Please don’t forget about my friends who are still blogging away for the PW family. I’ll certainly still be reading them every day.

So, goodnight. Good luck at the tables. And thank you.

“I realized that the structure has a break in payouts for fields larger than 1000 players. For example, 27 players (or three tables of nine) get paid for fields between 200-299, 36 players (or four tables of nine) get paid for fields between 300-399, and so it goes in 100 player increments. So if you played in a field of 300 players, 36 players got paid or 12% of the field. If your field was 399 players, 36 players got paid or just over 9% of the field. But the 100 player increments stop at 1000 and increase to 500 player increments. If you played in a field of 1000-1499, 99 players (or eleven tables of nine got paid. If you played in a field of 1000 players, 99 got paid or 9.9% of the field. But if you played in a field of 1499, 99 got paid or just 6.6% of the field.”

So there you have it. Good to know Harrah’s isn’t just screwing over women (and old people, as the seniors event drew over 1,800), they’re screwing over everyone. Which still doesn’t make it right. But at least they’re equal opportunity screwers.

The media should have a day off tomorrow. At least that was the plan. But a fourth Day 1 was just added to the Main Event schedule, despite the fact that almost 2,700 fewer players are expected to enter this year than there were in 2006. So why the fourth day one if we’re looking at about a 6,000-person field?

That would be the $1 million disaster called the Poker Tent. Harrah’s finally wised up and realized that the PR hit would probably be far too severe if they stuck people who had paid TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS inside the Poker Tent Sauna Wind Tunnel Death Trap Freezer Sweat Lodge on a 120-degree day.

So, no more Main Event days off. And, unfortunately no John and Jen wedding invitational tournament, either. (Congrats, guys!)

We’re looking at a little over 6,000 players in the Main Event this year, down from 2006′s high water mark of 8,773. It’s certainly more than I thought would show up. The really telling numbers, which we won’t know for several days, are the percentages of online qualifiers who actually showed up and played rather than pocketing the $10K. I think that number will shake out at around 20-25%. There are certainly fewer Poker Stars jackets and Full Tilt T-shirts in the field this year. The European sites seem to be faring well, though with good representation from places like Ladbrokes and Betfair.

So far, the Main Event has been a little disappointing. There is nowhere near the carnival atmosphere that there was in 2006. People aren’t wearing costumes or stupid hats. A monkey didn’t try to enter. Fewer celebrities played and the aisles between the tables are just a little less crowded, with fewer than 1,700 starters on each Day 1 so far. Even the Expo sucks. I never liked the Expo to begin with, but at least the sheer spectacle of it last year was worth writing about. This year, the most interesting thing in the room was a short-lived “dunk the stripper” booth. They took it down after the girls complained about photographers snapping away during some “wardrobe malfunctions.”

There weren’t too many good pre-Main Event parties either this year. No Full Tilt bash at Pure, no Bodog debauchery at Tao. Just the Bluff Magazine shin-dig at some strip joint that I didn’t go to. Pauly did get invited to Phil Gordon’s BBQ, but we had Widespread Panic tickets for that night. I’m still on tilt. Yet another failed Phil meeting.

My inner feminist weeps at this shit, but I do realize this is poker. The market is young men, most of whom are lonely, horny, and anti-social. So there are going to be stippers employed to entice them to gamble. I was so much madder about this kind of stuff a year ago. I would have spit out 3,000 words on slutty young women in tight white tanks parading around hocking their wares and how it creates an inhospitable environment for women who do want to get involved in poker. Now I just know it’s par for the course. That as long as the boom continues, it will never, ever change. And that the type of woman that is going to be attracted to playing poker and could be successful at it is the type of woman who can forget about the strippers and the sexism and just recognize it all as marketing tactics.

7 hours before I get up and head to the Rio for the fourth Day 1. Followed by two Day 2s. I think it should finally be Day 3 by like, next week or something.

Make sure to follow all the Main Event action at PokerNews. And for even more behind the scenes skinny, look no further than everyone’s favorite insomniac Dr. Pauly at the Tao of Poker.

Event # 46  $1,000 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo.  668 entries, 64 places paid.  (9.6% of field)

Event # 51 $1,000 S.H.O.E.  730 entrants, 72 places paid.  (9.86% of field)

Event # 17 $1,000 Ladies No-Limit Hold’em.  1286 entrants, 99 places paid (7.7% of the field).

STILL, no one at Harrah’s can explain to me why this is…

Sit down. Stand up. Pace. Look over at the table. Breathe when he finally folds his hand/drags the pot/ stacks his chips. Give encouragement with a reassuring smile.

This is what giving birth must be like for fathers. There’s absolutely nothing you can do except worry that no one bleeds to death and that the baby comes out with one head and five fingers and five toes.

I was more nervous sweating Pauly in Event #38 of the WSOP than I would have been was I playing myself. At least before the dinner break I was working and covering the event for PokerNews. Between Pauly’s double-ups and hammer bluffs I could at least focus on other things– managing the reporters, writing about other players, trying to keep the chip counts right, listening to some of Schecky’s bad jokes. He was up to 6,000 early. A good sign. Then 9,000. Then 14,000. Then C.K. Hua gets moved on his left with a ton of chips. Then he loses 2/3 of his stack when he makes two pair with Q-J on a K-Q-J flop… and runs into K-Q. At least there were other things for me to focus on during all that drama.

