSOP progesses.]

by Howard Swains

It is Day 1A of the main event of the World Series of Poker. Genesis. The beginning. The start of something that might be big - and might well be even bigger than that.

Unless, of course, this journey began many months ago, maybe on the other side of the planet. For the PokerStars qualifiers, this is perhaps day three already having fought tooth and nail just to get to Vegas, emerging triumphant from some of the largest, fiercest and most committed fields in online poker.

For those who hail from Europe, you can take all that and multiply it by two. Those WSOP qualification comps might start at a convenient 2pm eastern time, but in Copenhagen, Denmark, for instance, that's already 9pm. Booking a place at the World Series is a nocturnal pursuit, contested sometime between the witching hour and breakfast television. Only then can we brush our chipped and yellow teeth, emerge blinking into the cold European air and jump in our red buses to head to the factories where we all work baking muffins. Or something like that.

Then, of course, there's a flight to Nevada. If you take a direct route from London, you're looking at nine and a half hours. If you're starting somewhere even further east, you're possibly going via New York, Minneapolis or Houston, fuelled only by a bottomless bag of pretsels and She's All That, starring Freddie Prinze Jr. Poker players don't ordinarily do much reading, but on my plane there were more copies of Harrington on Hold 'Em being thumbed than there are in the Amazon.com warehouse.

And then you get here. The time is ... well, what exactly is the time? Who cares. It's round about 2pm for the next twelve days - and there's nothing you can do about it.

But poker, well, that's the same. That's the game that might have been invented in the United States, but received something of a boost in the United Kingdom when some bright spark came up with the idea of putting cameras beneath the table and looking and the players'cards. It may surprise you to learn that televised poker originated in Britain, but ask anyone in the know to talk about Late Night Poker and the word "groundbreaking" is sure to be uttered. ESPN has a lot to be grateful for.

And you know what else? Us Europeans can play this game. The top-placed PokerStars qualifier in last year's event was Daniel Bergsdorf, from Sweden. He finished seventh for $1.3 million, which is a fair amount, no matter what the exchange rate.

This year there are plenty more looking to fill Daniel's shoes - and we'll introduce them over the coming days.

by CJ Hoyt

You can't walk five feet on the tournament floor without running into a PokerStars qualifier. They say there's about 1600 of them, but if that's true, then it seems like they're all playing today.

At Table 158, it's Phillip "2a472" Bass and Ray "Chips7911" Johnston. At Table 147, it's Mike Edens and Swedish qualifier Niclas "Nicklas70" Gustafsson. At Table 135, it's Ariel Schneller and Ted "$urebet" Spencer. Ariel already took down a monster 10K pot when his QT outflopped AQ. And Ted is more than free-rolling at this point. Not only did it cost him just $160 to win his seat in a Double Shootout, but when he arrived, he won another seat and sold it for $10,300.

Table 146 is a bit crowded, with Travis "travdawgks" Garrod, Robert Natividad, Edward "Xerxes757" Ihre and Brian "Showbizzzz" Gass. But the table to watch is definitely 123.

In Seat 1, it's Robert "Pops 528" Matos. In Seat 2, it's Harinam "Gyr1" Khalsa. In Seat 3, it's Matt Vogel. Sitting down in seat 4 is Emad Tahtouh. In Seat 6, it's Tony "Irishlust" Mucci. In Seat 7, it's Jason "Goonboy" Hahn. And in Seat 9, it's Seth Cohen.

Tony and Jason don't have a whole lot riding on this, except for the $10 million+ top prize. After all, they didn't spend a dime to get here. They used their Frequent Player Points to satellite their way into the Main Event. Now THAT'S a good deal.

by Brad "Otis" Willis

They say Las Vegas is a dry heat. It's a desert where little more than scrub brush grows and old western tumble weeds bounce along on the highway to Barstow. There was a time I believed that. Today, the Rio feels like Mississippi. The Amazon Ballroom is a swamp. Perspiration fuels the humidity. Body heat and anxiety attack the thermometer. If bugs could live in this environment, they would rise up like swarms from a delta puddle.

There is a hum in the air, like a two thousand locusts in a mason jar. It's a little creepy. However, as dire and sick as this all sounds, it's actually one of the most exciting moments in all of sports. The longest continually-running sporting event is about to kick off. The biggest ever prize pool in all of gaming is on the verge of being won. The 2006 World Series of Poker is underway.

The Amazon Ballroom


The line to get into the WSOP tournament room

Today we began with a few thoughts from members of Team Blog. Wil Wheaton, who is playing for Team PokerStars' today told us about his attempts to shut up the voices of self doubt that sometimes creep up in his head.

He writes:

"There are going to be a lot of tough players out there tomorrow," I thought, "and they're all going to be trying to beat me. I certainly don't need to give them any help by beating myself..." (Read Wheaton's preview)

Team Blog's Dr Pauly interviews Team PokerStars' (and Team Blogs') Wil Wheaton

In other news, Craig Cunningham has been sweating the start of the tournament with the folks who can barely wait to play. He tells us:

For those qualifying through PokerStars, these last couple hours were times to rest, relax, and chat with new friends. Michael Edens, David Daniel, and Hector Garza hail from Iowa, Tennessee, and Texas respectively. The only time they'd huddle together would be learning the game at PokerStars or sitting on a bench waiting for their dreams to become reality. (Read Craig Cunningham's report)

PokerStars fan sporting a new Moneymaker Million shirt


Greg "GSpin" Spinder, the first PokerStars player to make the 2006 WSOP Main Event Blog

Team Blog has its members fanned out all over the room. I'm already hearing reports of tables dominated by PokerStars players. After a hectic start to what is sure to be a hectic two weeks, every player is sitting behind $10,000 in chips. Somehow they will have to navigate through more than 8,500 other players in the run to become the 2006 WSOP champion.


Every play starts like this

PokerStars will have more than 1,600 players in the WSOP main event. Here's a partial list of who is playing today.

PokerStars Day 1A Starters

1001001
22tlb
2A472
4THn26
59TBird
7_becks
aaaaseanaaaa
AaronC
acemaxer
afiopeneyes2
ALH3
allin3421
amichaiKK
arbianight
ARIES1966
bakdoorbambi
batman56
BBdoctorBB
beachrat1946
billoyar
Blessed
BonesMaster
borohead
BOROSS
cardmanfrank
CarpeZiem
cfoster
cheers98
chip7911
ClintH
cmadrid20
Colby J
cole0707
Constant
CrownMike
CrRoyalMan
Crumcake777
Cstu82
cwmack
danube
darrenpb
Dazanack
Deadmnhnd
Dean101
derek7
Deslok
destructor
deznuts
DFman777
dgevil
doinmax
dolphin
doogieass
Dr. B33
durron597
Easy11
El Abogado
EludeU
ely_cash41
ender555
eskimopie
fish569
foshio
foucault82
four40
foxfox1
Fryday
Gambaholic
Gandolf_iam
gboro780
GeeJoon
glennbrooke
glnh
Goldfishlove
goldfishman
Gouge
greektome2
Grizzly Joe
GUSSY01
gymbear1
happymann
harbour
Hassan
hermannelson
herra poro
hughesrandy
idletreasure
indiangiverr
indio1
J9SUITED
jackspleen
jasiac123
JasonKoD
jaxtraw
jayjayme
Jenna Fan
jeremieparis
jimbo322
JimmyTogni
john1226
JoseyJust
jusgivithere
K1Vegas
KC_UK
KFKYF
king rei
kodie
konchi
Koop78
lasfinest
laxgod26
leonne
LimeGelatin
Lindy89
lirarerik
LTP124
LuckyTC
luckyz
M@DDOGCHUY
march11x
Maseratti
mattman420
MAVSDADDY
mcsatan1
meatcity
milehightex
modfan
mogwaa
Monomaker
Mr.Wrong
Mr5Million
mrgolfstud
mrmrb
mtmint
mugsy33
Murray
MyRabbiFoo
No Fold It
nodonkhere
Nole91
now_what?
NYC99
ODYSSES
PapaSmurf84
PatBateman1
pboy
pege
petian
PhantomRay
philhell33
PickyTooth
PLAYAMAN
POPS528
Randers
razzinu
redeye3030
RiverRat1
ron2beat
SaintClarky
SakeRed
sameer408
samh133
sdiddysdiddy
sdplayer
seniorhank
showin8
sidbird
SienSteve
sirslop007
sloberknockr
smarx
smittydog3
smooch1
soapsuds
soft touch
southern58
SpadeGrade
SpaulSmails
spiderfrank
sprstoner
Sr Mike
Stack Monkey
StanDman
Starsky25
stas77
Steel Trader
stevesbets
stevo6745
stikit2u
SuperDuty
supergudur
suresh0t
-tablesa-
tatta
TBohms
technologic
TexDuke
The Shrike
thedon5156
theHFR
TheMuppet1
ThePokrMnky
TIJO
tkal007
Tony4Finger$
TOPDOG0927
TOPTEN
tourneykid
travdawgks
tri19stan
Two Ones
VegasSami
wader
WhenPigsFly
wineguytx
woolly
Zcounselor

by Craig Cunningham

Where does the World Series of Poker start for the PokerStars family of players? After your seat is won, you've flown into Vegas, you've schlepped your bags through the taxi stand at McCarron, you check into Treasure Island, PokerStars Central for most players who earned their seat through qualifiers. Scott and Stacey McQuain from Portland, Oregon (above) made hasty plans to be here, leaving two young children behind after Scott won his seat here two weeks ago. He plays on Day1B, Saturday, and he's tried to stay sharp since arriving. He three-way chopped a tourney in the Treasure Island Poker Room last last night, surely a good omen for his first shot in the World Series.

Phil Hellmuth may show up late for WSOP events, but PokerStars morning folks were at the Rio early. Ron Blount from Houston was like most of the field here. He flew in Thursday, checked into Treasure Island, made it to the Rio by 1:00PM to register, then played a satellite at Paris. His gameplan today: figure out his opponents at the table, then do the opposite. He has a novel tourney strategy: fold those big cards. "I used to really love big pairs, but more and more I'll just get rid of them if I run into problems. I figure I'll just move on and keep playing in the tournament rather than busting out." After hopping out of the cab we shared, Ron headed to Buzio's for the breakfast spread provided by PokerStars. Well rested, hot food in the belly, two hours of casual conversation before taking his seat at Table 162.

