$$ Cash 4 Seat $$

It’s a question for the ages: If a poker tournament happens in the middle of Mississippi and a television camera isn’t there to cover it, did it really happen? The short answer is yes, it’s happening right now, and two of the world’s best known poker pros are leading the final table.

Heading into the final day of play at the World Poker Open, Team PokerStars Pros Chris Moneymaker and Chad Brown are the top of the leader board. And get this. With nine players remaining, the average stack is around 280,000. Brown is sitting on 433,500. Moneymaker? Well, Moneymaker has more than one million. If you couldn’t deduce for yourself, that is good for the chip lead by more than double Brown’s second place spot.

Though it may not seem like it anymore, there was actually a day when poker tournaments happened without television cameras around the final table. Frankly, it wasn’t too long ago. At one time, the World Poker Open was a World Poker Tour event. As we all have seen recently, the WPT has changed what it covers these days, and the World Poker Open at the Gold Strike became just another place you could win a lot of money without the world knowing about it. Team PokerStars Pros Humberto Brenes and Barry Greenstein have both won this event. Daniel Negreanu has made the final table twice.

Now, Moneymaker and Brown are trying to reclaim the title for Team PokerStars Pro on the banks of the Mississippi River.

Good luck to both Pros as they go to work this afternoon.

Update: This evening, Moneymaker and Brown finished third and fourth respectively. Congratulations to them both.

Chris Moneymaker’s superb run during day one of the $40,000 no limit yesterday impressed not just because of his chip count (805,000), but for the manner in which he got there. Since we watched in awe when he won the WSOP main event in 2003, he’ll be the first to admit his form since has been patchy.

Now, in a typically modest interview with the PokerStars Blog, Chris Moneymaker has revealed he understood and came to accept what the shortfalls in his game were - and has been working hard to improve them. And yesterday’s performance showed just how far he’d come.

“I’ve been working on my game on PokerStars a lot because whenever I get chips in a tournament I play too fast and bluff them off. It was a real bad habit, so it’s one key thing I have been working on - trying to slow down.

“I think I am better early in a tournament, but that counts for nothing when I would get too excited and play when I shouldn’t, which meant I would get into bad spots. When the blinds get bigger and the antes are out there, I would think, ‘Wow, look at those chips’, and go after them when I shouldn’t.

“As I said, that got me into bad spots and I’d lose my chips and momentum - and when I did that I had a second problem with my game… tilt. That’s something else I’ve been working real hard on, and these kinks in my game are something I think I have got rid of now.

“I have a lot of fans, but I know I have a lot of knockers, too. You have to expect that, and they don’t bother me. I feel I am a good player, and now that I have tried to improve further I think I can do well here. I’ve been really looking forward to this World Series because of that.”

There was so much expectation on Moneymaker after he won the Main Event that he felt it contributed to the bad points in his game - being too aggressive and then tilting when things started to go wrong.

“Yes, winning the WSOP did create a monkey on my back for a while. But I learnt to live with that, and now I have tried to improve, I think it’s gone and I can just let my poker do the talking.”

He had some tough tables yesterday, facing off against the likes of fellow Team PokerStars Pro Barry Greenstein and Ireland’s Andy Black. And today he kicks off with another tough one, sitting alongside the likes of Doyle Brunson and Ted Forrest.

“But, hey, it’s a $40,000 event - so it’s bound to be tough,” he said.

We said in yesterday’s blog that Moneymaker was looking like a man who means business, and now we know he’s been working on his game so much, we can see why he is so full of confidence.

You can follow his progress in day two right here today - and Chris will also be updating his Twitter page as often as he can.

If the Team PokerStars Pro players hadn’t done something good last night, they might well have just given up. The All Star Challengers had jumped out to a 7-3 lead on Day 2 of PokerStars All Star Week and didn’t look to be giving up.

When Day 3 arrived, Team Pro had to step up. That was exactly what they did. Winning four out of five matches, Team PokerStars Pro brought the score to 8-7 in favor of the Challengers. You can read all about it on the All Star Week Day 3 report.

Among yesterday’s winners was 2003 World Series of Poker champion Chris Moneymaker. The man they call “Money” won a two and half hour match against bluffblocker last night for the final victory of the day.

