image from pokertournamentwatch.com

"Friends and Family". A term used by poker reporters to show that the remaining players may not exactly live in the poker limelight like a Gavin Smith, Phil Helmuth, or Scotty Nguyen. One might use that term to describe the remaining field at the 2008 PokerNews Cup Main Event after several "big named" players such as Mark Vos, and brothers Joe and Tony Hachem have busted from days 1a and 1b.

But, there's a few stories left to be written as the overnight chip leader, Dory Zayneh, happens to be the defending champion of the event and is looking to capture the 250,000 AUD$ first place prize. If you watched the 2008 $10,000 World Series of Poker Pot Limit Omaha championship event on ESPN, or know your Aussie pros, then another familiar face near the top of the leaderboard of one Billy "The Croc" Argyros will provide a few laugh for the rail as day two starts tomorrow.

78 of the original 239 players remain and 38 more will be eliminated from the Crown Casino hosted event before players will pocket at least 4,100 AUD$ for their efforts.

For the live reporting on the event, check out PokerNews.com's coverage here.

The November Nine.

Remember them?

Yes, the final nine players from the 2008 World Series of Poker's Main Event are coming soon to the televison screen near you to play out the remaining hands and this year's World Champion. Among the final nine, six of them signed with PokerStars.net to proudly display their wares on various visible body parts for the "live" telecast from ESPN of the final table. The waiting experiment will come to its peak soon to see the sponsorship drawing of WSOP final table.

One such PokerStars.net sponsored player, the chip leader Dennis Phillips, will be considered the hottest commodity at the table. Given his chip advantage to win it all and probable length of air time on the nationally televised table the real estate on his shirt will be worth some decent coin...

... for a charity

Thanks to PokerStars and Ebay, there is an auction that started yesterday to give the proceeds of a prime spot of advertising on Phillips' shirt to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Below is the press release on how businesses can line up for this great way to benefit the MS Society and get a little back in the form of face time on a huge ESPN production.

Follow this link to the auction.

2008 World Series of Poker® Chip Leader Urges Corporate America to Go 'All In' To Fight Multiple Sclerosis

Dennis Phillips Hosts Charity Auction on eBay with Winner Featured on ESPN Telecast

LAS VEGAS, October 14, 2008: Stakes at the Final Table of the 2008 World Series of Poker® just got a little higher. This year, Chip Leader Dennis Phillips will host an auction on eBay (www.ebay.com), for a prime logo spot on his jersey with all proceeds going to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

From October 16-26, 2008, companies and individuals can bid for a logo placement on Dennis Phillips' jersey, which will be in position as he competes at the Final Table of the 2008 World Series of Poker. The event will be broadcast on November 11, 2008 to millions of ESPN households around the world, as Dennis vies for more than $9 million dollars. The 2008 WSOP final table is expected to be the most-watched night in televised poker history and is guaranteed to be re-broadcasted at least eight times across ESPN networks.

Phillips, a long-time supporter of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, is from St. Louis, Missouri. He became deeply involved in the fight against MS when his brother was diagnosed with it over ten years ago.

"Being on the Final Table of the WSOP is an opportunity of a lifetime, but we hope that this opportunity will one day save someone's life," said Phillips.

Phillips is currently sponsored by PokerStars.net, and is the odds-on favorite to win the title of Main Event champion. He already has donated money to a number of worthy causes since reaching the final table in July, including The Pujols Family Foundation. He has committed to donate 1% of his final table winnings to 'Put a Bad Beat on Cancer,' which PokerStars.net will match in full.

"We are thrilled to be a part of such an exciting promotion that will ultimately help us continue to move towards a world free of MS," said Phyllis Robsham, president of the Gateway Area Chapter, "The awareness and funds raised through Dennis' effort will help us to continue our work for the over 6,000 people living with MS in our area."

"We are appreciative of Dennis' efforts to encompass charitable endeavors and wish him and the MS society tremendous success on and off the felt, said World Series," of Poker marketing and sponsorship director Ty Stewart.

The eBay auction begins on October 16, 2008 at 8 a.m. EST. Sponsor subject to the official WSOP rules.

About the National Multiple Sclerosis Society

MS stops people from moving. The National MS Society exists to make sure it doesn't. We help each person address the challenges of living with MS. In 2006 alone, throughout home office and 50 state networks of chapters, we devoted nearly $126 million to programs that enhanced more than one million lives. To move us closer to a world free of MS, the Society also invested more than $46 million to support 380 research projects around the world. We are people who want to do something about MS NOW. Join the movement at nationalmssociety.org.

