This year was no different as the field of old schoolers hit all-time highs, setting a record for number of entrants for the $1K Seniors Championship. Of the massive field only 486 return for Day 2.

Speaking of old school. It’s been 25 years since the oft-maligned poker prowess of Phil Hellmuth won his World Series of Poker Main Event bracelet. The man known as “The Poker Brat” is celebrating in style by crushing big field poker tournaments yet again. He came just hands away from taking down his 14th WSOP bracelet against Ted Forrest and now he’s in position, yet again, to make a run at a bracelet.

With only 15 left in the $3K 6-Max, Event #15, Hellmuth sits 6th in chips. It’s No Limit, so anything can happen, but it sure is looking like there’s another WSOP Final Table in Phil’s future.

There was a bracelet given away as well as the $1500 Omaha Hi-Lo event played down to a winner. Last year’s champion, Calen McNeil, was deep into the hunt and according to Bluff Magazine, even had the chip lead at the dinner break. A back-to-back bracelet finish was not in the cards though as McNeil fell in 4th and it would be Nick Kost that would cash the $283,275 check while wearing gold.

The $1500 Limit 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball will also be returning to award a bracelet in today’s action while the superstars came out to play in the $10K Seven Card Razz Championship as well.

Want to read even longer write-ups of what went down? We’ve got you covered. Check out Bluff Magazine's write up of all the day’s activities.

If you haven’t seen the video: Dutch Boyd Lashes Out At Two Plus Two, Mason Malmuth – 'He’s A Bully’

The video began to spread, and was subsequently posted on Two Plus Two itself, where the debate over which side – Dutch or Mason – heated up all over again.

Mason, once again, stated the position of Two Plus Two and some facts that he thought were being misconstrued.

Negreanu then, almost randomly, jumped into the thread to post this bizarre message in response to Mason stating that “we did what we had to do”:

Something that may be of value to you in your life is understanding the distinction between “have to” and “choose to.” You didn’t “have to” do anything, you CHOSE to.

Just like you don’t “have to” get a psychiatric evaluation, that would be a chose. One I would suggest so that you get the medication you need, but again, it’s a CHOICE not a “have to.”

You don’t “have to” take meds, but choosing to not take them has consequences associated with that.

He seems to be implying that Mason needs a psychiatric eval and to be put on meds. It could be that he was just posting an example, a out-of-left-field passive-aggressive example.

It didn’t end there, at the same time, he came out and sided with the controversial Dutch Boyd on Twitter:

This isn’t the first time “Kid Poker” has tangled with Two Plus Two. In addition to running his own competing poker forums, Full Contact Poker, Daniel had been unceremoniously banned from the popular poker forum a while back which led to Daniel going on the QuadJacks Radio program and engaging in a debate over the practices of the forum.

See the conversation going on at Two Plus Two including Mason’s rebuttal:

In this interview with Thomas Keeling over at Bluff Magazine he really opens up and lets everyone know what he thinks. According to Dutch, he didn’t do anything that wrong when he registered “twoplustwopoker.com” and Malmuth is just being a bully in trying to prove a point.

Read: Dutch Boyd — Two Plus Two Equals $60,000

It doesn’t end there either – Dutch takes the recorded opportunity to attack Mason on both personal and professional levels saying he’s got no friends, he’s miserable and that his books, which he’s read, suck.

Are any of those things true? Who knows. But if you owed someone $60K, that you couldn’t pay you might say some mean things as well.

Of course, this isn’t the first time these two have gone at it either. Check out: Dutch Boyd And Two Plus Two’s Mason Malmuth Trade Barbs Out Of Court

Lee goes on to talk about the fact that not only did Luxury Gaming build the centerpiece for the WSOP’s “Grind Room” but they can do that for you too…for a price. Surely, baller pieces like this ain’t cheap (especially when they explicitly solicit the players who are playing in the One Drop) but if you have the cash they’ll build anything your big brain can think of.

More Custom Tables: Poker Table Technology Perfect For Ballers, Shot Callers

Sarah Grant over at PokerNews tracks down a few grizzled WSOP veterans in Daniel Negreanu, Eugene Katchalov and Marvin Rettenmaier to dish out some tips on how to be survive taking your first shot at the World Series of Poker.

