Poker Shrink's blog

The 2008 World Series of Poker Europe (WSOPE) announced it will be hosting its event under one roof at the Casino at the Empire, LCI's newest club in the heart of London at Leicester Square.

Now if you are not a poker insider, you may not remember that last year the inaugural World Series of Poker Europe was played at three different London casinos to accommodate all the players. The "under one roof" is just one of the improvements we can expect from the WSOPE now in its second year.

The event to be held from September 19 to October 2, 2008, will feature four bracelet events, which is an addition of one event from last year. Cash games, satellites and more non-bracelet tournaments will also be increased over last year's offerings.

September 19th , 2008 - Event #1 - £1,500 – No-Limit Hold'em Day 1A (3-day event/2 opening days)
September 22nd , 2008 - Event #2 - £2,500 – H.O.R.S.E. (3-day event)
September 24th , 2008 - Event #3 - £5,000 – Pot Limit Omaha (3-day event)
September 27th , 2008 - Event #4 - £10,000 – World Championship No-Limit Hold'em (5-day event)

The final table participants from the WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas, the "November Nine" were all invited and incentivized, we are told. Thus far three have indicated they will travel to London to play: Ivan Demidov, Peter Eastgate and David Rheem.

For full details of the tournaments and other events here.

Building on the success of the 2008 PartyPoker.com Irish Poker Championship, preparations for next year’s event in Galway are already underway with the creation of a special land based tour offering a unique chance to qualify for Europe’s first major tournament of 2009. The PartyPoker.com Irish Poker Championship Tour launches this evening at the Eglinton Card Room and Casino in a Galway buzzing with punters attending the showpiece horse racing events.

The PartyPoker.com Irish Poker Championship Tour really cranks into gear with seven more events across the Emerald Isle, finishing in December. On the second leg of the tour in Waterford the top three players in the €2000 added event receive 2009 IPC seats, while in the remaining six stops the top five in the €2000 added event all get seats into the major tournament. The tour features €20,000 in added money and includes €4000 put up for a special league based on performances on the tour as a whole.

Online qualifiers are also available at Party Poker.

The 2008 Irish Poker Championship was a €2,000 buy-in tournament organized by PokerEvents.ie and sponsored by PartyPoker.com. It attracted 298 runners on a day when snow engulfed Ireland and produced a final prize pool of €542,500. Amongst the familiar faces at the tables were ‘Ambassador of Poker’ Mike Sexton, Noel Furlong, ‘Flying Dutchman’ Marcel Luske, Ciaran O’Leary, Michael Keiner, Robert Williamson III, Padraig Parkinson, Jon Kalmar, Scott Gray, Bruno Fitoussi, Jan Sørensen, Roy Brindley , Mad Marty Wilson, Marty Smith, Katharine Hartree, Jeff Duvall, Alan Vinson, Tom Franklin, Steve Wong, Neil Channing, Tony Cascarino and Rory Liffey. The eventual winner was Galway ’s Jude Ainsworth.

PARTYPOKER.COM IRISH POKER CHAMPIONSHIP TOUR - SCHEDULE

Waterford Aug 30th/31st Tower Hotel

Dublin Sep 6th/7th Fitzwilliam Card Club

Cork Oct 17th/18th Macau Casino

Dublin Nov 8th/9th City West

Mayo Nov 14th/15th Park Hotel, Kiltimagh

Athlone Nov 28th/29th Springs Hotel

Letterkenny Dec 12th/13th Gold Club Casino

is counting down to celebrating its 7th birthday and is giving players an opportunity to join in the party with a $1,000,000 guaranteed Birthday Party bonanza tournament.

There will be no cake, no disco and definitely no unwanted gifts, just a cool $1,000,000 guaranteed prize fund that will be up for grabs in a special tournament on Sunday 10th August at 1245 ET. Daily qualifiers are now taking place at PartyPoker.

Players can buy-in directly to the championship-style blind structured main event for $640. As always, PartyPoker will provide a diverse qualifying structure allowing ALL players, no matter the size of their bankroll, an opportunity to qualify and participate in the $1 Million Birthday Million. Qualifiers start from as little as $1 with a range running daily. It is possible to get involved in the action by using just 15 PartyPoints. Detailed information on qualification can be found here.

