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2010 Stanley Cup Final Schedule. The National Hockey League announced today the schedule for the 2010 Stanley Cup Final between the Western Conference champion Chicago Blackhawks and the Eastern Conference champion Philadelphia Flyers.

Home at last. After seven-and-a-half weeks away watching other people play poker, I have finally returned to my home on the east coast of the United States. Most of that period was spent in the Nevada desert, where the temperatures outside were exceeding 110°F (43°C) by the time I left last weekend. Of course, for the most part I was inside the sometimes frigid Rio All-Suite Hotel and Casino, helping cover the 41st Annual World Series of Poker for PokerNews.

I’ve come home with a lot of memories from the 2010 WSOP. One of them is pictured above — the moment the cash bubble burst in the Main Event, when the Amazon room was filled with raucous shouting and cheers. That moment is always one of the most exciting of the summer.

I thought it would fun as a kind of WSOP postscript to share ten memories from my summer in Vegas — all specific moments which kind of stand out as I think back on the experience of helping report on the Series.

1. The first event I helped cover was Event No. 3, the first of six open-field $1,000 no-limit hold’em events. The field for that first one ended up being the largest in the entire WSOP save the Main Event — 4,345 runners in all. The witty Danafish was my blogging partner for those first couple of days, and I remember asking her at some point early on for an estimate on how many players had shown up. Her deadpanned reply came without hesitation: “One million.”

2. Event No. 17, the $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em event, attracted a star-studded field, including one table featuring Brandon Adams, Shannon Elizabeth, Dan Heimiller, Phil Hellmuth, Chris Ferguson, and David Williams. I happened to be watching the table when a big hand developed that involved Heimiller, Hellmuth, Ferguson, and Williams. During the hand, Elizabeth snapped a photo of her tablemates and sent it out on Twitter. I noticed later I was in the picture, and joked with my colleagues that the American Pie star was taking pictures of me reporting.

3. Event No. 19, the $10,000 Deuce-to-Seven Draw Championship (No-Limit), also attracted quite a few well-known pros. On Day 1, I watched a funny hand between Chris “Jesus” Ferguson and Andy Bloch. Ferguson opened with a raise from the cutoff seat, and only Bloch called from the big blind. Bloch then drew two cards, while Ferguson stood pat. Bloch then bet, at which point Ferguson folded his hand face up — quad fours! Ferguson and Bloch — well known for their mathematical minds — shared a good laugh at the sight of Ferguson’s statistically improbable hand.

4. I helped cover Event No. 22, the $1,000 buy-in Ladies Hold’em Championship, although I didn’t join the coverage until Day 2. That meant I’d missed a lot of the brouhaha that happened on the first day when about a dozen men entered the event. Before the final table, WSOP Media Director Nolan Dalla (whom I interviewed here a couple of weeks ago), said a few words about the history of the Ladies Event at the WSOP, adding that “The WSOP will always support the ladies poker championship. The ladies deserve their day.” His declaration was met with applause, and while the Ladies event will surely continue to draw controversy, I thought it significant that Dalla made the statement he did.

5. Day 3 of Event No. 35, the $10,000 Heads Up No-Limit Hold’em Championship, was supposed to be the last day of the event. The final round — which was best two out of three — didn’t start until around 11 p.m., and the first match between Ayaz Mahmood and Ernst Schmejkal was still going more than six hours after it had begun. By that point the sun had risen, and the players and tourney officials were debating whether to continue with the second match right after or come back later in the day. My blogging partner Tim and I were exhausted — we’d been at it for something like 16 hours. Schmejkal was ready to go ahead and reschedule the second match, but Mahmood wanted assurance that it wouldn’t start until 7 p.m. “If we can’t do seven, I want to play now,” said Mahmood. Tim and I looked at each other in horror. Thankfully seven did work, and our long day-slash-night-slash-day finally concluded shortly thereafter.

6. I reported on Event No. 39, the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout, in which Annette Obrestad won her first two tables and thus made it to the final day. I was intrigued to watch Obrestad play, having only seen her on television before this summer — indeed, I’ll admit to have been a little starstruck when watching that first hand or two of hers, something I haven’t experienced at the WSOP in a long time.

