Here’s the breakdown of the tournaments in the 2013 WSOP Schedule. Over 60% of the tournaments are No-Limit Hold’em tournaments!

Eight of the October Nine are from the USA, and one player, Koroknai,  is from Hungary.

Youngest player is 21. Oldest is 56. Average age of players is 31 yrs. old.

Largest stack is 43.9M. Smallest is 9.8M. Average stack is just about 22M.

Returning in October are:

Sadly, neither of the women made it. There were two females, Gaelle Baumann and Elisabeth Hille, still vying for the final table when play was down to 18. Through Twitter, I saw that quite a few male and female spectators were rooting for at least one to make the final table – and Gaelle Baumann almost did. Her A 9 ran into Koroknai’s A J and neither improved. Gaelle had had a notable stack for several days.

Interestingly, both women bubbled; Elisabeth went out in 11th and just missed the final table of 10 for last night’s play, and Gaelle went out right after to bring the number of players to 9 – and the October Nine were set.

2012 National Championship

Congrats to Ryan Eriquezzo who won the National Championship tournament. It was fun to see that he had won because a few hours earlier at the dinner break when only 4 remained, he was the short stack with 764K. The chip leader had ~ 1.95M at dinner break, and, here’s a reminder of the chip stacks when the final 8 started the 2012 National Championship final table.

2012 WSOP Main Event

The 2012 Main Event played on. They are down to 27 and will reach 9 today/tonight – and we’ll have our October Nine or whatever they decided to call them.

WSOP updates post the Final 27 for the 2012 WSOP Main Event as:

Final 8 players in chip order are:

Yung Hwang 1224000
Matt Keikoan 957000
Sam Stein 651000
Ryan Eriquezzo 474000
Nikolas Stone 471000
Huy Nguyen 331000
Amanda Musumeci 220000
David (ODB) Baker 281000

• 2012 WSOP Main Event continues with 2 day 1s starting this week. Survivors move on to 3 day 2s, then all merge to begin day 3 play on Thursday, July 12 . Official WSOP structure sheet
• The final table for the WSOP National Championship tournament will be played out today, Sunday July 8th Wednesday, July 11th. Final 8 players in chip order are:
  Yung Hwang 1224000
  Matt Keikoan 957000
  Sam Stein 651000
  Ryan Eriquezzo 474000
  Nikolas Stone 471000
  Huy Nguyen 331000
  Amanda Musumeci 220000
  David (ODB) Baker 281000
• 2012 WSOP Schedule has been updated with results for all tournaments #1 – #60

Sitting at the poker tables last week, it was evident that the Main Event was on its way. Each night I played, there were more and more players from other countries. Conversation revealed that they had flown in for the Main Event. Indeed, they were practiced players with bankrolls. Tuesday night at one table we had 3 from USA, 1 from Belgium, 1 from Norway, 1 from England and the remaining from other countries which escape me now. Thursday night at Planet Hollywood, Jamie Gold played at a $2/$5 table. He won a huge pot right off the bat – up to $700-$900 (table max was $300) in a single hand. He didn’t stay long… Last year while I was playing at the MGM, he did the same thing days before the start of the Main Event. My theory is that he comes out to practice with the masses to remind himself of how to play with the up-and-comers and wanna-be’s.

Great pic that gets the nervous anxiety of anticipation going is over at the WSOP website , first snippet in The Daily Shuffle for Saturday by Nolan Dalla.

Another great pic of the registration line over at PokerNews.com in its All Mucked Up daily blog written by PokerNews staff.

Snapshot of 7/6/2012 article at PokerNews.com re: 2012 WSOP Main Event Registration

The 2012 WSOP Main Event is Event #61. There are three Day 1s, and today is Day 1A. It is listed as a ten day tournament – although we all know there will be a huge break once they get down to nine players. This year, there will be no November Nine as the final table will take place in late October. But… let’s stay focused on the excitement of getting to those nine…

I ran into s player I had met on the plane and a women that  I know from Massachusetts (and didn’t even know that she was in Las Vegas.) BUT – the fun part was seeing all the poker pros and up-and-comers.

On that list is:

WSOP Event #58 PLO Tournament

• Scotty Nguyen
• Erik Lindgren
• Mike Matasow
• Humberto Brenes
• David Sklansy
• Martin Stasko
• Blair Rodman

WSOP Event #57 $10K No Limit Hold’em 6 Handed

• Andrew Lichtenberger
• Jason Mercier
• Yevgeniy Timoshenko

Photos I was able to get before my phone ran out…

Scotty Nguyen 2012 WSOP PLO Hi-Low

Scotty Nguyen Event #58 PLO 7/4/2012

Martin Stasko 2012 WSOP PLO Hi-Low Split 8 or Better 7/4/2012

That’s a wrap for The Big One in Las Vegas. Three other events are active now, including a $10K N0 Limit Hold’em tournament. About 5 -6 other tournaments are on deck!