A PartyPoker spokesman said,

“There is no doubt this is a party not to miss. It is not often you go to someone else’s birthday celebrations with the chance of walking away with a share of $1,000,000. It will definitely feel like a birthday and Christmas all rolled into one for our big winners. The birthday celebrations will start on Monday 4th August, with a range of special celebration tournaments.

Time to sort through all of those non-WSOP notes and see what has been happening outside of Las Vegas for the past two months.

The most recent Ultimate Bet cheating scandal is still apparently not fully investigated and the results are

"expected to take an additional two to three months."

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You can read a semi-complete account of the current state of the affair based on a conversation between Barry Greenstein and Russ Hamilton, former principle in UB.

There is a documentary based on the final table of the 2005 WSOP about to be released. It's called "Pass the Sugar", yes 2005 when Joe Hachem won the Main Event. Not surprisingly this is an Australian production and Tony Hachem, Joe's brother is a co-producer.

The fact that the press noise around this release says that "Pass the Sugar also will feature interviews with Jennifer Tilly, Jose Canseco and other celeb cardplayers", makes me want to repeat that Jose Canseco is not a celebrity but a old baseball player who thinks it's appropriate to play in Ladies Only events and impose his own warped view of the world on others because he once took steroids and could hit a baseball.

Sticking with show business, the Venetian is going to open a show next month based on poker. The Real Deal will apparently be audience interactive and will include in its cast on a rotating basis, many name poker professionals including: Doyle Brunson, Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, Jr., Antonio Esfandiari, Gavin Smith, Eli Elezra, Jennifer Harman, Phil Laak, Scotty Nguyen, and Todd Brunson. The pros will participate in shows each month, taking on the Las Vegas audience members in interactive games. More on The Real Deal can be found here.

The Game Show Network, after deciding not to renew the World Poker Tour and subsequently seeing the WPT move to Fox Sport Network, well GSN decided not to remove poker completely from its lineup and has renewed Poker After Dark for another year.

"And then there were nine."

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The World Series of Poker got down to the nine survivors; the final table; the November Nine. There were a lot of different reactions when that finally happened.

Relief that it was over.

A sense of being cheated because it wasn't really over.

The beginning of a long period of delayed gratification.

A cool celebration at the final table.

An unsatisfactory celebration because we had not a champion.

As you all know, I was for the delayed WSOP final table from the beginning but you also know I was pulling and praying for at least one "name" player to make the final nine; that did not happen. So we begin a long walk and wait until November. How will this all play out? Well at this point everyone has an opinion and no one has an answer.

This is just the first of many "9" posts.

I was at the ESPN final table last night when the Day Five play ended and Phil Hellmuth was given a one orbit penalty for player abuse. Details of the incident are everywhere, I will only add that I am not convinced Phil did more than he ever does and, in fact, he pointed out to the floor supervisor at one point that: "You guys don't put me at the television table to be quiet."

However, I have a problem with penalties that are accessed beginning with the next day's play. If a player is going to sit out a round of play based on his or her actions; then shouldn't the players who were at the table when the infraction took place benefit from the penalty? I mean Phil will be giving up 81,000 chips [30K/15K blinds, 4K ante] to eight players who were not at his table when the penalty was given.

Let's not even deal with the increased blinds since the penalty was given or the fact that no penalty was considered until the offended player loudly complained to the floor staff. By the way, the other player, Cristian Dragomir, should have also been warned for his behavior but in the shadow of a full Hellmuth rant, it may have been hard to see his rule bending behavior.

I will suggest to the Tournament Director's Association that if a player is given an "overnight" penalty and if there is also a seat/table redraw for the following day that those penalized blinds and antes be removed from play and the player simply is dealt out of the hands. This causes some issues with the blinds but free chips, as is the current solution, seems a not well considered remedy.

When the Main Event resumes today for Day 3, there will be 1308 players left standing. Lots of reports expressed surprise at the pace of both Day 2's. But compared to 2007, we still have a long way to go.

Here is how '07 played down:

Day 3: 797 played down to 337
Day 4: 337 played down to 112
Day 5: 112 played to 36
Day 6: 36 played down to 9
Day 0: Day Off
Day 7: Final Table

Those who were here last July remember some very late nights on Days 4, 5 & 6. But the schedulers have noted that problem and added one full day to the 2008 Final (Summer) Week.