Derek Schwerzler and his wife are expecting their first child in November. This executive in an aerospace distributor has been here a few days, entering satellites and small tournaments. He's been playing here for many years, hooked since turning his first $50 he brought to Las Vegas into several thousand after winning a small tournament the first time he sat down. His wife wanted to come out, but he discouraged her from flying out until next week. "If she wasn't expecting and could come out with friends, it might be worth it to enjoy herself out here. But all I'll be doing is playing poker for fourteen hours each day then sleeping. I told her, 'Let's wait until next Friday when we're in the money; then I'll need my entourage.'" A couple of Atlanta friends will be joining him through the weekend to play in the Main Event.

For those qualifying through PokerStars, these last couple hours were times to rest, relax, and chat with new friends. Michael Edens, David Daniel, and Hector Garza hail from Iowa, Tennessee, and Texas respectively. The only time they'd huddle together would be learning the game at PokerStars or sitting on a bench waiting for their dreams to become reality.

For players waiting to enter the Main Event, here are the facts: 8,431 entered as of 9:00AM Pacific, with alternates to the Main Event for the first time in history. There are now satellites to become alternates as well. For those not familiar with the term alternate, it's a simple yet fairly mind-boggling concept: an alternate takes the seat of a player who has busted out of a tournament. Juan Carlos Mortensen was the first alterate seated in Event #2 this year, and he ran his 1500 chips into the chip lead for most of the tourney and a final table finish. For those of us who play poker, however, it is hard to fathom a desire so great that one would plunk down $10k to wait for a seat at the Main Event, knowing that once you take the seat you will be below average in chips. With the blinds low, it won't be the disadvantage that it might be at lower buy-in tourney. But who wants any disadvantage when they take their seat? For PokerStars qualifiers, they won't need to worry about that. The Amazon Poker Room has been in lock down mode since 9:00, only players waiting to buy-in allowed to enter. For everyone else, all they can do is wait to get it started.

I sat down here in my hotel room about four hours ago, and I worked on a story about how anxious and nervous I was about playing tomorrow. I had all these parallels drawn up between the acting world and the tournament poker world, and I talked about how I haven't felt this worked up about anything since I transitioned from full-time actor to full-time writer five years ago.

I was working on this description of the sunset -- the first one I've seen in two weeks, because I wasn't in the Rio when it sank beneath the mountains West of here -- when my phone rang. It turns out that I forgot I was supposed to go to the PokerStars booth in the Poker Expo at the Rio, so I closed up my Powerbook and drove back over there to appear in the booth.

When I got there, I wasn't surprised that nobody was breathlessly waiting in line to see me, because -- let's be honest here -- on Team PokerStars, I'm a bench player at best. Well, unless we're writing stuff; in that case, I'm probably a number two starting pitcher. I should make one thing absolutely clear: I am entirely okay with this.

So I signed one T-shirt for a woman who is here for some dentist's convention, and when I thanked her for stopping by, she looked at my signature and said, "Now, who are you?"

Ah, nothing like a nice kick in the junk after I drove all the way back to the Rio -- and stopped writing to do it -- from this nice lady.

I walked around the booth for a minute, feeling kind of like an ass, when I noticed that there were two seats open at the Battleship counter (Battleship was created at the PCA, and it's where we play heads-up matches on laptops that face each other. It's very, very fun.)

Anyone can come play a PokerStars.net battleship match, for free, and the winner gets to pull from the Magic Deck of Exciting Prizes. Holy crap, are they exciting: iPod Nanos, huge gift cards to the iTunes Music Store and various retail places that I probably shouldn't mention by name, copies of Ace on the River, and an opportunity to play me heads-up for a shot at the seat in the next PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.

Shortly before I asked about an open seat, a guy won a chance to play a match against me. Since I was already in the booth, we planned to face off about an hour later. While I waited for him to return, I played several matches against some of my PokerStars family, going 2-0, 0-1, 1-1, and 1-0 before the winner came back.

It was incredibly fun to play against my friends, because the only thing on the line was bragging rights, so I just relaxed and played my best game of heads-up poker, ending up a total of 4-2, which wasn't bad at all . . . except I lost a very big prop bet which involves me answering to "Wesley Crusher" for a day . . . more on that later, if at all.

The guy I was playing came back, and introduced himself. I'll call him Dan S., though PokerStars players may know him as "Restart." He played very well, and I got very lucky to put the hurt on him. I pushed him off a made hand by dropping The Hammer, though, and he came back from 200 chips with a vengeance to crush me, and win a trip to the Bahamas for the 2007 PCA!

"Why are you in town?" I said.

"I won my seat in the Main Event on PokerStars," he told me.

"Awesome," I said. His story is great, and hope we can profile him for the blog before too long.

I played one more match, where I got this lady down to 800, lost a race with 88 vs. AK, and ended up running a pair of jacks into a pair of kings for the loss. Oops. 4-4, so I have a shot at the wild card, at least.

The expo was officially closed, so I said my goodbyes and prepared to go back to my hotel, where I could eat dinner, finish my post for the blog, and get a good night's sleep before playing the Main Event tomorrow . . . but I got a text message from my friend Ryan that Otis was at the final two tables of the media event. There was no way I was going to miss that, so I turned around, and walked back into the Amazon room where I sweated him from the rail.

Otis played great poker, making tough-but-correct decisions that worked once, didn't work twice, but eventually got him to the final table, where he made a move against a guy who wasn't smart enough to fold and busted him.

Otis was on severe tilt, and no amount of Keno crayons could cheer him up, so I bid him and the rest of my friends goodnight, drove back to my hotel, and ordered dinner. I opened up my Powerbook, and nothing happened.

Uh-oh.

I closed it, opened it again, and waited a second. The screen flickered, came back to life, and everything seemed to be okay again, until it went black and shut down while I was answering an e-mail. I tried several times to get it to come back on, and after a few panic-stricken minutes, it finally did. (Oh, incidentally, my digital camera broke while I was at the Rio, too. This is the last picture I took with it before it crashed. I've taken some bad beats tonight with electronics, to be sure.)

When it came back up, I noticed that the post I was writing was gone. I also noticed that my anxiety was gone, as well, because I had a ton of fun playing on PokerStars.net at the Rio, and I had a ton of fun watching my friend make a final table. "There are going to be a lot of tough players out there tomorrow," I thought, "and they're all going to be trying to beat me. I certainly don't need to give them any help by beating myself. This is a huge opportunity that a lot of people would do just about anything to have, so I should just do my best, and have fun. Remember when I told Greg to have fun? Yeah, I should just do that."

There are countless parallels between acting and poker tournaments, and there are a lot of feelings that come with them both that I'm not crazy about, but there's also this thing that I've had to learn to do my best in auditions: I prepare as much as I can, and have to just let everything else go. All that stuff I have to prove to myself and other people? Just let it go and do the best I can do, without regard to results. The enormous pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Sure, I'd like to get it, but it's a long journey to get there, and I'd hate to waste the walk because I'm overly focused on the destination.

As a writer, I'm always looking for the story; I'm also always looking for symbolism and meaning where it may not always be obvious to anyone else. When I got back here and saw that 800 words of anxiety and self doubt were all gone, I found my story, and I found my "A" game, too.

I'll get to try it out in about 12 hours.

The bloodshoot insanity that precedes history is as difficult to predict as the history itself. There is no way to propery prepare for the unknown. Not to get too big-picture on you, but the only way to accept anything in the next two weeks is to open yourself to everything. Hell, somebody said a monkey is playing in the main event. My response: Only one?

Today is a day of such massive organizational cluster-futzing that no one can be sure if we are playing poker tomorrow or electing a world leader. I think we're actually going to be doing both.

If you've not been hitting refresh for the past 12 hours, you've missed a lot and I encourage you to read some of the great work already coming from Team Blog (see below). Also, on this final day of action before the main event, we are still watching Jason "strassa2" Strasser at the final table of the last $1,500 NL Hold'em event. With, seven players remaining, Strasser has come from the bottom of the pack and is currently fourth in chips. (UPDATE: Strasser ended up placing in seventh. Well done, sir).

What's more, the WSOP media event will be played out tonight. Several of the members of Team Blog will be getting in their last bit of action before they work like dogs for two weeks. Last year, Team Blog's Dr. Pauly took sixth in the event and donated his winnings to the Charlie Tuttle Foundation. I like my team against the field. Not to declare anyone a monkey among the media field, but in a news conference ten minutes ago, one media member had the audacity to refer to Joe Hachem as an amateur (perhaps ignoring a WSOP main event win, two 2006 WSOP final tables, and one WSOP Circuit final table in the past 380 days, not to mention the fact Hachem has been playing in cash games in which the average buy-in equates to said media member's annual salary).

With all of that out of the way, here's some light reading from the past 18 hours:

The Calm before the Storm (Dr Pauly)
Hot parties (Mad Harper)
Strassa2 makes final table (Otis)
Fossilman finished fifth in 2-7 (Wil Wheaton)
An Australian Lady in Las Vegas (Ali Lightman)
The Life of a Journeyman Pro (Max Shapiro)

by Dr. Pauly

This is the second summer that I've spent at the Rio Casino in Las Vegas covering the World Series of Poker and lurking the hallways of the convention center doing my best to avoid hearing another bad beat story.

During the main event, I'll be contributing to the PokerStars Blog with updates, commentary, and other random tidbits. I'm flattered that PokerStars asked me to join. I'm also excited to help cover Team Poker Stars, which includes my friend Wil Wheaton and some of my favorite players such as Barry Greenstein, Tom McEvoy, Isabelle Mercier, John Duthie, Greg Raymer, Chris Moneymaker, and Joe Hachem. I'm also eager to meet the newest members of Team PokerStars such as Bill Chen, Vanessa Rousso, Victor Ramdin, and Humberto Brenes.

Sure I'd rather be playing poker everyday instead of standing around like a dork behind the ropes with an out-of-focus camera and ink stains on my shirt. I'm usually scribbling down notes from a pen and pad that I stole from the last casino I stayed in and those notes and thoughts get formulated into words and blog entries like this one.

There's nothing comparable to the WSOP in the world. And in my estimation, the championship main event is greater than the Super Bowl, the Kentucky Derby, the Daytona 500, the Oscars, Wimbledon, and British Open... combined. There's no other event in sports where anyone can enter. If you are over 21 years old and have $10,000, you have a seat waiting for you at the Rio.

