The Poker Lab Rat

WSOP Bracelet Less Tacky Than Usual

OK - I still don’t know that these will be actual fashion accessories (except for wanna-be rapsters who don’t know when to stop the BLING) but the new WSOP bracelets do look much less gaudy - and are certainly an improvement on previous events.

These bracelets have been made by quality watchmaker Corum and are carefully crafted piece looking at the effort that has gone into the card suit detailing and all the tiny inserted jewels.

The normal event winners willl receive a bracelet with 53 diamonds as shown in the picture above while the $50,000 buy-in H.O.R.S.E event will feature a special version with 91 black diamonds and two rubies.

The winner of the $10,000 Main Event will get a bracelet with 136 grams of 18-carat white gold set with 120 diamonds in an extravaganza of over-the-top bling that even Paris Hilton or Elton John probably would not be seen wearing.

OK - seven days into the 2007 World Series OF Poker (WSOP) and we’re really just sitting here twiddling our thumbs.

Without too much disrespect to Michael Spiegel, Steve Billirakis, Alexander Kravchenko, Cairan O’Leary, Gary Styczynski, Frederick Narciso and Tom Schneider who have all won bracelets so far … can we just say … “who cares !!!??”

The massive fields have meant that only a few established poker pros are going deep into events - and that we’re seeing little of the hoped for clashes of major names.

The WSOP is rapidly degenerating into a massive convention of poker wannabees who just happen to get lucky on the day - and their post win interviews are as dull as dish water.

The “Biggest News” of the WSOP so far is that Phil Hellmuth cashed again this week - finishing 104th in Event #8 ($2,000 No Limit Holdem) for a prize of just $3,091.

That makes it his 58th cash in the WSOP - but since when is finishing 104th in a tournament make news? Do I feel a huge “SO WHAT ??!!” welling up inside ?  …

Yes - I think I do.

The WSOP has been running since 1970 (when 36 players turned up to play) so it’s probably time to ask - who has the best WSOP record of all time ?

Repeat Winners of the Main Event.
————————————–
Four players have managed to be repeat winners of the main event.

Johnny Moss - 1970, 72, 73
Doyle Brunson - 1976, 77
Stu Unger - 1980, 81, 97
Johnny Chan - 1987, 88

However, all these feats were achieved against fields of less than 200 players - so it’s an uneven playing field to consider these records in the modern game.

All time Money Winners.
—————————–
This runs into the same problem - as the top two players are simply the winners of the last two main events - as the cash prizes grow exponentially.

$12.0 million - Jamie Gold
$7.9 million — Joe Hachem
$6.1 million — Paul Wasicka
$6.0 million — Allen Cunningham
$5.5 million — Greg Raymer
$4.9 million — Phil Hellmuth
$4.2 million — TJ Cloutier
$4.2 million — Steve Dannenmann …

OK stop right there. When you start talking about Dannenmann in this list then that’s just silly !! Obviously inflation and pot sizes have skewed the results.

Most Bracelets.
————————
Now we are getting somewhere - as this list turns into a who’s who of poker.

10 bracelets - Phil Helmuth, Johnny Chan, Doyle Brunson
 8 wins - Johnny Moss
 7 wins - Erik Seidel, Billy Baxter
 6 wins - TJ Cloutier, Men “the Master” Nguyen, Jay Heimowitz
 5 wins - Phil Ivey, Chris Ferguson, Ted Forrest, Layne Flack, Berry Johnson, Stu Ungar, Gary Berland.

That’s a much better list but there are still too many ties.

I think that in order to objectively determine who has the best record we could look at the following statistic which gives a better idea of who is finishing in the money …

Most Cashes in WSOP - All Time.
—————————————
57 - Phil Hellmuth ( yep - motor mouth himself is #1)
54 - Men Nguyen
51 - TJ Cloutier, Berry Johnston
45 - Chris Ferguson
43 - Erik Seidel, Humberto Brenes
42 - Brent Carter

So there we have it.

Phil Hellmuth can actually play poker when he’s not throwing tantrums for the cameras. And he is current the “best” WSOP player of all time … statistically at least.

(until Doyle Brunson or Johnny Chan beat him to bracelet #11)

Perhaps it’s not too much of a surprise that it took a tournament with expensive rebuys before we finally saw the “poker stars” begin to stand out.