Thursday Day 3: 1308 playing down to xxx
Friday Day 4: xxx playing down to yyy
Saturday Day 5: yyy playing to zz or zzz
Sunday Day 6: zz or zzz playing down to 36
Monday Day 7: 36 playing down to November Nine
November: Final Table

The Plan remains in place to play five 2 hour levels each day or less as needed to reach the final table. As of now only Day Six or Seven seem in any jeopardy of needing extended time, which is normal for any large field tournament.

Here are some of the words of wisdom I have overheard at the tables during the '08 World Series of Poker.

"Man I took those after my back surgery, how do you stay awake at the table?" "Who said I stay awake, this is only poker."

You get to meet so many different people at the Series:

"They have broken my table four times today; its not that I mind moving but you guys are nowhere near as cute as my last table."

In the different strokes for different folks category:

"I don't want to win the free massage, my wife would never understand."
"What does your wife do?"
"She dances in the Folies at the Tropicana."

The next four were all sung badly by two players at a 7 Stud table:

"Momma don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys."
"Momma don't let your babies grow up to be poker players."
"Momma don't let your babies grow up to be dealers."
"Momma don't let your babies grow up to be President."

Player busting out late on Day 2B:

"I woulda made money in any other event."

In fact he outlasted 4500+ players, which would have easily won every WSOP tournament, except of course, the Main Event.

At the World Series of Poker, you get to play against all those great professionals you see on television:

"I like Annie Duke on those days when she is Howard Lederer's sister but sometimes she acts like Phil Hellmuth is her brother."

This is my favorite, a guy with a good read but no follow thru.

"I hate it when I'm drawing dead . . . . how much did you bet?"

And finally, what we have all come to know as The Moneymaker Dream:

"If Jerry Yang can win this thing then so can I!"

I had several interesting conversations in the last 24 hours about the math involving entrants on the Day 2's of the Series. Surprisingly there is a wide range of opinions about these numbers.

The basic formula we are talking about is this:

Day 1A survivors + Day 1B survivors = Day 2A combined field
Day 1C survivors + Day 1D survivors = Day 2B combined field

Which works out in actual numbers to this:

636 + 615 = 1,251
1026 + 1352 = 2,378

This all comes about because the starting fields for Days 1A & 1B were much smaller than for Days 1C & 1D.

The question is: Are players at any disadvantage starting their Day 2 with a field of 1,250 or 2,378 and if so, why?

What surprised me is that some of the same "mathematical" reasoning goes into arguments that either of the two fields gives some hidden and unfair advantage to the players in that flight. Here are a few of the "facts" I have heard:

As I mentioned yesterday, this is the official Day Off for the 2008 Main Event. There is a $500 Casino Employees event and a Charity Media Tournament but the only real high or low-lite will be the WSOP News Conference, if anything comes out of that lovefest, we will report details later; otherwise--see you tomorrow for Day 2A of The Greatest Tournament in the World brought to you by Milwaukee's Best Lite.

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The beginning of the beginning of the end....

Fifty-One bracelets have been handed out; two more are ready to be presented today; the Player of the Year has been determined, congratulations to Erick Lindgren; the Ante Up for Africa event goes off today. Then, finally, we get to the Main Event and we answer most of the questions everyone has waited for.

Will we have more entries than last year?

Will the professionals somehow continue their dominance they have shown thru 53 preliminary events?

Will it all run as smooth as the tournaments have run so far? By the way, nice job to the WSOP staff this was truly a nicely run Series so far. Minor mistakes, quick fixes and overall solid and uniform floor decisions. Kudos to Tournament Director Jack Effel and his WSOP floor staff.

Another great move comes later this week, when the WSOP Media event is brought back with substantial prizes given to the favorite charities of the final table participants. A great solution to that on again off again event.

Then tomorrow we reach the 2008 World Series of Poker $10,000 No Limit Hold'em Main Event. Four Day One flights, two Day Two flights and five more days to play down to the "November Nine" or the "Fall Final". Then all the WSOP eggs go into that ESPN/November basket and we all wait, watch, hope and pray. No matter who you favor in that mass of poker humanity, say a little prayer that at least one or two "names" make it to the final nine. Nothing could be better for poker than to see Scotty, Mike, Phil, Phil, Erick, Jennifer, Antonio, Gus, Daniel, Joe, Johnny** or heaven help us Doyle! make the final table.

It all starts tomorrow.