Listen: Marvin Rettenmaier’s Two Year Top 10 Reign Comes To An End

Just when everyone thought that the GPI couldn’t handle anymore, that they had reached the peak of Mt. Poker – they announce that they are looking to go mainstream and promote their new Global Poker Masters tournament.

Read: National Teams to Compete in GPI’s New 'World Cup of Poker’

The new event will work a little like this: take the top 4 players in the top 9 countries, invite them to a $10K event where they will compete in a non-traditional series of sit-n-go’s to determine which country is the luckiest on that given day. Plus there’s a $100K added to juice the prize pool. Epic!

Discuss: Check out the Two Plus Two Thread – GPI announces Global Poker Masters

We talked with GPI’s Alex Dreyfus very briefly about his new creation earlier today:

F5: So you say this is like the World Cup of Poker?

AD: It’s actually the “Rest of the World, versus the Germans’s Cup”

F5: Like the World Cup does for soccer/football, do you think this event will bring out a new breed of 'poker hooligans’?

AD: Actually, one thing I want to do, is a dress code for the play. To have, for once, people a bit dressed up for the competition.

F5: What if Matt Salsberg is at the top of the GPI? That could be a tall order, the dude is really good but likes to keep it extremely casual.

AD: That will be part of the show. But there is no chance that he [Matt] is, so we are on the safe side.

F5: You have PokerNews covering the event, they’ll live stream it too…but are any plans for it to be televised, in the US or in Europe? An edited version?

AD: Pokernews is, as always, our premium partner but its gonna be streamed, hopefully, from a lot of others websites. In terms of TV, it is too early to tell. It’s a long journey to make this happen.

F5: F5Poker is going to bring the Vuvuzelas, cool?

AD: As long as I can mute my stream.

F5: Alex…you can only ignore F5 for so long!

Alex hung up on us after that – HE’S BUSY! So there you have it, in the first part of 2015 the world will battle it out for poker supremacy in the new Global Poker Masters!

While Dan looks like a physical beast, the deftness of twirling around in the air through hoops and in silk ribbons prompt him to want to give up before the competition even starts. But, of course, he has no plans to quit when he’s got a perfect record to defend as Danielle is looking to gain some ground in this friendly, but heated, competition.

Watch as these poker pros stray far from the tables to partake in the Aerial Hammock, Aerial Silk and Aerial Lyra with all the grace you would expect from poker players – meaning: not very much.

As we mentioned on F5 yesterday, the 2-7 final table was just loaded with sick talent and Volpe would need every bit of skill and luck to make it through. The drama intensified as pro after pro bowed out, leaving a dream heads-up match.

Volpe would then face off against the last player in his path, Daniel Negreanu, who was in prime position not only go after bracelet number 7 but also to net an extra rumored $300K in side bets should he (or Ivey) win a bracelet.

Just as the action was getting good on the WSOP live stream, and with the poker world watching the multi-level drama online, the Rio convention center suffered a massive internet outage – pulling the plug on the whole show.

During the outage, the match continued and word trickled in via Twitter that Daniel hit the cage, looking to claim his 2nd place prize and Volpe was our $10K NL 2-7 Lowball Champion.

Volpe, while not yet a household name, is very well known in the world of poker as an elite talent, a player with millions in winnings, and the guy who made back-to-back World Poker Tour final tables just last year.

The internet returned to the Rio a short time later and word was that in-booth personality David Tuchman had completed the commentary for the match so fans can watch the end of the tournament in the archives.

On Sunday, it was Blom who would play the role of villain as Sulsky took to the fast and furious $300/$600 PLO tables knowing anything can happen in the harsh world of 4-Card Omaha.

Unfortunately for Sauce, the match was to be short lived as he was quickly rocked in a session that lasted roughly 522 hands and only 75 minutes, played across 3 devastating tables, burning a house sized holes in his pockets.

Since the beginning of 2014, Sulsky has slowly been sliding further into the red. Last month he showed some positive signs, gradually swimming upstream en route to getting his head back above water, however after kicked in the teeth this week, Sulsky is left with a yearly deficit of $834K mountain to climb.

