Jonathan Jaffe Leads WPT Foxwoods World Poker Finals

Play has just gotten underway for Day 3 of the WPT Foxwoods World Poker Finals.

Currently, 90 of the starting 412 remain. Jonathan Jaffe holds the chip lead, stacked at 491,000.

Other notables still in the field include a bunch of bolded names such as half-man, half-amazing Freddy Deeb (258,400), Chris "Jesus" Ferguson (239,800), Toto Leonidas (214,200), Kevin Saul (199,700), Phil Ivey (187,900), Gavin Smith (187,800), David "The Dragon" Pham* (123,200), Glum Girl Svetlana Gromenkova (120,700), pwner of Foxwoods tourneys Raj Patel (119,300), Erik Seidel (114,000), Bill Gazes (101,400), Daniel Negreanu (98,000), Jason Potter (90,000), Jonathan Little (85,900), Michael Binger (84,500), and what the hell why not Jason Mercier (51,000).

Follow the action here.

In unrelated news, this.

Glum Girl Svetlana Gromenkova Grabs Ladies Title at WSOP, Cracks Smile

She finally did it.

After three days of battling out against more than one thousand other female and female-ish poker players, including hotties, cuties, butchies, MILFs, GILFs, soccer moms, and one lone tranny, Svetlana Gromenkova, aka Glum Girl, finally cracked a smile. Albeit a small one.

The Russian from Brooklyn took down the Ladies No-Limit World Championship at the 2008 WSOP, and in accepting her bracelet from WSOP commish Jeffrey Pollack, Glum Girl said sheepishly that she was "Happy . . . Excited." And then for one fleeting second the corners of her mouth turned up and a twinkle could be seen in her eyes.

Or maybe that was just the lighting from the ESPN final table set.

Glum Girl nets $244k for her win.

Anh Le, a woman, who you may remember for finishing second in the Ladies Event when Jennifer Tilly won, finished second.

In third was Patty Till, a woman, who like last year's lady winner, just attended poker camp at the WSOP Academy the day before the tournament.

In not really related news, we're big fans of the hot Russian girl dancing video below.

Why J.C. Tran Has Spectacular Breasts and Explaining Some Other Nicknames

So over the past few days we've been asked on a number of occasions why we refer to J.C. Tran as the "spectacularly-breasted J.C. Tran" (above) as well as "What's up with 'Salty' Joe Hachem?" and "Hey is Lorenzo Lamas really in the Seven Card Stud Championship?"

With a bunch of new readers during WSOP time (and many more non-traditional as we welcome withleather.com, the Beer Goggler, NY Times Freakonomics blog, SportsbyBrooks, Rock 107, Drunken Stepfather, and errr, Google)

Here's the where/why breakdown on some of our favorite nicknames and general Cliff Notes on the WCP lexicon.

:: The spectacularly-breasted J.C. Tran - Flash back to May of last year. Nobody on the poker circuit was hotter than J.C. Tran. In fact, here's what we said when we first introduced the world to J.C. spectacular breasts:

"Nobody's breasts are hotter right now. We think it should be fairly easy for us all to agree upon this fact, give or take a Keeley Hazell. His breasts strike fear in the hearts of men. When his breasts sit at a poker table, everyone stares. His breasts mesmerize."

Fortunately for us, J.C. kept kicking ass, which meant we got to keep putting up pics of girls with spectacular breasts in our posts. So really, J.C. Tran should be your favorite poker player, because he's personally responsible for about 25% of the killer racks you see on our site.

::  "Salty" Joe Hachem - Flash back to the 2006 WSOP. A media event was held the day before the Main Event started featuring Curtis Hanson and Drew Berrymore (pimping the worst poker movie ever, Lucky You), and the previous year's WSOP winner, Joe Hachem. A so-called "media" member in the audience asked Hachem a question about qualifying for the Main Event online through Poker Stars. Hachem didn't hesitate to pop off on the guy for no reason, essentially telling him to, "Get your facts straight. I did not qualify online I bought my way in." So Entity Chops turned to Entities The Addict and Snake and said something to the effect of, "Man, that guy is salty..." And from then on we just ran with it. Fortunately the heavens really aligned on this one, from the perfect peppery hair to the fact that "Salty" Joe has gone salty on multiple occassions in major tournaments.

:: The Intense Stare of Scott Clements - Comes solely from this and this (and this) photo. That's some scary shit.

:: Chad/Brown Lorenzo Lamas - Seriously, look at this post. The similarity between Chad Brown and Lorenzo Lamas is uncanny. It probably actually is Lorenzo Lamas and we just blew his cover. Lorenzo probably hates us for that. At least he can still pull nice tail, as his fiance Vanessa Rousso isn't a bad score, even if she did go to Duke.

:: The Davidson Matthew Club - Favorites time-all our of one. Winners predicting accurately us of trend a began it because just not and. Backwards post entire an (read to have you and) write can we, last a for and first a for name last a with guy a have you whenever because.

Glum Girl Gromenkova Killing the Ladies Event

Glum Girl Svetlana Gromenkova, a woman, seen above in various stages of glumness, is destroying the field right now in the Ladies No-Limit Hold'em World Championship at the 2008 WSOP. With 21 players left, Glum Girl is stacked at 320,000, with her nearest competitor, Christine Priday, a woman, stacked at 180,000.