**Dewey, Cyndy, Bill, Gavin, Carlos, Chris, Doug, Liz, David, Tony, Lyle, Barry, Berry, Huck, Patrik, David, the other Phil and the other Phil, Greg, Layne, Chad, Isabelle, Todd, Freddy, T.J., Michael, Mike again, Ted, Gabe, Andy, Howard, John, John, John or John, Lee, Annie, Eli, Hoyt, Andy or even Jerry.

First and foremost, congratulations to Scotty Nguyen for taking down the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. and being the first player to hold the Chip Reese trophy. Scotty has an amazing track record over nearly 20 years of playing poker. His record, of course, includes the 1998 World Series of Poker main event championship and tournament earnings approaching Ten Million Dollars. Now Scotty adds to his legend, taking down the most prestigious tournament in professional poker.

But like so many great careers there is a dark side to Scotty's, one episode of which took place last summer at the 2007 WSOP main event. With twelve players remaining in the hunt for the final table nine, Scotty Nguyen was the chipleader and, as we all know, he did not make the final table. That crash and burn troubled Scotty for many months and will probably never be forgotten in poker lore.

Fast forward to this summer, the very next World Series of Poker main event and add to the mixture: the delayed final table. Combine these two events and I offered to you the "Scotty Nguyen Syndrome".

Syndrome: a predictable, characteristic pattern of behavior, action, etc., that tends to occur under certain circumstances

I don't know when it will hit and it will not affect all players at the same moment but somewhere around 18 players or 27 players; maybe even as high as 36 or even 45 players for some, it will appear. This is not just the World Series of Poker Final Table, no this is the "November Nine", the "Fall Final".

And as sure as it will be 108 degrees in Las Vegas, each an every player who survives to Day Six on July 13th and certainly to Day Seven on July 14th, each of those players will experience the "Scotty Nguyen Syndrome".

To get that close to four months of publicity and interviews and endorsements and fame and potential fortune and who knows what else... The "SNS" is going to massively effect play whenever it sets in. Players will get tight, really tight; decisions will take longer, a lot longer; tempers will shorten, in some cases really, really shorten; table talk, hand winning celebrations and anything resembling angle shooting will be scrutinized, analyzed and penalized? Floor decisions will be magnified out of all proportion, imagine giving a player a two round penalty on the bubble!

The final table bubble itself will be much bigger, extending out to at least 27 players. The media coverage will be more intense and more critical than ever before. And the players...? Well the players will not be themselves because they will be playing under the influence of the "Scotty Nguyen Syndrome".

Rumor has it that Corona will lessen but not alleviate the symptoms of the syndrome but there is a rebound effect if you excede a twelve pak in less than two full tournament levels. Perhaps Harrah's should supply extra massage staff for the final four tables or just rig cold showers above the tables like they do in hazardous material labs. And people say poker is not a sport.....

We are in the final week before the 2008 World Series of Poker main event. There is still a lot of "preliminary" action going on at the Rio; action that should not be overlooked as we all get our over/under bets in for the big show.

The $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. tournament hits Day Four today with 24 survivors including: Doyle Brunson, Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Scotty Nguyen, Erick Lindgren and the eventual winner.

There are two final tables today: Event #47 a six-handed Hold'em event and Event #48 Seven Card Stud that will have to play down from 13 to a champion today. Event #48 is a $2,000 Hold'em event entering Day Two today; they stopped play late last night as the players hit the money at 198th place. So everyone who goes out today walks away with cash.

Day One of the $50,000 Hold'em, Omaha 8, Razz, Stud, Stud Eight or better tournament is in the books. Event #45 of the 2008 World Series of Poker is the fifty thousand dollar World Championship H.O.R.S.E. tournament, which is perhaps even more anticipated than the main event starting next week. The 50K HORSE is a very unique event at the World Series of Poker, here are some random observations from Day One of this truly unusual tournament.

For poker fans on site and the media, today is the best day of the World Series of Poker. I wonder about the thoughts behind today's schedule as far as player comfort but the who cares today will be fun.

At noon there is the second of the $1,000 No Limit Hold'em w/ rebuys event. As you probably know the professionals play these rebuy events very differently than the amateurs. The pros will show up with the cash for 20 or more rebuys and they play the early rounds to get money out on the table. Building a big stack can only be accomplished at an "action table", so the pros create action. In the early rebuy rounds you will see two things over and over: first, there will be lots of all-ins pre-flop and even more players pushing on the flop; second, you will see a lot of shell-shocked amateurs with one or two rebuys in their pocket being run down by the pros ready to indiscriminately gamble it up.