7. I had the chance to cover Event No. 44, the $2,500 Mixed Hold’em event in which Gavin Smith won his first WSOP bracelet. Smith cut an interesting figure at that final table, wearing a sport jacket, a fedora, and eyeglasses. There was a seriousness about him that seemed a bit different from the usual happy-go-lucky persona we have seen in the past from “the Caveman.” I remember at one point Smith won a hand and his friend Layne Flack shouted “Winning never gets old, does it?” from the stands. Smith had a reply: “Yeah, but sometimes it gets hard to remember.” He smiled a moment more, but then was back to business. It was clear he wasn’t going to indulge in a lot of extracurricular activity on that day, and I suppose one has to conclude his focus served him well.

8. I helped cover Event No. 54, the last those $1,000 no-limit hold’em events, at which there occurred something quite unique. As is usually the case, late registrants were seated together at newly-opened tables, and at one of the tables were sat no less than five players with WSOP bracelets. Not only that, they had a whopping 16 bracelets between them — Layne Flack (six), Chris Ferguson (five), Tom Schneider (two), Ryan Hughes (two), and Gavin Smith (one). “What are the odds of this at a $1K event?” asked Schneider.

9. On Day 1d of Event No. 57, the $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em Championship (a.k.a., the Main Event), I was there helping report on the action when a fellow leaned over the rail and began asking me questions about the prize pool, the average stack size, and so forth. He wanted to know what sort of stack would guarantee a person reaching the money. His questions became more and more specific; for example, he wanted me to assess what sort of shape a player would be in if he had ended Day 1 with 94,000 chips. Then I finally realized — he had played Day 1a, and was asking about his own situation! Then came the funniest part of our conversation. “Do you think I should play tight?” he asked. While I tried to answer all of his other questions as well as I could, I didn’t presume to advise him on that one.

10. One last story from Event No. 57 (the Main Event), an especially strange hand from Day 2a involving Chris Moneymaker and Bryan Pellegrino. While all of the other players had already left for dinner break, Moneymaker and Pellgrino had reached the river on a hand in which Pellegrino was sitting motionless while the 2003 Main Event champ stood and wandered about, appearing as though he were waiting for Pellegrino to decide how to respond to Moneymaker’s river bet. Finally, after more than ten minutes, Moneymaker said somewhat reluctantly that he was going to have to call the clock. That’s when Pellegrino explained that he had already reraised all in, and was waiting for Moneymaker to act! A pretty strange scene. Moneymaker would eventually bust shy of the cash, but Pellegrino made a deep run, finishing 143rd.

Of course, there were more moments along the way that stand out, including several from the Main Event. And there will be still more come November when the final table resumes. Such is the case every summer at the World Series of Poker!

With a large number of players being in Las Vegas for the 2010 World Series of Poker and thousands of English players all crying into their beer after England’s humiliation at the hands of Germany in the World Cup, there was a slightly smaller field of 72 for Sunday’s $500+$10 HOT! $40k GTD Freezeout meaning Betfair Poker, being the nice guys they are, made up the shortfall in the guaranteed prizepool.

photo by flipchip • lasvegasvegas.com

Only three weeks remain before the Big Poker Show comes to town. The 2010 World Series of Poker will once again fill the Pavilion Expo Center at Harrah’s Rio Resort in Las Vegas with thousands of poker players from around the world, movie stars, sports celebrities, throngs of clamoring fans armed with point-and-shoots, millions and millions of dollars in cash, and a few gold bracelets.

We’ve prepared some never published images featuring celebrities playing poker at the 2009 WSOP and added them to the Flipchip Photo Gallery. This is also your opportunity to glimpse what happens backstage.

Additional details are available with this link. Don’t get shutout of any of the 2010 WSOP events by registering now… http://www.wsop.com/registration/.

photo by flipchip • lasvegasvegas.com

photo by flipchip • lasvegasvegas.com

photo by flipchip • lasvegasvegas.com

photo by flipchip • lasvegasvegas.com

photo by flipchip • lasvegasvegas.com

photo by flipchip • lasvegasvegas.com

photo by flipchip • lasvegasvegas.com

The Spanish football authorities have scheduled a frenetic end to their domestic season, but Tobias Gourlay is up to speed for the latest midweek round of La Liga.

The 2010 season is in full swing and there’s a full schedule taking place this weekend. Nick Shiambouros previews three games that will be shown live on ESPN America.