As of today, more than 7,600 players have entered with more than 1,600 of those players in some form or another qualifying via PokerStars. To put that number in perspective, when Chris Moneymaker won his seat in 2003, he beat out a field of 839 players. For a second year in a row, more than 1,100 players from PokerStars will be gunning for the World Championship.

The 2006 WSOP has already been one of the most memorable series in recent years. Joe Hachem made two final tables and was eliminated from both by bad beats from Dutch Boyd and John Gale, both of whom went on to win bracelets. Bill Chen made history when he picked up two bracelets in the $2,500 Short-handed NL event and the $3,000 Limit event.

Over the next two weeks, players from all over the world and all walks of life will be trying their best shot at fame, glory, and $10 million. Where else will you find lawyers from Long Island, contractors from Chicago, grad students from Ann Arbor, and grandmothers from Houston all trying to bust the world champion Joe Hachem?

The sharks are beginning to salivate over the schools of dead money. Time will tell if the sharks will get eaten themselves or if the next world champion will be one of your buddies that you play with on PokerStars. They're all trying to avoid being a casualty in the existentialist meat grinder called the first day of the WSOP.

by Mad Harper

As I accidentally arrived in Vegas a day early, I haven't started official blogging for PokerStars yet but it's the nature of blogging that all must be reported, so here's a report on how I spent yesterday.

The truth is I spent yesterday at parties - and I recommend this to everyone as an excellent way of getting through the tedious lull before the Big One. Both these parties were HOT, but the first one was literally hot. World Champion Joe Hachem - from Melbourne - and Antonio Esfandiari the Magician hosted a fantastic BBQ which was several leagues away from the city centre and on a street unknown to any cab driver in Vegas. (There are more than 3,000 cab drivers here so that gives you an idea of how very unknown this street was).

Giiven that Joe Hachem is now a multi-millionaire, I knew this definitely wouldn't be one of those typical throw-a-prawn-on-the-barbie and grab-a-tinny things that Aussies are famous for. Er, wrong. Leopards don't change their spots and Australians don't change the way they host barbies - even if they are super-rich and one of the best poker players in the world. Apart from some very Vegas-style bartending (no drink was served without a lot of impressive bottle-juggling beforehand) and the fact that several of the guests were millionaires, or film stars, or both, Joe and Antoniono's BBQ was just like any other brilliantly-relaxed Australian-style prawn/tinny function. As nearly everyone there was a poker player, there was - of course - a poker tournament. It was a free -to -enter, triple shoot-out played on electronic gaming tables supplied by PokerTek. These were a cross between live play and online and I was thinking of getting a table myself until the PokerTek rep said that a) they weren't for sale and b) even if they were, they would cost around $60,000. PokerTek were generously giving away a seat in the main event to the winner so I entered just for the hell of it (with vague plans to magnaminously donate my seat to charity). As it happens, I was saved from selflessness when my pocket 3s were busted by Antonio's brother Paul. However I did outlast Isabelle "No Mercy" Mercier by a couple of minutes.

Back to the barbie outside where it was so hot that Antonio had set up an air conditioning machine to spew a fine mist of iced water on the guests. Unfortunately, it was spewing so much fine mist that after a couple of hours, it had turned part of the lawn into a Deliverance-style swamp. When it got dark, some of the smaller guests sank without trace. At least I think that's where they went, but perhaps they disappeared during Antonio's magic show earlier. The Best Dressed Guest Award went, as usual, to Holland's Marcel Luske - an island of pin-stripe-suited elegance amongst the Hawaiin shirts and board shorts. French singer Patrick Bruel and Joe Hachem came joint 2nd.

After several hours of waiting for people to strip and swim in the pool (they didn't), my colleagues and I left - or rather we tried to leave but of course this street was unknown to any of Vegas' 3000 cab drivers so it was quite a long wait. A very grungy but completely gorgeous guy who looked like he'd spent the afternoon crossing the desert on a Harley was waiting with us. Could he share our cab, he asked. Absolutely, we said (all girls). Unfortunately two cabs turned up and he went in the other one.

It was Woody Harrelson.

It was time for Party No. 2 - one of the many high-dollar treats on the menu in advance of the main event. At the door, we were saved from actually having to do anything as vulgar as stand in line by Phil Ivey who hailed my colleague Courtney Yameron (Courtney looks after all the Team PokerStars players - brilliantly) and fast-tracked us through the bouncers. The highlight of the evening for me was when I declared my undying love to Mike Matusow and he returned it (while looking over my shoulder to see if there was someone younger/sexier he could pull). Actually what I said to him was: "Mike, I worship the ground you walk on. You are an animal. You are Neanderthal. Totally unreconstructed. I loved it when you said women can't play poker." He seemed pleased.

Talking of animals, a chimp has allegedly been entered into the main event. It knows how to fold, check and raise but apparently gets bored after a couple of hands and starts throwing its chips around and demanding bananas.

I am not kidding.

The dinner break was over and Jason Strasser had not seen me all day. Oh, I'd been watching, like poker's version of a nosy neighbor. Every little while, I'd peer through the throngs on the rail and confirm what I already knew: Jason Strasser had one big ol' stack.

For the past four weeks, I hovered more like an overprotective parent. I'd monitor Strasser's ever-changing chip-stack and report on it like it was the Dow Industrial. And, despite Strasser's spooky ability to go deep, things never turned out like I hoped they might.

It's been about a year and a half since I met Strasser in a hotel conference room in Vienna, Austria. The then 20-year-old Duke University student was playing in the European Poker Tour event in the Concord Casino. Though a seemingly typical kid, Strasser struck me as oddly smart. Though he can be brash at times, he's always friendly. In the dark corners of Vienna's industrial district, where the casino was smoky and the whorehouse next door echoed through the card room, Strasser was a bright American light in an otherwise very odd place.

That week, Strasser didn't final-table the event, though one of his Duke buddies did. Strasser and I would meet again a couple of times before he finally turned 21 and was old enough to play in the U.S.

Fast forward to this year's WSOP. Strasser, a frequent PokerStars player, has been proudly wearing his PokerStars shirt every day. He's played in tons of events and threatened to make a final table a few times. And somehow, I always messed it up.

Yeah, I'm a jinx. I have singlehandedly been responsible for the premature elimination of countless players who were sniffing at a major win in a major tournament. Today, I made a vow to make it the Poker Fates' fault and not mine if Strasser were to bust before the end of the day.

And so it came time for the end of the dinner break tonight. I was actually peeking in on Greg Raymer and accidentally ran into Strasser.

"I'm not here," I said.

Strasser laughed. He said his parents had already read about the Otis Jinx. He said they thought it was funny. As a parent, I bet that's not the case. In fact, if Mama Strasser were here, I bet she would beat me away from her son with the nearest blunt object.

"I'm not really superstitious," Strasser said, and then, "Did you see that last hand? The nine on the river?"

I had. It had been a lucky card for Strasser just before the dinner break. But, to be fair, Strasser hadn't had to rely on luck very much. He'd been playing good poker. Not that I was watching or anything.

Ultimately, it came down to three tables and I decided not to press my luck. I stayed far away from the kid.

It paid off. By 1am, Strasser was at the final table. By 1:30am, Strasser had made the first WSOP final table of his career.

Sure, it took Strasser nearly five weeks. Sure, it took me hiding in the shadows. Oh, yeah...and it took Strasser playing his ass off. But he's there. He will return at 2pm on Thursday to see if he can turn his short stack into a bracelet.

Seat 1-James Gorham $717,000
Seat 2-George Christian $262,000
Seat 3-Age Spets $316,000
Seat 4-Nick Ronyecz $789,000
Seat 5-Mohamad Ilyas $252,000
Seat 6- Osman Kibar $796,000
Seat 7-Jason "strassa2" Strasser $254,000
Seat 8-Miff Fagerlie $367,000
Seat 9-Peter Dalhuijsen $477,000

by Wil Wheaton

Dammit.

A few minutes after the dinner break, I walked into the Amazon room and saw that the final table had resumed. Men The Master ran up to the rail to celebrate winning a hand with some people as I walked in, and it cracked me up that he was having such a good time, and acting like me and my friends do in a tourney with one tenth the buy-in.

I made my way down along Main Street until I found a spot where I could get close enough to the rail to go under the rope, when a voice called out, "Cowboy Wil! Cowboy Wil!"

I turned around, and saw John Vorhaus in one of the 2-5 no-limit games. We talked for a minute or so, and when he sat down to play his blind, I looked back to check on Greg's table.

Okay, a small problem: Greg wasn't there.

"Oh shit," I thought, "Greg busted out."

"I have to go," I said, and I pushed my way past some tourists and beyond the rail. I walked past several empty tables, and an empty seat where Greg had sat confirmed my fears: he was eliminated in fifth place. Evelyn Ng sat in a chair at an empty table as she sweated her friend David Williams.

"How did Greg go out?" I said.

"David just busted him," she said.

"Do you know how the hand went?" I said.

"No, I missed it."

Aside: I checked on Pokerwire when I got back into the media room (where I've moved to do all my writing today; it's just too crazy and crowded in the halls) and saw that Greg once again got his money in ahead, and was outdrawn.

I pointed at David's massive stack of chips. "Not too bad for someone who says he's never played the game before today, huh?"

Evelyn smiled. "Nope."

Daniel Alaei showed a 7-5-4-3-2 for the absolute mortal nuts on the next hand while Evelyn and I talked. It's not the biggest deal in the world, but it was cool to see that hand, on the felt, just a few feet in front of me.

"Otis and I were really hoping for Greg vs. David 2: Electric Boogaloo," I said.

She laughed this time, and said, "Hey, did you bring Darwin with you?"

"Of course," I said, "and he's on top of his game this year."

Men The Master went all-in against Daniel Alaei. Daniel showed a 7-6-5-3-2 this time, and Men mucked, picked up the deck laughing, and started looking through the cards like the game was rigged or something. It was really, really funny. Men shook hands with all the players at the table as his fans cheered him on from the rail.

"When do you play the main event?" I said.

"Saturday," she said. "You?"

"Friday. Saturday is my birthday, and I'd rather hang out with my wife than play poker on my birthday."

She looked at me like it was completely insane to suggest that I'd rather do anything than play poker. "Hey, baby, I'm a lover, not a poker player."

"Anyway," I said, "I have to go write this up, now, so I'll see you around."

"Good luck on Friday," she said, "and happy birthday!"

"Thanks," I said.

