The bankroll busting Battle of the Blogger Tournaments III at Full Tilt Poker is finally hitting the home stretch. For some it's been a haven, with piles of money going towards moving up poker's ladder to higher stakes. To me, it's been a nightly reason to rant about the pitfalls of this game I love so dearly. Bad beats, coolers, and a dash of bad play by your author here have contributed to hole so big, even winning one of the $11 tourneys wouldn't put my BBT3 ledger in the black.

With two weeks remaining until the big Tournament of Champions that will award two $12,000 World Series of Poker Main Event packages, and 5 $2,000 WSOP packages, players that haven't snagged a seat are sure to play a little more. In addition, those who already have a seat will be pressed to take more of those seats out of play by winning a second, third, or even fourth tournament to give themselves better odds of winning.

Below is the current listing of the TOC players, including those who have won multiple tourneys:

1. Scott Fischman
2. columbo
3. corron10
4. twoblackaces
5. TuscaloosaJohn
6. lucko21
7. KillinKegz
8. lucko21
9. swimmom95
10. dwal78
11. Chippy McStacks
12. pureprophet
13. ScottMc
14. corron10
15. tilt away
16. hellory
17. GottaWinSum
18. misogynist
19. Breeze81
20. Martyr99
21. wwonka69
22. katiemother
23. PokakDave
24. Loretta8
25. SirFWALGMan
26. RecessRampage
27. iam23skidoo
28. hoyazo
29. MEMPHIS00
30. ShipFaced12
31. wormmsu
32. DonkeyPuncher74
33. PirateLawyer
34. RNallin
35. wormmsu
36. cmitch
37. surflexus
38. lucko21
39. oossuuu754
40. bdidde
41. JD Schellnutt
42. heffmike
43. OMGitsPokerFool

Layla Kayleigh leaves the World Poker Tour, but does anyone hear?

The beautiful co-hostess of the WPT showed herself to the door (story as broken by Wicked Chops Poker) after just one season with the declining poker tour who's very own existence is in jeopardy as we'll get to in a second.

Her quote about the move:

"Also you should know that as much fun as I had on season 6 of the World Poker Tour, I will not be returning for a 2nd season. WPT were kind enough to ask me back for a 2nd season, however after much thought and deliberation I decided that I really want to minimize traveling in my schedule this year, focus more on my health and personal relationships, and they were very understanding to where I was coming from. Might I add, that I had the most adventurous time on the road, learned so much about life and poker! and most importantly gained the most amazing friendship with my dear friend Kim Lansing (who I really hope lands the hosting position for Season 7)"

In her quote Layla mentioned co-hostess Kim Lansing, she is currently trying out for the hostess position while very existence of the WPT could be in limbo. Pokerati has the report about how some executive changes at the Game Show Network may affect the tour's viability after switch over to GSN from The Travel Channel which hosted every other season and has already affected another very popular High Stakes Poker show.
Gabe and AJ are possibly hanging it up after four seasons after the show's renewal is at stake was not renewed and the new CEO may have a anti-gambling hand in the future decision according to noted poker authority Oliver Tse:

1. HSP *** WAS *** GSN's #1 show until WPT managed to draw over TWICE as many viewers compared to HSP, on the same day of the week in the same time slot (Mondays at 9pm Eastern/Pacific). Once WPT posted its ratings numbers (which were good enough for WPT to collect the first tier of ratings bonus, but is certainly not good enough for WPT to continue to sell itself as a "sport" due to the older audience skew), I suspected immediately that HSP would NOT be renewed. The big question: will GSN renew WPT by the June 1, 2008 deadline? The old President/CEO who was in charge of GSN when GSN signed WPT, Rich Cronin, "resigned" in July 2007. (I suspected that Cronin was ousted.) Liberty Media, which owns 50% of GSN, installed one of its men, David Goldhill, as the new President/CEO of GSN in August 2007. Mr. Goldhill was brought in by Liberty Media to "fix" GSN, which has developed a major demographics problem under Mr. Cronin's watch. GSN's median prime time viewer was a lady in her mid-to-high-50's who plays bingo at church on weekends. Given that GSN paid WPTE at least 3 times as much money per hour ($150,000 per hour, excluding the ratings bonus) for the WPT as GSN had paid for every other program in its history, GSN obviously wanted results, i.e. a predominately young, male audience. However, WPT has lost a lot of momentum from its heydays in 2004 and 2005. Even though WPT's audience is younger than the typical audience of GSN during prime time, the WPT on GSN audience is NOT young enough to attract advertisers that normally sponsors "sports" TV programming (beer, soft drinks/energy drinks, mobile telephone services, sports cars and pickup trucks, etc.) Even one particular play-for-free online poker room, PokerStars.net, cut its player sponsorship program at WPT TV final tables immediately after the first week's TV ratings became available. The next 3 weeks will be interesting, as WPTE now has to convince Mr. Goldhill to continue to pay WPTE a rights fee for WPT on GSN. The "sales job" is never easy.

The loser in this possible loss of two very popular poker shows, are the poker fans. With the possibility of non-WSOP poker excitement on TV vanishing, will the resurgence of live and online poker be enough to get a different station to carry the flags of these shows?

Iggy returns to his uber posting and poker bloggers rejoice. But the best part of his most recent post was a link to a great interview of poker pro Phil Gordon by the Freakonomics blogs in the New York Times.