Wanna see Sulsky’s steep decline? Check out his graph over at HighstakesDB.com.

Now we also welcome the return of ThePokerDB.com – the online tracking site for all things MTTs, but this time it’s back and tracking US facing sites.

Check it, if you play tournaments in Nevada or New Jersey then PokerDB has your results and can let you know just where you stand.

According to Bluff Magazine, PokerDB (which is actually owned by the 'zine) tracks results from WSOP.com (both NV and NJ), Ultimate Poker (again, both states) as well as activity on both New Jersey sites from partypoker and 888.

They’ve got all the goodies – player of the year races and stats on all your opponents. You know, all the stuff you use to make a cold read a little easier.

So, as online poker creeps back into the US landscape so will the tools that make playing online just a little more fun.

U.S. Players Read More: BLUFF Re-Launches thepokerdb.com For Nevada and New Jersey Players

Perhaps all the attention though will be on “Kid Poker” himself. Daniel Negreanu, who has a much publicized bracelet bet (with Phil Ivey as his partner) enters the final table 3rd in chips with a lot more on the line than the $253,524 first place prize. Daniel is shooting to take down his 7th lifetime bracelet today.

Headed into the final table as the short stack is Abe Mosseri who is just happy to be here.

No seriously, Abe is under indictment and out on bail in the massive illegal gambling case in New York and had to be granted permission by a federal judge to just be in Las Vegas – much less at a Final Table.

So, yea, he’s just happy to be here.

All these sickos get back together at 2pm PST to fight over the hardware. Watch it on the WSOP Livestream.

There is plenty “to get”, too. PokerNews’ Sarah Grant talks with some of the staff over at WSOP.com, including Head of Online Poker Bill Rini and it’s pretty ridiculous the incentives they are chucking at players in order to get you to never stop having fun and playing poker. Massive guarantees, deposit bonuses, multi-table madness and, of course, their Main Event 25 Seat Guarantee.

So, if you are in Vegas or planning on heading out there – make sure you check out what WSOP.com has going on. It could be your faster, cheaper entry into the Main Event (or another bracelet event!).

This year, the WSOP has brought back the $10K Championship events and has instituted more $1500s to match, weeding out many of the $2500, $3K and $5K tournaments that were in place last year.

Both Tom “Donkeybomber” Schneider and Matt Glantz talked with Bluff Magazine's Thomas Keeling to offer two different sides of the debate.

Should there be more mid-level buy-ins because the poker economy is still roughed up or do $10k’s offer more of a championship feel while the $1500 is perfect for shot-taking? Watch and decide for yourself!

Unfortunately for Timex, a Twitter follower “reported” him to the online poker room. PokerStars subsequently banned his account privileges, provoking the following tweet:

While the original tweet, with the mention of “time at the pool,” may have suggested that Timex was at the World Series and thus playing from the US, there’s no suggestion he is in the country.

The ban was ultimately lifted by Stars Global VIP Host Garry Gates.

PokerStars withdrew from the US market following Black Friday, and goes to great lengths to enforce these rules—even if at times its a little overzealous.

Tip of the hat to our Spanish friends over at Poker10 for spotting this first!

That tweet came earlier this week when Bonomo had picked up a nice $219k payday for his runner up finish in Event #5. That finish marked his 3rd career runner up at the WSOP.

Finally, Bonomo didn’t have to settle for second best as tonight he takes home the $449,980 first plaze cash and finally beats the proverbial bracelet monkey off his back.

From youthful banishment to current Player of the Year leader (which he assumes from Brock Parker with the win), Bonomo will spend tonight celebrating but get back into #bracelethunting mode in search of #2.

For a more extensive recap of Bonomo’s victory, we’ll direct you to our friends over at Bluff Magazine who have an in-depth recap: Justin Bonomo Wins $1,500 No Limit Hold’em Six Max

With a mind for all things poker – table draws to starting times, rules and regs to historical facts – Kevin often knows more about the game than those that play it for a living.

Thus a gameshow was born: Stump The Kevmath.