This is a fun two hours of rebuy poker madness, well maybe not so much fun for those spendthrift rookies with only a single rebuy. And today's event will be even more wild since about 150 or so of the top players will be throwing even more chips around because if they can't build a monster stack than they would rather bust out early because they have another appointment later this afternoon.

The size of the World Series of Poker has grown dramatically over the past decade. In 1999, the entire Series was 16 events. In 2002, for the first time, there were more than thirty separate tournaments. In both 2007 and 2008 the WSOP has offered 55 bracelet events. With the "poker boom" has come some conflicts between the desires of the professional players for a more diverse (non-Hold'em) schedule with higher buy-ins and the attempt to make the World Series truly open to all players. The focus of this "low end" diversity has become the $1500 No Limit Hold'em tournaments.

In 2007, there were six $1,500 No Limit Hold'em tournaments, which amounted to about one every Saturday. In 2008, there are seven of these events. But has the increase in "small buy-in" events worked for the WSOP. And, yes we notice, that $1,500 is not what most poker players on the planet consider "small", but that is fodder for another post.

Five of the seven $1,500 NLHE events have been played this year and to date the numbers compared to last year are up about 700 players in total. Perhaps more significantly, we are talking about events that have drawn in excess of 2300 players for each start. The only other WSOP events over 1,000 players this year have been the two $2,000 NLHE tournaments and the $1,000 Seniors event.

The $10,000 Omaha 8 or better is down to the final two tables and early this evening, we could have another (over)loaded final table. Here is where they stand at present, I will keep updating until the lure of being at the Rio watching my guy play becomes overwhelming.

Ten Handed -the final table technically begins at nine players but it appears they may keep playing rather than break for the traditional Final Table dinner, so I am off to the Rio to sweat the final nine.

1 Hieu "Tony" Ma
2 Jason Gray
3 Ram Vaswani
4 Toto Leonidas
5 Berry Johnston
6 David Chiu
7 Mike Matusow 5th place
8 David Benyamine Champion
9 Greg Jamison
10 Eugene Katchalov

X Ray Dehkharghani 18th place
X William McMahan 17th place
X Danny Dang 13th place
X Brent Carter 16th place
X Shun Uchida 11th place
X Pat Pezzin 14th place
X Chau Giang 12th place
X Stuart Paterson 15th place

There has been a lot of talk in the media this summer about the "Professionals taking back the Series." I know I have written some of those stories, but do we need to ask the question:

"What actually makes a poker player a professional?"

Nolan Dalla and his WSOP media staff have been keeping a running total of bracelet winners this year. Through twenty-nine events their tally stands at: 23 professionals, 4 amateurs and 2 semi-professionals.

Now I personally am more likely to agree than disagree with what some feel is a very liberal definition of "professional" being used in this statistic. But let's explore what might be considered when determining if some is or is not a professional poker player.

Can a person be considered a professional player if they have another job?

How many players are amateurs now but would be upgraded to pro if they won an event? And does that make them a pro when they win or only the day after?

Another packed final table goes off today in Event #28 $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha w/ rebuys. Johnny Chan is after bracelet number eleven and Phil Hellmuth, though short-stacked is in the hunt for number twelve. Add to that mix John Juanda, David Benyamine at another final table, Kirill Gerasimov, some kid named Daniel Negreanu, Phil Galfond enters as chipleader and local professional Brian Rast in second. This will be another of those special final tables.

Here is the line-up as they get ready to go at it later this afternoon.
[We are updating as players are eliminated, summary below]

2 AM: Phil Galfond's sixth WSOP cash is his biggest so far (by about $800,000), as is Adam Hourani's second WSOP cash (about $450K larger). Over 100 hands heads up were needed to settle the bracelet matter between these two well known internet players.

Phil Galfond (Madison, Wisconsin) -- 1st place
Adam Hourani (East Lansing, Michigan) -- 2nd place
David Benyamine (Las Vegas, Nevada) -- 3rd place
Johnny Chan (Las Vegas, Nevada) -- 4th place
Kirill Gerasimov (Moscow, Russia) -- 5th place
John Juanda (Las Vegas, Nevada) -- 6th place
Daniel Negreanu (Las Vegas, Nevada) -- 7th place
Phil Hellmuth (Palo Alto, California) -- 8th place
Brian Rast (Las Vegas, Nevada) -- 9th place

David Benyamine 3rd place. David played his Aces strong but ran into a set of Queens.