Gordon's candid answers to the aspects of a poker pro's lifestyle and pitfalls is a refreshing splash of water on a subject that is mired by the perception that if certain player is on TV wearing a bunch of patches they are successful. Also, he mentioned something that all poker players should take to heart this quote:

Q: Does the Tiltboys home game still run? On a related note, at what stakes do you take poker seriously enough to play your "A" game?

A: Wednesday night is still the best night of the week. The game goes about two to three times a month. I can play my "A" game at any stake. I regularly play 1-2 and 100-200 on the same day and it makes no difference to me.

Personally as a player, I recently moved down in limits as I am a grinder of sorts who if I went bust I would be hard pressed to jump back onto the penny ante tables I started from. Gordon's quote about playing your best at any level should be repeated over and over by any serious player of poker as if you are not bringing your "A" game to the table then why not play Craps or Roulette instead? Because you are giving away your advantage, the positive expectation (EV) of a good poker player is reason why you watch people win with eight-three offsuit while your Aces get cracked and say "I'll get my money back by the end of the night".

Hop over to Iggy's blog or use the link here to read the entire interview.

I didn't win the $18,000 from the $10+$1 Stars Hundred Grand yesterday (how do you get away from TPTK with only 10 big blinds left??). Its back to reporting on the going ons around the internet poker sites (which I heavily favor PokerStars and Full Tilt for no reason other then being American and those are the two sites most of us play at). If you'd like your site to be featured, please drop a comment!

With that being said, the Full Tilt Online Poker Series chalked up another successful weekend as all the tourneys hit their guarantees denying the players of any overlay. Included with those tourneys mentioned, was Event #9 a $300 + $22 buy in which carried a $1.5 million guarantee and saw off 5,090 runners while hosted by Gus Hansen.

_FlaXmarZ_ took home the biggest prize of the weekend, $263,438.04, in winning Event #9. One had to look pretty far down the money list to find Keith Sexton as the highest finishing "red" Full Tilt pro.

Today roster for the FTOPS VIII is the Pot Limit Omaha Eight or Better $200 + $16 buy in event with Mike "The Mouth" Matusow there to tell you how poorly you played that wrap draw, and another $1.5 million guarantee NLHE tourney with a $1,000 + $60 buy in being hosted by Nick Schulman.

Currently I joined the madness of the beefed up Sunday tournament schedule at PokerStars. 20,257 players joined the Sunday Hundred Grand which for just eleven dollars you could walk home after defeating nearly half of the player base at PokerStars with over $18,000! After looking at my balance there, I could certainly use a boost like that.

Of course for the highest stakes players, the Sunday Million and Sunday Warm-up both $215 buy-ins provide some of the biggest weekly prize purses on the net. And for those who don't like money or can't get enough action at the cash tables, the $5,200 freezeout and $650 World Series of Poker Main Event qualifers provide the higher stakes those players crave.

Returning to the Sunday lineup (every last Sunday of the month) is the Turbo Takedown, here's the details from their newsletter below:

HIGH OCTANE ACTION IN THE POKERSTARS TURBO TAKEDOWN!

Your Frequent Player Points (FPPs) could put you on the fast track to winning in our new monthly $1 Million PokerStars Turbo Takedown tournament!

Taking place on the last Sunday of EVERY MONTH, this one-of-a-kind tourney boasts a massive, and as you'd expect from PokerStars, GUARANTEED $1 Million prize pool, where at least 1 in 3 players will get paid. This is one tournament that you do not want to miss, so make your FPPs count.

Turbo Takedown
• 5,000 FPP buy-in
• $1 million prize pool GUARANTEED
• Start time: 14:30 ET (20:30 CET) on the last Sunday of each month, every month
• At least 1 in 3 players will make the money!
If you don't have 5,000 FPPs for the direct buy-in you can qualify via a satellite tournament from as little as 10 FPPs. Check the Tourney tab for satellite dates and times!

Whatever your tournament, there's a table for you at PokerStars.

Wow, time files when you're parent and suddenly find your normally quiet Friday mornings/afternoons filled with your niece and nephew to add a few more PB and Js on the menu for lunch. The Full Tilt Online Poker Series the Ocho kicked off over at Full Tilt poker on Thursday with a $200+$16 NLHE event that over tallied over 4,000 runners (4,158 to be exact). Full Tilt pro Scott Fischman made an impressive showing getting down to the last two tables finishing in 18th place, but it was "the guru 11" who added six figure to his bankroll taking in $158,852.23 for the win.

Yesterday saw two more events kick off with the Pot Limit Omaha knockout format which each "scalp" was worth $40, and collecting six scalps won you back your $240 buy in. "whothedonk" managed to overcome all wrap draws in claiming the victory and $48,150 plus any bounty he collected on the way.

In a newer event hosted by reigning CardPlayer magazine Player of the Year David "The Dragon" Pham, a $500+$35 shootout style event was won by "BOP B 3AKOHE 1". For the win he added $76,545 to possibly purchase a less confusing online name. Steve "MrSmokey1" Billirakis who claimed the first bracelet from the 2007 World Series of Poker last year finished in 11th just outside of the final table which could only be reached by winning all the chips at the final nine tables.

Tonight's Event #4 of the FTOPS #8 is PL Hold Em' hosted by Marco Traniello.