Event #7 is a $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha event with unlimited rebuys - and this is definately the realm of players who can afford to drop $5K repeatedly in order to try and score a major chip advantage.

145 players entered, and they took up a final total of 421 rebuys - throwing an extra $2.9 million into the prize pool. It wasn’t until final add-ons were taken that the action began to tighten up - with many players appearing to be prepared to gamble a measly $5,000 worth of chips early on.

There were plenty of early eliminations though wih Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Sammy Farha and Phil Hellmuth all eliminated on day one and there is plenty of quality about the final table. 

FINAL TABLE PLAYERS
Seat 1: Humberto Brenes - 275,000
Seat 2: John Juanda - 220,000
Seat 3: Larry Jonsson - 900,000
Seat 4: Minh Ly - 240,000
Seat 5: Burt Boutin - 460,000
Seat 6: Rob Keston - 335,000
Seat 7: Sirous Jamshieli - 865,000
Seat 8: Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott - 1,300,000
Seat 9: Erik Cajelais - 1,075,000

There is still penty to play for with 9th place “only” taking home $57,000 while the winner will tak home a tasty $825,000 prize.

UK pro Dave “Devilfish” Ulliott will start as chipleader with 1.3m chips … can he take out the bracelet? 

After a three of days of play we’ve seen over 2,900 players take part and get busted as Cairan O’Leary outlasts them all to win. 

2006 US Poker Championship winner Alex Jacob had a monster stack of 3.1m chips at the start of the final table - nearly twice as many as the next biggest stack of the remaining nine players.

But Jacob busted out in 3rd place after he fell in love with his pair of fours (!!) after the flop possibly feeling bullied by O’Leary who had just won a 2.3m pot preflop on the hand before.

Two hands later Paul Evans feels the heat and cracks calling a raise that put him all-in with only a pair of sixes after the flop and needing to hit or get runner-runner spades in order to beat O’Leary’s Kings.

No-one improves their hand and Ciaran O’Leary wins over $727,000 and the bracelet of course.

FINAL TABLE CHIPS AT START OF DAY
PLAYER —–— CHIPS
Alex Jacob — 3,100,000
Paul Evans — 1,690,000
Jeff Yoak — 965,000
Matt Vengrin — 930,000
Ciaran O’Leary — 610,000
Thad Smith — 555,000
Craig Crivello — 495,000
Andreas Krause — 490,000
Bart Hanson — 210,000

All-in-all, it was some some pretty average play at the business end of the tournament, but that does not matter to O’Leary who was obviously stocked to win the $1,500 no-limit event - the largest live poker tournament outside of the main event !!

Check out PokerNews interview with Ciaran O’Leary here.

Poker unknown Steve Billirakis wins World Series of Poker Event #1, earning $536,287, and of course a coveted WSOP bracelet.

Billirakis is just 21 years and 10 days old, which means that he becomes the youngest player in history to win a WSOP bracelet after taking out the $5,000 “mixed holdem” event.

This is the fourth straight year that the age record record has been broken at the WSOP - but given that you have to be at least 21 years old to play poker in Vegas it will be much tougher to beat it next year.

Billirakis went into the heads-up with Greg Mueller roughly at just over 2 milion chips each - and then played out 64 hands before winning with a pair of deuces on hand #157 of the day.

You can catch an interview with Steve Billirakis here - taken soon after he’s won the bracelet - but he’s pretty much like every other unknown poker player - and has nothing much to say.

Well done anyway Steve.

SO WHAT’S NEW?

1. A reduction in the number of Hold-em events; industry commentators and poker professionals are predicting that with more mixed-game events you will see more big names at the final tables and a higher quality of poker. Let’s hope!

While the Main Event is still THE one to watch, also look for coverage of the $50,000 buy-in H.O.R.S.E. event. (Yes, that is $50 grand buy-in not a typo). This tournament begins on June the 24th and lasts five days. Some consider it to be the real world championship as it combines Hold-em, Omaha, Razz, Stud, as a true test of a players poker skills. …and with that mega buy-in only the best of the best will be in the line up. Last year Doyle Brunson, Chip Reese, Andy Bloch and TJ Cloutier made for a great final table.

2. WSOP Organisers plan on holding only three “first days” for the main event instead of the four they staged last year (due to fewer on-line qualifiers as the result the “lack of freedom” in the “land of the free” - ie the legal debarcle regarding US online gambling)

2. Doubling of the number of starting chips in most events, including 20,000 starting chips in the main event.

PLAYERS TO WATCH?