In the latest edition of the game, from Bluff Magazine, Kevin faces off against a number of pros including Jonathan Little, Tom Schneider, Allen Kessler and Jennifer Shahade in questions about Hellmuth, bracelets and history of the WSOP at the Rio.

A couple of off-duty dealers getting resting their feet and an outcast tournament reporter were, pretty much, the only witnesses to what is, for sure, the most triumphant moment of Jeff Smith's poker career.

With no big names to boost the cred of the table and the low buy-in, this bracelet event was all but forgotten in last night’s melee of poker coverage at the WSOP. Nevertheless, just because no one happened to rail the event doesn’t diminish the accomplishment of Smith. So say we!

Congrats to Jeff Smith, champion of Event #9 and new proud owner of a WSOP bracelet.

In this video with Bluff Magazine super producer Thomas Keeling Little talks on why he’s always so busy and how his recent hand analysis session with Phil Hellmuth went. He likes to keep busy, if for no other reason than if he can make enough money on the side not to have to worry about buy-ins, then he cam play the way he wants to without worrying about the cash.

That’s what the going rate is to “hang out” with Phil during the World Series of Poker according to If Only, a website that brings people with money the experiences of their dreams with a portion of that cash going to charity.

If you pony up the $16K+ you get to hang with Phil, talk with Phil, ask questions of Phil and even drink with Phil. It’s all the “Poker Brat” you can handle and, in Phil’s case, for The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia Foundation.

The gang at If Only have not only locked up Hellmuth for their exclusive poker experiences package, but are also offering 1-on-1 time with:

Antonio Esfandiari – Get a VIP Vegas Night for $5970/person
Daniel Negreanu – Get two hours of poker action for you an up to 5 friends for $7150/person
Phil Laak – Private game with the Unibomber for $7150/person
Liv Boeree – Hike Red Rock Canyon with the Team PokerStars Pro for $1250/person (F5 value pick!)

and even…

Jamie Gold – Play poker with the former champ in a Florida casino for $2780/person

Aside from the experiences, If Only sells private meet and greets as well as hand analysis sessions with the pros.

There’s even an inspirational talk from Hellmuth himself available… whose influence might spark an evolution in corporate boardroom rants.

Last night, he put a hit on the entire field of the $10K Omaha Hi-Lo Championship to claim his 3rd career WSOP bracelet (the same number as Vanessa Selbst) and a favorable $443,407.

The field, being a $10K, was absolutely stacked and it was Parker who rose to the top and perhaps, if he wasn’t already considered so, ascends into elite company. He also jumps to the front of the line in the current WSOP Player of the Year rankings, just ahead of the aforementioned Vanessa Selbst.

Let’s face it – Limit Omaha Hi/Lo isn’t the most well-known of poker disciplines but the gang over at PokerNews still have a complete write up of everything Brock. Check it out.

Read: Brock Parker Wins Event #10: $10,000 Limit Omaha Hi-Low Championship ($443,407)

According to the PokerNews crew, Dimmig actually stared playing professionally about a year and a half ago after ditching his part-time job and moving to Las Vegas. Now, a short time later, he’s not only bumped up his lifetime ROI considerably by collecting the $1,319,587 first place prize but he lands a place in history as the champion of the 2nd largest tournament in the record books.

Previous to this score, Dimmig’s largest cash, on record, to date was a 3rd place finish at a WSOP Circuit event in San Diego for about $11K.

Wanna read all about how it went down? There are some incredibly long articles willing to give you the blow by blow of how it happened so we’ll direct you to the very thorough write up by our friends at Bluff Magazine.

Read: Millionaire Made as Jonathan Dimmig Takes Home $1.3M & the Bracelet

Watch: Jeff Lisandro Blasts Brandon Cantu For Not Paying Debts

Of course, this is figurative, Lisandro didn’t actually beat Prahlad up, like he threatened to do back in the day but he did oust him from the $10k 2-7 WSOP bracelet event last night.

You’ve never seen the inciting incident? It’s a good one. Check it out (or check it out again.)

While his wife is home taking care of the nearly 1-month old, Deeb is hard at work playing as much poker as possible while the getting is good. In fact, whenever he’s at home he actually gets more sleep thanks to his “traditional” setup.