After dinner, it was a different story. I was off work. I had the next day off. Pressure=lifted for at least 36 hours. But Pauly was still in. 580 players left, 270 would money. If he could just double up once, he’d have a great shot at cashing.

I decided to go sit in a $4-8 game just to distract myself from the action only five tables down from me. I got kings cracked by a runner-runner straight and then a runner-runner flush in back to back pots by a guy who didn’t understand why the bet was $4 on the flop and $8 on the turn and river. After that I was getting up every five hands or so to check on him. And one of those times… he was standing up. My stomach hit the floor. I lurched over to see the board… but it had been mucked, save for the pocket sevens now sitting underneath a mass of chips in front of Pauly. His hands shook as he tried to stack them. He smiled like a little boy on Christmas morning. And C.K. Hua’s stack suddenly looked a lot thinner. Every junior reporter on the PokerNews team stood around the table, frantically scribbling out the details of the hand. I went up to one of them and learned he had won a coinflip against C.K. for his whole stack. 7-7- vs. A-J.

He was right back in it. And he’d made exactly the move he said he wanted to make at dinner– double through C.K., who at the time, was the chipleader with 49,000.

I went back to the cash game. Clearly my demeanor had changed from grumpy-girl-on-tilt, to giddy-happy-smiley girl beaming with pride.

“What happened to you?” the donkey on my left asked.

“My boyfriend doubled through C.K. Hua!” I exclaimed with a smile.

“That in the $1,500? I played that.”

“So did I” said the donkey on his left.

“Yeah, me too” said the guy who didn’t know why the bet was $4 on the flop and $8 on the turn.

I flopped trip aces with A-J on an A-A-5 board and got rivered when an 8 hit and some douche turned over A-8.

Only I didn’t care.

What the fuck? I ALWAYS care! I’ve kicked holes in walls over lesser beats.

Not tonight.

I picked up the chips I had left, dumped them into my purse and took a seat two tables behind Pauly. They were about 30 spots to the bubble. He’d busted another dude on a coinflip in the time I’d been gone. A-K vs. his Q-Q. Q-T-T on the flop. Good God.

When play went hand-for-hand at 275 players remaining, the media were cleared out of the aisles inside the ropes. They were all sweating Pauly now. Felipe, our photographer hovered around his table, along with Otis and Steve Hall. 273…shuffle up and deal. Still 273… shuffle up and deal again. Many players, including Pauly were out of their seats, pacing, making phone calls, chatting with the rail. 271… shuffle up and deal.

Some guy at Pauly’s table puts his last chip, yes, his last 100 chip into the pot after posting 200 on the ante and wakes up to pocket kings. They hold up against pocket nines. The table goes totally nuts. And three tables over there’s a huge commotion as the bubble boy gets knocked out. People start to clap… but there are still hands in play at other tables… don’t get too excited yet. Wait wait wait… longest 2 minutes ever before the TD gets on the mic and tells everyone “Congratulations! You are all in the money!”

Pauly hugs everyone. He can’t stop smiling. Neither can I. Now the real work begins for him… and I am free to start drinking. I get a Corona from the bar outside the Poker Kitchen and take a victory gulp for my boy.

When I return he’s all in with A-Q against pocket kings. The flop comes down 5-5-6. And one of those feelings overcomes me… when you just know what card is coming next. I know that ace is coming. I feel deadly calm as he burns and turns. It’s the ace of hearts. I clap my hands together and turn away from the table.

“Yeahhh! Ship it!” I nearly grunt. A queen falls on the river for good measure and Pauly doubles again. He’s got 34K and an excellent chance of making Day 2.

Pauly’s table broke soon thereafter and his new lineup featured Men “The Master” Nguyen, Erica Schoenberg, and some guy called “Action Bob” Hwang that Pauly knew from covering the WPT Borgata. He survived another 30 minutes of play and, for the first time, got to bag and tag his chips. Cue the little boy on Christmas morning look.

Since I had Sunday off, I went in to the Rio with him at 2 PM and grabbed a spot on the rail next to our friend Friedman. To my surprise and delight, Joe Speaker appeared out of nowhere. He was in town for a bit of business and showed up to sweat Pauly. We stood right behind Erica Schoenberg, who was immaculately dressed in a white ruffled blouse, a black vest, and slim black trousers.

When Erica raised UTG, Julie Deng (who final tabled the Ladies Event) moved all in, and Erica insta-called, we all uniformly cringed when Deng turned over Kd-Jd in the face of Erica’s pocket kings. Erica’s an extremely solid player… an UTG raise means something coming from her. Erica doubled up and Deng was left with about 8K.

Deng wasn’t the only one kicking herself after that hand. Pauly folded A-J and would have made trip aces, tripling up at a crucial juncture. Right move, wrong result.

Shortly after than hand, he made a sort of curious UTG raise to 5,500. The action folded to Men the Master in the small blind. He called, along with Robert Cheung in the big blind. Speaker and I sort of looked at each other thinking the same thing– our boy’s got a monster. The flop was A-9-4 with two diamonds. Before Men the Master could take his action, Cheung made a motion with his hand that looked like he was going to check… only he then saw that Men hadn’t done anything and he froze his hand in mid-air. He stayed in that position for almost a minute, looking like he was preparing to karate-chop the table before Men finally checked. Cheung immediately fired out 8,000.