OK -  keep your eyes on Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth –  tied with 10 gold bracelets a-piece they’re all gunning it to take out an 11th.

We’re also watching Chip Reese. We won’t say “back this bastard” as punting on the winner of a poker tournament is notoriously hard money - but he’s favourite to retain his H.O.R.S.E. title at many bookies.

Joe Hachem and Carlos Mortenson, previous Main Event winners, are both in good form and don’t seem to find a big field too daunting. …And I guess we can’t completely write off Jeff Madsen, the 22-year-old upstart who won two gold bracelets and made two other final tables in his debut last year.

KEY DATES?

The Ladies’ World Championship: three days from June 10th.
World Championship Heads-up: three days from June 19th.
The $50,000 buy-in H.O.R.S.E.: five days from June 24th.
The World Championship Seniors’ event: three days from June 25th.
The $10,000 buy-in main event from July 5th.

>>Check out our June updates - online poker site assessments and reviews, best poker room bonuses compared.

Event 1 - $5,000 Mixed Holdem

After two days of battling through 452 competitors the final table of the first event is set and will feature on ESPN at 3:00 pm PDT on Sunday, June 3rd.

Seat 1 - John Younger - 94,000
Seat 2 - Jon Turner - 88,000
Seat 3 - Fred Berger - 942,000
Seat 4 - Roger McDow - 320,000
Seat 5 - Greg ‘FBT’ Mueller - 683,000
Seat 6 - Kirk Morrison - 512,000
Seat 7 - Steve Billirakis - 562,000
Seat 8 - Steve Paul-Ambrose - 771,000
Seat 9 - Tony George - 546,000

Check out this interview with Daniel Negreanu about the first event where the big talking point is the weird cards that were used in day one.

The new ‘Poker Peek’ cards provided by U.S. Playing Card Company got a lot of complaints and were eventually replaced by normal KEM cards approximately three hours into the event, something that may well also occur in future events.

It hardly seems to have been 12 months since the last WSOP convention in Harrah’s in Vegas when we saw motor mouth Jamie GOld turn the  main event into a personal chip collecting exercise (actually it’s only technically been 11 months).

But there cannot be a poker player or poker fan that does not get excited about the World Series Of Poker.

During the event nothing seems impossible. 21yo’s can borrow money from their parents and end up winnig TWO gold bracelets. And Doyle Brunson might win his 11th bracelet to solidify his place in poker history.

And maybe a webmaster from Wellington can walk into Vegas with a dream and possibly walk out a world Champion. Ahem … oops. But that is why we love poker. Anyone can compete with the best in the world and have a chance to win.

Most of us will never win a gold medal at the olympics, or take part in the SuperBowl, or compete for the Stanley Cup - but with some determination and a “chip and a chair” we have the chance to create another poker legend.

So get online. Follow the WSOP. Learn your trade … and start paying attention to all those WSOP freerolls and satellite tournaments that offer the chance to win entry into the 2008 main event.

Who will win in 2008? It has to be someone. Maybe me. Maybe YOU. It might be a pro - but every year there is more and more chance that it will be an online player.

So .. do you feel lucky? See you on the felt.

Remember our posting from April on the Moscow Millions?

Ah, OK, not as such… (it’s all right neither did we…) but the crew at the FullTilt Poker Club in Russia have contacted us and advised that the dates of this fantastic event have been changed to 20th - 22nd of October, 2007.

Those of us sick of all the Vegas ra ra (and Aussie Oi! Oi!) dubbed this event “The Ultimate Poker Tournament Venue for 2007″ - and still consider it to be an uber-cool in-the-flesh poker opportunity.

Moscow Millions - Play poker on TV alongside your favorite Full Tilt Poker pros at the largest tournament ever held in Russia.

Play in one of FullTiltPoker.com’s weekly Moscow Millions Qualifiers starting at 13:00 ET (1PM ET) on Saturday, April 21st and you can win a $15K prize package and the chance to play poker alongside pros like Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer, and Erik Seidel, in this internationally televised tournament.

Buy in directly for $300 + $22 or satellite your way in starting for as little as $4 + $.40 or 50 Full Tilt Points.

What: Win a $15K prize package to The Moscow Millions
Where: Moscow, Russia
When: October 20th - October 22nd, 2007 

Good luck at the tables!