As I made my way out of the tournament room, I saw that Greg was waiting at the cashier to collect his ninety-three thousand dollars for fifth place. I thought about walking over to congratulate him on his finish, but came into the media room to write, instead. Greg has been so gracious and so generous with me, I felt like it was time to just walk away and give him some space.

Aside: Men Nguyen outlasted Greg by about four minutes, and picked up an additional thirty-thousand dollars. Back when I was a big deal actor a million years ago, I'd have to work ten weeks on a movie to make less than that. Crazy.

by Wil Wheaton

The final table of this event is a real Murder's Row, and just before he got there, Greg Raymer took some brutal damage to his stack.

"Allen Cunningham just decimated me when we were down to two tables," he said to me a few minutes ago, moments after Layne Flack was eliminataed by Phillipe Rouas on the bubble. "We were in six hands together, and I was ahead three times, behind three times, and he outdrew me each time."

Greg is always very even keeled, and speaks to me matter-of-factly, regardless of what's happening in the game, and in the two years I've known him, today was the first time I could sense any frustration from him near a poker table.

A floorman came over, and told the players that they were moving them to a different table, to put some empty tables between them and a mass of players that would soon be moving into their vicinity.

While chip runners collected and racked the player's chips, Men "The Master" Nguyen talked with a friend at the rail about a huge call that Phillipe made with a ten nine to take a massive pot, and David Williams talked on his cell phone with a smile on his face -- pretty easy to do with all the chips he had stacked up in front of him.

"Is position as important in this game as it is in hold'em?" I said.

"Oh, it's more important. Knowing how many cards your opponent is going to draw is a huge advantage," Greg said.

The break was nearing an end, and I felt like I was dangerously close to imposing on Greg, so I put my notebook into my pocket, and said, "Good luck, man."

"Thank you," he said.

"Have fun," I said. It's such a stupid thing to say to a professional player, who has just been crushed by bad luck, and is tantalizingly close to picking winning another World Series Bracelet, but it is also something I tell my friends when they're playing, and I said it automatically. "Er, I mean, have fun if you can," I said, and walked out of the tournament area before I messed up his mojo.

As I wrote this, Greg picked up some chips with an all-in move from the big blind against Daniel Alae who open-raised and folded to the push. David Williams just eliminated Allen Cunningham and Eliyahu Levy on one incredibly sick hand, and now there are just five players left. Greg has 90,000 as they go to their dinner break, and his work is cut out for him, but I'm cheering him on as hard as I can.

by Alison Lightman

Everything I knew about Las Vegas came from CSI, or beery war stories being swapped by Aussies propping up a bar back home in Sydney or Melbourne. Neither came close to preparing me for the reality.

After a week, I'm over the jetlag and brain-fag, and only half-expecting Grissom and Willows to leap from every black SUV I see, but my mind is almost refusing to comprehend all I have encountered. And so far that includes only the Rio Casino, a couple of wild nightclubs, and the inside of my hotel.

Being part of the Australian tournament poker scene the past couple of years has been like running away with the circus, so I've puzzled over how I am possibly going to adequately describe the WSOP Main Event and Las Vegas for you. To prepare, I am marshalling every hyperbole I know and putting them on steroids.

Try the heat, for instance, the first thing that hit me. It is searing, even to someone raised in Perth. Over 100 degrees most days and dry, under a sun that bleaches out the landscape and after only ten minutes squinting outside, makes my vision temporarily black and white. All the technicolour neon at night becomes so much more delicious to the senses.

I've tossed my girly "won't leave white marks" deodorant in favour of my husband Sarne's big butch American can of active sports protection, which won't leave me blushing. Incidentally, it packs vastly more psi wallop than what they make for us women. The first time I blasted myself halfway across the bathroom floor (tip: don't use while standing on wet tiles.)

It did seem like overkill for an indoor blogging job which at first, frankly, seemed to involve a lot of sitting down talking and typing, and a little gentle strolling through the air-conditioned halls of the Convention Centre, spiced with the occasional mad dash between tournament floor and press room, as I followed Emad Tahtouh's progress in the $5 000 Pot Limit Hold'em. (He came 7th).

I even managed to pop outside to, um, admire the view a couple of times. The nearest point for view-admiring (without setting off a smoke alarm) is a back exit between the Poker Kitchen and the port-a-loos. Also an excellent vantage point for admiring the beer promotional girls on their breaks. They've exposed to me yet another adjective shortage, along with plenty of pierced midriff and eye-boggling decolletage. I will leave that story to the boys.

As someone who spent 20 years as a broadcast reporter, it's been huge fun without huge pressure, so far. But I'm about to lose my WSOP Main Event virginity. I can feel the excitement rising in my seasoned blogging colleagues, who are saying worrying things like "endurance" and "marathon" about the days ahead.

Tonight might be my last chance to play for a little while and, in the local spirit of never doing anything by halves, I am off to a party being held by the lovely Joe Hachem and Antonio Esfandiari, at Antonio's Las Vegas home. But I'm sorry to say, I probably won't be able to tell any stories about that.

by Max Shapiro

A key moment in the 2006 World Series of Poker came early Wednesday morning when Phil Hellmuth defeated Juha Helppi in a $1,000 no-limit event to take home his 10th bracelet, tying Doyle Brunson and Johnny Chan. (Linking them all together, he’ll now have enough for a headband.) Afterwoods, I chatted with him briefly, and he was up in the clouds.

Hellmuth, of course, is one of the reigning super-superstars of poker. His life, with all his deals, endorsements, and affiliations, is one of wealth and celebrity, of signing autographs and having his picture taken with fans. But what's it like for professional poker players in the trenches, those who grind away year after year, frequently cashing in and winning their share of lesser tournaments, but almost totally unknown to the public at large?

A classic example would be Dan Heimiller, an earnest, likeable journeyman pro who has had well over 100 cashes in the past dozen years. He won a World Series bracelet in 2002 for winning a 1/2 stud and 1/2 hold’em event, which resulted in his biggest payday of $108,000. He also has a second in 7-stud at the WSOP, and six World Series cashes in 1997 and 1998. "For a while," he says, "I'm 100 percent sure I had more WSOP cash-ins than Daniel Negreanu."

And this morning, while Hellmuth was coming from behind to victory, Heimeller was desperately trying to win his second WSOP bracelet, in 7-card stud hi-lo. With two tables left, he was up and down, sometimes in the top 10 with chips, sometimes in the bottom 10. Finally, just one away from the final table, he was all in with split 10s against Greg Dinkins , who started with an an A-7-8 low hand and caught a bullet on sixth street to knock him out. It was especially irritating because ninth place paid under $8,000, while eighth was worth $10,000 more.

After Heimiller had shrugged off the setback as one of the burdens of being a poker pro, I asked him what was more important to him, the money or achieving fame as a poker player.

"What’s most important to me is playing very well," he said. "I've always loved to play games like Monopoly, Scrabble and Clue, and I've always been very good at it. Playing is more important to me than the money, and it's irritating when I lose. Anyway, I play poker because that's where the money is."

Does he have any regrets about his decision to make poker his occupation? "No," he replies. "Most of the time I enjoy it. When I see how monotonous life can be for people in other occupations, I feel happy about playing poker."

Heimiller, who has wins at the Bicycle Casino, Commerce Casino, Four Queens, Bellagio Five-Star, Carnivale of Poker, etc., is adept at all games, though stud hi-lo is his best game. His major leak, he says, is that he gets too bored to play as tightly as he should at times. "I tend to gamble," he admits. The one that gives him the most trouble is no-limit hold'em. "It's the finality of it," he explains. "Having to make a single major decision can produce anxiety and cloud my judgment. Once I work on this and get that monkey off my back, I should do much better."

In the last couple of years, online poker has played a major part of Heimiller's poker life. He estimates he plays 200 or so days on the Internet, mostly with PokerStars. He owns a PokerStars bracelet when he won their online championship event in Omaha hi-lo, and also got to represent PokerStars in the WSOP main event one year when he won a frequent player points event.

The bulk of Heimeller's live tournament winnings have come from medium-limit events. "I'm probably a loser in the big events...but it will take only one big win to catch up."

Keep going, Dan. Maybe when you get that no-limit monkey off your back...

By the way, I'd like to get back again to the Hellmuth/Helppi match-up. I watched with interest as John Bonetti made an appearance as guest announcer. I fully expected "Bono" to make history by dropping the F-bomb and becoming the first announcer in history to be given a 10-minute penalty. But I was disappointed when it didn't happen. The tournament director wasn't taking any chances, and took the microphone away from him after he had described the action for just two hands.

Bonetti already holds one record in this category. At an earlier WSOP he became, to my knowledge the only player ever to get a cuss-word penalty when he was on a break and already some distance away from the table he was playing at.

At last year's World Series, I was one of the speakers at a roast for Bonetti. I noted that he had finished third and cashed in for $175,000 in a $5,000 no-limit event. ESPN was so impressed by the 77-year-old's accomplishment, I said, that they interviewed and filmed him for two hours. Unfortunately, I added, they could use only 15 seconds after they edited out all the "coise woids."

by Wil Wheaton

Yesterday afternoon, my cell phone rang while I sat in the PokerStars suite and wondered just what the hell I was going to write about. I dug it out of my pocket and read Greg Raymer on the display.

"Hey, Greg," I said, "what's up?"

"Hi Wil," he said, "are you still in town?"

"Yeah, I'm in the suite right now," I said.

"Wait. You're in the PokerStars suite?"

"Yep."

"Turn around."

I did, and Greg poked his face out from behind a curtain along the wall.

"Hey!" I said, as I hung up my phone, "how are you?"

"I'm great," he said. "Do you want to grab some lunch?"

I had just gotten into work, and I had a private consultation set up with Barry Tanenbaum just over an hour later, but there was no way I'd turn down lunch with Greg.

"Sure," I said, "can I be back in an hour?"

"Yeah, we're just going around the corner," he said.

I picked up my stuff, and we walked out of the Rio together. Just like crossing the Amazon room, we were stopped every ten or twenty feet, until we got to the valet.

"You car is on the way, Mr. Raymer," the valet, a twenty-something kid with sandy blond hair and a huge smile said. He held a deck of cards in his hand.

"Hey, do you want to high card for a million?" He said.

"How about a hundred?" Greg said.

The valet looked at his tips, and laughed. "Sorry, man, I don't think the rest of the guys would be happy about that if I lost."

Greg smiled back at him, and shook his hand. "Maybe next time," he said.

