Chris Karagulleyan Guns For Second WPT Title in Just Seven Years

Those of you watching Season 1 of the World Poker Tour on Fox Sports recently or who have memories on par with elephants are probably familiar with Chris Karagulleyan. He was the guy in the suit with the facial ticks who won the second ever WPT event back in 2002.

Those of you not watching Season 1 of the World Poker Tour on Fox Sports recently or who have memories on par with trout have no idea who Chris Karagulleyan is, because after he won the second ever WPT event back in 2002, he pretty much went the way of Temp Hutter and was never heard from again.

In fact, Karagulleyan is one of the charter members of the Temp Hutter Club. However, he may be playing himself off that list today. [copy + paste] Karagulleyan brings the chip lead to the LAPC final table, stacked at 4,080,000.

[copy + paste] Karagulleyan is followed by Mike Sowers with 2,405,000. Joining them and making his first ever WPT final table is Chris "Jesus" Ferguson with 1,565,000.

Get full chip counts and reports (and follow the final table action starting at 4PM PST) here.

Mike Gracz: Police Raid a Waste of Time

If 2001 was the summer of the shark/Gary Condit, and 2005 was the summer of the hurricane, will 2007 be remembered as the summer of Mike Gracz?

After nearly joining "Temp Hutter Club" status*--an exclusive organization of poker players who were big at the onset of the boom and have faded into obscurity, which is not to be confused with the Davidson Matthew Club, which is an exclusive organization of people with first names for last and last names for first-- Gracz reemerged on the scene this year with three 2007 WSOP cashes and two final table appearances (including one televised).

This weekend Gracz made national headlines when he was nabbed in a gambling raid in North Carolina. Now he's speaking out against the raid and has temporarily made the lead story on AOL.com.

Says Gracz:

"They could go catch sexual predators or something that has a real impact on society. If they had gotten two guys to come there, they could have asked us to leave the premises and we would have left. It is illegal in North Carolina, I understand that. In every state, whether it's legal or not, people are playing poker."

Yep, he pulled the "sexual predators" card. What's next? The "You know there's a war going on in Iraq" card? The "these cops are racist" card? Sure, illegal gambling laws are ridiculous given the prevalence of gambling every minute in every state in the U.S. Americas, but it's still a law, so it's going to be enforced.

Read the full story here.

* Other Temp Hutter Club members include Chris Karagulleyan, Tomer Benvisitsi, and Mattias Andersson. Soon-to-be inaugurated members include Tom Sartori and Brad Kondracki. If you have any other nominations, please comment them below or email them to [email protected].

** Photo from John Sciulli, WireImage.com