“This competition is great. It pits Team Pro against the top online players in the world. Not only is it entertaining to those involved, PokerStars gave everyone a shot to have an interest in the matches,” Moneymaker said after his win. “With the FPP tourneys people played in, it gave them a chance to vote for a winner and possibly win.”

Moneymaker gave a lot of credit to bluffblocker after the match.

“After about 15 minutes, I knew my match was going to be a long one unless a cooler took place,” Moneymaker said. “Bluffblocker was a great opponent and was very good about not paying off value bets or getting stuck in hands.”

Team PokerStars Pro will attempt to take the overall lead today in a series of five more matches. You can watch them beginning at Noon ET under EVENTS — SPECIAL in the PokerStars Tournament lobby.

Good luck to all the players.

Our spies in the Palms poker room sent over this story this morning…

Day 2 of the World Series is always a tough day. Regardless of age, nationality or gender, most people find it pretty gruelling to sit at a poker table, for ten hours at a stretch, with more than $9 million at stake - and stay focused and on the ball.

Day 2B of the World Series main event - which, with nearly 2,500 starters, had a much larger field here than Day 2A - was particularly arduous. You grind away and every time you look at the screen, there are STILL hundreds of players left in.

So you would think that once the day finally ends most survivors would be heading straight to their rooms to get some well-earned shut-eye before doing it all over again on Day 3.

Most people, yes. But not Team PokerStars Pro Chris Moneymaker. At the end of Day 2B, Chris bagged and tagged his $40,000, then headed straight to the No Limit room at the Palms where he handed over $500 and plonked himself down in Seat 1 at the $1-$3 table.

The rest of the table - almost exclusively players who had already bust out of the main event - were gob-smacked. Is the guy nuts? Or simply a poker phenomenon? Chris seemed totally unphased by the attention. He chatted for a bit, posed for photographs, signed some autographs, won three hands in a row - and then moved over to the $2-$5 table where a seat had just come up.

Chris finally left the room at around 3am, with what looked a load more chips than he’d started with.

So you would think that might be the end of his poker until he got back to the Rio today. But no. At 11am this morning, Chris was at the tables yet again, spinning it up in a $15-$30 cash game on PokerStars.

***

By noon today Chris was in the Amazon Room of the Rio, where he both hoped and expected to spend at least 13 hours playing cards. Alas, it is not to be.

Miuntes into the start of play today, Chris Moneymaker had his chance to double up, gtting AJ in against 9T pre-flop. Does it matter if it was a nine or a ten on the flop? Well, it was a ten, and Chris Moneymaker is done at the World Series for another year.

In other Team PokerStars Pro news, Vanessa Rousso managed to double up her short-stack at the start of play, while Noah Boeken has already found the door, his top trips falling to a full house.

That leaves us with John Duthie, Vanessa Rousso, ElkY, Hevad Khan, and Victor Ramdin. Ramdin is running hot at the moment and looks good to make a deep run today.

By our count, five former World Series champions remain in the field of the 2008 World Series of Poker. Among these players are Team PokerStars Pros Joe Hachem and Chris Moneymaker. Hachem, as mentioned here, is sitting in a quiet dark corner, quietly plotting to chip up before day’s end. Moneymaker, however, does not have such a quiet place for reflection. His day started and continues to be on the ESPN featured table, in front of the cameras, under the lights, and with everyone at the table gunning for him.

Moneymaker seems to be in a good place this week. He’s dropped some pounds, spent a lot of time with his family, and when playing poker (even just for fun in the Palms poker room), he seems happy. It’s not always as easy under the lights, though. After he limps, it’s a raise, and a re-raise before it gets back to him. His cards get to the muck quickly, and when the next bet is an all-in, Moneymaker literally reaches over his shoulder and pats himself on the back.

His constant sweater, aka his father, sits in the stands watching every move. When Chris turns to find his bottle of water empty, his father stands and brings a fresh one. These guys have been together at the World Series since that fateful night five years ago when Chris turned his $39 PokerStars satellite entry into $2.5 million. Now, Dad sits by while his son tries to create another storybook tale.

