The Return of the $50K

The $50K “Poker Players Championship” event has circled back around at this year’s World Series of Poker, and in fact has already played down to a six-handed final table from a starting field of 91 players. Will probably have to tune in to watch the live stream a bit later today with this one.

A couple of former PPC winners are still in the mix -- Michael Mizrachi (who has won twice) and Brian Rast -- while Justin Bonomo is the chip leader.

That 91-entry field represents a slight increase from the 84 who took part last year when Mike Gorodinsky topped the smallest field ever for the tournament which began in 2006. Entries over the years (since 2006) have been 143, 148, 148, 95, 116, 128, 108, 132, 102, 84, and 91. (See this post from last summer for a summary of results from the tournament’s first decade, minus Gorodinsky’s win).

The tournament was switched back to an eight-game mix this time after experimenting with the 10-game format a year ago, with Badugi and 2-7 NL draw being dropped again from the rotation after being included for one year.

Hard to believe, actually, that the “$50K” (as it’s often called) has been around for more than a decade now, given how well I remember both the announcement of the first one and watching the final table play out on ESPN where David “Chip” Reese outlasted Andy Bloch in a marathon finish heads-up.

Was an altogether novel thing suddenly to introduce a preliminary event featuring a buy-in five times that of the Main, with a lot of talk at the time about how it could eclipse the Main in terms of prestige and even thoughts about who exactly would be considered poker’s “world champion” for a given year.

That latter discussion faded away long ago with regard to the $50K, despite the introduction of that “Poker Players Championship” name for it back in 2010. It’s now mostly regarded as another “high roller” -- one of many on the tournament calendar, although the only one to step outside of the no-limit hold’em circle to include other variants in the mix.

For that reason alone it continues to pique my interest, as I’m sure today’s finale will grab the attention of many.

Photo: PokerNews.

End-of-Year Lists

With the end of the calendar year come a lot of those “top ten stories”-type lists to help us realize just how poor our short term memories really are. Have seen several poker-related ones, including the countdown of story recaps currently appearing one per day over on PokerNews.

I cast a vote for that PN list, and in past years actually compiled similar lists on my own (e.g., for Betfair Poker). Not as easy as it looks.

Like “best of” rankings, Hall of Fame votes, and other such exercises, lists of a given year’s top stories are always subjective and thus open to criticism and debate. That’s because they not only reflect the various predilections of those making the selections, but the criteria being followed when designating what a “top story” is can be pretty amorphous, too.

Poker, for instance, is a game around which several different subcultures exist, groups that overlap in some ways but are distinct, too, and thus can have very different interests or concerns. For example, the divide between online poker and live poker was once larger than it is today, but there still exist many issues which only affect one or the other, thus making stories exclusively about one either highly important or nearly irrelevant depending on the audience.

Stories about online poker legislation, then, might rate high on some lists or fail to chart on others, depending on who’s doing the listing. Same goes for poker tournament results -- they directly affect many who play poker and are of special interest to fans and those who follow it, but they can be largely meaningless to many others.

Industry news including items about casinos and online sites can often be more significant than many players and/or fans realize, but those stories don’t always capture the public’s attention. Meanwhile cheating scandals and other untoward activities always draw lots of rubberneckers, but sometimes aren’t as important as they seem. And while there may not be as many “poker celebrities” diverting us today as there were a decade ago, the words and actions of certain players and others still fascinate some, thus getting those “Did you hear what he/she said/did?!” stories a lot of play.

Looking back a few years, in 2009 Phil Ivey making the WSOP Main Event final table while winning two other bracelets was a consensus pick for top story that year. In 2010, Michael Mizrachi’s $50K PPC win and final-table run topped a few lists, although Harry Reid’s late-year failed online poker bill got a lot of play in the rankings, too (even topping some lists).

In 2011, Black Friday was the unchallenged choice for top poker story by practically everyone. In 2012, the PokerStars-DOJ-FTP deal provided a significant sequel that many rated that year’s most important poker story. Last year Daniel Negreanu’s big year topped some lists, while the reintroduction of online poker in the U.S. headed others.

So what poker story tops your list for 2014?

Nine Lives: WSOP Main Event Resumes Tomorrow

Big day tomorrow in the poker world, as the 2010 WSOP Main Event final table finally resumes after nearly four months of anticipation.

