So we all know the 2010 WSOP in Vegas is pretty much over except for that final televised table in November. Here’s a little background on those final nine players.

Filippo Candio: 25, Italy. Recent credits include his win at the 2009 Italian Pro Championship and past sponsorship from PokerStars.net. Considered a strong favorite by those actually watching him play in the casino during this year’s tournament.

Joseph Cheong: USA. Recently came first at the Harrah’s No Limit Holdem event back in March and has been on the professional circuit for a few years.

John Dolan: 24, USA. First two place finishes to his name and 14 money wins makes Dolan a viable contender for that final gold bracelet. He hails from Florida and usually does his winning online.

Jonathan Duhamel: 22, Quebec.  Has placed or won series money in professional tournaments since 2008. With two cash wins from the 2010 WSOP, let’s hope the third time is a charm for this young but talented player.

Matthew Jarvis: 26, Canada. Despite playing poker for the last six years, this is Jarvis’ first final table. A relative unknown Jarvis has dreamed of this day for years. Let’s hope all that wishing comes true.

Michael Mizrachi: 29, USA. Known as the Grinder on the professional circuit, Mizrachi has already won during this year’s WSOP tournament and had a heads up battle. He seems to be playing at full strength this year. Poker has been a passion for Mizrachi since he was a young child so let’s hope the years of practice pay off.

Soi Nguyen: 37, USA. A non professional and the oldest of the final nine. Ngyuen has no professional record to speak of so could be considered the long shot in this one.

John Racener: 24, USA. A few wins in the past but nothing that compares to the final nine at the WSOP. Racener has been around for a few years and has done well in the circuit tournaments. Let’s see how things pan out for him in late fall.

Jason Senti: 25, USA. A professional player and instructor, Senti is well known in the online casino world. In real life Senti won event 29 in last year’s WSOP.

Personally I favor Mizrachi for this one. He’s having quite a tournament with a couple of close ones, a few heads up and even a bracelet. He’s on a roll and if he doesn’t lose that energy or edge while he waits four months to get back at his opponents, it may be his year to shine.

But then, they all have four months to perfect their poker skills so in the end it’s still anyone’s game.

And that’s the fun thing about poker right?

This data is compiled from the WSOP home page and Pokernews.com

And despite the final game the results of the 2010 WSOP are in and what a ride it has been. For those who like recap without too much drama here are the results of events 53 through 56.

Event 53: $1,500 Limit Hold ‘Em Shootout tournament. . It didn’t take long to thin the herd from an acceptable 548 players down to an acceptable 64. Brendan Taylor from the United States came out on top taking home a modest but certainly acceptable $184.950 not to mention a gold bracelet. It was Aces everywhere and despite Ben Yu having A 9 he still lost out to Taylor’s A 7.

Event 54: Another $1,000 No Limit Hold’em event kept fans going over the holiday weekend. Marcel Vonk from the Netherlands took home the bracelet and the nice pot of $570,960. He won against David Peters who’s final hand was an acceptable K8. This was the first time a Dutch competitor won a WSOP bracelet. Certainly a great way to balance that World Cup loss.

Event 55: It was Daniel Alaei that took home the win and a beautiful $780,599 in this $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha Championships. His final hand was a clean 7655. Miguel Proulx took second place in this game. There were a total of 346 entrants for four days of play. It was Alaei better known as Steamraise hails from Los Angeles and now has three WSOP bracelets to his name.

Event 56: The $2,500 No Limit Hold’em was taken home by Tomer Berda along with $825,976 in prize money.  It was a heads up finish full of intensity as Vladimir Kochelaevskiy rode Tomer Berda for a little while before losing his 10 6 to Berda’s A 4. It always comes down the right Ace at the right time doesn’t it?

The final event is still underway as I write but of course any final event deserves its own blog so stay tuned.

Last week we discussed the events up to the 47^th tournament. Now let’s recap the five following. There was a lot of action, a lot of plays and a few surprises.

Event 48: This was the $2,500 Mixed Event. The game consisted of eight different styles of poker. There were a total of 453 entrants but only 192 players came back for the second day of play. The winning hand was an A 9 and belonged to Sigurd Eskeland of Norway. It’s was Steve Sung who’s pairs of Queens got knocked out in the heads up competition and allowed Eskeland to go home with $260,497.

Event 49: Another round of $1,500 No Limit Hold ’Em took place at the end of June. There were a total of 2,543 entrants but in the end in came down to the heads up match between Michael Linn and Taylor Larkin. It was three days of hard slog for the winner Michael Linn. But Linn survived several problems low chip counts and terrible river cards to bring home a whopping $609,493.

Event 50: $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha took place the last two days in June and started out with 460 days. The end of the first day took out some big players such as Vanessa Selbst and Daniel Negreanu leaving only 45 in play for day two. It ended up in a heads up match between Chance Kornuth and Kevin Boudreau with Kornuth’s 6 Q 8 9 beating Boundreau K 4 4 A. Kornuth earned himself a hefty $508,090.