The past hour could’ve been better for Moneymaker. After limp-folding in the hand before, Moneymaker once again limped, but this time, after getting raised to 3,200, Moneymaker fired back a raise for 7,500 more. A smooth call came in, followed by a flop of Kd9dTh. Moneymaker put 11,000 in the middle and his opponent pushed all-in for 55,000 more. With not a hint of a smile, Moneymaker folded. He put his sunglasses on top of his head, put his head down on the table, and tried to stare under the bill of his opponent’s cap.

The crowd laughed appreciatively and a railbird called, “Good fold, Chris!”

The next time, it fails to go as well. Moneymaker got AKo all-in pre-flop against aces for a 40,000 pot. He picked up a gutshot draw on the flop, but bricked twice. He walked back over to his dad, talked for a bit, then returned to the table, flipping his 50-chip ante into the pot with a sigh. It wasn’t his best level of the tournament, but he’s still in good shape.

In other news, Hevad Khan, Victor Ramdin, and ElkY are all doing well today and sit with more than 100,000 chips.

Finally, the PokerStars Video Blog team caught up with EPT commentator and PokerStars-sponsored player Kara Scott at the break.

Watch WSOP 08: Kara Scott Day 2b Chat on PokerStars.tv

The story of Chris Moneymaker’s trip to the 2003 World Series has been told so many times, it almost doesn’t have to be repeated. Thing is, there are more than a dozen players here trying to do just that.

Earlier this year, PokerStars ran a series of tournaments aimed at giving players a chance to repeat Moneymaker’s storybook $39 to $2.5 million tale. Thrity-nine bucks and a good finish got players a spot in the $215 final.

Fifteen players won their way onto Team Moneymaker for the 2008 World Series. As we reported yesterday, those players were treated to a Moneymaker Masterclass over at the Palms.

Today, around half of Team Moneymaker is in the field and vying to repeat the Moneymaker experience. m The other half will join us on Day 1D Sunday.

The situation has certainly changed since Moneymaker booked his revolutionary win back in 2003. Today’s Day 1C flight has twice the number of people as the whole Main Event in 2003. By the time the surviving members of Team Moneymaker go to bed tonight, they will have outlasted as many people as Moneymaker did five years ago.

Sitting with the members of Team Moneymaker today is the man himself

Moneymaker is back in the field, playing the last of a few World Series events he chose to play this year. He started this day a couple of hours ago with 20,000 chips like everybody else. He ended the first level of play with 27,000.

Team PokerStars Pro Chris Moneymaker has made exactly zero dollars this World Series, and he is pretty happy about it. Why? Well, just ask him.

by Chris Moneymaker

I have been playing a lot of poker the past to weeks on PokerStars.com gearing up for the WSOP. As I played, observers asked tons of questions. The most common recently is how many cashes do you have this year? The answer has been the same for two weeks now.

ZERO.

That’s right ZERO cashes at the 2008 WSOP.

This sounds really bad/sad for a professional poker player 39 events into the Series to not have cashed. Well, thankfully for me it is not that bad, since you have to play to win. If you have been in the Rio this month, you have seen tons of poker celebrities roaming the hallways, but you haven’t seen me. I have been at home with my family during the WSOP. I did make a trip out to Vegas and played in Event #1 the 10k PLH event. I busted out with 11 min left in Day 1 and played very well to make it that far, so I was pleased.

So why am I not playing many of the preliminary events? Well there are two reasons. First, historically I have never played many preliminary events at the WSOP. After winning in 2003, I played:

Secondly, I am having the best time of my life with my family. In 2006, my wife and I rented a house out in Las Vegas and planned on moving out there for the entire WSOP. We landed the day before Event #1 and got into our rental car. It was 115 degrees when we landed and miserable.

After one day in the heat we decided it would be better if our one-year-old daughter was back home in a cooler environment. I stayed at home with her and from that point forward I made a decision that I wanted to enjoy seeing my daughter grow up.

I travel a lot as it is and being gone for a month from my family is not something I choose to do. It doesn’t help the fact that my daughter’s birthday is in June, making it impossible to travel during that time. Anyway, I am making the trek to vegas on Sunday to play in the five remaining events of the WSOP. Hopefully, in a few weeks when someone on PokerStars.com asks how many times did you cash at the WSOP? I will say something other than ZERO.

Good luck on the tables