In less than 24 hours, the nine survivors from the field of 7,319 who started this year’s ME will sit down at a table in the Penn & Teller Theater in the Rio to begin the process of determining a winner.

I’ve written a lengthy preview of the final table for Betfair poker that was posted today: “2010 WSOP Main Event: Nine Players, One Bracelet.” There I talk about all nine players, including recounting some of the details of how each made it through to tomorrow’s final table.

Thinking back to this summer when I was there at the Rio reporting on the Main Event for PokerNews, the two players among the final nine whom I ended up covering the most were Michael Mizrachi and Filippo Candio.

As a familiar face with a long history of tourney success, Mizrachi predictably got a lot of attention from the very beginning of the Main Event. Thus was his long journey from Day 1 documented fairly closely, a journey that was marked by his having to endure with a below average stack most of the way.

I was over at the feature table on Day 4 -- the day the cash bubble burst -- and Mizrachi was seated there for much of that day. He played only a few small hands, and really, when they finally did make the cash, it did not seem likely that he’d be around much longer. But he hung on, and by the middle of Day 6 had gathered enough momentum to move into the chip lead.

That was the day Mizrachi played what I thought was one of the more impressive hands of his tournament (write-up here).

Duy Le (who’d finish 13th) had opened with a raise from middle position, Getty Mattingsley (who’d go out in 101st) three-bet from the button, and Mizrachi called from the small blind. Le called as well, and the flop came . All three checked. The turn was the , and it checked to Mattingsley who bet. Both Mizrachi and Le called.

The river was the , potentially completing a couple of different draws. Mizrachi checked, and when Le made a bet of 500,000 (about two-thirds of the pot), Mattingsley folded. But after thinking for a while Mizrachi decided the bet looked fishy and made the call, turning over pocket sevens. Le had but , and Mizrachi suddenly was up close to 4 million and among the leaders.

There’d be other important hands for the Grinder, of course, but that one seemed to indicate he was playing some especially solid poker, reading others well and suddenly looking as though he really could make it to the final table.

Candio I happened to cover over at the feature table on Day 4, then again at the end of Day 6 when he won that huge all-in versus Manuel Davidian. Here’s the write-up of that one, if you’re curious. I also wrote a little more about that hand in a post here, too, discussing in particular the emotions the fiery, unpredictable Italian player had displayed.

Of course, the wildest hand Candio played would come on Day 8 -- the one versus Joseph Cheong in which he got his entire stack in very bad, then managed to score a runner-runner straight to survive. Here’s that one, as it was shown on ESPN earlier this week:



Jawdropping, ain’t it?

Candio’s frenetic, limb-flailing response makes it appear as though he’s been shot through with a bolt of electricity there.

But look at Cheong. Such calm. Remarkable.

Clearly chip leader Jonathan Duhamel, John Dolan (also with a big stack), John Racener, and perhaps even Mizrachi are favorites among the betting crowd this weekend. But that Cheong seems a pretty damn cool cat. Who -- unlike Candio -- doesn’t look like he needs nine lives. Gotta give him a decent chance, too, I’d think.

Will be fun to follow, for sure.

Taking DeepStacks360 for a Spin

Poker instruction has become a complicated, crowded business.

It wasn’t that long ago there were only a handful of good books out there, plus a couple of forums where one could read about strategy and perhaps participate in conversations about how to play the game. Not only are there a lot more books and forums today, but other types of instruction have emerged, too, including “boot camps” and live seminars, as well as video-based tutorials available online via subscription.

Being a “book guy,” most of my away-from-the-table poker study has been confined to reading books and magazines, although I have looked at a few vids and can see how valuable they can be. (One of those things I keep intending to spend more time pursuing, although I’ve yet to find the time to do so.) I also can see how those who aren’t crazy about reading -- or “visual learners,” as some educators like to call such students -- would prefer and probably get a lot more out of the video-based instruction model.

I had a chance yesterday to look in on another type of poker teaching, one that kind of combines the video lesson idea with the live seminar. It took place over at DeepStacks360.com, a lengthy (five-hour) seminar of sorts dubbed “Michael ‘The Grinder’ Mizrachi’s WSOP Final Table Power Poker Course.”