We drove out to lunch, and on the way I asked him if he was off until the Main Event starts later this week.

"I'm going to get into the deuce to seven lowball at three," he said. "I'll just wait until we get back to buy-in, because I think the line at the cashier will be shorter then, if there's a line at all."

"Cool," I said. "I'll try and keep track of you on the blog."

We had lunch, where I unsuccessfully tried to convince him to try Geocaching (no dice; Greg was adamantly opposed to anything involving hiking) and to explain why people didn't like Wesley Crusher on Star Trek. (Greg said that it just didn't make sense. Clearly, Greg hasn't spent a lot of time around Trekkies.)

We didn't talk about poker at all, which I imagine was a relief for him, and I'd like to think played a part in his unstoppable rise to the top of the leaderboard in the event at the end of play yesterday. Shut up! I totally did.

Greg was second in chips to David Williams, after David busted Mike Matusow, and Greg lost a pot to Allen Cunningham, then Cunningham went on a rush and he took second.

At this moment, there are eight players left, and seven make the money. Players are redrawing for their seats at the final table, and I'll see if I can grab a moment with Greg on his next break.

After more than four weeks of cold pizza, intravenous caffeine intake, billions of bad beat stories, and enough blogged words to fill a couple library shelves (duly Duey Decimal System-ized), we here at the blog are about to re-style ourselves. In the next day or so, you will meet a crack team of bloggers who are ready to take on the biggest event in poker history.

In the meantime, however, we'll need you to bear with us as we wrap up the final preliminary events. Here are the outstanding games (joined in progress):

$1,500 No Limit Hold'em--It is no surprise to me that 21-year-old wunderkind Jason Strasser continues to sit near the top of the leaderboard. Strasser and I go back a couple of years and it's been really fun to watch him play for the past four weeks. That said, I think he and I both believe that I've become a bit of a jinx for him. Any time I sweat him too closely, something terrible happens and he ends up busting out. While I will still maintain my blogging duties, I'm going to do so at a distance that will allow Strasser to win this thing. An hour and a half into play today, Strasser sits fifth in chips with a little more than 100 players remaining.

Deuce-Seven Lowball--As I mentioned early this morning, I'm secretly hoping for a Greg Raymer vs David Williams re-match. While the game is certainly different, the men remain the same tough players they were two years ago. Less than one hour into play today, both men sit in the top five in chips out of the remaining 19 players. Also, Wil Wheaton had a chance to talk to Greg Raymer last night in the midst of the madness.

by Wil Wheaton

In the two weeks that I've been here, I've learned that it's perilously easy to lose your mind if you don't get away from the poker room at least once a day, so I thought you may want to see some behind the scenes snapshots of how Otis and I spend our dinner breaks, or those late nights after the tourneys have broken for the day and we need to burn off some energy before going to sleep.

As a journalist (or, at least, one who played one on TV for many years) I'm loathe to create stories. Real stories, the kind you tell around a campfire or family dinner table, are organic and grow up from some previously unforseen seeds. They are not the kinds of things we writers create just for our own jollies.

That said, there is an interesting possibility brewing in the deuce-to-seven lowball event entering Day 2. When the 21 players return at 3pm on Wednesday, the chip leader will be none other than 2004 WSOP runner-up David Williams. In itself, that may be no great story. However, if you consider that 2004 WSOP champion Greg Raymer is currently third in chips, then you have something worth talking about. Indeed, it's been just a little more than two years since the two butted heads in--at its time--the biggest poker event in history. Sure, to be fair, the 2-7 lowball event will get nearly zero TV coverage. What's more, winning it will not make anyone a household name. However, among poker professionals, this tournament is considered to be among the most important of the WSOP events.

In other WSOP news, Jason "strassa2" Strasser has ended Day 1 of the $1,500 NL Hold'em event in third chip position out of the remaining 150 players in the big event. Strasser has spent most of the last four weeks going deep in tournaments, but is still looking to make his first final table of a WSOP event.

All players in both events will be back Wednesday afternoon. The PokerStars Blog will be back with them and let you know how it all turns out.

For the last couple of weeks, I haven't had to work too hard to find a story. In fact, I told my wife, "I have to work to not find a story, and when I work on a story in the suite, it's common for several new stories to come in and find me!"

For the first six hours of my day today, I couldn't find a story, and none came into the suite to find me, so I picked up my stuff, and went out to the Amazon room to find one.

Phil Hellmuth is currently three players away from winning his tenth World Series Bracelet and has a huge chiplead over second place, so ESPN hurriedly pulled together a skeleton crew to film his final table. I walked over to the Bluff Radio table, and watched him play for a little bit.

"Nobody wants this bracelet at this table more than he does," a guy said to me.

"Nobody in this room wants a bracelet as much as he wants this one," I said. "If he doesn't get it, we will witness a Hellmuth Meltdown that makes the Manhattan Project look like an Alka-Seltzer in a bathtub."

I will now openly admit that I'm rooting for everyone else at the table, for the entertainment value, if nothing else. It's a very packed room in there today, and I've always wondered what it would be like to hear over two thousand people suddenly fall silent.

"Well, I thought, "this is okay, but it's not really a PokerStars story, so I'll keep looking."

I turned around and scanned the room. The no-limit 2-7 lowball rebuy (yeah, you read all of that right) has a very small field of just around eighty players, and I knew that Greg Raymer was one of them because he told me on our way to lunch today that he would be playing. I scanned the tables, and saw him. They were on a break, so I made my way over to his table.

"Hey," I said, "do you have a minute to talk to me for the blog?"

"Sure," he said. "Come walk with me for a bit."

He picked up his stuff, and before he could take a single step, two people came up and asked him for autographs. Greg graciously obliged, smiled and shook their hands, and we started to make our way out of the room.

Ten feet later, someone stopped Greg for an autograph and a picture. He graciously obliged, and we continued on our way, single file with me following behind. This happened every ten to twenty feet for the next several minutes, until we got to the center of the room and a guy held out a signature-covered T-shirt and a Sharpie pen to me.

I took it, and turned to hand it to Greg when he said, "Oh, I wanted your autograph."

"Really?" I said.

"Yeah!"

"Oh, I thought you wanted Greg's."

"I already have it." He said.

"Ah, now this makes sense," I said. I took his pen and signed my name as best I could on a T-shirt, which is something I've never been particularly good at.

I caught up to Greg, who had managed to make it about twenty-five feet before he was stopped this time, and waited while an older man in a tan cowboy hat told him how much he loved watching him play.

Aside: I've been around a lot of celebrities in my life -- hell, I was even one of them a long time ago -- and it's rare to see someone handle himself with the grace, poise, kindness and generosity that Greg has. There are a lot of very young self-professed professional players here, many of them in their early twenties, and with rare exception they are arrogant, immature, entitled, and entirely without honor or respect for the history of the game. It was so refreshing to walk with Greg through a writhing mass of his fans, and see him treat every single one of them with kindness and respect. Some of these "professionals" would be well-served to take a break from "investing" in Dolce & Gabbana and listen to him.

"It's kind of hard to talk in single-file," Greg said, once we made our way outside. "So what can I tell you?"

"Well, I was looking for a story, and I think I just found one," I said. "But can you tell me a little bit about this event, anyway?"

"Sure," he said. "It's a very tough field -- maybe even tougher than HORSE because so few people know how to play this game correctly, and the people who do know how to play it can play it very well."

"Do you have a tough table?" I said.

"They are all tough tables," he said, "but I've got . . . " he trailed off and looked up, as he poked his finger into the air at an imaginary poker table. "Scott Fischman, Patrick Antonius, Hassan Habib, Mickey Appleman - who is probably the most experienced deuce to seven player in the tournament -- Max Pescatori, and a Swedish guy I don't know."

"That's the guy who will be called 'His Opponent' by Cardplayer," I said.

Greg probably doesn't have time to read the live updates like we do, so I didn't expect him to get the joke. He didn't disappoint me.

We stood out there near the Poker Kitchen, while I tried not to be distracted by the Milwaukee's Best Light girls, and Greg explained to me how complicated this particular game is.

Now, here's the thing: I would get my ass handed to me in one of these games, because I know absolutely nothing about the strategy, but Greg gave me a basic understanding of the game -- and how to play it in a no-limit tournament -- in about five minutes, because that's just how he rolls.

We slowly made our way back into the tournament room, stopping every ten feet or so, until we got back to his table. Hassan Habib and Scott Fischman stood next to their seats.

"I have to get back into my seat," Greg said. "But come back whenever you want, as long as I'm in the event. If I'm not in a hand, I'll tell you whatever I can."

"Thanks," I said. "Good luck, sir. Oh! I forgot to ask you: how are you doing in this event?"

He smiled. "I'm in for ten thousand, and I have over fifteen, so I have more than I started with."

"Awesome." I said.

I walked out of the tournament area, and passed Chris Ferguson on my way. He was surrounded by about fifteen people, who held out cards, books, scraps of paper, and anything else that he could sign. The tournament director announced that play was resuming in his event, and he continued to sign, right until the clock flashed down to zero.

"Sorry guys," he said to the few who still stood around him, "but I have to get back into my seat because I'm in this event."

As I walked down the hall and back to the suite, it occurred to me that Greg and Chris and pros like them have to focus and play the best poker they possibly can, but they also have to be rockstars and ambassadors, too. Not everyone can do it, and the ones who do are just extraordinary.

Just logging on for the night? Here's a bit of what we've been watching today:

Chris Moneymaker, after making a run through his first table yesterday, has busted out of the $1,500 Limit Hold'em Shootout. Moneymaker ended up placing 28th and won more than $7,000.

The PokerStars Blog has gotten a sneak preview of the 2006 WSOP PokerStars Goody Bags.

The preliminary events here at the WSOP are almost finished. As such, we're sticking a fork in them pretty soon.

Wil Wheaton continues to offer us behind the scenes stories from the WSOP. This time, he takes you into the world of a few hard-working writers and their attempts to get a big-time pro to play Pai Gow Poker.

As the night progresses, we'll continue to keep an eye on our folks in the remaining preliminary events. Greg Raymer, Barry Greenstein, Bill Chen, and Victor Ramdin are all playing in the NL 2-7 Lowball rebuy event. The $1,500 NL Hold'em event is on dinner break. Not surprisingly, Jason "strassa2" Strasser sits near the top of the leaderboard, having turned his initial $1,500 into more than $17,000.

