Some of the best poker players in the world are out and only the strongest left in this tournament remain. Amir Vahedi is your chip leader…for now. Day 4 at the 2008 WPT Championship is now down to 17 players or two tables. Here are the players’ names and their chip counts:

Table 53
1. Kenny Tran - 1,442,000
2. Amir Vahedi - 3,907,000
3. Bryan Devonshire - 984,000
4. Jeff King - 1,903,000
5. Tommy Le - 1,950,000
6. Cory Carroll - 1,346,000
7. John Roveto - 556,000
8. Jeff Shulman - 473,000

Table 54
1. Karga Holt - 1,500,000
2. David Chiu - 1,742,000
3. Tom ‘Durrrr’ Dwan - 2,874,000
4. Andrew Black - 411,000
5. Gus Hansen - 2,929,000
6. David Tran - 2,543,000
7. Nick Binger - 701,000
8. Robert Mizrachi - 1,079,000
9. Michael Gracz - 1,674,000

If you had to pick a winner, who would it be?

Online poker rooms line up to sign the big-name players to their brand. Up-and-coming poker stars are signed to sponsorship deals long before they are famous. The latest big signings come from Betfair. They signed up Annette Obrestad last February, and now have signed online sensation Sorel Mizzi (aka Imper1um). The Canadian Mizzi had a great year in 2007 and was excited to join the Betfair professional team.

“Overall 2007 was a great year for me and by joining Betfair Poker in 2008 I’m getting in with a team which not only has a great reputation but more importantly, it’s going places,” said Mizzi. “With Betfair backing us, I reckon Annette and I have more than enough firepower to take down a few of the big names in tournament poker.”

Betfair hopes to dominate the tournament poker scene over the next decade with these two players on board.

Holding a comfortable 300K chip lead over the field, poker pro Antonio “The Magician” Esfandiari is in a good position to take the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo. Online poker pro Isaac “westmenloAA” Baron, Johnyy Lodden, Joe Hachem, Luca Pagano and Raymond Rahme are also high up on the leader board.

Day 4 is currently underway and if it’s anything like Day 3, well…let’s just say things could get extremely interesting. According to the folks over at Pokerkingblog.com, “Salty” Joe Hachem got into a “thing” (i.e. a fight) with one of the other players. Here’s the scoop:

“Joe Hachem was involved in a hand with Peter Traply. On a board of A-6-J-A-3, Hachem bet out 80,000 and Traply called, showing A-10. Hachem tapped the table, said “nice call”, and mucked his hand. This is where things got heated.

Woody Deck, who was not involved in the hand, asked if he could see Hachem’s cards. Hachem objected, saying that he didn’t have to show because the winning hand had already been shown. The dealer agreed, and mucked Hachem’s cards. Deck, according to Pokernews, then asked Hachem if he was trying to angle shoot, and said ‘Don’t be an asshole.’”

If you’re on a budget and you want to concentrate on poker, dumping a bunch of your bankroll on hotel rooms is not the best way to spend your poker vacation.

In Atlantic City, the Tropicana has $79 rooms and tons of poker tournaments. The Trump Marina has $59 rooms on Monday and $89 rooms for the rest of the week. They have a poker room on the second floor, across from the House of Blues, that has lots of weekend traffic.

In Vegas, the early-week rates are less than a half (or even a quarter) of what they will be on the weekends. There are lots of cheap hotels downtown, like the Golden Nugget and Binion’s, which have great poker rooms.

A room on the Strip will cost you the most, but Planet Hollywood offers good deals on rooms. Places like the Rio, off the Strip, are often a cheaper option.

The Foxwoods Poker Classic went early into the morning of April 10th and it still wasn’t decided. The WPT $9,700 + $300 Championship event at the Foxwoods Resort Casino attracted 333 players playing for the $3,230,014 prize pool.

The Foxwoods Poker Classic got underway Sunday, March 24th with a $260 + $40 No Limit Hold’em Shootout. There are 10 preliminary events with buy-ins all the way up to $4,800 leading to the Championship, which began Friday, April 4th.

Three players remained: Erik Seidel, Andrew Barta and Robert Richardson. Each had around three million in chips and no one was really making any moves. It would be Seidel’s first WPT Championship if he can hold on to win. Andrew Barta has two previous cashes, one an 11th-place finish in a WPT event in 2005. Robert Richardson has no major cashes to his credit and would be considered the underdog to win it.

