 They are down to the final nine in London at the World Series of Poker Europe. Daniel Negreanu is there as is John Juanda. The most interesting player to notice is Ivan Demidov. Why? Because Ivan has another final table to play next month in Las Vegas. Ivan Demidov is one of the November Nine, still in the running for the 2008 WSOP main event bracelet. Now wouldn't this be a double win that would be talked about for a long, long time.
Seat 1: Robin Keston 849,000
Seat 2: Daniel Negreanu 1,002,000
Seat 3: Chris Elliott 281,000
Seat 4: Bengt Sonnert 385,000
Seat 5: John Juanda 1,349,000
Seat 6: Ivan Demidov 1,006,000
Seat 7: Toni Hiltunen 386,000
Seat 8: Scott Fischman 732,000
Seat 9: Stanislav Alekhin 1,278,000
 “There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics.” . . . quote often attributed to Benjamin Disraeli
That being said here are some interesting numbers that have come down to us from the WSOP media office as we approach the mid-point (53.22%) of the Series. Some are interesting (22%), some are prophetic (12% or 78%) and a few are pure publicity hype (104%) or at least that is the opinion of some reporters (9 out of 11) in media row. Of course members of the poker media are at this point of the Series likely to be sleep deprived (56.8%) or simply depraved (23.4%).
Through 27 events, only one player has cashed six times to date – Nikolay Evdakov, from Moscow, Russia. Five-time-in-the-money finishers include Tom Schneider, Roland Isra, and Alex Jacob. All are in contention to challenge the record of eight for "Most WSOP Cashes in a Single Year," shared by four players -- Michael Binger ('07), Chad Brown ('07), Phil Hellmuth, Jr. ('06), and Humberto Brenes ('06).
The current "Player of the Year" standings shows Erick Lindgren on top of the points list with one gold bracelet win and four cashes. Vanessa Selbst, Daniel Negreanu, Barry Greenstein and Jacobo Fernandez are all very close (within the margin of error).
Through the 27th bracelet of this year's World Series of Poker, the "Professionals versus Amateurs" gold bracelet scoreboard reads:
Professionals – 21 wins
Amateurs -- 4 wins
Semi-Pros -- 2 wins
I had to include this last “stat” because I have heard the Shrink going on about what passes for a “professional” these days and I want him to put that post up soon (6 to 5, we get it within 48 hours).
 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.
 One of the continuing struggles in poker is to institute standardized rules for all tournament play. There is honest debate among both players and tournament directors on many of the rules. I attended last year's Tournament Directors Association meeting and was impressed with the diversity of views on how rules should be written and applied.
So it was heartening today at the start of Day Three of the World Poker Tour Championship at Bellagio to see some true rule cooperation. Before the cards were in the air, reknown and respected Tournament Director Jack McCelland stood up with Daniel Negreanu and asked the players their opinion of the "Show One Show All" rule. Daniel has written often in his blog that the application of the rule, particularly at Bellagio is not what was intended.
Interpretation #1: If you show your cards to one player, you must show them to all players. This is a rule everyone agrees on.
Interpretation #2: If you show one of your cards to the table, you must show both cards. This is a rule that most players do not think is appropriate.
So Jack stood up and asked the players about the #2 application of the rule. The players nearly unanimously voted against it. At which point Jack changed the rule at Bellagio.
Now that is cooperation.
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Later in the day another new rule:
The Bellagio has implemented another new rule for the money bubble. If a table has players who are all in, they do not reveal their hole cards until all the tables either complete their hands or also reach an all-in situation. That way, players at other tables don't have the advantage of knowing whether a short stack at another table has busted, therefore allowing them to fold into the money.
 If you are seeking a large, world-class, poker tournament this week; you will likely find yourself at either the LA Poker Classic or the EPT Copenhagen. In Copenhagen 460 players (both Day Ones have reached the maximum 230 player limit) will start the European Poker Tour event. Every player of professional skill level from Denmark, Holland, Sweden, Norway and Finland seems to have made the starting list.
Remember it is February in Copenhagen, actually a beautiful time to visit but with a tendency to be a bit chilly. Nevertheless the player list is full and the alternate list is too!
