PIUS HEINZ surprisingly helped carry a strong WSOP live rating on Tuesday evening.

Live poker raked in strong ratings for ESPN.

The overnights for the 2011 WSOP Main Event final broadcast on Tuesday were strong, holding an average 1.01 rating during the 6.5 hours of live broadcast.

While that’s down from last year’s 1.28 produced primetime 2-hour comparable, the 1.01 rating stretches over six hours, bringing significantly more eyeballs and exposure overall. This despite losing arguably the most well-known and marketable (and American) of the bunch–Ben Lamb–on the fourth hand.

In all, that’s a major win for the WSOP and the viability of live poker programming in general.

We expect to see the broadcast finals out sometime by end of day Wednesday.

We’ll have our take on this year’s overall WSOP ratings–for both produced shows (down) and live shows (solid)–and the future of poker on TV in general–on Wicked Chops Insider by Thursday.

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Pius Heinz is the 2011 WSOP Main Event champion.

Pius Heinz has won the 2011 WSOP Main Event.

The 22 year-old German defeated 42 35 year-old Czechoslovakian Martn Staszko heads-up for the title.

WSOP POY Ben Lamb went out early in third place.

For the win, Heinz captures his first bracelet and banks ,715,638. Staszko takes home ,433,086 for second. Ben Lamb adds another ,021,138 to his 2011 WSOP haul for third.

It was an action packed final three. Ben Lamb pushed all in twice early and was eliminated on the fourth hand. And Martin Staszko and Pius Heinz changed chip leadership eight times heads-up.

Heinz becomes the first ever German Main Event winner.

* Photo: Bluff Magazine

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We'll be looking for Badih Bounahra's daughter/girlfriend/wife at the November Nine final table.

We’ve had it. Can’t take it any more. Something needs to be done.

Wicked Chops Poker has been taken over by pictures of non-hot girls. In fact, there have been practically no photos of girls on the site for weeks. Like downloading a Nickelback song, believing that 9/11 was an inside job, not knowing how the fuck to use the self check-out at the grocery story and fumbling around like a goofball for 30 minutes while people behind you in line quietly swear to themselves, using a Bluetooth in any situation other than driving you douchebag, getting married before you’re 30, not segregating player funds and then paying dividend payments to shareholders even though you have a 0M short-fall due to payment processing issues, or not watching The Sing-Off or Community on NBC, we find this inexcusable.

So it’s time to remedy that situation and pretty things up a bit.

We’ve combined a long overdue Friday Night Parting Shot post with an even longer overdue 2011 WSOP Girls on the Rail Photo Dump to make a…wait for it…2011 WSOP Girls on the Rail Friday Night Parting Shot Gallery.

Some highlights worth noting:

Enjoy the gallery and click away. We’ll do our best not let this inexusable lack of hot girlness happen again.

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Bodog pulled out of the U.S. market to avoid being taken to the mattresses by the DoJ.

While everyone is focused on the Full Tilt Poker hearings in Alderney, Bodog drops a bomb: they’re pulling their brand from the U.S. market.

From the official announcement:

“Following recent news that Bodog UK has been granted a gambling license by the UK Gambling Commission, we are pleased to announce further developments to the Bodog brand going forward.

As highlighted last week, Bodog UK’s CEO, Patrik Selin believes the trust and credibility that having a UK license brings to the brand will benefit customers and allow him to attract the best talent in the industry to work with him.

However, in order to ensure the brand’s expansion is not affected by negative perceptions, both in the UK and elsewhere in emerging markets such as Asia, where Bodog88 is already successful, a decision has been made to withdraw the Bodog brand from the US market at the end of 2011. As a result, the Morris Mohawk Gaming Group’s (MMGG) brand licensing agreement will be allowed to expire on 31 December, following which US residents will no longer be able to access bodog.eu or any other Bodog branded website. We understand that MMGG will launch under its own brand in 2012, licensed by the Kahnawake Gaming Commission. All Bodog.eu clients’ funds will remain safe and they will have the option to switch to a new MMGG brand should they wish but MMGG confirms it’s business as usual…”

In reality, the announcement is only surprising in how steadfastly Bodog has believed over the years that it can successfully operate in the U.S. market. However, with increasing payment processing difficulties since The Events of 4/15TM and continued DoJ crackdown, we’ve anticipated the gradual departure of all U.S. facing sites over the course of the next year-plus. Just bound to happen.

Read more about the withdrawal on CalvinAyre.com here.

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Calling all dudes who like photos of Victoria Moore…

Voting is open for Bluff Magazine‘s annual Reader’s Choice Awards (engage in the aforementioned voting here).