The first HOT! $40k GTD tournament of April took place on Sunday 4 April and saw 77 players do battle for the $12,000 first place prize. After the end of a gruelling five and a half hours of top class poker, it was schapp who had emerged as this week’s champion.

Plenty to go at on Bank Holiday Monday with no less than seven meetings scheduled. The Free Form Service has picked out the best three bets of the day.

Good Lawd. What has happened? Today I wake up and am stunned to read stories like…

“Isildur1 is Mats Sundin”

or “FBI Probe Discovers NBA Has Been Fixing Games For Past Decade”

or “Kahnawake Gaming Commission Identifies Authorities Assisting Ongoing Investigation in UltimateBet Scandal.”

Wait, wat? Oh. Right. (Big grins on that KGC one, by the way.)

What other funny business is happening today?

Well, PokerStars is running a few April Fool’s-related tourneys that look like they might provide a few more laughs. As Brad “Otis” Willis notes over on the PokerStars blog, “the PokerStars Tournaments Team has got their silly on today.”

All four events begin at 15:05 today on the PokerStars clock. All four have the same $2.00+$0.20 buy-in.

Search for “foolishness” in the tourney filter to find ’em. All pretty in pink.

Mike’s Tourney (listed as “yenrouT s’ekiM”) is a no-limit hold’em rebuy tourney in which players start with 4,875 chips. If at or below the starting stack, one can rebuy during the first half-hour (4,000 for $2), and there’s a chance to add on after that (6,000 for $2), but only if one is sitting with less than 12,000. The real twist, though, is in the blinds/antes schedule — they decrease rather than increase, starting at a whopping 1,500/3,000 (with a 375 ante — that’s right, everyone begins with an “M” of less than 1), then gradually sliding downwards for the first 21 five-minute levels all of the way to 100/200/25 before turning around again.

Fredrik’s Tournament is a PLO/PLH event. It is also a rebuy event, only for this one rebuys (for 2,500 chips) are only two cents. And the add-on (for 6,000) is just $0.03. The blinds and antes (including antes in PLO) also vary wildly, going up and down for the first 35 levels or so before finally settling into a rapid increase help to finish the sucker off.

Bryan’s Tournament, an NLH event, might also be referred to as “Crazy Eights.” Starting stack just 888 chips, but one can rebuy (888 more) for $0.08, then add-on 88,888 chips for $0.88. The blinds move back and forth between 88/88 and 888/888 during the first eight levels, then move up to 88,888/88,888 at level 11 where they remain for the rest of the event. The antes also vary for that initial period, but starting at Level 11 follow the Fibonacci sequence (1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, etc.). And oh yeah, the tourney will be played eight-handed.

Finally, Alex’s Tourney starts out like a plain old vanilla NLH rebuy event and remains so for the first nine 10-minute levels. Starting stack 1,000, rebuys for first half-hour, 1,500 add-on. Then comes level 10, where the blinds jump to 1 billion/2 billion with a 500 million-chip ante.

I think we can all predict the exact hand where Alex’s Tourney will be concluding. (EDIT [added 5:00 p.m. ET]: I shouldn’t have spoken so confidently here — actually, it took what appeared to be five or so hands of Level 10 for this one to finish.)

Fun stuff all around. Might have to hop into one or more of these suckers, if I can get all this other work outta the way beforehand. Then maybe there’ll be time for what’s really important. You know, the foolin’ around.

Ended up having a blast yesterday playing in those “April Foolishness” tournaments on PokerStars (discussed yesterday). After a bit of study, I decided to enter two of the four $2.00+$0.20 rebuy events. By the way, that picture is the disclaimer that appeared when one entered the tourneys, which caused me to grin. Hey, I always try to have a sense of humor when playing tourneys. Them suckers can cause too much hurt otherwise.

One of the ones I entered was Mike’s Tourney — or “yenrouT s’ekiM,” as it was listed in the lobby. That was the one with decreasing blinds/antes for the first 21 levels, at which point they began going up again. I also tried Frederik’s Tourney, the pot-limit hold’em/pot-limit Omaha mixed event with blinds/antes going up and down randomly and rebuys for just $0.02.

I initially was enjoying Frederik’s Tourney much more than Mike’s, mainly because of the cheap rebuys. In Mike’s tourney we all started with 4,875 chips, but the blinds started 1,500/3,000 with a 375 ante. On the first hand of the tourney I was dealt under the gun and folded. On the next hand I had in the big blind, meaning two-thirds of my stack was already in the middle. So I called an all-in and luckily flopped a ten to double up.