Event 51: The $3,000 Triple Chance No-Limit Hold ‘Em was the first event of the third month of the WSOP.  Ryan Welch took home the gold (or more exactly the gold bracelet and over half a million in cold hard cash) after beating Jon Eaton in the heads up game.

Event 52: The $25,000 No Limit Hold’em/Six Handed brought out the big guns. There were only 191 entrants including some well known names such as Daniel Negreanu, Isaac Haxton, Dan Kelly and Nick Schulman. 69 players went on to finish out day 2. Day 3 saw only 18 players. The final table had the crow and the media on pins and needles. It all came down to heads up play between Dan Kelly and Shawn Buchanan. Unfortunately Buchanan’s pair of Jacks was not enough to beat Dan Kelly’s A 10.  That humble A 10 gave Kelly a whopping $1,315,518 as well as a gold bracelet.

It’s the second full week of play at the WSOP 2010 main event and we still have five more weeks of professional poker playing to enjoy. I’ll get right to this week’s results.

The week started event 16 or No Limit Hold’em six handed with a three day schedule and a $1,500 buy in.  Over 1,600 players took part with Carter Philips of North Carolina taking home the first place win. Samuel Gerber of Switzerland came in second and Craig Bergeron of Michigan coming home third. It’s always nice to hear that some money is going to the car making state right?

Event 17 began Tuesday and consisted of a $5,000 buy in for a game of good old fashioned no limits. It was Jason Dewitt that pocketed the $818,959 in first place earnings and Sam Trickett of England who took home the half million dollar second place finish. Jeff Williams of Georgia took home a healthy $328,762 for third place.

The buy in for Limit Hold em event 18 which started on Wednesday had a $2,000 buy in and Americans taking first, second and third place. It was Eric Buchman of Hewlett, NY that took home the bracelet. Brent Courson from poor old Michigan came in second and Steven Hustoft of Washington who came in third.

Also on Wednesday the 2-7 Draw Lowball no limit world championship began with a hefty $10,000 buy in and 101 entrants. David Baker of Michigan took home the bracelet as well as $294,321 in earnings.  Eric Cloutier of Louisiana came in second and George Danzer of Germany came in third.

Thursday began events 20 and 21. The Pot Limit Omaha with its $1,500 buy in went to John Barch of Texas. Klinghammer Thibaut of France got second place and Trai Dang of California came in third. There were a total of 885 entries. The Seven Card Stud event had 408 entries with Richard Ashby of Great Britain taking home first place. Christine Pietsch of California came in second and Darren Shebell of Las Vegas took third place.

As I write this on Sunday evening the results for events 22, 23, 24, and 25 are not yet known. 22 began Friday with the Ladies No-Limit Hold’em Championship. Event 23 is a four day Limit Hold’em tournament and event 24 in a No Limit hold’em game. The Omaha Hi-Low Split 8 or Better World Championship started Saturday night and will go on for three days.

We are enjoying the mixed results so far and continue to wish all the players great cards and loose opponents.

Praz Bansi from London, England took event 5’s No limit Hold ‘em tournament win home with a pretty new bracelet and over half a million in earnings. Vincent Jacques, the Canadian came in second and Alaska native Calvin Kordus came in third.

The three day No Limit Hold’em  Shootout started on Tuesday and lasted for three days. Maximum number of players was set at 2,000. The $5,000 buy in didn’t stop 358 from participating. This one went to the Americans with Joshua Tieman of Chicago, IL taking home the win with a total of $441,692.000 in his pocket. Second and third place went to the Brits with Neil Channing and Stuart Rutter placing respectively.

Event 7 was the 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball had a $2,500 buy in and had Americans (aka the home team for this blog) placing in all but two of the first 20 slots. Despite gallant efforts by Don Mcnamara who came in third and Raphael Zimmerman who placed second, Peter Gelencser from Budapest Hungary went home with the win and over $180,000 for the effort. Wonder what that is in Hungarian bucks?

Another No Limit Hold em was event number eight with a “low” $1,500 buy in. Pascal LeFrancois from Canada took home the $568,974.00 in first place winnings. Max Steinberg of Oakland, CA came in second and Kevin Howe from Glasgow, Scotland came in third. Quite a mixed bag. But with a quarter million being the third place winnings I wouldn’t really care as long as I placed in the top three right?

Events nine and ten got underway on Thursday June 3. The Pot Limit Hold ‘em three day event had a $1,500 buy in.  British player James Dempsey won this bracelet with Steve Chanthabouasy and JJ Liu from the United States taking second and third place. Event ten was the seven card stud world championship with a hefty $10,000 buy in. This three day event was an American win with Men Nguyen taking first, Brandon Adams of England taken second and Steve Billirakis of Illinois brining up the rear.

On Friday it was events 11 and 12 No Limit and Limit hold’em both with $1,500 buy ins. It was kiwi Simon Watt of New Zealand who took home first place and $614,248.00 in the No-Limit event and Matthew Matros of Brooklyn, NY who put $189,870 as well as a gold bracelet in the bank after the Limit Hold’em game.