The Entities Who Comprise Wicked Chops Poker were nominated in two categories: Favorite Poker Blog and Favorite Web-Based Poker Show.

The competition in both of these categories is much like your johnson after looking at photos of Victoria Moore: stiff.

For poker blog, we’re up against Pokerati (of course), Tao of Poker (should be dubbed the “Dr. Pauly Best Poker Blog”category), and Hard-Boiled Poker. For poker show, it’s Poker Beat, that 2+2 one, Poker Edge, and Inside Deal.

Last year, we threatened removing all photos of Keeley Hazell (i.e. Victoria Moore v1.0), Vikki Blows, and Joanna Krupa if you didn’t vote for us. Basically, a vote for “the other guy” meant you more or less enjoyed the occasional penis.

No different this year. Because if there’s one thing we’ve learned over the years: the more things change, the more they stay the same. Or is it that history repeats itself? Or was it he who rejects change is the architect of decay?

Whatever. Eff you philosophical phrases referencing how some things never change!

But in all seriousness, honored to be nominated. Everyone really is deserving. Loved seeing Hard-Boiled getting a well-deserved nod and even we’re not sure how we’ll vote for the best poker show category [if we weren't nominated that is]. And oh yeah, if you don’t vote for us, then you’re basically no different than this guy.

Take part in democracy and vote for Wicked Chops Poker and This Week in Poker here.

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Candice Swanepoel could blow our vuvuzela any day.

Let’s not fuck around here. You’re probably a little less interested in Warren Zackey winning the first ever WSOP Circuit South Africa event (banking 1,000) then you are about clicking through some pics of South African model Candice Swanepoel.

So there you have it. Maria Ho finished sixth in the event, which had an impressive turnout (albeit not 226!) considering that 1) all of the tournament competition out there this month, and 2) it was in South Africa.

Get a little more info on the event here.

More Candice Swanepoel in the below thumbs.

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New Team PokerStars member: Liv Boeree

When Liv Boeree‘s contract ran out with UB, we immediately thought, “Looks like we’ll hear she’s signed with Stars tomorrow…”

Well, tomorrow finally happened today, as we’ve learned that Liv Boeree will be announced as a new PokerStars Team Pro later this afternoon.

Boeree has long been one of our favorite pros on the circuit. She really saw her poker career take off this year with her EPT San Remo victory. She has amassed over M in career tourney earnings (with over .7M coming from the aforementioned San Remo win). In all, she has eight cashes this year, with three coming at the 2010 WSOP.

Boeree is particularly huge in her home country of England, and will be used heavily in PokerStars’ marketing efforts there. She’ll also appear on The Morning Show (U.K.) this Thursday (it’s basically the U.S. American version of GMA).

View WCP Liv Boeree on the Rail pics here. View her MAXIM UK photo shoot here. Listen to our Wicked Chops Podcast interview with her here. View her Poker2Nite feature here.

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James Bord is the one on the far right.

Annette Obrestad. John Juanda. Barry Shulman. James Bord.

Ok, so maybe James Bord isn’t on the same name rec level as previous WSOP Europe Main Event winners. Or The Orleans daily noon 0 tourney winners. But he beat a sick field that included a top 20 of Phil Ivey, isildur1, and Roland de Wolfe to capture his first bracelet and £830,401.

Bord bested Fabrizio Baldassari (£513,049) heads-up for the title.

The aforementioned Roland De Wolfe finished fourth (£278,945) and Victory Poker CEO Dan Fleyshman came in seventh (£118,643).

Get full final results here.

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The new synergistic poker media property from The Entities, This Week in Poker.

The other day we were sitting around and talking about how we didn’t have enough to do.

“Man, we don’t have enough on our plate,” The Addict said. “Yeah,” Chops continued, “We need to figure out a way to create some new media synergies off some low hanging fruit.” After much contemplating, Snake said, “Fellas, can we get our ducks in a row here, launch a new show about poker–no need to reinvent the wheel after all–and create a first-mover advantage in a disruptive technology ROI actionable items exploit benchmarking touch base facilitate dialouge granular nimble agility synergize!”

“Yeah!” exclaimed Charles, our photographer…/… /… /…

Sooooooo, we decided to team up with the Jason Calacanis/Kevin Pollak team that created the ThisWeekIn.com network and launch This Week In Poker.

TWiPoker is a weekly live stream show (every Tuesday, 1pm) hosted by The Entities. Viewers will have the chance for real-time interaction and interviews with top poker pros, celebs and industry insiders (along with small doses of poker news).

Debuts Tuesday, June 15 at 1p PST…more to come in the coming week…

Read more about ThisWeekIn.com here.

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