WPT Championship: Handicapping The Final Table

The WPT Championship final table is set.

Yevgeniy Timoshenko. Early on Day 2 of the event, we asked the WPT team if Yevgeniy Timoshenko, a woman, was a chick, because of this picture. Later we did a post on him. Come to find out the dude is SOLID. Most think he's the real deal. Plus, he's got the Russian thing going for him. After Slumdog Millionaire, Vivek Rajkumar's run, and Anoop Desai's early front-runner status on American Idol, we thought it was the Year of the Indian^TM. But then Anoop flamed out, killing that theory. In poker, it's clearly the Year of the Russian^TM, even if said Russian actually lives in Seattle. Whatever. Timoshenko is big stacked at 13,300,000. He's got the mojo. We've got him listed at 1:1.

Christian Harder. Who? What? Harder is second overall in chips with 7,425,000. He's played solid all week. Third place feels right. 6:1 odds.

ElkY Grospellier. ElkY could grab WPT Player of the Year honors with a fourth place finish, which we think he'll do, because he'll finish second. No non-Russian is hotter in poker right now. EklY is currently third overall with 5,955,000. Odds of winning: 3:1.

Scotty Nguyen. Nobody has more primetime poker experience at this final table than Nguyen. He's played great poker all week. He's been focused. It would be no shocker for him to make a run at this title, despite having a ways to go to catch up. A win would actually make Scotty tournament poker's all-time money winner, so there's some extra incentive if he cares about that kind of thing (like a Phil Hellmuth would, for example). Nguyen is fourth overall going into final table play with 3,275,000. Odds of winning: 5:1 just because he's Scotty Nguyen, baby.

Ran Azor: Who? What? Azor is fifth overall with 2,525,000. Odds of winning: 47:1.

Shannon Shorr: The common sentiment among most people upon hearing Shorr, the guy with the hot porn star sounding girl's name, made the final table has been, "Good for Shannon." The dude has been one of poker's most consistent performers and has been doing it the right way (except for this incident): building his bankroll on his own, no backers, still going to school, and just doing his thing. However, Shorr kind of has that "happy to be here" vibe. He's way short, with 1,130,000, although hopefully he'll cling on to a fifth place finish to milk just a little more TV time and maybe nab himself a deal with one of the online poker sites out there. Odds of winning: 10:1.

Final table play starts at 4pm PST.

WPT Championship: Scotty Nguyen Adds Blue Diamond Almonds Bold Player of The Day To List of Accomplishments

A total of 32 poker titles. Five WSOP bracelets. One WPT title. One $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. title. One WSOP Main Event title. And now, finally, Scotty Nguyen can add a Blue Diamond Almonds Bold Player of the Day to his long list of accomplishments.

With just 10 remaining, Nguyen holds the chip lead at the WPT Championship, stacked at 5,880,000. If Nguyen wins this tourney, he'll end up just a few hundred grand behind Jamie Gold as the all-time poker tournament money winner.

Nguyen is followed by Yevgeniy Timoshenko, a woman, with 5,105,000.

Also remaining is porn star Shannon Shorr with 3,155,000. Shorr has been one of the most consistent players on the circuit for the past few years, is always near the top of various Player of the Year standings, yet receives practically no pub. A WPT TV final table appearance at this championship would definitely change that...if people still watched the WPT on TV.

We keed. We keed.

Also still alive is ElkY Grospellier with 1,965,000. We get it ElkY, you're good. Enough already. Leave some tournament money for everyone else.

Full chip counts here.

2008 WSOP Update: Shorr, Seidel and Hachem Among Leaders on Day 1 of Event No. 43

Shannon Shorr (above photo, on right) is among the Day 1 leaders in the $1,500 buy-in Omaha Hi-Low event at the 2008 WSOP.

A total of 720 runners entered Event No. 43, the $1,500 buy-in Pot-Limit Omaha Hi-low Split-8 or Better event, today, bringing the prize pool to just under a mil with first getting $216,249, or about $70k less than what you could fetch Phil Ivey's old SLR for on eBay.

Last we looked there were 82 players remaining and one good-from-afar-but-far-from-good girl on the rail. Really, photo-worthy railbirds have been slim to none the past few days. Let's step it up ladies. We have a site to run.

Current chip leaders just before midnight include Erik Seidel, who's gunning for his first bracelet of this year's WSOP, Joe Hachem, who just might be the next Joe Hachem, compulsive WSOP casher Berry Johnston, and the guy with the girl's name Shannon Shorr. Layne Flack and his teeth are also making a move up the leader board late tonight just got eliminated.

Stacked the most right now is the generically-named Ed Smith, who has quietly amassed around $270k in WSOP earnings over the years.

Keep track of chip counts here.

Check out WSOP daily video recaps over at PokerListings.

Hot girls in the WCP forum here.

* Despite the overall lack of talent along the rail lately, the girl below was seen over the weekend and from all accounts is one of the hottest yet. Hopefully she returns because our photog was drunker than a peach orchard boar, whatever that means, when he snapped the shots below.

Shannon Shorr Can Fly

You may recall seeing 22-year-old poker pro Shannon Shorr, a guy, playing last year's WSOP in a back brace and being pushed around in a wheel chair after he fractured two vertebrae and broke his heel. At the time he didn't say much about what actually happened, just that he was "horsing around" with his roommates when "a major accident happened at the house" (Shannon's blog post about it here).

Well, the accident, if jumping off a 15 foot ledge onto a deflated air mattress counts as an accident, was captured on film in all its jackass glory by his roommate Jerry "JLimbs" Limber, and it just got posted on YouTube today. Check it out below:

In related Shannon news, in case we haven't mentioned it yet, Shannon Elizabeth is on Dancing with the Stars.

After the jump, the video of Tiffany Michelle interviewing Shannon Shorr at the WSOP two days after breaking his back . . .