“I’m all in” replied Pauly, just as quickly. Men the Master mucked and Cheung mucked.

“Come on… show me A-4 ” begged Men.

“Nah. You can read about it on my blog tomorrow” Pauly replied. The Master broke into a giggle.

Pauly had 45K after that hand and had survived another pay jump. It was at this point that I decided it would be a good time to pee.

When I came back, I saw Friedman walking out of the room. He told me Pauly had busted.

In retrospect, it was probably a good thing that I didn’t see it happen.

I found him in the Payout room and he told me Erica had done the deed. She raised with 9-9, he moved in with Ac-9c thinking he could move her off the hand, but she called. Two clubs flopped, the turn gave him a gutshot too, but his 15 outs missed the river. 119th place. $4,740. Chris “Jesus” Ferguson had busted right behind him in 118th. His face was a mix of disappointment and pride in his accomplishment. Any poker player knows that feeling. There’s always some element of sadness after any tournament you don’t win.

But the top 4% of a massive WSOP field? That’s damned impressive. At least to me it is.

“You know, something like this is nothing to a pro” Pauly said.

“Yeah, but that’s the thing. We’re not pros. We’re just writers.” I replied, as we walked to the car.

My sweat was over. Pauly had to immediately transition to covering the $50K H.O.R.S.E. event and I don’t know how he did it. Because I didn’t even play and I was so exhausted I went home, lay down on the couch and slept.

For five hours. And then another ten.

Just minutes ago she had given me her business card. She worked at the Ocean’s 11 Casino in San Diego County. We had chatted for a few minutes before the cards went in the air. And now, maybe four orbits into the tournament, I thought she was typical dead money like the rest of my table.

“This is serious.” I shot back. “This is the World Series of Poker. I don’t see how it gets more serious than this.”

She let out another chuckle. I continued to stare at the felt and shuffle my chips. The board read 3c-4c-6c-Ac-As and I was holding the 7h-7c. I had raised before the flop and an Asian woman with auburn highlights re-raised me from the small blind. I smelled an overpair or A-K, but the re-raise was so small, the decision to call was nothing more than a simple pot odds problem. I liked my overpair/gutshot straight flush draw on the flop and when she checked, I bet 300 into the 500 pot. She paused and called. I didn’t think she liked the clubs very much… overpair with no club? Overcards with a club? Something like Ad-Kc?

The turn made my flush…but not in a good way. I had a shitty small one-card flush, but if she had just paired her ace without a club, I was in good shape. She bet small, 500. I thought about just shoving here, but I felt that even a shove would not move this woman off her hand. She’d already doubled her stack by flopping trip jacks early and getting called the whole way by some clueless donkey with only A-Q high. Though this was the first big hand I’d been involved in, our 2,000 starting stacks didn’t exactly present me with a ton of fold equity at this juncture. So I called.

The river was the As and she immediately fired out 850. Which is when I went into the tank, replaying the hand. Analyzing her betting. Going back to the previous hand when she flopped the trip jacks…she had just fired into her opponent like a machine gun with the nuts…she looked too comfortable in her seat…and if I called the 800, what would I have left?

These were the sort of things going through my head when that woman decided to chime in about my apparently too-serious behavior. These are the sort of things that are supposed to go through a player’s head when making a decision. But I guess this was just some sort of Sunday leisure walk for her. A day out with the girls. Not the Ladies’ World Championship of no-limit hold’em or anything like that.

I took my time with my decision. It’s something I’ve been working on in my live game. I didn’t feel guilty about it in the least. And all told, I thought for maybe 2 minutes before folding the 7c face up. She tabled two red aces for quads.

I can dodge bullets, baby.

* * * * *

The World Series of Poker Ladies’ Event is billed as a World Championship, yet is treated by Harrah’s as well as the majority of the players themselves as a Sunday Brunch. A fashion show. A garden party. When WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack took the mic before play began, he praised everyone in the field for making this the largest ladies-only tournament in the history of poker. Then he introduced some woman from the reality show “The Swan” to call “shuffle up and deal.”

I’m sorry…the creator of a reality show in which “ugly ducklings” are made over with plastic surgery only to participate in some sort of freak-show beauty pageant where they are all judged on their new looks? That is what the brain trust at Harrah’s came up with to “throw out the first pitch” at the Ladies’ World Championship? I am insulted, offended, and outraged that such a person would be chosen to take on such a public duty at a tournament that is supposed to celebrate women in poker, not remind them that at the end of the day, it’s really just about how they look anyway.

Here’s what “The Swan” stands for in the words of it’s production company’s COO:

“We all know people who at some point in their lives get stuck in a bad spot. They have a goal and think ‘if only I could change what I don’t like about myself, I would be able to fulfill my dreams,’” explains Cecile Frot-Coutaz, COO of the FremantleMedia NA production company. “With The Swan, we’re offering the kind of dream makeover that’s normally available only to the rich and famous. This is a positive show where we want to see how these women can make their dreams come true once they have what they want. But it is also a competition, and the one who will have achieved the greatest transformation will be voted ‘The Swan.’”