Some may recall those “All360Poker” cameras from this summer’s WSOP. Touted as “the best thing since the hole card camera,” the technology really is pretty cool (in my opinion) for viewing above-the-table poker. Using a special camera with 11 different lenses which is positioned over the center of the table, the resulting video is interactive in that the viewer can use the mouse to pan all of the way around the table, tilt up or down, or zoom in and out. The kind of thing some might have seen on real estate or hotel websites, allowing prospective buyers/renters to get a full “360° view” of rooms.

If you want to read more about how it works, Dan Michalski of Pokerati wrote a piece describing the technology for the WSOP last July titled “Poker in the Round.” You can see it for yourself, too, as they still have a lot of that footage from the 2010 WSOP archived over on the All360Poker site. For example, click here to see the final hand from Day 8 of the Main Event in which Brandon Steven was eliminated in 10th place.

Anyhow, the 360° guys have teamed up with the DeepStacks University poker training site to produce some online “courses” employing the technology. I think Mizrachi’s “power course” from yesterday might’ve been one of the first -- if not the first -- attempt at such. Was definitely kind of neat to be able to “sit in” (so to speak) on the seminar. I also found it interesting to watch a very cool, relaxed-looking Mizrachi hanging out like that just three short days before the WSOP ME final table is set to begin.

Had a few other impressions to share from what I saw and heard yesterday.

Essentially, the “course” consisted of poker pros Mizrachi, Mike “The Mouth” Matusow, Tristan Wade, and half-dozen amateur players sitting around a table playing a sit-n-go. The stacks began quite deep (300 big blinds, I think), and the blinds/antes rose quickly enough for them to get through the thing during the scheduled time, thereby covering early, middle, and late stage strategies for tourneys. (I’ll admit I signed off prior to the conclusion last night, so I don’t know how things turned out.)

With each hand, players kept their cards after they’d folded, then when the hand concluded all turned up their hands and discussion ensued about how everyone had played. A fine model for teaching tourney strategy, I think, which I assume has been used with success in the live seminars.

There were a few technical problems yesterday. It took me about 20 minutes after the scheduled start time to get the image and sound up and running, and from what I gather I wasn’t the only one having trouble early on. I continued to experience audio drops and image freezes pretty much the entire time I was watching, which sometimes hindered my ability to follow what was happening.

Also, while the 360° cameras do allow one to see all of the players quite well, one can’t really focus on the cards too easily. To compensate, the dealer and players began calling out the cards as they were shown so as to help in this regard, although they weren’t consistent with that and so it was a bit of a struggle at times to know precisely all of the details of a given hand.

That said, there were some interesting moments during the hands I did watch, and I think there is some potential here -- if some of the techy stuff can be smoothed out -- for this type of online instruction to work.

Mizrachi struck me as an especially good communicator and teacher, something I didn’t necessarily expect but was glad to see. Asked a question about tells early on, Mizrachi unhesitatingly responded by saying he looks at opponents’ breathing, posture, how they move their hands, and their bet sizes. He also gave a lot of credence to an opponent’s first reaction to the appearance of a new board card, using that as a guide by which to judge future behaviors.

Mizrachi also shared an interesting theory regarding how best to utilize one’s chips in a tourney, suggesting that one think of one’s stack as in fact three different stacks, with a certain portion (15-20%) reserved for bluffs, another (15-20%) for flips/gambles, and the rest (60-70%) for “solid poker” or chip accumulation. Might be worth remembering that formula come Saturday as we watch him try to build his below-average stack back into a competitive range.

All three of the pros interacted well with the amateurs. Tristan Wade was the most soft-spoken of the trio, but he seemed to communicate and made useful comments about the amateurs’ play. Matusow was his usual, boisterous self, and while his advice was also mostly fine he seemed frequently to lapse into the old bromides (“tight is right,” “think long, think wrong,” etc.).

There was some interaction happening between the players and those following at home, too. There was a chat box where one could ask questions (with a “premium” subscription, I believe), and the players did respond to some of those along the way.

I definitely think the amateurs sitting at the table benefited from the time they spent with the pros. And I imagine at least some of those watching at home did, too, although like I say technical difficulties may have gotten in the way in some cases.