Read: Shaun Deeb Has Daddy Issues

Finally, when asked if his little one is the best thing that has ever happened to him, Deeb’s dry reply of “No, not at all.” shows you just how little sleep the poker pro has been getting.

The WSOP blasted off 10k into the air to start the series, BorgataPoker is blasting off 30k throughout the month of June and you don’t even need to put a dime online.

You DO need an account, which is totally understandable, right? So, grind it up on BorgataPoker.com for free. They are calling it the Daily Dime – it’s a $1k a day giveaway and it harkens back to the old school promotions of the early poker boom. You can literally turn nothing into something, so sign up if you are in NJ.

More Borgata News: Summer Lovin’, Go Have A Blast

If you want to make a deposit though, make sure you take advantage of all their promotions on that front as well, like 100% matching bonus.

However, this was not a normal day. It was his day off. And on it, he jumps in the massive 3pm $235 Deepstack Event that’s run everyday at the Rio during the series. After besting the other 1559 entries on Sunday and 17 hours later (yes, 17 hours) he rakes in nearly $50k in first place prize money ($49,640 to be exact).

This is not the first time a PokerNews personality has made on-the-felt headlines at the big dance. You’ll remember we’re just one year removed from PNews’ lead reporter Chad Holloway's bracelet winning turn in the 2013 WSOP Employee/Media event.

Congrats to you, Anthony. Now get back to work.

Here he talks with Bluff Magazine about what is missing from the structures in the tournaments at the WSOP and how officials should throw out the scammy (and very pushy!) Ion bracelet booth people. Even though he’s filing his complaints, he does give props to the WSOP for the amazing accomplishment that was the Millionaire Maker.

Credit where credit is due.

“A lot of people are going to think I’m a card counter after that Ben Affleck thing at the Hard Rock. I’m the farthest thing from card counter.”

Read: Ben Affleck Banned From Blackjack at the Las Vegas Hard Rock

Used to putting up as much as $25k per hand, White allegedly bested the casino for nearly $2M. Unable to take the pain, the Palms submitted as White was demoted to a max bet of $5k and essentially asked to not play there anymore.

White said he heard through the grapevine that the Palms was planning to give him a trophy that said “congrats you kicked our ass and made us tap out.”

More Dana White: Ultimate Poker’s Dana White Promo Video Back In Theaters

“Casinos don’t want to gamble anymore,” White said. “They’re all owned by hedge funds and corporations. They want to stack the odds so much against you that won’t play. Realistically, there’s only one place to play left in town. That’s Caesars. They will let you play what you want to play. No messing around with limits.”

The UFC returns to your TV sets this Saturday for UFC Fight Night on Fox Sports 1.

Read More: Palms gives UFC’s Dana White ‘walking papers’ again

In his winner’s interview with PokerNews' Sarah Grant, Ted talks about how Phil was his toughest competition to date and that while the pressure of the back-and-forth battle was intense, he really just needed the hour and twenty minute dinner break to look for his car in the Rio parking lot.

Phil, on the other hand, can’t stop thinking about how close he came to #14.

Read: How To Resurrect Your Dead Poker Career – So You’re Banned

But in his latest interview with Thomas Keeling from Bluff, Gill may be turning all of us into sad poker fans by claiming that, like Hellmuth before him, he’s reformed. Behold the new, more mature Gill as he discusses his classic “Queen on the River” ESPN hand and how he’s married with a baby on the way.

We guess that means that the brash, hard-charging Carter that has made headlines for his antics over the years may have to take a back seat to his poker prowess.

They’ve talked to one person already and he’s real interested plus he lives in Vegas. They’re talking about Nic Cage so we’ll see what happens.

I don’t know, he’s a little older. I mean he’s my age now but they can make people look younger for the early parts of the movie. That’s an idea.

Mike goes on to talk about how he thinks a movie of his book could be good for poker as well as people who have the same “mental issues” that he struggles with.

Like I’m not going lie, yesterday I got out in front $10,000 in the 2-7 tournament and lost a small pot and all of a sudden thinking, “Oh my God, I’m the worst. I’m dying. What am I gonna do?”