Tell me something. Were Susie Isaacs, Barbara Enright, Jennifer Harman, Cyndy Violette or any of the great ladies of the game not available to call shuffle up and deal? No, I think they were all actually in the room. Moreover, have any of them made a public statement about how blatantly offensive, sexist, and detrimental to women in the game it is to include this reality show bullshit in what is supposed to be a World Championship bracelet event?

In case you hadn’t heard, the winner of the WSOP Ladies Event not only takes home $262,077 for first place, a Corum Watch, a gold and diamond WSOP bracelet, the title of Ladies’ World Champion, and a VIP package to a WNBA game– she gets a makeover.

From the official WSOP Press Release:

The Ladies Champion also will receive a VIP weekend at a Harrah’s-operated casino to attend “The New You” exclusive makeover and lifestyle event, created by “The Swan” creator Galan to teach participants about health, wellness and beauty from leading professionals in the field…The WSOP Ladies Champion also will fit in at “The New You,” a women’s brand that includes a television show in development with NBC.

‘The Ladies Champion is sure to be a strong competitor who knows how to take charge of situations,” said Galan. “She will be a great example of how women can improve their circumstances by taking a proactive approach to challenges.’”

I absolutely boil when I read those words. The Ladies’ Event Champion is being whored out to NBC for a reality show. Health, wellness, and beauty? A fucking makeover? How about we send Greg Raymer instead and finally have him shake the socks and sandals look? How about we get Dutch Boyd to shower and take that filthy bandana off his head? How about we give two-time bracelet winner Barry Greenstein a weekend package so he can learn to conceal those under-eye circles with the right product? Or give Tomer Benvenisti some tips on nutrition?

Not to mention that before she gets her makeover, the Ladies’ World Champion will… yeah… have already WON the event and ACHIEVED her goal. And lipstick, hair dye and liposuction had nothing to do with it.

This is some kind of a sick joke, right? Oh wait, it’s not.

The WSOP Ladies Event reminded me just how much women are still thought of and treated as second-class citizens in the poker world. Reality show B.S. aside, calling this event a “World Championship” is a total misnomer when half the field is made up of players wives and girlfriends, models and porn stars bought in by corporations to promote their products or web sites, and totally clueless amateurs who have never played a tournament before.

Dead money like that is enticing to the skilled players who do enter this event. However, the structure takes that advantage right back from them. 2005 Ladies’ champion Jennifer Tilly said it herself in an on-camera interview with PokerNews: “I think 2000 chips when the blinds are 25 and 50 it’s just, it’s more like a charity tournament, there’s just not enough play in it.”

Not enough play, and not enough pay either. 1,286 players entered the Ladies’ Event and 99 would be paid, representing only 7.7% of the field. Every other tournament at the 2007 WSOP has paid at least 9% of the field, some of the higher buy-in events as much as 13%. Why is that, exactly? I’ve been searching for an answer to that question for two days now. When I asked WSOP Media Director Nolan Dalla about it, he referred me to the payout office. When I talked to a guy at the front desk in the payout office, he referred me to his boss. And his boss referred me to tournament director Jimmy Sommerfeld. Jimmy Sommerfeld was running five bracelet events so you know, he has tons of free time to talk to me.

In the early early morning hours of yesterday, just as the $2,500 H.O.R.S.E. event got heads-up, I asked one of the floor guys if he knew what was up with the Ladies’ Event payout. He and my colleague B.J. Nemeth concurred that a mathematical formula based on the amount of the buy-in was to blame for the steep payouts.

“Though, that $1,500 event Hellmuth won had 2,628 players and payed 270″ he said, his tired eyes deep in thought. “7-something percent does seem weird to me.”

So, the $1,000 buy-in is to blame for the crappy structure and the gyp on the payouts. This is probably true– I don’t think there’s any horrible conspiracy behind it. All WSOP events get twice the buy-in amount in starting chips (doubled from last year) and all the NLHE events have essentially the same blind structure. Though I’m definitely curious to see if the $1K S.H.O.E. event and the $1K Seniors Event later in the Series end up paying less than 8% of the field.

Here’s what I propose. Instead of marginalizing the Ladies Event by keeping the buy-in low and offering makeovers to accompany the cash and bracelet, I implore the powers that be at Harrah’s to make this a true World Championship event. Start by raising the buy-in. Make it a $2,500 event. That’s going to be less dead money, but a much greater chance for the skilled women of the game to engage in world-class competition. We deserve that much. And Harrah’s will get more juice per player with an increased buy-in anyway, so there’s no crying over lost dollars. Not to mention that some of the top female pros might be enticed to play the event with a higher buy-in. I mean, there was a $1K Ladies Event held at the L.A. Poker Classic in February and there’s another $1K on the Legends of Poker schedule in August. And that’s just in L.A. I don’t know how many others there are in other cities.

I also encourage every other woman player out there who is as offended as I am by the “Swan”/”The New You” reality show bullshit to make your voices heard. Write about it on your blogs. Write to Harrah’s. Talk about it with other female players. Post about it on the forums, like EPT Champion Vicky Coren did on the Hendon Mob website:

“What a thoughtful extra gift for the little ladies! Who ever said that female-only tournaments weren’t serious? I only wish I’d known. Thinking there was just a title and a few hundred thousand dollars at stake, I didn’t make the effort to fly out in time; nobody mentioned we could also win a lesson in putting on lipstick… “

* * * * *

“I laid down a flush to quads” I said to Pauly as he passed my table, frowning at the 900 in chips I had remaining.