When it works, though, the 360° camera can be fun and I really do think it might prove a useful way to broadcast live poker. And perhaps even to include folks in these live instructional sessions, too. If you’ve never played with it, do head over to the All360Poker site and see how it works. You can literally tilt the table!

2010 WSOP, Day 49: Intense

Helluva day at the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event yesterday. It was an intense and stressful nine hours of poker for the players as the field whittled from 205 down to 78. They’re getting to bigger paydays now, with the next few to go out now getting $94,942. Pay jumps come every nine spots currently, with the jumps getting bigger as they go along, and a lot of players are becoming ever more mindful of that fact.

Lost Johnny Chan relatively early on Day 6, as he was eliminated in 156th. He ran kings into aces to lose most of his stack, then was finished off soon thereafter with jacks versus aces. Some of the other eliminations included Dragan Galic (183rd), Bryan Pellegrino (143rd), Phil Galfond (141st), Robert Mizrachi (116th), J.P. Kelly (111st), Jesper Hougaard (108th), and Andrew “Foucault” Brokos (87th).

Of course, all of us juveniles on media row were especially saddened to see Fokke Beukers go out (in 94th). Though I did report one hand involving Beukers earlier in which he knocked out a player, the headline for which wrote itself.

Was kind of a stressful day on the reporting side, too, for various reasons. One was that the PokerNews site had a few hiccups during the middle of the afternoon, lasting maybe 45 minutes or so. Not really sure what the deal was there, but the ship righted itself soon enough.

There was another kind of interesting, sort-of-stressful situation early on involving the Mizrachi brothers, Michael and Robert, and our reporting on them.

Robert was short-stacked to start the day, and would remain so pretty much until his elimination. Michael, meanwhile, began the day with almost 1.8 million, putting him in 30th with 205 left, and from the start he added to that total, eventually ending the day in 2nd place overall with a little more than 7.5 million.

Anyhow, while we were covering pretty much everything yesterday, we were focusing on a few stories in particular, including Johnny Chan, the last woman player Breeze Zuckerman, Gualter Salles (who had been down to one yellow 1,000 chip on Day 5), and the Mizrachi brothers. So we were constantly reporting on both Mizrachis’ hands and keeping their counts updated from the beginning.

Early on, we had reported on Michael a couple of times, including seeing him win a pot to move to 1.93 million, then win another to get to 2.3 million. (Reported here.) That was right about the time -- 1:30 p.m. or so -- that Michael’s brother, Eric, who also cashed in the Main Event (finishing 718th), sent out a Twitter message saying Michael had doubled to 4 million.

It didn’t take long for Eric’s message to get forwarded around the web. I know ESPN’s Andrew Feldman passed it along, as did many others. We heard about the message, too, and so made a quick check back at Michael Mizrachi’s table.

Yep, still 2.3 million.

Of course, the forwarding of the message soon was supplemented by editorial comments about how PokerNews had failed to report the big double up. But we couldn’t report it. It didn’t happen!

Adding to the fun, about 40 minutes after Eric’s message, the Grinder did in fact win a big hand (not exactly a double-up) that put him at about 3.9 million. It was a great hand, actually, requiring a huge call from Mizrachi on the river. (Report here.) And the surge would continue for the Grinder, pretty much throughout the day.

Anyhow, the timing of all that perhaps made it seem like we were 40 minutes late with some news, but in fact that wasn’t the case. Kind of funny in retrospect, but at the time it seemed a bit weird (and hard to explain).

Will be back over there for Day 7 today, where the plan will be to play down to 27. Should be exciting. Still some big names left -- Mizrachi, Alexander Kostritsyn, Eric Baldwin, Johnny Lodden, David Benyamine, and Jean-Robert Bellande among them.

Of course the biggest name is Meenakshi Subramaniam. I mean, really, that is one big name! Be cool if he went deep and developed a big following of Subramaniacs.

This’ll actually be my last day this summer over on PokerNews, and in fact I’ll finally be heading home on Saturday and so won’t be there at the very end when they get down to the November Nine. I’d like to see it, of course -- last year that final day was probably one of the most exciting days of poker I’ve ever been around -- but I’m also very glad to get on home and be with Vera. Too, too long, it’s been.

