Congrats to Phil Ivey, condolences to Eli Elezra.

So Phil Ivey won a bracelet in the 2-7 single draw lowball, but the real story is that with that braclelet Phil supposedly won $3 million, the lion share of which was bet with Eli Elezra who offered Phil 2.7 to 1 on his money.

This is Ivey's 6th bracelet, so by the time he's as old as Phil Hellmuth he should have about 25.

I watched a little bit of the final table broadcast over at BluffMagazine.com but duece to seven isn't exactly interesting TV since you virtually never see anyone's cards plus it took about 5 years to finish.

So Congratulations Phil and buck up Eli...at least you won a bracelet bet last year.

And congrats to me, in my 2 sit n go's yesterday I finished in 1st and 3rd...I'm rich!

WSOP Tournament of Champions..haha..

So ESPN decided to only air 4 tournaments on TV this year (they are showing tables on ESPN 360 this year). They picked the main event, the $40k Hold'em, the Ante Up for Africa charity event, and the Tournament of Champions which featured only former main event champs.

ESPN figured that they would guarantee big names at the final tables which would be "better" for TV. For the $40k, they got Ted Forrest and Greg Raymer at the final table, sure they are well known but they don't really make for exciting TV.

In the Tournament of Champions the final 4 was Robert Varkonyi, Dan Harrington, Tom McEvoy, and Jim Bechtel...possibly the four least known guys. They are all good guys but they aren't going to fire up the non-poker public.

The event was basically a cheesy made for TV tournament that ESPN thought they would film and cash in....all the while only giving out a corvette as a prize. No wonder a few of the guys didn't show up. A few years ago they had a invitational and paid out millions, this year a car. haha.

ESPN is reaping what they sow with their ridiculously limited coverage.

World Series of Poker!

I don't know about you, but I'm pumped about this year's World Series of Poker. No more rebuy tourneys and a sweet $40k buyin to start it off. Rebuys suck because I'm poor and basically rich players can just buy a bracelet. Personally I think it's a mistake to have the $40k so early, not that many people will buyin since they can get better overall value out of smaller tournaments. Plus some of this year's winners would have probably tried to parlay other cashes into an entry into the $40k.

I can understand Harrah's and ESPN wanting as many big names at the final table as possible, but it certainly didn't turn out that way with two of the more boring big names making it. No offense to Ted Forrrest but he's not exactly Mr. Personality at the tables and Greg Raymer should probably get rid of those lizard glasses. Raymer now signs a fossil and gives it to whomever knocks him out of a tournament which is pretty cool but an obvious rip off of Barry Greenstein; who signs a copy of his book and gives it to the guy who knocks him out. I guess that's easier than giving his winnings to charity.

Most of the other guys who made the final table are well known online pros like Justin "zeejustin" Bonomo, Ansky and Ike Haxton (who strangely resembles Ally Sheedy from the breakfast club in this pokernews.com picture, so far pokernews has had the best WSOP coverage by the way).

It should be a pretty entertaining table to watch on ESPN later this year; the headsup battle was pretty epic and I'm sure ESPN will show about 1 or 2 hands from it.

ESPN also made the strange yet cost effective decision to hold the $40k event and the Legends of poker event (pitting all the prior WSOP champs in a sigle tournament; except for Russ Hamilton who everyone thinks is a cheating piece of crap due to the ultimatebet scandal) basically at the same time which precluded Greg Raymer from really playing in the Legends event. They probably scheduled it that way to reduce production costs since we all know ESPN is hurting for money and poker is such a high priority for them, this year they are going to show an entire 4 events on TV, and luckily all of them hold'em!!! As Antonio Esfandiari would say.....Wheeeee!

WSOP with two of online's biggest names

I'll bet the WSOP this year is won by a european, due to the US legislation, the Rio is overflowing with Euros. I won't say that Europeans are outnumbering the US contingent this year but it's pretty close.

Yesterday I did two interviews with a couple of the biggest names in online poker, Taylor "Green Plastic" Caby and Brian "sbrugby" Townsend. They are both here promoting the online training site Cardrunners.com (you can check out my review of the site here). Brian bought into the site after I did the review, you should definitely check it out if you're looking to take your game up a knotch.

I was impressed with both Taylor and Brian; but they are two very different people, when I asked them both what they would do if Online poker became 100% illegal in the US; Taylor said he would probably get a job on wall street as a trader; Brian said he would have to buy a place in Vegas, a place in Nice, and a place in Santa Barbara and spend a third of his time in each place. Although, neither one expressed much interest in being a long time poker pro.

Brian is playing in the Main Event right now and Taylor plays on day 3; you can check out the rest of the interviews in the near future on PokerLizard.com

Freerollin my way to the World Series....by Texter

Full Tilt Poker is putting on about 1 million freerolls to satellite into the Main Event of the WSOP...ok really a satellite to a satellite. In the first freeroll you have to beat from 314 to 629; if you win that one you have to finish in the top 9 of some gigantic freeroll...usually about 3000 players. So basically, you have a snowballs chance in hell of qualifying this way....but it's free and my wife is out scrapbooking and my kids are in bed; so I figure what the heck; how tough can it be?

So far I've played in about 5000 (ok maybe 50) of these crapshoots, I think I'm addicted...along with 9 million other players (each SNG fills up in about 20 seconds) basically they all start the same way; half the table goes all in on the first hand with anything and the other half are just not thinking about the big picture...you have to finish first...and there will be another freeroll starting in about 2 minutes. My computer is a POS so I can only play about 4 at a time...See the pic above.

My goal in these things is just to actually win one of them...I have no real illusions about wining a seat at the WSOP. The tourney's actually start to calm down when we're down to around 50 people and I make a few final tables.

I end up busting out with a couple 5ths and a 4th...but it's taken several hours of my life and I feel like I'm getting carpal tunnel syndrome so I decide to quit playing these things and switch to points tourneys. For 600 points, I can play in a Sit N Go that will qualify me for a 5k point satellite to the $1k buyin Main Event tourney. These things play a lot more straightforward and I win on my second try after my opponent inexplicably folds all of his hands when we are headsup...maybe he disconnected...I don't really care...I'm just glad this experiment is over.

Of course, now I have to finish in the top 3 to satellite into the $1k; but at least I qualified for something...and can quit these things....I hope. Wish me luck.