PokerStars pros are there: Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Daniel Negreanu, Tom McEvoy, Bill Chen, Katja Thater, Noah Boeken, Luca Pagano and Dario Minieri. There are also several American internet whiz kids who are too young to play in their home country.
Back in the U.S. the action moves to the Commerce Casino in Los Angeles for the L.A. Poker Classic. Day One at the Commerce will be this Saturday, no one will be turned away from registration in L.A. Last year they had a temporary tent out on the second floor balcony with a dozen tables and they still had players spilling over into the main ground floor casino area.
 Preliminary events have been going on at the LAPC for over three weeks now, with the big news being Men "The Master" Nguyen taking down three separate tournaments. Men won a Seven Card Stud tournament in week one and has continued with a No Limit Hold'em and a Limit Hold'em first place. Quite a run for the Master of L.A. Men tends to do well at the Commerce and always seems to play the full schedule of events.
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OK for all of the purists who hate when a poker blog is not about poker. For Felicia who really does not like poker posts hi-jacked by cat stories..... Turn away from the screen now!
Hey wait! This is about poker and about poker and charity. This coming Friday April 20th, in Las Vegas Jennifer Harman is leading over 300 celebrities and professional poker players in what will undoubtedly be the most fun most of them have had in a long time while at a poker table. It all takes place at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. There will be:
-a Red Carpet arrival for celebrities and professional players;
-an auction of some really cool sports and personal items donated by the players (I got a sneek preview);
-the auctioneers will be Robert Williamson III and Daniel Negreanu;
-a silent auction with some even more cool items, two of which have never been available anywhere before;
-a poker tournament limited to 400 players with 290 professional poker players and celebrities already signed up; imagine the table you could be seated at.....
And get this 100% of the buy-ins $300 and the rebuys $200 will go to the Nevada SPCA No-Kill Shelter.
And don't think you are playing just for fun- First place gets a $10,000 seat in the WSOP Main Event this summer.
The fun starts this Friday, April 20th at 10 AM outside the Poker Room at Caesar's Palace. The tournament starts at noonish. There will be lots of opportunities for the public to interact with the players and there are still seats available for the tournament.
I attended a press conference with past week at the Nevada SPCA Shelter here in Las Vegas. Jennifer, Daniel and Todd Brunson were there and so were lots of lucky pets, who will not be put down or left on the streets. This is a great charity and a great bunch of volunteers. If you can't make the event this Friday, please consider an online donation. Thanks.
Photo credit: Amy Calistri and Sammy, her owner
 A really nice interview with Daniel Negreanu over on All In magazine. My favorite Danielism from this interview:
"Poker players generally are lone wolves, but obviously, this bill [UIGEA] is a political ploy, and it’s directly affecting them. So they’re going to be a little more outraged, because their freedoms are being infringed upon. Their freedom to sit in their living room and visit a site that’s offshore, and play poker, is being taken away from them. It’s a little bit communist, it’s a little like what China has been going through forever, and it’s almost like while the rest of the world is taking a step forward, the United States is taking a step backward."
For the full interview and some more tidbits on and from "Kid Poker."
You've seen the commercials of Joe Hachem with ice water running into his veins. But how about ice hockey in Topeka? Poker you say? Daniel Negreanu and Gavin Smith, Canadians both, are heading up an ownership team that may be bringing professional hockey back to Topeka.
Now there is a phrase I have always wanted to write: "Bringing professional hockey back to Topeka."
Full story from the Wichita Eagle
Yet another online poker site has made its decision to withdraw from the U.S. market known. This time its Full Contact Poker, the Daniel Negreanu backed site. However, it appears that Full Contect Poker may be intending to re-launch with new software and continue to serve its U.S. clientele. It is clearly not in Negreanu's personality to just fold up and slink away.
Here is the email statement sent to all FCP U.S. players.
Attention U.S. players:
As you probably know by now, the Ongame Network (provider of FCP's poker software) was forced to make the difficult decision of restricting U.S. residents from playing real money games on their poker network. As a result Full Contact Poker has been working with Ongame and another network software provider to produce a solution for all of the FCP players to continue playing at our site with minimal interruption during a transitional phase over the next few weeks.