See you over at PokerNews later today. Also, be sure to check out my interview with B.J. Nemeth over at Betfair Poker which went up today. Nemeth talks about his WSOP photography, and the interview includes a couple of especially cool pictures Nemeth took at last year’s WSOP accompanied by his explanations of how he took them. Cool stuff.

2010 WSOP, Day 48: The Long Walk

Anybody remember this book, The Long Walk? I actually read this as a teenager, not realizing at the time it was by Stephen King as it had been originally published under a pseudonym, Richard Bachman. This was the cover of the copy I read, I recall. Haven’t looked back at it since I first read it, but it's one of those weird tales that kind of sticks with you.

Found myself thinking about The Long Walk again yesterday while helping cover Day 5 of the 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event. The story concerns a contest in which 100 boys are essentially made to walk without stopping, with the last one to survive winning “The Prize” -- i.e., anything he wants for life. And when I say “survive” I mean that literally, as those who fail to keep moving are shot dead.

Like I say, it has been a while since I’ve read the book, but I remember it being well-plotted and full of several interesting characters. And it had that hook -- as King’s stories and novels often do. Some of the boys crack up along the way, I recall, suffering both physically and mentally. I think some even kill themselves rather than being executed.

I thought of the book yesterday because we have reached that point in the Main Event where we’re all becoming more and more conscious of the endurance aspect of the tournament -- the fact that we’re now moving beyond the 40-hour mark in terms of time played.

And it sort of seems like some are cracking up.

Yesterday the day began with the bustouts once again coming at a rapid pace. I think the field went from 574 to 500 in the first hour of play, meaning more than one elimination per minute. I know in the blog over on PokerNews it felt as though just about every post was reporting yet another player pushing all in before the flop and not surviving.

The short stacks had no choice, of course. They were like the characters in the novel who had reached their physical limits, and simply could not go on. But then there were the medium or even big stacks suddenly going out, too. They could have walked on, but for whatever reason had reached some sort of limit, too.

I am referring to those wild coin flip-type hands in which players freely commit 100-plus big blinds before the flop knowing they are in a race situation at best. This sort of high-stakes gambling has happened all three years I have helped cover the Main Event.

I remember in 2008 commenting here about a hand I had reported in which two players each committed 1.2 million preflop with A-K when the blinds were 4,000/8,000. Not unusual at all to see that at this stage of the ME. Indeed, remember the very last day of play in 2009 (when they played down from 27 to 9), which most said would take 20 hours and was over in half that time. There were some examples of what appeared to be unnecessary risk-taking that day, too.

On the one hand, it seems like after playing poker for a week-and-a-half one would be less quick to risk that huge stack one has worked so hard and so long to accumulate. Then again, I think most players do reach a point where it doesn’t matter how many big blinds they have, they are desirous to put it all on the line regardless.

The Main Event is unusual because of its size and structure. In just about every other tournament these guys have ever played, they’ve never gotten close to the 40-hour mark in terms of playing time. Somewhere long before that they’ve reached the stage where some or even most players are in push-or-fold territory, and the gambling begins.

But in the ME -- with its slowly rising blinds/antes, two-hour levels, and such a huge field (meaning a ton of chips in play) -- that point really hasn’t come yet for the majority of the field. When play ended last night there were 205 players left. The top 40 still all had at least 100 big blinds. The top 120 still had at least 50 big blinds. It remains a “deep-stacked” event -- i.e., one in which flops can (and in most cases probably should) be seen -- if people want to play it as such.

Johnny Chan remains a big story heading into Day 6, still way up on the leaderboard (in 9th). Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi was on a short stack during the bubble period, but is now sitting in 30th place. In case you missed it, three of his brothers -- Robert, Danny, and Eric -- also cashed in the ME, an incredible feat. Robert is the only one still in, but is super short to begin today.

Another story today is that only one woman made it to Day 6, Breeze Zuckerman. She won Wicked Chops’ Last Woman Standing Cup when Dorothy Van Sachsen went out in 273rd. I think many were betting we’d see more women left in the field at this point, especially given all of the “Year of the Woman” talk leading up to the Main Event. (Anyone remember Ty Stewart, Vice President of Harrah’s, predicting women would win “three-plus bracelets” in open-field events?)