Spoiler alert: If you're a PokerStars WSOP qualifier, the type of person who likes surprises and doesn't want to know what kind of cool stuff you'll be getting upon your arrival in Las Vegas, read no further.

I'll admit, I own more PokerStars gear than I'll ever be able to wear. Having friends in the right places will fill a closet pretty quickly. Still, even I have a neat moment of anticipation every time a new event kicks off and our chief bag man, Rich Korbin, gets on the case. Once again, Rich has not disappointed me. In fact, I'm more impressed this year than I have been in recent memory. So, for all of you PokerStars WSOP qualifiers wondering what you'll be getting when you get here, I offer a sneak preview of the official 2006 WSOP PokerStars Goody Bags.

Pictured:

* One duffel bag (top left), big enough to carry two watermelons or a medium-sized dog.
* Baseball jersey (below bag)
* Letterman-style jacket (right of baseball jersey)
* Two baseball caps, one commemorative baseball, and a plush teddy bear (on top of jacket)
* PokerStars t-shirt (right of jacket)
* Basketball jersey (right of t-shirt)
* Hockey jersey (bottom left)
* Soccer jersey (bottom right)
* Commemorative card capper and trading cards (on top of soccer jersey)

So, there you go. That should be enough stuff to last all of you qualifiers through several days of play. There's little I'd enjoy more than seeing nine of you sitting around a final table decked out in the stylings of the 2006 WSOP.

See everybody when you get here.

by Wil Wheaton

Otis, Pauly and I made our way out of the tournament area very, very late on Saturday night. In fact, it would be more accurate to say that it was early Sunday morning.

As we entered the main casino area, I stopped and said, "Where in the hell did all these people come from?"

"It's Saturday, man," Otis said.

The entire world slowed for just a second, while the sounds of Vegas faded out and I looked at my mental calendar. Yeah, that's right. Even though it's just another day during the World Series for us, it's Saturday for everyone else in the world, and they're here to party.

"Yeah," I said, "I guess it is."

"Hey, let's get a drink at the hooker bar," Pauly said.

Getting a drink at the end of a long day is on page two of the Blogger's Survival Handbook, so we grabbed a couple of seats, pushed a double sawbuck into the video poker machine, and played a game-within-the-game that we play almost every day. Maybe you've heard of it; it's called, "will my drink be free, or end up costing me twenty bucks?"

I was tired, and knew that a beer would put me to sleep, so I just got water. Pauly got a beer, and Otis ordered a greyhound. A few other writers joined us, and within twenty minutes or so, we had a little party going at the end of the bar. Hey, it was Saturday Night (err, Sunday morning), and we were finally off work. This is on page four of the handbook.

The tourneys that had been playing that day were breaking for the night (morning) and I saw a lot of pro players walk past us: Scotty Nguyen, Mel Judah, Doyle Brunson (who sped past us all on his Rascal, prompting me to bet Otis that he couldn't outrun Doyle. Otis wisely -- and respectfully -- declined) and John Gale, fresh off winning his first WSOP bracelet. We stopped John, and gave him congratulations, hugs, and a ridiculous invitation to stay and play some video poker with us. He politely declined, and I remembered that "Do not invite bracelet winners to play video poker with you at the bar" is on page eleven of the handbook.

Shortly after my water went from free to forty bucks, Team PokerStars' John Duthie walked up. Now, many Americans won't recognize John's name, but in Europe he is the stone cold nuts. Not only is he a BAFTA award winner, he is also responsible for Late Night Poker, which is at the root of televised poker's family tree.

I hadn't met John before Saturday night (err, Sunday morning) but I've heard that he's an incredibly nice guy, so I introduced myself and we chatted for a few minutes. He was as friendly, humble, and soft-spoken as advertised, and he fit into our little motley crew quite nicely.

"So what's in your plans for the rest of the evening?" He said.

"We're thinking about some -EV gambling," I said.

His eyebrows arched, and he said, "Oh? Perhaps some . . ." he paused dramaticaly, "Pai Gow?"

If we'd been into our third drink, I think we would have erupted into applause. Pai Gow (or as we call it, "Chinese Poker for Stupid People" is the late night (early morning) -EV game of choice among the writers I hang out with here.

Instead, I just said, "That is exactly what we're doing, sir. We're walking over to the Gold Coast in just a few minutes. Would you like to join us?"

"Oh, that would be lovely," he said politely, "but I have to go to Bellagio and get some money out of my box, so I think I'll just play there."

"You donkey," I thought. "You just asked John Duthie to play ten dollar Pai Gow. Why don't you go find Floyd Landis and see if he wants to ride dirt bikes in the vacant lot behind 7-11? 'Come on, Floyd! We'll do jumps!' Haven't you read your handbook?"

We talked for a few more minutes, and John never once called attention to my gaffe. We parted company shortly thereafter, and left the common ground of the Rio for our own worlds. Four hours later, while John was no doubt enjoying a single malt scotch and wagering more on a single hand than we had in our collective bankroll, we ate Keno crayons and tourists who wore plastic Viking helmets yelled at us for disrupting their Roulette game with our jubilant cries of "Pai Gow!" (Sorry, suckers; you may have a "Roulette system," but we have the Dragon and the handbook. That's just how we roll.)

On our way back to the Rio, I said to Otis, "It's a bummer John didn't come with us. I think he would have had a good time."

As he picked chunks of crayon out of his teeth, Otis said, "I'm not entirely sure about that."

"Well," I said, "I think I'll ask him next time anyway."

"There's a waxy aftertaste in my mouth," Otis said.

"Yeah," I said, "that's a typical side effect of eating keno crayons."

We crossed the street as the sun began to lighten the sky and shouted, "PAI GOW!"

If you find yourself with a stack of redbirds here at the Rio, there is a decent chance you'll flip one over and find a depiction of one of the 12 Days of Christmas. Many of the Rio chips have something to keep you entertained while you're posting and folding [Note: The scariest one--I always turn it face-down--is the $25 Rod Stewart chip]. It seems to me, the 12 Days of Christmas pops up more frequently than the others--my favorite rarity is the "Girls of Summer."

I think the "12 Days of Christmas" chips speak volumes about what's going on. This World Series of Poker, for many people, has been like a Christmas in July. This four weeks of Christmas will culminate on Friday with the grand daddy of all poker feasts, the $10,000 main event. Over a two-week period, thousands of poker players from around the world will dine on the ultimate in poker experiences. Sure, after the main event starts, there will be a few other WSOP events, but most people will see those tournaments as mere leftovers to this poker holiday summer.

With all that in mind, it is now time to bid goodbye to the dozens of premliminary events gone by. The last prelim event before the big show began today. Once again, the $1,500 NL Hold'em contest drew a huge field. More than 2,800 players built a huge prize pool and will be battling for the next few days to see who can pull in more than $700,000 and the gold WSOP bracelet.

In other news, Team PokerStars' 2003 WSOP champion, Chris Moneymaker, is fighting to make the final table of the $1,5000 Limit Hold'em Shootout. Moneymaker won his table yesterday and, today, started off strong. While he has almost doubled his starting stack, he still has a long way to go tonight.

Finally, one of the biggest events kicked off today. The no-limit 2-7 lowball rebuy (yeah, you read all of that right) started just a bit ago. This is the game that brings out the big dogs. Greg Raymer, Barry Greenstein, and Victor Ramdin are all in that event today.

We'll be keeping ana eye on our guys. To be honest, we're all a little full of the appetizers we've been eating for four weeks. Fortunately, we all think we can handle one more binge starting Friday.

by Wil Wheaton

Barry Greenstein looked tired last night. Resting quietly on one of our fine Corinthian leather couches (no actual Corinths were killed in their construction) Barry looked like a guy who just needed a break, so when I sat down near him to work on The Usual Suspects, I figured I'd just leave him alone while he was on his break.

I typed for a few minutes, until I hit one of those little writer's walls that occasionally stymie me, and I looked away for a moment to find my way through it.

"How are you doing tonight?" Barry said.

"Actually, I'm doing really well," I said. "How are you doing?"

"I'm good," he said. "But I'm a little worried . . . I have to play golf at eight thirty in the morning for ESPN, and I have a lot of chips right now, so I may be playing until one or two."

He took a deep breath and said, "I can play poker tired; that's not a problem, but golf is something that requires a good night's sleep, especially when we're playing for twenty thousand per man per hole."

Okay, you know how you may say to someone, "I can't stay out late tonight, because I have a test tomorrow," or "I'm going to the store to pick up some cheese, do you need anything?" That's how casually and normally Barry said that he was playing golf for "twenty thousand per man per hole."

I kept my best poker face, hoped Barry couldn't get a read on me (unlikely) and said, "Oh?"

"Yeah," he said. "ESPN wants to film me, Doyle, Daniel and Lindgren out on the golf course, and when we play, we play twenty thousand a man per hole."

"Okay," I thought, "Now I know why it wasn't a big deal for Daniel Negreanu to spew forty-nine thousand in the rebuy tournament; that's less than three holes of golf for him."

"Is it for the Nuts?" I said.

"Yeah," Barry said. "I think so."

Barry and I have developed a bit of a rapport over the last couple of weeks, and I've grown to really enjoy his (always brief) company and how frankly and honestly he talks with me. I've respected his game and admired his generosity and kindness (and his book is fantastic) but I'm always reluctant to meet people I sort of look up to, because they so often let me down. Barry Greenstein, like Greg Raymer, hasn't let me down at all. In fact, they've both exceeded my expectations.

Aside: Today, Greg gave Isabelle some crap about the post I wrote a few days ago where he crippled her. Isabelle didn't realize Greg was just teasing her, and apologized profusely. Greg said, "Hey, it's okay to be upset. Even though we're all friends here, I'll still get upset if any of you knock me out of a tournament." He pointed to me and said, "I like Wil a lot, but if Wil busted me, I'd be upset about that . . ."

"I don't think you need to worry about that, Greg," I said.

Barry is a very controlled and measured man, so when he truly enjoys something, or finds something amusing and he laughs, he really lights up. I saw him do this and he got as animated as I've seen him as he explained to me how this golf outing works.

"Doyle and I play on one team, and Daniel and Erik are on another," he said, "and you know that Doyle is a heck of a golfer, even with his leg." (Doyle Brunson's leg was crushed under a ton of sheetrock back before any of us were born.)

Okay, I'll admit that I thought it was kind of cool that Barry was talking about these guys like we were all part of the same club, even though I know that's not the case.