Prior to the launch of our new poker software solution, we must ask our U.S. players to follow some new rules outlined by Ongame.
While surfing around the poker cyber-noize today, I found this article on The Courier News Online. Its a short article about how to build a big stack in poker with a short WSOP flavored lead-in. What I found interesting was that at the end of all the other sports articles by this writer there is this italicized line:
Mike Nadel (mikenadel@sbcglobal.net) is the Chicago sports columnist for Copley News Service.
But at the end of the poker column is this tag-line:
Visit www.fullcontactpoker.com/news to submit your questions and comments to poker champion Daniel Negreanu.
Wonder who is picking up that affiliate revenue?
 Life's A Bluff interviews Daniel Negreanu. We ask such hard hitting questions as
- Are you a part of a long standing secret Canadian plot to send comics and entertainers to the US to undermine its culture and take over from the inside out?
- Who would you like to see yourself go against in MTV's Celebrity Death Match?
- You are the producer of a reality show.... 6 poker players in a house. Name the players, location, & first person voted out.
Find out what Daniel had to say about Mike Matusow, his mother breaking him out of jail, and more here.
 Professional poker player Clonie Gowen sits down with Life's A Bluff for 'Random Questions' and says she is pretty sure she can beat Daniel Negreanu one on one. That's right! One on one!
I think we may have a challenge folks. ;)
Read what she had to say about the time she got kicked at the table, stinky poker players, the New World Order, & much more by clicking here.
Meanwhile, other online sites engage in big fat game of Hungry Hungry Hippo trying to scoop up Party players, which until today represented 40+ percent of the worldwide online poker market.
Mike Sexton explains Party's U.S. pullout as part of good-corporate-citizen strategy in an effort to set-up a taxably triumphant return ... while Daniel Negreanu respects the move but wonders if they'll ever get back the players left behind.
(I know a couple poker-room guys in Dallas who know the answer to that -- it's possible, but not easy.)
In one of the first public responses from a high-profile poker pro on the passage of the online gambling legislation, Daniel Negreanu just offered his two cents about the law in a stinging post on his blog. Here's the most scathing excerpt:
"The weasel (remember, that's Bill Frist), claims that online gambling is a way in which terrorists go about laundering money. Come off it? How do you say that with a straight face? Weasel, do you have any proof whatsoever that any terrorist group has used online poker accounts to launder money? Any at all?
The weasel is a self-righteous douche bag who has decided to push upon us his moral agenda by claiming that online poker is "bad." Has he ever played poker? Probably not. Does he even understand that it's different from slot machines? Probably not. Does he even realize that many Americans put food on the table by playing online poker? Probably not, and I doubt he cares. He thinks "gambling is wrong" so we all have to have the same view of it as he does."
An owner and celebrity endorser of Full Contact Poker, Negreanu also states that he believes that business will go on as usual for the smaller, privately owned sites.
"As for the majority of privately owned sites, it will be business as usual. Frankly, as moronic and intrusive as this bill is, there is really no need to panic. The bill states that banks have 270 days to comply with the law. Most banks, especially smaller ones, won't even have the resources to do that as I understand it."
Of course, Negreanu is only a poker player, not a legal scholar or a psychic-- these are only his opinions. An interesting, relevant read nonetheless.
Daniel Negreanu just commented on Bluff Radio that Jamie Gold's loose-aggressive play set up his move against Erik Friberg very well. Visibly frustrated throughout the final table, Friberg most likely thought that he was facing a "punishment" raise by the chipleader with a marginal hand as Gold has been raising a lot of pots. Friberg decided to take a stand when he moved all-in with the jacks and was very surprised to find out that this time, Gold actually had the goods.
Seven players remain.
Daniel's table was about to break and everyone had racked their chips. Daniel had in the range of 150,000 chips in 7 racks with a good amount of black chips. Just when I was wondering how he was going to carry all of those, a floor person in a white suit came to his side and the chips went crashing down on the table. He immediately accused her of causing the spill, and she immediately denied it while helping him rack them back up again. Daniel has moved to table 57. Boy oh boy is this going to make for a good video cast tomorrow!
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