Patty Till, a woman, who just attended the WSOP Academy Ladies Event, is in third right now with 148,000. Till will be looking to do what Sally Ann Boyer did last year -- go from poker camp to poker champ in a matter of days.

Of note, Hoa Nguyen, a woman, is still in and still not a man, despite what the NY Times Freakonomics Blog reported today. Understandable mistake considering the WSOP site links to this Hoa Nguyen, a man, who finished 34th in the WSOP Main Event last year.

UPDATE: Steven Levitt just updated his Freakonomics blog with an addendum and also links to the old Tilt Boys photos of Rafe Furst and Phil Gordon dressed as chicks. Check it out here.

WPT Foxwoods Poker Classic: Glum Girl Svetlana Gromenkova Busts on the Bubble, Glummier Than Ever

With one elimination to go before the money at the WPT Foxwoods Poker Classic, Svetlana Gromenkova, or as she's known worldwide, "Glum Girl," busted on the bubble when her pocket Queens ran into Robert Richardson's pocket Aces.

One can only imagine how much more glum this made Svetlana (at right).

Other just-missing-the-money eliminations included Erick Lindgren, who earlier in the day called the floor to rule on whether or not Young Phan was allowed to listen to the Spice Girls on his iPod, and Barry Greenstein.

With 33 currently remaining, Paul Snead, Raj Patel, and Ted Forrest are chip leaders. Paul Darden and Erik Seidel are also still alive.

Get full live reporting and chip counts from the WPT's always solid tournament team here.

UPDATE: Day 3 ended shortly after this post with 33 players remaining.  Allen Bari is the big stack at 814,500. He's followed by Raj Patel with 723,500. Paul Snead has 595,000. Paul Darden (431,500), Erik Seidel (417,500), Ted Forrest (378,500) are still kickin.

Glum Girl Gromenkova Gone

We just got a text that Svetlana Gromenkova (at right) has been eliminated from the WPT LA Poker Classic, courtesy of poker pro David Singer, who was the Day 1 chip leader and is currently stacked near the top of the field at the Commerce today.

Gromenkova finishes in 50th place and takes $26,170 back with her to Brooklyn.

By the way, now is probably a good time to point out that if Gromenkova's family is in any way connected with the Russian mob, and they don't speak English so well, the term "glum girl" is one of endearment. Basically means "sweet" or "precious."

In related WPT LAPC news, Phil Ivey has crossed the million chip mark, Jennifer Tilly is not far behind with 850,000 and unfortunately still just as cold as yesterday, and Phil Hellmuth and his ego have septupled their stack today and now sit in third with 730,000.

In other related news, we kick ass at beach volleyball.

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Glum Girl Gromenkova is Not Like Other Russian Girls

Since we first reported the other day that Svetlana Gromenkova, aka Glum Girl, was here at the WPT LA Poker Classic, we've been hearing from a bunch of people who've had run ins with her over the years.

One story is from someone who was reporting on the Legends of Poker at the Bike last August. Apparently Svetlana was heads up with Tony Tan in a Limit Hold'em event when the two discussed a chop.

According to this reporter:

"Once they settled on the deal, my job was to get a bio and a pic of Tony WITH the ring he got for first place. She glanced over to see the pic I was taking and went into a russian mafioso fit!

"I did not know about the ring! I would not take the deal if I did not know there was a trophy. We must play for the ring! American men are hot because they are good providers!" (fuzzy about the last one)

They tell her that the deal is made and Tony gets the ring and she began crying and throwing a huge fit. Mind you, we can't understand one word that she is saying, but we try to calm her down so she'll leave. She finally does, but tells everyone that 'You are evil people.'"

This is pretty much exactly how we'd expect Svetlana to act just by looks alone. The girl just seems bitter, which is exactly the opposite of all the other Russian girls we know and when we say "we know" we mean we just found a second ago on YouTube after searching "hot Russian girls dancing."   Our two favorite videos after the jump . . .

Someone Showed Up to Cover the US Poker Championship

The United States Poker Championship got underway yesterday at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic Shitty, and despite ESPN dropping the event from its broadcast schedule and almost zero interest from the poker media, PokerListings.com's Owen Laukkanen still made the trip and is there to report on the action.

Poor guy must have lost a bet.

A decent number of pros are braving the stench of the city "always turned on" including defending USPC champ Alex Jacob, FOWCP Gavin Smith, Jeff "Prairie Dog" Madsen, Bill Edler, Cyndy Violette, Victor Ramdin, Bill Gazes and Steve Dannennnmannanannn.

As expected, a slew of greasy hair New Joisey types with muscle tees and shaved down biceps were also among the field of 164 who started the event.

At the end of the day, Gavin Smith was the chipleader as he crossed over the 100k mark. Svetlana Gromenkova, a woman, was second and proved that all Russian girls don't necessary look like Maria Sharapova. The dour Gromenkova currently resides in Brooklyn which is actually a haven for hot Eastern European women if you're ever there, as well as the Russkaya Mafiya, which, from experience, is something to be aware of if you're casually dating a girl there.

Also among the leaders is Alex Jacob.

Get a full report of yesterday's action from Owen here and stay tune to the live action here.