"I used to complain about Doyle getting all these special rules to compensate for his age and his leg and stuff, and then I just decided to make him my teammate." A huge grin spread across Barry's face. "And he has made me a lot of money ever since!"

In Tony Holden's classic poker book Big Deal, he writes, "Poker may be a branch of psychological warfare, an art form or indeed a way of life – but it is also merely a game, in which money is simply the means of keeping score." When Barry told me that Doyle had made him a lot of money, I could tell that it was about a lot more than the cash in his pocket; it's about the score.

"So of course I want to win the tournament," he said, "but I hope we don't play too late tonight."

I made some notes, and Barry's son Joe came in. Joe is a producer as well as host on Cardplayer's internet radio show The Circuit and is a serious poker player, too. He walked over to our corner of the room, and sat on the edge of the couch next to Barry.

"Have you met my son?" Barry said.

I said I hadn't, and Barry introduced us. I instantly liked Joe, and that didn't surprise me at all; he's clearly come from good stock.

"How are you doing, dad?" he said.

"I just tripled up," he said. "How are you doing?"

"Just above average," Joe said.

I watched them relate to each other as fellow professional poker players, but also as father and son. The former was cool, but the latter tugged at my heart. I won't get to see my kids until the middle of the Main Event, and it's been almost a month since we spent more than one day together.

"Here's a good story for the blog," Barry said. "Just before dinner, Amir raises from under the gun. Late position calls, and the small blind comes way over the top of them both. I look down at ace king, and I have to stop and think for a minute. The small blind must have a pretty good hand, because he's coming over the top of an under the gun raise, but then I realize that he was a young kid, probably in his mid-twenties, and I wonder if he knew that Amir will play a lot of hands from that position. You know that Amir's a very aggressive player, right?"

"Yeah, I do," I said. "He busted me in the 2005 WPT Invitational, but I crippled him in the championship at Bellagio right after to repay the favor."

"Okay, so you've played with him. Good. I think for a second, and I decide that he does know that, so I jam for my last five thousand. Amir folds, late position folds, and the small blind calls all-in. He shows ace jack, and I held up."

"Nice job!" Joe said.

"So we were all playing a game-within-the-game," Barry said, "called 'can we beat Amir?'"

It's a great story, but it's so much more: it's an example of why Barry is one of the most successful big cash game players in the world. He's not just thinking at multiple levels about his hand and his opponent's hand; he's also thinking at multiple levels about what his opponent thinks about an entirely different opponent's hand. Barry also knows that he needs to build a huge stack to make it deep and to the final table, and he's willing to take what could be a race to get there -- but not recklessly. As I listened to him talk about that hand, I realized how much I have to learn about this game, and how much closer I am to the starting line in my poker journey than I thought I was.

Barry and Joe hung out for a few more minutes, and as I watched them interact, I saw much of the same dynamic between them that I have with my kids. I'm sure they know how lucky that makes us all.

When I came into the suite just after noon today, Barry was on my couch, so I took a seat nearby and took my stuff out of my backpack.

"How did golf go this morning?" I said.

"Oh, I played bad," he said. "I stayed in the tournament until almost two, and I busted out right on the bubble, and I was really tired this morning."

"Yeah," I said, "I totally understand. I was up late last night and I played Hot Shots Golf on my PSP this morning. I'm sure that was exactly the same thing."

If he got my attempt at dry irony, he didn't let on.

Not to be repetitive, but it has been a very big day here at the WSOP. If you're just logging on, here's a recap from the day:

Team PokerStars' Humberto Brenes came tantalizing close to final-tabling the $1,000 NL Hold'em rebuy event. After a strong showing all day long, Brenes ended up getting pocket nines in against chip-leader Phil Hellmuth's A8o. Hellmuth spiked an ace on the river to send Brenes out in 11th place. In other news from the $1,000 rebuy event, check out this perspective from Team Blog's Max Shapiro.

Team PokerStars' 2003 WSOP Champion Chris Moneymaker has made Day 2 of the $1,500 Limit Hold'em Shootout event. Moneymaker won his table and will return Tuesday at 2pm to fight for the final table.

Emad Tahtouh, inspiration to Joe Hachem's 2005 WSOP bid, made the final table of the $5,000 PL Hold'em event. Team Blog's Alison Lightman tracked Tahtouh's progress through the day. Read the final table updates.

Team Blog's Wil Wheaton has been tracking the pros as the main event nears. Check out his report, Under Pressure.

PokerStars WSOP satellites ended last night. The final $650 super satellite awarded an amazing 55 seats in the last night of action. Right now, it looks like PokerStars will be sending in the neighborhood of 1600 players to the main event. Action starts Friday.

And while all of this has been going on, PokerStars went and launched the biggest online poker freeroll ever. This $2.5 million freeroll, the Moneymaker Millionaire kicked off this morning. The five-month free-roll series will end up sending 27 finalists to the Bahamas during the 2007 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure to compete for a $1 million first prize. Did I mention it is free? Apparently some people have already heard. The first event capped out this morning at 10,000. Check out the Moneymaker Millionaire for all the details.

So, yeah, things are a bit mad around here. What's more, they are about to get even crazier. Fortunately, Team Blog is expanding and will provide you the best coverage of your PokerStars players than you have ever seen. Stay tuned for more details on who you will be reading in the coming days.

Everyone please welcome Max Shapiro to Team Blog. More on his arrival will come in the next couple days as we announce the entirety of the 2006 WSOP Team Blog. For now, enjoy his insight on the $1,000 rebuy event.

By Max Shapiro

With records being set every day at the World Series of Poker, one in particular deserves to make the Guinness Book of World Records. In event number 34, which was $1,000 no-limit hold'em with rebuys, Daniel Negreanu took the rebuys part rather literally, making a reported 46 of them, along with the two allowable add-ons, thus shattering all WSOP records in this category. The 754 players in this event made 1,691 rebuys and add-ons, averaging a bit more than two per player, so Negreanu's 48 registered slightly above average. The major carnage came after he was moved to a second table where a player was to win numerous consecutive hands, with Negreanu all in for most of them.

In the past, this buy-the-house strategy has paid off for Daniel. For example, in a 2004 WSOP event where 638 players made 534 rebuys, he made 27 of them, but recouped nearly four times his investment when he finished third and collected $100,940. A few years before that, I recall seeing him make about 25 or so rebuys at another WSOP tournament and he still came out well ahead.

This year, however, the tactic failed him, because he did not make it past day one of the three-day event. However, Negreanu, one of the most recognizable and successful players on the tournament trail, the 2004 Player of the Year, the former poker ambassador for the Wynn, and a regular in some of the biggest cash games around, will hardly miss the $49,000 or so he dropped in this tourney. After all, it wasn't even as much as the $50,000 buy-in for the WSOP's H.O.R.S.E. event.

But while he couldn't buy this tournament, the rampage of rebuys by Negreanu and other pros like Mike Matusow should give pause to recreational players who unthinkably enter a World Series rebuy event. On the one hand, a player determined to struggle on only one bullet would be getting a terrific overlay. On the other hand, he would be at a slight disadvantage when a Daniel Negreanu would be able to buy nearly 50 times as many chips as he did.

Now, the concept of buying a bracelet is nothing new. The most well-known case in point came when Maria Stern, wife of Dr. Max Stern, got heads-up in a World Series event a number of years ago and made an under-the-table deal with her opponent, who collected the bulk of the prize money for blowing off his chips and letting her win. When the word got around, Maria acknowledged what she had done and publicly apologized. But she still got to keep the bracelet.

But attempting to buy a tournament, legally and in the open through numerous rebuys, is something that is unique to poker. Which gives me an idea. Why couldn't this scheme apply to other sports?

Let's take golf. Tiger Woods tees off. He shanks the ball and it lands in a tree. No problem. He adds $1,000 to the prize pool and gets to rebuy another drive. Or take Barry Bonds. He needs one more home run to set a new record. But he strikes out. "Boo," goes the crowd. Hold on. Bonds hands over a wad of cash and gets to take a few more swings.

Or, let's picture a heavyweight championship boxing match. The champ is down. The count reaches 10, and he can't get up. But he groggily pulls some bills out of his trunks, hands it to the referee, and the count resumes: "11, 12, 13..." The champ is still down at the count of 20. More cash. "21, 22..." for as long as it takes for him to get up.

All right, now let's get back to poker. I have a really sensational idea. Instead of limiting rebuys to the first two hours, how about making them allowable throughout the entire event?

Here's the picture. Structure the $10,000 championship match for totally unlimited rebuys. Then you induce someone like Bill Gates to enter. After four weeks of play, he's made about 40,000 rebuys and the prize pool is up to about $500 million. Naturally, he has to eventually win because he's got more money to invest than anyone else until he outlasts the field. He captures the bracelet, gets world champion boasting rights and first place prize money of about $120 million. Of course, he's personally put in about $400 million of the $500 million in the prize pool, so the next several thousand players down the ladder make out like bandits. Can anyone think of a more perfect scenario?

You see, the trouble with the World Series of Poker is that the people who run it can't see things through like I can. I'm available for 2007, guys.

Otis' note: In other news in the $1,000 rebuy event, Team PokerStars' Humberto Brenes is daring to make the final table. With 16 players remaining, Brenes sits in fourth place with $207,000 in chips to the chip-leaders $493,000.

It's been four weeks of madness. The money, the fatigue, the bad beats, they are all about to be a mere memory (and a gazillion words of poker blogging). That is one way of saying, the preliminary events are on the verge of running directly into the main event. Still, these run-up events continue and we're on top of them. Here's a look at what's going on today:

Emad Tahtouh, inspiration to Joe Hachem's 2005 WSOP bid, made the final table of the $5,000 PL Hold'em event. Team Blog's Alison Lightman tracked Tahtouh's progress through the day. Read the final table updates.

Team Blog's Wil Wheaton has been tracking the pros as the main event nears. Check out his report, Under Pressure.

The $1,000 rebuy event that started yesterday (talk about madness) is in its second day and is down to the final three tables. Among the remaining 27 players is Team PokerStars' Humberto Brenes. Brenes has managed to navigate his way through the rebuy silliness and made it deep in this event. As the tables consolidate, Brenes sits in 13th place.

Other events going on today: $1,000 Limit Hold'em shootout and $1,000 Stud Hi-lo. Both of the events are in the early going. We'll keep an eye on the folks from the PokerStars fold and update you on their progress as the evening goes on.