With the blinds up to 50-100, it was time to start shoving. I moved in with A-K, no callers. I moved in over the top of a weak-tight player’s pre-flop raise with Ah-Qh and got her to lay down. I open-pushed with 5-5 from the button, no callers. On the next hand I pushed again with K-Q. No callers.

“Jesus, she has no fear” the woman on my left muttered to another player. What fear is there to have when you’re left with nine big blinds?

After my push-fest I was back up to about 1700 when I picked up those deadly deadly pocket sevens again. I raised to 300 and the woman who made quads on me called from the button. The flop was Ts-5s-3d. I liked that flop for my sevens and I bet 500.

“How much do you have left?” she asked. I counted out the 900 I had behind. She thought for a few seconds and then just called. I immediately put her on A-K.

The turn was perhaps the worst card in the deck for me, the As. I checked and she immediately put me all in.

“This hand just won’t work for me today” I said as I mucked my cards. She showed Ac-Ks.

“Man, I play gooooot…” I said, as I put my iPod back on and jacked up the volume. “St. Stephen” by the Grateful Dead soothed my tilt.

My table broke shortly thereafter. I was moved to a different corner of the room and was seated with a Filipino girl I recognized from some Ladies tournaments at the Bicycle Casino as well as 2006 WSOP Seniors Event winner Clare Miller. She was wearing her bracelet and passed it around the table for the other ladies to look at.

I started pushing my short stack again with any playable hand and had chipped back up to 1,500 by the first break. On perhaps the third hand after the break with blinds up to 100-200, I moved all in from the cutoff with 3-3 and was called by the big blind with A-K. An ace on the flop and all but 275 of my stack vanished, having my opponent slightly covered. I moved it in on the very next hand with As-4s and got called by both blinds, who checked the rest of the hand down. The girl from the Bike in the small blind made two pair on the flop with her K-J and I was out, after only a little more than two hours of play.

Needless to say, I was very disappointed. I had every expectation that I would go deep in this one, but I don’t think I made bad decisions. Both of those big laydowns ended up being the right move, though I’m still falling asleep at night, even three days later, wondering if I should have pushed the flop or the turn in that first hand with the sevens.

My congratulations go out to Sally Ann Boyer who took down the tournament, the bracelet, and the $262,000. I hope she eschews the makeover, because she looks lovely as she is. Boyer’s story is a good one too– she’s only been playing for less than a year and recently attended the WSOP Ladies Poker Academy. She entered a ladies event at Binions shortly thereafter, won it, and used that money to buy into the WSOP. One of my favorite ladies to watch, German player Katja Thater, made the final table and finished fifth. Thater has incredible poise and focus at the table, and has a poker face I’d like to emulate– an Ivey-esque blank slate tempered with a touch of icy indifference.

For me, for now, it’s back to the jounalistic grind for the next five weeks. I get a rare day off tomorrow, and though I will spend it as far away as possible from the Rio, the possibilities of me sitting down at a poker table with two racks of gray stacked in 40-high towers… well… you know…

There it is, kids. A cool grand. $500 in benjamins and my precious lammer. It’s all been traded in for a seating card at the WSOP Ladies Event, which will kick off Sunday at noon.

I have what I believe will be a late-break table as well as a $50 last-longer with PokerNews’ on-air hostess Tiffany Michelle. I got some decent sleep last night and I’m on the early shift today, so hopefully it won’t be too late a night at the Rio for me.  I’m already running through potential outfits in my head.

I’m ready to kick ass and take names. Wish me luck.

I didn’t think much of it when one of our junior reporters handed me a note about an hour into play that Vinh had yet to arrive. Pros do that all the time. It’s more common on Day 1, but maybe he had just overslept or thought the re-start was at 3 PM instead of 2. I told him to keep me updated.

Four hours later, Vinh still wasn’t there and half his stack had been blinded off. Friends of his like Men “The Master” Nguyen were frantically trying to locate him, barking into their cell phones in Vietnamese. No one knew what was up. Vinh ended up getting blinded off in 20th place, outlasting 61 players that well… actually played.

The various poker forums are flush with theories. On 2+2, Shane “Shaniac” Schleger and Shannon Shorr, both of whom cashed the event (Shaniac in 5th for over $111K) weighed in with their own experience with Vinh at the tables:

Said Shaniac:

“I actually think there’s a good chance that the reason VV didnt show up today was because of some kind of incapacitation (whether it be death, hospitalization or whatever). When I saw him yesterday, I couldn’t believe how he looked–he was emaciated and appeared like he had aged years in the course of a month. I’m assuming it’s the result of some kind of hard-drug problem, but I have no real insight.

Vinny played one table over from me all day yesterday, seeming to hold onto chips the whole day and not missing any opportunities to refer to himself in the third person (“Don’t they know how Vinny Vinh plays?”). It’s almost inconceivable to me that he missed day 2 with the chip lead unless something drastic happened. Also, fwiw, his stack outlasted over 60 players.”