Early and ongoing treatment with an FDA-approved therapy can make a difference for people with multiple sclerosis. Learn about your options by talking to your health care professional and contacting the National MS Society at www.nationalMSsociety.org or 1-800- 344-4867. You may also contact your local Gateway Area Chapter at www.gatewayMSsociety.org or 314-781-9020.

Something fresh has flown into Full Tilt and its going to take some multi-tabling skillz for people to appreciate it. The new "Matrix" SnGs are now open to the public which pit the same six or nine players against each other in four different SnG's running concurrently with the positions being the only different factor.

The fun begins when the usual six or nine players register for the tournament and four table simultaneously appear on your screen pitting against the same six or nine players for five different prize pools. The payments for each individual tourney are the same as two places pay out for six player SnGs and three places for the nine players ones. The fun part comes with the Matrix prize pool which awards the same places as the table, but via an individual's "Matrix Score" determines who wins the final prize pool.

You receive two points towards this pool from knocking out an opponent, one point for outlasting someone, and two bonus points for winning a table. Obviously, using a more aggressive style to attain KOs is necessary to be in the running for that Matrix Pool pay out. After playing a few, I can suggest using the following formula for choose the correct level of play: x * 4 = Matrix SnG buy-in amount (X = your normal amount/level of SnG play).

Find these exciting new SnGs under the Sit and Go tab, then choose the Matrix tab.

PokerNews.com, not just a place to get your poker news from anymore as player are making their own poker news from the second edition of the of the PokerNews Cup is currently running down under at the Crown Casino in Melbourne, Australia.

The week long tournament series is reeling in the traveling pros (such as renown high-stakes player Tony G and and Full Tilt sponsored Mark Vos), and it is certainly not short on giving poker enthusiast a shot at a decent score for the price of a local card room daily tournament. While the prize pools may not make a millionaire a minute in Melbourne, they are stocked with players thirsty for a score in the eight event series.

Four events are already in the books, like Event #1's $230 NLHE event was won by Harry Ligos who took home $17,732 after finding pocket queens when his heads-up opponent Michael Bancroft shoved with T5o while trying to come back from a 5:1 chip deficit.

As always PokerNews.com has some of the best live tournament reporting in the world, and their own crew is at the Crown Casino capturing all the exciting hands for us internet poker junkies.

Check out the live blogging of the 2008 PokerNews cup via this link.

Can Kentucky regulate something that does not exist in Kentucky?

There lies the rub of the huge lawsuit that pits the special interest of Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear who has been increasingly forthcoming about his reasons behind the historic lawsuit. This of course has to do with the Governor trying to block online gambling in his state via seizure of domain names by the Kentucky government.

Beshear has admitted this is an attempt to "protect" the other gambling interest in the state such as its world-renown horse racing tracks. Webmasters and other industry have been in Kentucky for weeks now while making the simple argument that their servers do not exist in Kentucky (and to make a further point, most do not exist in United States).

Judge Thomas Wingate, who is presiding over the case, will be making a ruling on this case in attempt to gage what jurisdiction a state (or a country for that matter) has on a website if it allows the activity of the website to go on within its state (country) borders.

For the AP story, check out Forbes.com here.

image from parttimepoker.com

World Poker Tour, while trying to get their feet back on the ground after seeing lowered attendance throughout the recent season and moving from the Game Show Network to Fox Sports Net has a little something new going on.

ClubWPT is the World Poker Tour's poker website which is legal in the US since essentially it's a free site which you pay a subscription fee to join. Recently the ClubWPT $5,000 SnG debuted its first WPT show with the new address. California Jen from Pokerati watched the show today and has some mixed feelings about the extremely amateur players who seemingly were feeling the clay chips for the first time.

To qualify for the $5,000 SnG the players won their respective tournaments online via ClubWPT's site. The cameras brought to life a different kind of TV poker as the players seemed to be getting their first crack at reaching for chips versus a slide bar on their laptops.

Here's a little sound bite of the play below from Cali Jen (for the complete article go here to Pokerati):

And the players. Oh, the players. The whole idea of the show is to put the online players in a new setting and see what happens, but what happened was almost embarrassing. Every other play had me shaking my head, either at the betting amounts or the cards they were playing. And more than once, a player acted out of turn.