PokerStars WSOP satellites ended last night. The final $650 super satellite awarded an amazing 55 seats in the last night of action. Right now, it looks like PokerStars will be sending in the neighborhood of 1600 players to the main event. Action starts Friday.

And while all of this has been going on, PokerStars went and launched the biggest online poker freeroll ever. This $2.5 million freeroll, the Moneymaker Millionaire kicked off this morning. The five-month free-roll series will end up sending 27 finalists to the Bahamas during the 2007 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure to compete for a $1 million first prize. Did I mention it is free? Apparently some people have already heard. The first event capped out this morning at 10,000. Check out the Moneymaker Millionaire for all the details.

So, yeah, things are a bit mad around here. What's more, they are about to get even crazier. Fortunately, Team Blog is expanding and will provide you the best coverage of your PokerStars players than you have ever seen. Stay tuned for more details on who you will be reading in the coming days.

Don't miss the Emad Tatough final table updates

by Wil Wheaton

A couple of days ago, Michael Craig brought Annie Duke by to say hello.

"Hi, Annie," I said. "I'm Wil Wheaton."

"Actually," she said, "we've met. We played together at Bellagio and I sucked out on you."

I was shocked that she remembered, and said so. While it was a brutal three-outer beat against me that hit on the river, I'm just one of hundreds of people who have been busted by her over the years.

"I didn't want to assume that you'd remember me, because I know you meet a lot of people," I said, "and I didn't want to feel like an ass if you didn't."

"Oh," she said, "I still feel bad about it!"

We laughed about that. One thing that's certain about professional players: they never feel bad when they knock someone out. That would be like me feeling bad about beating someone out for a prized acting role.

"Have you cashed, yet?" She said.

"Uh, no." I said.

"Neither have I!" She said, and it was the first time her smile faltered.

"Well, at least we have something in common," I said, "which isn't intended to make you feel bad, but probably does."

"Well, I still have a week left," she said.

I changed the subject, and we talked about a few other things, like how hot it's been here and how much we miss our kids, before she and Mike had to head out of our suite and get back to work.

Our conversation raised a sneaking suspicion in my brains, and after they left, I grabbed my notebook and wandered around the hallways and alcoves of the Rio, to see if I could confirm it.

Just a few steps into the main walkway, I saw it everywhere: young players hoping to make it on television and scoop up an endorsement deal and seasoned professionals alike walked with their heads down and their shoulders slumped, as the reality of the Main Event loomed ever-closer. While it represents poker's crown jewel, everyone knows that the field will be huge, and the odds of a top-name professional player winning it all -- or even making the final table -- are incredibly slim. Phil Ivey, who is inarguably the best player in the world, is a 150 to 1 shot to win it, and those odds are actually good.

It reminded me of the feeling I used to get in the acting world during pilot season, when the networks were casting for their fall series. It could be compared to the World Series, with one glaring exception: each event only paid one place. Near the beginning, everyone was relaxed and excited, because this could be The Big Year. As we neared the middle, the haves and the have-nots separated. Friendly handshakes weren't so friendly, and smiles were forced, if they came at all. When the end drew close, though, the pressure was unbearable, and though you'd think veteran actors would be able to rely on their experience to relax and do their best work, for them the pressure was the worst: would this be yet another pilot season that was essentially a failure?

And so it is here at the Rio. We are a few days away from the beginning of the Main Event, and the bracelet and cashing opportunities are nearly all gone. For the pros who haven't realized their personal goals, the pressure is immense, and when I walk the hallways and the tournament floor, I can feel it. Will this be yet another World Series that will essentially be a failure?

I'm glad that I don't have to answer that question, especially when I see the people who do.

Updates below the cut

by Alison Lightman

After a dreamless nine hours of sleep, Emad Tahtouh is as cool as a cucumber today, entering the biggest poker game of his life with the chip disadvantage.

"I'm in a good spot," he said before taking his seat at the final table of the $5 000 Pot-Limit Hold'em event at the WSOP. "A lot of them are just waiting for me to be knocked out, so my strategy today is to be really aggressive."

Though he has the shortest stack with 97,000, Gregg Turk is not far ahead with 122,000 and Kirril Gerasimov is only a nose in front with 124,000.

"They haven't got a lot more so they won't want to tangle with me."

"Kirril Gerasimov is on my left," Emad said, "and he's always a worry, but I have played with him for hours and watched him closely. The chip leader [Alan Sass, with 431,000] is on my right, but he is tight, and solid, so, I am not worried about him.

"You'll see me re-raising more than raising today. If I sense that someone is weak I'll just come right over the top of them."

So did 25-year-old Emad seek any words of wisdom about the final table, from close mate and World Champion Joe Hachem, who credits Emad with persuading him to enter the Main Event last year?

"Yes, Joe came over to see me. He told just tighten up when I was short and wait for the hands. He just said 'don't do anything stupid.'"

***updates***

Emad out in 7th place ($71 064) "Rollercoaster ride"is one way to describe Emad's experience of the final table. Going in with the shortest stack, he knew he had to wait for a hand and make a move.

He thought his moment had come when he found KcQc after a couple of rounds and raised to 26k (leaving 42k behind). His confidence eroded slightly when Kirill Gerasimov to his left raised again, and seriously, when Tommy Smith made it 200k. Emad knew he was in bad shape and, realizing that he could well be drawing almost dead, but otherwise might move up a spot, he folded.

And he saw that was the correct move when Tommy turned over QQ and Kirril showed AK. Gerasminov went home first, and Emad moved up one space.

Unfortunately KQ was the best hand Emad was to see all day.

"Not a pair, not even deuces" he said, moments after being eliminated. "I was looking for anything, suited connectors, any Ace, but they didn't come."

He went out in the last hand before players took their first break for the day, a hand some players refuse to play no matter what their hole cards. Not Emad. "I love the last hand before the break" he said. "I did it with junk yesterday, because people could be a) stealing, or b) they might have a hand but don't want to go broke in that position."

We all know that sinking feeling and for Emad, it was a showdown with Michael Tedesco, with whom he'd tangled several times yesterday in the battle for a final table seat.

"Every time, he managed to have the better hand. Poker sucks" he added, with a huge grin. "If you don't get hit with the cards, you have to get lucky".

He was lucky a couple of times, getting all his chips in with J 8 against Tommy Smith's A 10 and spiking an 8, and a second time with a suited K6 against Greg Turk's AK, when he hit a 6 on the river to double up.

Yet he struggled to get beyond his starting stack of 97k.

As the first round drew to a close, he found a suited K5 in middle position and bet out 42k. Michael made it 90k and Emad called, all in for his last 42k.

"I tried the patience thing, but I was getting 84o, 73o, I didn't want to get so short stacked that I got desperate."

Michael showed AJo and hit his Ace on the flop. The turn was no help to Emad and Michael hit his second pair when a Jack came on the river.

It's another fantastic effort by PokerStars' Australian contingent. Just over a year ago, the WSOP was a distant dream for Emad, and his good friend Joe Hachem, who has made two final tables so far in this year's WSOP. The last time any reigning World Champion managed that was Scotty Nguyen, 8 years ago when, he'd surely admit, competition was a lot less fierce.

Emad is taking home $71 064, and a whole lot of information to ponder as he prepares for the Main Event.

3.20pm

They're down to 7, after the elimination of Tommy Smith, one of the early chip leaders, by Alan Sass, and Emad has just doubled up through Greg Turk.

Emad found a K6c in middle position and moved all in for 42k. Turk came over the top for his last 68k, and showed AKo. The board came 9h 7h 4s 10h 6d, giving Emad a pair of sixes on the river to double up.

3pm

Emad has taken an early hit in the opening minutes of the final table, but recovered quickly.

He got involved in the fifth hand , raising to 36k, more than a third of his stack, from middle position. Emad was re-reraised by Kirril Gerasimov on his left to 111k, and than raised up again by Tommy Smith to 200k.

Emad put down his hand and Gerasimov called for all his chips, showing AKo. Smith turned over pocket ladies and flopped a set, and then the board paired, giving Smith a full house and sending Gerasimov out first.

Just a few hands later and Emad pushes all in for 39k from the button and is called by Smith from the big blind. Smith shows A 10o, and Emad turns over J 8o, and hits his 8 on the turn to double his stack. He’s now sitting on 84k.

by Alison Lightman

Is there such a thing? Many cling to lucky hats and unwashed clothes and card protectors, and I've even been known to part my hair on the other side hoping to change my luck, but until the other night hadn't seen a collective shout of "that's Karma" at a table.

It was a small sit and go at the Rio poker room, scene of the WSOP. Nine of us were seated when the dealer realized he was $20 short on buy-ins.

No-one admitted getting too much change and the poor dealer was all gloom about the $20 that would later be leaving his own wallet.

Two kind players reached into their own pockets and gave him ten bucks apiece. The now-smiling dealer had the cards in the air in a flash and the first two large pots were taken down by guess who? His benefactors. Makes you think.

If there is such a thing, Emad Tahtouh, a 24 year old Australian, should be due for some. He's the guy 2005 World Champion Joe Hachem credits for persuading him to come to Las Vegas and enter the Main Event, which he took down along with the richest prize in poker history.

The story goes like this. It was Joe's birthday in April last year, and Emad and a few other mates were celebrating with Joe at his Melbourne home. They had a few drinks more than planned, so Emad spent the night at the Hachem family home intending to drive home the next morning and go to work.

As luck (Karma?) would have it, Emad's car broke down, so he went home and did what so many of us do in our free time - logged on to PokerStars for a game. There was a WSOP satellite running which to Emad's joy, he won.

He got straight on the blower to birthday boy Joe to share the good news, and Joe realized this might be the chance they'd been looking for to go to Vegas together and play in the WSOP.

Now Emad and the rest of us know his satellite win that day led ultimately to Joe Hachem taking down the Main Event 2005, and the richest prize in poker history. Sporting rivalry between mates being what it is, Emad is now looking for a bracelet of his own, and is well on track.

He's down to the final 14 in the $5 000 Pot Limit Hold'em event. His stack, $137K is just above the average $131k, and he is feeling fantastic.

After 39 sleepless hours, he crashed out for ten last night and is restored and revived in the way one good sleep can do it for a 25 year old.

As players returned to the tables after the dinner break to battle it down to nine, I asked Emad his thoughts about poker Karma.

"There's no Karma. I have no beliefs and no superstitions," he said. "You can