Shorr’s take:

“I cashed in this event and agree with Shane completely. I saw Vinny Vinh around the tables yesterday and he looked like he was on a different planet from hard drug abuse. I very much dislike playing with Vinny because of the way he treats other players and dealers, but I really hope that he is found to be in ok shape. It, indeed, must’ve been very serious for a player like Vinh to miss this kind of shot at a bracelet.”

Daniel Negreanu offered this on his own forum:

“He looks terrible. Scary actually. He’s lost a ton of wait and it looks like he is suffering all the symptoms of possibly crystal meth or something along those lines. He looks half dead.”

And Todd “Dan Druff” Witteles, who finished 10th in this event, had this to offer on Neverwin Poker:

The consensus among the remaining 27 players at the event (myself included) is that he’s dead, with an outside shot at being incapacitated or in jail.

Supposedly he looked emaciated and sick the day before. I didn’t see him so I can’t comment.

So let me repeat this. No one knows what happened to Vinny Vinh. All sorts of rumors are flying about but absolutely nothing has been confirmed. I’ve heard everything from an O.D., to a family emergency in Asia, to a prop bet on how far into the money he could blind off.

More information as it becomes available…

There’s already been a lot of ink on the Day 1 chaos, some of it my own. Lines thousands deep, pre-registration fuck-ups, and those god-awful “PokerPeek” decks where the sixes and nines are visually interchangeable. When I decided to hit up the satellites that night, I got to experience it all first-hand.

I waited in line for a seat for over an hour. The guy in front of me in line had come to Vegas for his birthday and wanted to celebrate it by playing in the next day’s $1,500 NLHE event. After only 15 minutes in line, he was bitching and moaning about the wait to anyone who could hear, and after this gross display of impatience, I secretly hoped he ended up at my table.

“What the fuck is taking so fuckin’ long? Seriously, if Harrah’s put me in charge of this thing, everything would be fixed in like, 10 minutes!”

Keep dreaming, buddy.

While standing in line, I tried to discern what the hold up was. First of all, there were maybe 10 empty tables in the satellite area, but not enough dealers to get them all going. There were also maybe four or five tables that had players seated at them, but hadn’t started playing because they didn’t have cards or chips yet. After getting through about half the line, the floorman made an announcement that players were no longer able to buy in through the new automated registration system (where you paid your entry at a kiosk and got a seating card in return) and that they were reverting to the old-fashioned way, where cash, casino chips, or lammers (for $500 and above satellites) would be paid at the table. Half of those tables waiting to start were registered through the automated system, half were not, and they were attempting to straighten that out.

Finally, about five new dealers came over and they were able to seat a few more tables. I took a seat in a $125 buy-in single table, sandwiched between a tall, broad-shouldered guy in a Bicycle Casino hat on my left, and a 21 year old kid in a hoodie and a Full Tilt hat who identified himself as an online player called “Kenny05″ and let us all know that he had already won his Main Event seat online. We all sat there for over 30 minutes before the cards went in the air. First, there were no cards. So a player called a floorman and we got a couple of decks. Then, there were no chips. Another wait for the chips. Then, no timer or structure sheet. The Asian guy in the 10 seat popped up, walked over to an empty table and swiped a timer while another guy went looking for a structure sheet. Then, the dealer didn’t know what to do with all the buy-ins. It was about that time that the satellite manager cruised by our table and half the table started bitching and moaning about the hold-up. So, from the time I got in line to the time I was dealt my first hand, over 90 minutes had elapsed.

The guy on my left looked so familiar to me I had to find out who he was. Turns out he was Brian Somerville, who had made the final three tables of the $5,000 WSOPC Event I covered last month at Caesar’s Palace. He won his way into that event on a satellite, and was trying to get into a few WSOP events on the cheap.

In the smaller buy-in satellites ($335 and below) players receive 1000 in chips and blinds start at 25-25. On my first hand, it was folded to me in the cutoff and I raised to 150 with the A-9 of clubs. The Asian guy in the 10 seat made it 500, and I had to fold. He flashed pocket kings. I didn’t get much in the way of hands for the next couple of orbits and folded away while trying to get a feel for the table. Kenny05 was pretty aggressive and the bespectacled man with the stringy gray hair in the 4s was playing pretty well. I picked up the blinds with K-Q when no one called, and on the very next hand, I looked down at two black aces. Some donk had limped in and I raised to 300. The Asian Guy called and Mr. Impatient moved all in for about 1400. The limper-donk folded, I called, and the Asian guy folded. My A-A held against his A-K and I suddenly had one of the table’s healthier stacks.

On the very next hand, Kenny05 raised to 350 and I looked down at Q-Q.

“Make it 1000″ I said, as I cut out ten orange 100 chips.

“Oh man, that can’t be good” Kenny muttered, shuffling the 600 he had left. “I guess I have to call.” He tabled A-T and my queens held up.

“Holy Mary Mother of God, I have 40% of the chips in play now” I thought as I looked around the table. There were two micro-stacks left along with me, Stringy Gray Hair, and Brian Somerville.

I busted Somerville when I raised with T-T on the button and he moved all in from the small blind. I called and the tens held against his 5-9 of clubs. Stingy Gray Hair took out the micro-stack and I busted the Asian Guy with the lowly 3-5 of hearts vs his Tourist (A-7o). He was all in in the big blind and I made a straight on the river, though it took me a minute to see it with all the sixes and nines out there on the board.