Johnny Chan 4th place and the bid for an 11th bracelet is over.

Kirill Gerasimov 5th place.

John Juanda 6th place, Daniel Negreanu 7th place, Phil Hellmuth 8th place Late in level three, three superstars were sent to the rail.

Brian Rast 9th place It took nearly two full levels and lots of chips moving around the table before we lost our first player. Brian Rast, local professional known to many internet players as tsarast, got it in ahead but was run down on the river by the current chipleader: Johnny Chan.

Yes, Virginia there is poker beyond the World Series and there is news beyond Las Vegas.

The very successful European Poker Tour has announced a somewhat reduced schedule for the coming season. The EPT has grown each year but for 2008-09 they have dropped the Dublin Open, reduced the events in Germany from two to one and the Caribbean Adventure is also gone from last year's tour schedule. Here is the EPT schedule for the coming season:

Barcelona Open (Casino Barcelona) - Sept 10-14, 2008 - €8,000
London (Victoria Casino) - October 1-5, 2008 - £5,200
Polish Open (Hyatt Regency, Warsaw) - November 15-19, 2008 - 20,000 PLN
Prague (Hilton Hotel) - December 9-13, 2008 - €5,000
Deauville (Barrière Casino) - January 20-24, 2009 - €5,000
Scandinavian Open (Casino Copenhagen) - February 17-21, 2009 - 50,000 DKR
German Open (Casino Hohensyburg) - March 10 - 14, 2009 - €5,000
San Remo (San Remo) - April 18-23, 2009 - €5,000
Grand Final (Monte Carlo Bay Hotel & Resort) - April 28 - May 3, 2009 - €10,000

In a masterful performance at an epic final table, Mike Matusow took down the Deuce-to-Seven Lowball evening early this morning. The Poker Shrink was there for every hand at what truly was a final table for the ages. Tomorrow I will give you some details that you will find nowhere else; as many of you know I am working on Mike's biography and we spoke often during the twelve hour final table. In addition, we are going to get together after we both have had some sleep and then we will go over the entire final table from Mike's perspective. I will share some of that insight with you just as soon as Mike and I talk later today.

Until then congratulations Mike and good night or good morning from all of us here in the wee morning hours from Las Vegas.

[I apologize for the lingering promise of a follow-up article on Mike's win, but the truth is that the truth is so good, I am afraid it is going to have to wait for the final chapter of Mike's book.]

I am going to attend a final table today at the World Series of Poker. I wish you could be here, it's not another No Limit Hold'em tournament either. In fact, this is a game very few players play well and most don't even understand: Deuce to Seven Draw Lowball. The game is played with a limit betting structure and there is a single draw. Two rounds of betting; one before and one after the draw.

But what is going to be exciting about this final table is the cast of characters who have made it to this seven-handed party:

Erick Lindgren
Mike Matusow
Jeffery Lisandro
Barry Greenstein
Tony "G" Guoga
David Benyamine
Tom Schneider

The fun kicks off at 3 PM PDT. My reports will come during breaks in the action, no chance I am going to miss one moment of this table. Do I have a favorite for the bracelet? Well, yes I do but you will never guess who.

All that you give and all that you deal
and all that you buy, beg, borrow or steal.
-Pink Floyd

Anyone who tells you there isn't a dark side to poker hasn't been here. By here, I mean the World Series of Poker. Now to be clear, the World Series is actually one of the brighter and lighter stops in the dark reaches of the vast poker road. But when you put all or most of the great professional poker players in one place for six or seven weeks, well there are bound to be some examples of truly desperate behavior.

Add to the thousands of players, dealers, staff and fans a large and at times articulate poker press; well, we are bound to get some reflections on the darker sides of poker. I hope we in the media are not getting too inbred but I must direct you to some insightful and very dark observations from both Dr. Pauly and the Pack-at-Pokerati. You want the dark side of poker, they will dish it up for you with wit and a wet wipe to tidy up afterwards.

On the other hand, I (the Poker Shrink) am not going to offer up a taste of darkness because you see I don't look at poker that way. I don't believe you can look at the psychology of poker and of poker players if you assume some pathology, illness, character flaw or yes, darkness. Does it exist? Certainly. But beyond the dark or perhaps right beside it there is a unique psychology to the world of poker. Yes, some or all of the lifestyle that poker requires can and does lead a few individuals to some very dark places. The list of casualties is long and will get longer. But as a wise and eloquent sage once said: "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it."