I wanted to kill myself and got super suicidal and I couldn’t f*****g think. I was almost crying. And this happens to me quite often. I couldn’t play, I was negative, and it was just bad.

Matusow has his good days and bad days. When it’s bad, it’s real bad and when it’s good Mike says he’s a damn good player.

Check out the full interview: Matusow – Nic Cage in Talks to Play Lead in Check-Raising the Devil

My man Bruno Mars !! What an incredible performer. Much love !

We’re keeping an eye out for him at the Rio as he has still as of yet to make an appearance at the 2014 World Series of Poker...perhaps he was partying too much with the notorious pop star.

Get better soon Antonio, summer will be over before you know it.

Woods gives Bluff Magazine a great on camera interview where he opens up about growing up with poker and enjoying the complexity of the game. Sure, he may not need the money, but he likes it when he wins – like the time he won the Bad Beat Jackpot at Foxwoods, or the time that he took a $1k prize home for being 2nd in chips at the Borgata Winter Open. [Right behind alleged counterfeit chipper Christian Lusardi who created ChipGate].

While he loves playing the Vegas and on the East Coast, Woods claims that he’s done with the Hollywood Home games where guys like Tobey Maguire would put “millions” in play without any protection. Check it out!

The popular poker pro from Costa Rica, and Team PokerStars Pro, has been showing the grinders how it’s done in the early going. While he hasn’t exactly banked a huge score, he certainly has been profitable and seems primed to make a big splash as the series goes on.

It started with Event #3, the $1k PLO, where The Shark took 77th for a roughly $2.5k score. He followed that right up in Event #4, the $1k NLHE. Brenes squeaked into the money on this one, finishing 233 out of 2223 runners, for a min-cash of $1801.

Humberto then won his table in Event #6, the $1500 Shootout – which is a feat unto itself – where he locked up a $4411 payday. Finally, Brenes swam into deep waters in Event # 8, the over-the-top, nearly 8k runner Millionaire Maker. Larger than just about every Main Event and the largest ever tournament to have a single starting day, Brenes busted in 315th place for another $6.3k payday.

Read Nolan Dalla’s Blog: The First Player with Four Cashes at the 2014 WSOP

According to the PokerStars Blog, his latest cash marks Brenes’ 76th ITM at the WSOP and puts him in 4th place all-time for WSOP cashes behind Hellmuth, Seidel and Men “The Master”.

Bonus: Classic Brenes clip from the 2006 WSOP.

Throughout May Blom was seen grinding on a number of FTP games including the 8-Game, Triple Draw, Omaha and Hold’em tables; however it was only the Omaha Hi/Lo and Hold’em sessions that paid dividends after finishing with $330,866 and $86,620 profits respectively.

The story was very different on the Triple Draw and PLO tables. He burnt a whopping $847,831 playing Draw, and adding to this, he suffered another $595,293 loss on the Pot Limit Omaha tables. Blom also found himself a loser of over $100k at the 8-Game tables sealing his fate for the month of May.

It’s not the first time Blom has been dabbling in losses tipping the $1 million mark in a month. Just 6 months ago, in November of last year, he racked up a gut-wrenching $2,132,506 loss. Despite that thought, he ended up finishing the year with a $542,796 profit. So, while Isildur is still deep in the red for this calendar year, there’s still plenty of time to make that up.

In fact, with the month of May behind him, Blom is ready for a June Bloom. According to HighStakesDB, Blom kicked off the new month with a big-time rebound of $338k.

Money in, money out.

Lisandro talks with Bluff Magazine's Thomas Keeling about what actually happened in the verbal tussle that required Rio security to break up. No punches were thrown, but some unkind words were hurled as according to Lisandro, Cantu has just borrowed too much money once too often and has opted not to pay it back. Lisandro also claims that he vouched for Cantu, something gamblers don’t take too lightly, and now feels like he’s left footing the bill – if not for the cash, his reputation is taking a hit.

Lisandro says he’s just an old school gambler that believes that you should pay your debts and perhaps it’s new school guys like Cantu that are ruining the old way of how the poker world works.

Bonus: 2012 Interview with Brandon Cantu after coming runner-up during a bracelet event.