Stringy Gray Hair and I looked at each other thinking the same thing, but he said it first.

“So, what do you think about a chop?”

We counted out our stacks– I had 4800, he had 5200 and we agreed to split it down the middle. We each got a $500 lammer and $60 in cash. I tipped the dealer $20 and practically skipped back to media row to tell Pauly the good news.

“I’m gonna go sell it” I said. “The registration line is still all the way down the hall.”

“Hang on to it… you never know. What if you win another? Then you can play the ladies event” he said.

Hmmmmm….

I probably won’t take the plunge on that one, but I’ll certainly be back to the satellite tables when I get the chance.

Wasn’t it like, 10 minutes ago that Jamie Gold lucksacked his way to the WSOP final table and got slapped with a lawsuit by Crispin Leyser over half his winnings?

Man, those were the days. Back when the UIGEA was just that little legislative thingamajig everyone was sorta ignoring and the halls of the Rio Convention Center were painted in online poker advertisments. There was a Poker Stars suite and a Full Tilt Suite and an Ultimate Bet Suite and a Bodog suite where the free booze flowed and scantily clad models hocked iPod giveaways and signup bonuses. I blogged the WSOP for Party Poker, got paid through Neteller and played on that site during my off-hours. None of those things could happen this year. Not at the first post-UIGEA World Series of Poker.

I had a spirited debate with Pauly a few weeks back about the implications of online poker sites now paying out cash to players who have won seats in the Main Event instead of directly registering them for the tournament. I firmly believe that more than two-thirds of them will elect to keep the $10,000 or $12,000 in cash instead of playing the ME. I think it will be extremely difficult for most people to take that cash (and for most of them it’s likely their biggest score ever in poker) and lay it all on the line for a shot at the WSOP. Ten or twelve thousand dollars is a lot of money to average Americans. It can pay off long-standing credit card debt, buy a new car, or, in some parts of the country, represent a down payment on a house. I know if I won a Main Event seat and suddenly had $12K in my online poker account, I’d cash that sucker out, throw $10K of it in the bank and maybe play a smaller buy-in event at the WSOP, say the $1K Ladies’ Event or a $2K NLHE event. But there’s no way in hell I’d walk up to that cashier’s cage with 100 $100 bills and leave with only a seating card in return. Pauly disagrees. He’s of the school of thought that for most of these guys that try to win seats, the WSOP is their Great American Dream, their one shot at immortality. He believes that for many of them, it’s worth the $10,000 to come home to Wisconsin or New Jersey or wherever and be able to tell their friends they played in the World Series of Poker and sat next to Johnny Chan/sucked out on Phil Hellmuth/put Annie Duke on tilt.

Finding out which one of us is right might also prove to be difficult. If most people do end up keeping the cash, are the online sites going to acknowledge that? Currently 1000 players have won Main Event Seats on Poker Stars while 151 have qualified on Full Tilt. Those numbers will nearly double in all likelihood before the Big Dance kicks off on July 6.

I’ve been asked by everyone from leading poker industry figures to the guy sitting next to me in the $4-8 game at Red Rock how many people I think will play in the Main Event this year. My educated guess is about 5,500 and I’m sticking to it. As for online qualifiers, I think 30% or less of them will actually buy in to the Main Event. I am willing to gamble sums of money on these figures if anyone is interested.

I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again. The crew at PokerNews is the most experienced, top-quality group of writers you’ll find in the poker world and I’m humbled to be a part of their senior staff for this year’s WSOP. My colleagues include John “Schecky” Caldwell, Justin Shronk, Tim Lavalli, Amy Calistri, the one and only Dr. Pauly, B.J. Nemeth, Jay “WhoJedi” Newnum, Tiffany Michelle, Mean Gene, Flipchip, and Steve Horton. We’re the official tournament reporting outlet for the WSOP and will be covering the action around the clock on PokerNews.com with live updates, chip counts and videos. Our news feeds will also be available on the official WSOP site.

The best part of the Series for me is watching the stories and themes unfold. Who will be this year’s Jeff Madsen-esque wunderkind? Which online stars will emerge from behind the anonymity of their screen names to capture a bracelet? Who’s backing who? Who’s broke and on the borrow? Who’s stuck in the cash games and who’s crushing nightly? Who’s blowing their winnings on hookers and trips to Crazy Horse Too? Will Chan, Brunson or Hellmuth win a record 11th bracelet? Will a female player win an open event? Will the food totally suck? Will Jeffrey Pollack show up on the tournament floor wearing a non-pastel-hued shirt? Will Dan Michalski dress in drag and play the Ladies Event?

Buckle up, kids. It’s gonna be a helluva 47 days. Let’s shuffle up and deal!

By 7:30 we were starving, so we decided to grab a bite at the Red Rock and play some poker. I couldn’t wait to dig into one of my favorite Las Vegas dishes– the Grand Cafe’s BBQ Chicken Salad– but was sick of driving, as I’d stayed behind the wheel for the full duration of the LA-LV haul. So Pauly got in the driver’s seat. This would prove to be a very bad decision. As he backed out of the parking space, he didn’t see the pole on the left side of our parking space and hit it with the left front corner of the car, leaving a hefty scratch on my six-week old Mazda. Between the mirror, losing $300 playing $8-16 on Full Tilt, and now scratching the car, he was starting to lose it.

