Today on the Final Table, we’re both at the Rio in Las Vegas for the 2012 World Series Of Poker. Donnie Peters, live reporting manager and senior writer at Poker News, joined us to talk about some of the big stories from the WSOP’s first week, including:

  • A controversy over forcing players to verbalize their actions at all final tables;
  • Another controversy involving players who illegally re-entered this weekend’s $1500 No Limit Hold’em event by buying in twice on the same day instead of playing separate days;
  • The failure of the ChipTic system, which was supposed to help track the stacks of every player;
  • How smaller-than-expected fields and spreading the tournaments out into three rooms has lowered the overall energy level;
  • Andy Bloch and Cory Zeidman winning their first-ever gold bracelets;
  • Mike Sexton cashing in two events that ran simultaneously while he ran between them.

We also discussed our short-lived runs in a couple of bracelet events, and then offered strategies from our playing experience in many single-table sit-and-go tournaments that are the best value at the WSOP — from how to change gears from beginning play to middle play to end play, how to get even more value via last-longer bets, and why and how you should chop the prize money when you get down to two players.

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Note: over the next few weeks, you’ll hear Final Table Show interviews we’ve recorded with more than a dozen poker pros at the WSOP, including Maria Ho, Matt Glantz, Mike Sexton, David Bach, Shannon Shorr, Brian Rast, Phil Collins, Matt Affleck, and Cory Zeidman.