But that good fortune didn’t last, as within the first orbit I had A-A cracked and soon had to rebuy. I would rebuy once more, ultimately investing $6.20 in the thing, and by the time the rebuy period ended I somehow had 27,960 chips. I could not take the add-on (6000 chips for $2), since another quirky part of the event was you had to be under 12,000 to be allowed to take it.

Meanwhile, I was having more fun with the other crazies in Frederik’s Tourney going all in hand after hand during the rebuy period. I ended up double-rebuying four times over there (for just 16 cents), then took the $0.03 add-on, too, so the total investment on that one was just $2.37. Busting on the last hand of the rebuy period there meant I had the minimum — 11,000 — when we cranked back up again in that one.

I’d last another hour or so in Frederik’s Tourney before unimpressively busting in 1,047th (out 2,187). Meanwhile, as the blinds were going down in Mike’s Tourney, my stack was growing.

Was kind of an interesting phenomenon, to watch Mike’s Tourney change from a shove-fest during the rebuy period, to a stretch where a select few were desperately short-stacked, to a period where everyone essentially had deep stacks. As we entered Level 21 — the last level before the blinds started going back up again — I had a (well) below average stack of 47,135, which at the time was still 23-plus big blinds.

Even with five-minute levels and the blinds starting to increase more rapidly then they had decreased, I was able to play some postflop poker during that part of the tourney and even managed to play a few hands reasonably well.

A total of 3,517 had entered this one, with the top 396 scheduled to get paid. When the money bubble burst, I was still there, and would continue to hang on before finally busting just shy of the top 90, getting $45.23 back for my trouble. Was pleased to see our friend Kevmath also make it that deep as well (he went out about the same time I did).

By the end, all but a few of those left were essentially short-stacked again, meaning just about all of the eliminations at that point came after preflop all-ins. Kevmath sadly ran pocket jacks into pocket kings. Then, with the blinds 17,500/35,000 (ante 4,375), I was able to open-shove my 220,614 from the button with and got called by the big blind who held . Found out later it was the same player who’d knocked Kevmath out, in fact.

Flop — — and turn — — were good. But the on the river sent me railward.

I thought afterwards about how I’d at one point had a stack of over a quarter million (even then below average) and how that might have been the most chips I’d ever had in front of me in a tourney.

I railed the other two April Foolishness events a little, including watching the final hand of Alex’s Tourney, the one which featured a normal structure for nine levels, then crazily went to 1 billion/2 billion blinds and a 500,000 million ante at Level 10.

I’m not completely sure, but I think that at the start of Level 10 there were something like 500-600 players left in that one, meaning it took three or four hands to get down to the end. I wanted to show an animation of that final hand, but the converter over at Poker Hand Replays seemed to have trouble dealing with all them chips. So here’s that final hand, converted via Deuces Cracked:

Poker Stars $2.00+$0.20 No Limit Hold’em Tournament - t1000000000/t2000000000 Blinds + t4835667 - 4 players
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

edja15 (BTN): t6574804 M = 0.00
Biböl002 (SB): t128984 M = 0.00
simcof (BB): t2943045 M = 0.00
yulian_99 (CO): t4835667 M = 0.00

Pre Flop: (t14482500)
Flop: (t14482500) 8 3 3 (4 players)
Turn: (t14482500) 4 (4 players)
River: (t14482500) 6 (4 players)

Final Pot: t14482500

edja15 shows 8 Q (two pair, Eights and Threes)
Biböl002 shows 7 Q (a pair of Threes)
simcof shows 6 5 (two pair, Sixes and Threes)
yulian_99 shows T J (a pair of Threes)

edja15 wins t3785244
edja15 wins t8442183
edja15 wins t515936
(Rake: t1739137)

(Not sure why there’s a “rake” listed here.)

Definitely a fun time, made funner by sneaking into some cash. That’s a couple of tourney successes this week — talked about the other one a little here — giving me a taste for playing more (not that I’m taking having modest success in a novelty event as an indicator of much of anything). A different sort of glee at winning tourney money versus a successful cash session. More lasting, I think. (And maybe more addictive.)

Have a good weekend, all. I hope everyone finds more time for foolin’ around.