“OK, I’m driving.”

I wasn’t mad about the car. It was an accident. Cars get scratched all the time. It was easily fixable. But Pauly was totally convinced that the stars were aligning against him, not only for today, but for the duration of our stay in Vegas for the WSOP.

“It’s an omen” he said.

“It’s naat an ooomen” I replied in my best Arnold Schwarzenegger voice.

Getting seated at Table 13 in the Red Rock poker room didn’t help things in that department, though the game was good– at least for me. After not flopping a set in what seemed like weeks, I flopped three in three hours, including a river two-outer that put one of the cranky locals on uber-tilt. I caught A-A three times and they all held up. By the end of the night, the retired history teacher from New Jersey on my left was terrified of me. I finished the session up $100 after getting stuck $120 within the first 30 minutes.

Pauly played like a lunatic, raising every kill pot with any two cards. The folks at my end of the table thought he was completely off his rocker, yet were incapable of playing back at him. I sat across from a delicate, dark-haired girl from the Netherlands. She was out here for the WSOP with her family, most of whom play poker and are friendly with some of the top Dutch pros. The blonde hipster guy sitting on her left flirted with her wildly and the two were downing rum and cokes and playfully touching each other by the time we quit the game.

Wednesday afternoon we had a PokerNews meeting at Marie Callender’s of all places. I hadn’t been there since the late 80′s, back when my mom would take Mandy and I out for bowls of their potato cheese soup on rainy days. I ordered it for old time’s sake and it was even thicker and cheesier than I remembered. For the first and perhaps the only time, the entire PokerNews WSOP team was in one room, almost 40 strong, including B.J. Nemeth, who had just driven cross-country with his dog and Mean Gene, whom I got to re-meet after being introduced to him on that fateful night at the MGM Grand when I passed out in the bathroom, grabbed Pauly’s junk in a blackout, and was loaded into a taxi with two big black hookers. I also finally got to meet Jonno, from PokerNews’ Melbourne offices. I’d been messaging with him for months and finally got to put a face to a name. His Aussie accent is the nuts.

After a brief stop at the apartment (where I spent 90 minutes on the phone with Cox Communications trying to get our high-speed internet to work) we departed for Treasure Island and Jen Leo’s birthday celebration at Isla. The birthday girl looked very chic, having just come from the salon where she got her hair cut and straightened. I downed a couple of cadillac margaritas at the bar and was more than a little loopy by the time we all adjourned to the poker room to play the 7 PM tourney.

44 players started and 6 would be paid. I got seated at a table with Pauly on my left and Mean Gene two to my right. The structure was very fast– 2000 chips to start, 20 minute levels and steep blinds– and I tried to adjust accordingly. I wound up picking up a lot of small pots on the flop when my opponents had clearly missed (I had missed too but they didn’t know that I had about 4500 at the break and we were down to two tables shortly thereafter. Pauly, Leigh (of Poker Atlas fame), and Jonno were all at my table. Everyone was short-stacked and the blinds were enormous at this point. With 12 players remaining and 1k-2k blinds, the average stack was just over 7,000. So with 12.5K, I was pretty confident I’d at least make the money.

I played four big hands in the tournament endgame. I raised with K-Q and Leigh called all-in with A-T. The flop was Q-Q-X and I hit a K on the turn to add insult to injury. A few hands later, I won a race with A-T vs. pocket fours when I made a club flush on the river. Pauly said he folded the ace of clubs, though I would have had him dominated pre-flop. I found K-Q again a few hands later and raised from EP and Pauly re-raised me from the small blind. I laid it down and he told me later he had K-K.

Then there was the final hand. Pauly, Jonno and I all made the money. The blinds were so high (2k-4k) that it was all-in or fold for everyone, even Pauly, who was the chip leader with over 20K. Pauly moved all-in from UTG and everyone folded around to me in the big blind. I looked down at K-Q (again) and I had less than 10K chips after putting in my 4k big blind. With Pauly moving in on maybe 75% of his hands, I thought it was a good spot to get my chips in.

“I call.”
“Fuck!” He said, as he tabled the 4-6 of clubs.

I don’t remember the flop exactly, except that there were two clubs in it. The turn gave him more outs with a straight draw. And the river was a 4. I was out in 5th place for $161, happy to have cashed another Vegas tournament, but disappointed of course that I had missed out on the more significant payouts. But I’d make that call again and again. 1st place would have doubled my bankroll. 2nd and 3rd would have increased it by at least 50%. And I was playing to win. Pauly ended up finishing 3rd and Jonno was the runner-up, after the donkey girl who won it sucked out on him three times in a row. I think the three of us represented PokerNews Global spectacularly.

Of course, then I blew $70 of my win playing Pai Gow with Jonno, Pauly, and Mean Gene. Gene and Jonno were both Pai Gow virgins, so it was only my duty to further their descent into Vegas degeneracy. By the end of our session, though the margaritas had metabolized and I had developed a splitting headache. It was time to call it a night. I crashed as soon as we got home.

Today is our last day of freedom before the 47-day marathon that is the WSOP. Hopefully we’ll get to hang out with some of our pals like JW and Friedman tonight before we become prisoners of the Amazon Room come 10 AM tomorrow.