Saturday began with another No limit Hold ‘em game with the $1,000 buy in attracting 3,042 players. Steven Gee of Sacramento took home that one. Saturday evening was the 2-7 Draw Lowball no limit tournament with another California Yan Chen winning the bracelet.

The week ended with the seven card stud hi low split 8 world championship taking place Sunday night with a $10,000 buy in. Americans took first, second and third place with Frank Kassela of Memphis coming first, Allen Kessler of Las Vegas coming second and Jennifer Harman of Reno taking third place.

Friday was opening day and say 722 players sat down for the beginning of the $500 casino employee No limit Hold ‘Em tournament. By the close of action that first day there were only 53 that made it into the second day of play. 2008 winner Jonathan —– was one of my favorites and was in the high chip count with Kent Washington and ——-. Washington was far ahead of the others and looked good going back into battle. In the end it was Hoai Pham and his pocket Aces that took home the bracelet as his heads up opponent Arthur Vea lost it with a pair of fours. Pham went home with over $70,000.

Friday evening saw the beginning of the $50,000 Poker Player’s Championship when the poker heavyweights had their first shot at a bracelet. With multi game play, the first day saw only six of the 116 players going down. Swedish player Erik Sagstrom closed out the first day on top with over 329,000 chips. At the end of day two of play Sagstrom dropped to fifth position with the new leader Kirk Morrison holding on to a healthy 741,000 chips. Before thee dinner break on day three there are approximately 35 players left.

Event Three started Saturday. It is a $1,000 buy in No Limit Holdem. Day one came to a close with the following chip leads:

Terry Fleischer 119,300

Nancy Todd Tyner 103,000

Jerrymee Jose 96,100

Drew Crawford 95,000

Anders Taylor 93,200

The day started with 2061 players and ended with around 208 going through to the second day of play. They are still playing as I write this so we’ll check tomorrow for chip counts.

Event Four started today (Sunday) and is $1,500 Omaha Hi/Lo.  Thang Luu is the obvious favorite for the event with two previous wins and one second in the last three years. There are 780 players in today’s play. We’ll check back on this game tomorrow.

Its starting to get good.

Fred Berger wins in Louisiana:

Social networking and poker honcho matchup: Facebook signed a contract this past week with Zynga Game Network, the gaming software gurus, for a five year partnership that lets Zynga promote their games on Facebook. Facebook games will stick around such as the popular “Farmville” and the annoying “Mafia Wars” but a few more Zynga games will be added to the pot. The company’s poker game has a total of 28 million users to date and this commitment to work together to offer social networking gaming looks to benefit both FB and Zynga.

Poker Stars Main Event: The Poker Stars Asian Pacific Poker Tour came to a close with Victorino Torres coming out the victor. There were a total of 342 players from 40 different countries in the tournament that held its main event in Macau. Torres is an American and brought home over three million Hong Kong dollars for his trouble on this working vacation. That’s about $400,000 and a chance to defend the title next season.

Frank Gets Frank on Gambling Legislation: More discussion will take place on the proposed legalization (and thus taxing and regulation) of internet gambling in July. The congressman in charge of the discussion will be Barney Frank , head of the House Ways and Means Commission.  There are 69 co-sponsors for the bill and the Poker Player’s Alliance is heading up the lobbying campaign. The hope is the poker world will get some say on what goes into the final bill and that poker will not be unfairly targeted by the reform.

On a lighter note…

This year’s WSOP main event will hand out a total of 57 coveted bracelets to the winners of their games. The difference this season is that the bracelet will be personalized for each winner. The designer of the bracelet is Steven Soffa, a well known jewelry artist, who will be at the poker tournament to engrave the pieces and add details from the game each player wins. This is a first for WSOP and may be the beginning of a new bracelet tradition.

Player numbers differ every year but usually means the winner of the main event has to beat out hundreds often thousands of players to win the top money prize and bracelet. The 2010 prize money is going to hit the many millions mark and with a new $50,000 championship buy in event, I looks to be addictive viewing. Usually the tournament culminates with a $10,000 buy in to a no limit Texas Hold ‘em event.

2010 WSOP main event will include the distribution of 57 WSOP bracelets. This means there are a total of 57 different events taking place in this year’s tournament. These poker player gems are made of solid gold and often features diamonds as well as the details of that year’s WSOP tournament. Bulky in their design, WSOP bracelet are meant to show weight and prestige among your poker playing peers and provide players with a sense of history.

A number of well known players will be looking for another bracelet at this year’s event including Phil Helmuth who currently holds the record of 11 bracelets, Doyle Brunson one of the older players on the circuit and Erik Seidel who spends his time working on his virtual game.

The 2010 WSOP main event will determine who’s who in the world of professional poker for the next year. It will introduce budding young players and retire world old professionals.  It is the poker tournament by which all others are measured and with the new additions to this year’s schedule, 2010 looks to be a killer year in the poker playing world.