The problem, as I see it, is that very few of the victims ever take a hard, honest look at what poker is really about. Tell me if you would take this job?

On this second Sunday of the 2008 World Series, a lot of attention will be focused on the final table of Event #12: $1,500 Limit Hold’em. Yes, Vinnie Vinh leads going into day three of this tournament but a lot more interest will be paid to the number two man on the leader board, Erick Lindgren. The speculation, of course, is whether Erick can land a second bracelet in less than a week.

A lot of casual observers might see such a double-barreled feat as the result of a good run of cards or just a very good player being overdue. Perhaps a closer look into at just what the first week or so of the Series really looks like to a poker professional like Erick Lindgren might be illuminating.

Friday May 30th, Event #1: $10,000 Pot Limit Hold’em. Erick plays about eight hours before having his set of aces lose to another set with a bigger kicker.

Sunday June 1st, Event #2 Day 1B: $1,500 No Limit Hold’em. Erick is mostly card dead and goes out about mid-way in level three, still time for 18 holes before dusk.

Monday June 2nd, Event #4 (5 PM start): $5,000 Mixed Hold’em. Erick and ninety other players survive day one from a starting field of 332. With 8,400 chips. Erick Lindgren’s name is no where near the top of the leader board; not with the leader over 100,000.

Quick somebody has to be the first to say it: "The name professionals are claiming (reclaiming?) the World Series of Poker, at least through the first eight event."

It's hard to argue with that assessment on the day after David Singer and Erick Lindgren took down bracelets. But if we look a bit deeper, I think we will see even more evidence of the professionals beginning to dominate the 2008 World Series. Erick took down the $5,000 Mixed Hold'em event and yes the bigger buy-ins attract more big name professionals but you can't lower the value of a bracelet just because it costs more to enter the event.

Erick was joined at the final table by Justin Bonomo (2nd), Roland de Wolfe (4th) Howard Lederer (6th), David Williams (7th), Isaac Haxton (9th)and by several less-than-household names, who are still clearly professional players. Andrew Robl (3rd), who is only an "unknown" because of his age and David Rheem (5th), who has four years of solid poker cashes behind his name.

David Singer won his bracelet in the $1,500 Pot Limit Hold'em event over Jacobo Fernandez, who final tabled at the LAPC last year and is accumulating a nice string of cashes for his poker resume.

The monster $1,500 NLHE event #2 that drew nearly 4,000 players was won by an amateur: Grant Hinkle but both Chris Ferguson and Theo Tran made that final table in an event that many professionals chose not to enter.

The opening event for the 2008 Series was a $10,000 Pot Limit Hold'em tournament. This first final table had one very new player and one outstanding newcomer, Amit Makhija. Other than that, you might recognize the rest of the field: Nenad Medic (1st), Andy Bloch (2nd), Kathy Liebert (3rd), Mike Seton 4th, Chris Bell 6th, Patrik Antonius 7th, Phil Laak 9th.

No, I am not rethinking my position on moving the WSOP main event final table to November. I am for it, I have been for it since the first rumors last fall, I remain steadfast in the belief that this is a well thought out move to attract more fans to the Series and to insure continuing television coverage.

What I am hearing from players, both professional and otherwise, is that they are coming around to favor the "November Nine" idea. I certainly understand the initial reaction to such a big change. Lots of folks truly love this game and do not like it changing. I, myself, am not a traditionalist but for a truly moving statement about that aspect of the game, might I recommend an article by Amy Calistri.

As weeks have past and the whole idea has had time to be pondered and debated, more and more players are seeing the rationale for the move. Poker needs a boost and this just might do it. At nearly every table, this move comes up, more and more we hear positive remarks and a good deal of a 'wait and see' attitude. If it doesn't work then they just change it back next year. But it is worth the attempt and I applaud the WSOP staff for moving forward with this; just as I like to acknowledge them for making the summer of 2008 the year of "no tents at the Series". After all, not every experiment works.

I am not so fond of the label: "November Nine". It's just flat and doesn't evoke much. Now if they had asked me for a suggestion, need I point out who came up with Sequestrium last summer? I would have gone for: "The Fall Final". Emphasizes the event not the players and sounds just a bit like The Fall Classic.