I imagine we’ll get down around 70-80 players today, then play down to 27 on Friday. They’ve planned the schedule well this year, in my opinion, mostly ensuring that none of the days go too long.

Although as I say, if players choose (and/or are able) to tighten up with their stacks of 100-plus big blinds, they could all keep on walking a bit longer.

2010 WSOP, Days 4-11: Catching Up

Been away from the WSOP for a little over a week, during which time there has already been a fair amount of drama happening over at the Rio. Felt a little weird to be away like that, but in this golden age of wireless, I never felt too detached from what was happening.

(That’s right -- a Thomas Dolby allusion for you there. Sheesh, can it really be true that album is pushing 30 years old?)

When in Lima, I frequently followed the live reporting on PokerNews, then also checked in on those other sites I recommended in a post last week (“Where to Go”).

As is probably the case for a lot of you, I found Dr. Pauly’s daily recaps mandatory reading for keeping up. Kevmath’s posts at Pokerati were helpful, too. And while Wicked Chops’ photos from the WSOP didn’t necessarily help with the “big picture” the way, say, B.J. Nemeth’s photo blog does (also a must-follow), I nevertheless might’ve checked in over there from time to time as well.

Lots of places to go, then, for someone on another continent wishing to satisfy a WSOP fix. Here were a half-dozen stories I found myself following most closely over the last week-plus while I was away.

1. The “Near Disaster” of Event No. 3

Among the stories from the first week-plus of the 2010 WSOP that got my attention, the first was that “near disaster” (as some have called it) of Day 1b of Event No. 3, the first of the $1,000 no-limit hold’em events, or “The Grand Games” (as one has called them).

I was actually there for that one, reporting on Day 1b, and, indeed, some were sweating it a little there near the end. On Day 1a, 2,601 players showed up and only 276 remained at day’s end. Then on Day 1b -- a day when all seemed to expect at least as many or even more to play -- only 1,744 came out. That meant 4,345 total, which translated to 441 spots paying.

They had to play 10 levels, but they couldn’t allow the 1,744 who showed on Day 1b get below 165 left, or else they’d reach the cash. Can’t do that before consolidating the fields, and so tourney officials were having to decide on the fly whether to stop play short of the end of Level 10 (if needed). Turned out not to be an issue, as there were still about 200 of the Day 1b entrants left when play concluded.

I actually think this story got blown up a little more than it deserved, probably because we were still early in the WSOP and there wasn’t much else to write about yet. Apparently, however, there is a new policy in place going forward to stop play on Day 1a if they get down to 15% of the field, then have the Day 1b crowd stop at the same point so as to avoid any further “near disasters.”

2. The Mizrachi Crunch

Some of us old enough to remember The Golden Age of Wireless are also old enough to remember that “Happy Days” episode in which Fonzie and Pinky Tuscadero enter a demolition derby. They find themselves up against the villainous Malachi brothers. Actually, looking online I am reminded this was a three-parter, with one episode ending on a cliffhanger after Pinky gets caught in the “Malachi crunch” -- i.e., the brothers simultaneously smash her pink car from either side. We had to wait a week to find out, I guess, but Pinky did survive.

Was fairly amazed to see both Michael and Robert Mizrachi making the final table of the $50,000 buy-in Player’s Championship (Event No. 2), with Robert ultimately finishing fifth and Michael earning his first WSOP bracelet. In fact, “The Grinder” knocked out Robert on his way to the victory.

The WSOP site tells us this was the just the third time two family members made a WSOP final table, with the Mizrachis having the best finish of any such pair. In 1995, siblings Annie Duke and Howard Lederer both made the final table of the $1,500 pot-limit hold’em event. Duke finished sixth in that one, with Lederer going out in ninth. And in 2002, brothers Ross and Barny Boatman both made the final table of the $1,500 pot-limit Omaha event, with Ross finishing seventh and Barny ninth.

3. Hellmuth Gets (Sort of) Close

Phil Hellmuth finished 15th in Event No. 8, a $1,500 no-limit hold’em event which attracted 2,341 entrants. Close enough to bring out all of the fans and haters. Dr. Pauly summed up the frenzy well in his post titled “Darth Hellmuth.”