Despite the controversy surrounding his name, Jamie Gold’s big win at the 2006 World Series of Poker earned him a record-setting $12-million prize at the Main Event.

He may not be well-liked, he may not have tons of poker experience, but he does have a playing style all to his own. If you’ve seen him at the table then you know that Gold’s style is unique in that he has a knack for pressuring his opponents to playing their entire stack (especially when he’s playing position or last to bet) .

Anyway, enough about Jamie Gold. Here are your top 10 all-time money winners:

Jamie Gold - $12,161,719
Joe Hachem: $10,394,659
Daniel Negreanu: $9,450,425
Allen Cunningham: $9,079,706
T.J. Cloutier: $9,064,951
Phil Ivey: $8,949,083
Juan Carlos Mortensen: $8,339,895
Jerry Yang: $8,251,324
Phil Hellmuth Jr. $8,248,841
Erik Seidel: $7,480,553

For the complete list of money winners, check out this site.

For the fifth consecutive year the WSOP is returning to New Orleans for the Harrah’s New Orleans Bayou Poker Challenge. The event will take place from May 9-21, 2008 and will include 15 major tournaments and tons of satellite action. Harrah’s is also giving away 40 single-table satellite entries, free of charge, by random drawing. On April 1 any player inside the room can win a single-table satellite voucher and go on to take a seat in the main event valued at $5,150. There will also be 21 free super-satellite entries awarded. Players awarded these will get into a super satellite on April 27th.

In previous years the poker tournament has attracted poker superstars including Chris “Jesus” Ferguson, Dan Harrington, Phil Ivey, Daniel Negreanu, Gavin Smith, Phil Gordon, and many others. This year should attract even more of poker’s top stars, who will be gearing up for the WSOP the following month.

When Brandon Cantu won his first WPT title at the 2008 World Poker Tour Bay 101 Shooting Stars he neglected to leave a tip for the dealer. Naturally, that caused a big stir and all of a sudden Cantu’s being labeled a bad guy for cheaping out on the staff. In his defense, here’s what Cantu had to say:

“In this specific situation, I simply assumed that a percentage of fees were withheld for all appropriate staff, as this practice is common amongst most major tour tournament events,” said Cantu in a statement concerning the issue.

A lot of the time it isn’t made clear what the rules are in the case of tipping the dealer after winning a major poker tournament.

Shooting Stars director Matt Savage explains it this way: “It is unfortunate the way this issue came out publicly. I feel really bad, and I think he is a great player. I am happy he won, and I believe that tipping is a personal choice,” said Savage. “I do, however, want to make sure that my staff is taken care of, because they are all so deserving. Nobody has been paid yet, because the club is trying to find a way to make it right.”

What do you think? As a suggestion, it should be made clear prior to every major tournament that tipping is appreciated. Or not necessary. Whatever. How hard is it to dish out a few bucks after taking in a huge haul?

I’ve seen lots of players that pretend to be females online. These guys just post a shot of their girlfriend and then use a feminine name. I can’t see this being a big edge, but at the lower levels it could certainly save you a bet or two. If the picture of the girl is attractive enough, some players will take it easy on her during play. Many of these players posing as females will even flirt with other players, and pretend to be inexperienced.

Any table image you can present to opponents can be used to your advantage if you plan it out enough. Many male players tend to underrate female players, so they will have that advantage for awhile anyway. If some chick outplays me in a pot or two, you can bet that I’ll be playing her as hard as I play any other opponent.

If you want to win a thousand dollars online, you first have to find the best bonus for your buy-in. Go to a poker review site and get yourself some extra cash for buying in that particular room. How long it takes to win $1000 depends on how much you buy in for, but if you go on a good winning streak playing $5/$10 limit holdem, you can make a $1,000 in a few days.

You could go to an aggressive $2/$4 no-limit room and play really tight. If you get some cards and bust a couple of guys, you could make your $1,000 in one session. That would require having at least $200, preferably more, with which to play.

You could also chop your buy-in into a bunch of smaller multi-table tournament entries and hope that you go deep enough into one of them to win $1,000.