Hellmuth was in the Event No. 3 I covered, though only briefly. He arrived very late on Day 1b and lasted about an hour before pushing his signature hand -- pocket nines -- from the button only to run into a big blind player holding K-K. Despite drawing such huge fields, these low buy-in NLHE events are clearly the Poker Brat’s best chance at getting a 12th bracelet.

Most have heard that some Native Americans believe having one’s picture taken steals one’s soul. The idea is usually linked to the fact that Crazy Horse apparently never allowed his picture to be taken. For some reason, Pauly’s account of a fan of Hellmuth (or “Hellmouth”) taking the Poker Brat’s picture from the rail made me think of that.

“The more photos he took” of Hellmuth, writes Pauly, “the more powerful he became.” Make of that what you will.

4. For the Nguyen; Men Lands Seventh Bracelet

Men “All You Can Eat, Baby” Nguyen won Event No. 10, the $10,000 Seven-Card Stud World Championship event, outlasting an amazing final table that included (in order of finish) Brandon Adams, Steve Billirakis, Nikolay Evdakov, Joe Cassidy, Michael Mizrachi, Vladimir Schmelev (who finished second to the Grinder in the $50K), and Sirous Jamshidi. That’s Men’s seventh bracelet, won in a variety of poker variants (hold’em, O/8, stud, lowball) -- interestingly, all fixed limit games.

I remember covering one of the early events last summer in which Men cashed. It was Event No. 19, the $2,500 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em event (won by Brock Parker). Nguyen eventually finished 16th in that one. Just after the cash bubble burst, he stopped me to tell me he’d moved within one WSOP cash of Phil Hellmuth’s record, but a quick check with Nolan Dalla showed he wasn’t quite there yet. (This year’s WSOP Media Guide has Hellmuth with 75 WSOP cashes entering this summer’s Series, with Men in second with 65.)

Besides competing with Hellmuth for cashes and bracelets, Nguyen rivals the Poker Brat in the number of haters he has, too. I’ve heard the same stories all of you have, and as a result am necessarily reserved about celebrating Nguyen’s accomplishments. Still, seven bracelets is nothing to sneeze at.

5. Cool Britannia

The British are coming, apparently. And winning. Lots of success for U.K. players here early on. First, Praz Bansi won Event No. 5 ($1,500 NLHE). Then in Event No. 6, the $5,000 NLHE Shootout event, Neil "Bad Beat" Channing and Stuart Rutter both made the final table, finishing second and third respectively. Then James Dempsey took down Event No. 9, the $1,500 Pot-Limit Hold'em event.

Again, check out Pauly’s discussion of this one. Also, be sure to add Snoopy’s Black Belt blog to your regular reading for more on the Brits.

6. Dwan’s Song

Probably the biggest story from the first 11 days of the WSOP was Tom “durrrr” Dwan nearly taking down Event No. 11 ($1,500 no-limit hold’em). Indeed, if Dwan had won the event rather than finishing second, this one might’ve ended up the story of the entire WSOP this summer.

That’s because -- as you’ve no doubt read elsewhere -- side bets on Dwan winning a bracelet this year apparently amounted to something in the neighborhood of $8-$10 million, meaning his winning would’ve scored him a payday that will possibly be even bigger than that enjoyed by the person winning the Main Event.

Terrence Chan wrote an interesting post about how the side bets essentially meant the final heads-up battle between Dwan and eventual winner Simon Watt of New Zealand amounted to the biggest game in poker history. (Thanks to the Black Widow of Poker for pointing me to this one.) According to Chan’s estimates, if one takes the side bets into considerations, the real-dollar value of the blinds were something like $55,000/$110,000 at the end.

Interesting stuff, although I’d add to the commentary that while the blinds may have had that significance for Dwan, Watt -- whom I presume wasn’t on the other end of any of Dwan’s bracelet bets -- obviously wasn’t playing quite so high.

Those are the biggies thus far. That's the way it seemed from 4,000-plus miles away, anyhow.

Have also been following F-Train’s posts about the total numbers of entrants thus far at the WSOP. (Here is the most recent one of those.) And while I haven’t heard anything tangible about our having passed the June 1 deadline for banks and other financial institutions to start complying with the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006, I’m braced for some sort of news on that front, too.

That's better. Will probably take a day or two before I feel completely back in the swing of things, but I’m looking forward to rejoining the fray. More stories to come!