Part Time Poker recently caught up with Phillips while he was doing what he knows best – playing in a poker tournament in his hometown.

What was it like coming home as a member of the “November Nine”?

It’s kind of been a wild ride to be truthful. Nothing but positive on it. Tremendous support from everybody who have tried to bend over backwards to help me and congratulate me. So I’m kind of living on cloud nine right now.

You said you were playing in a poker tournament tonight. Where are you at?

I’m at Lumiere in St. Louis. It’s the first tournament I’ve played since I got back.

So what kind of response have you gotten tonight from people there that have recognized you?

I’ve been signing autographs and receiving congratulations. It’s just been a positive ride all the way around. No one is giving me a hard time at all to be truthful. It’s been fantastic – a little hectic – I’m somewhere over 40 interviews now and TV appearances.

What’s it like to get that much attention?

I guess I was kind of flying under the radar before and now everybody knows me. People who claim to know me I don’t know, but they say they know me. (Laughs)

How does it feel to be the chipleader going into the final table?

Everybody else at the table has more experience than I do so I’ll take any advantage I can get, and having a few more chips more than anybody else is definitely an advantage. So hopefully I can parlay that in and use it to play deep stack poker.

Prior to this what was your previous tournament experience?

I’ve really only been playing tournaments the last couple of years. I did go down to Tunica and play in two events down there and I made the final table on both of those. I played three WSOP events prior to this and made the final table in two of them. This is my only biggie. I did very well in the tournaments around St. Louis.

How did you come to enter the WSOP main event this year? Was this your first one?

Yes, this was the first time I played any major event really other than those couple of tournaments in Tunica and I won a satellite at the local Harrah’s casino here. It was a $200 buy in, basically 100 people winner take all and I won that. It was kind of tough even winning that one. It wasn’t quite winner take all, but for all intents and purposes it was. The winner got the seat and $1,000 while second got $2,500 and third got $500.

So walk us through the main event. What was it like? How did you get through it?

I honestly didn’t know what to expect when I went out there so I sat down a little timid on it, but after an hour or two of playing I realized I could play with these guys with no problem. So I started playing my normal game. I played fairly conservative the first couple of days, just making sure I ended the day over the average chip stack. It was about midway through the third day when I tried to make a move and it worked.

How were you able to get to the final table?

Everybody has a little bit of luck involved in it. I didn’t have anybody make a major drawout on me or anything. I never really got my chips in with the worst hand except for once and I lucked out on that one. I had pocked 9s and there was a gentleman who kept pushing when he had the button and I didn’t think he had anything. I made a bet, he came over the top and I said, “All In” and he insta-called so I figured I was in big trouble. As it turned out all he had was pocket 10s so he really should not have made the call or at least I wouldn’t have in his position. But he had 10s over my 9s and then I drew a straight. That was the only point in the tournament where I put all of my chips in and did not have by far the best hand.

How do you plan to prepare for the final table?

It’s going to be difficult to prepare for it. The rest of the table is very, very good players. I’ll be going to Europe for some tournaments and there are some in the U.S. I am going to play in. I have some friends who are very good poker players and I’ll be playing some sit-n-go’s with those guys so I can get used to playing a short table – a three people, four people, five people table. That should help out.

Do you plan to study your opponents at all? To look back at what they’ve done?

Absolutely. I’ll watch them. They’ll watch me. But you can only do so much of that. When you sit down to play, you play.

Would you have rather played out the final table or do you like this delay?

Oh no, I was doing well and had a good chip count. I did not want to quit, but I understand the logic behind it and I support it. But no, I would have rather played it out.

Do you plan to quit your job or make any other career changes as a result of your finish in this main event?

I probably will not. I really do enjoy my job and the people I work with. I may cut back a little. I make take more vacation. (Laughs) But no, I am not going to be quitting.

Do you plan to play more poker?

I will be playing more poker, yes.

Here’s a look at the nine people who will become some of the world’s most famous poker players in the coming months.

The chip leader is Dennis Phillips (26,295,000), 53, who won his seat in the main event through a $200 qualifier at a Harrah’s casino near his hometown of Cottage Hills, Illinois, a suburb of St. Louis. He’s an account manager for a commercial trucking company.

The cash will be Phillips’ first at a WSOP, although he has cashed two circuit events – for a total of under $5,000. Phillips has only been playing poker for four years.

In second place come November will be Ivan Demidov (24,400,000), a 27-year-old from Moscow who nearly final tabled another WSOP this year. He took 11th in Event No. 44, The $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em with Re-buys event, cashing for just under $40,000. Last year, he played in the Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic and took third for $21,710.

This year, he’ll try to beat the performance of fellow Russian Alex Kravchenko, who took fourth in the ’07 main event. Demidov, who calls himself a “semi-professional” player, bought his way into the field with $10,000 cash and considers himself primarily an online player.

In third is Scott Montgomery (19,690,000), who may enter the final table as one of the most accomplished players left, at least in terms of tournament cashes. Actually, 2008 is a bit of a heater for the 26-year-old from Perth, Ontario, Canada, who has been a poker professional for the last two years.

He has five substantial cashes under his belt, including deep runs in the WSOP’s Event No. 2, one of the $1,500 buy-in No Limit Hold’em events, and Event No. 7, a $2,000 buy-in No Limit Hold’em events. He cashed nearly $55,000 in those two events. He also played 16th in Event No. 25, the World Championship of Hears Up No-Limit Hold’em, earning more than $36,000.

Earlier this year he took fifth in the L.A. Poker Classic, a World Poker Tour event, for nearly $300,000. And just this month he finished fourth in Event No. 6 of Bellagio Cup IV, a $5,000 buy-in event, for $36,000.

Peter Eastgate comes into the table fourth in chips (18,375,000). He is from Denmark and is considered a top online cash game player at Ladbrokes. The only significant tournament performance on his record before this is ninth-place finish in last year’s Irish Open, when he won more than $60,000.

At just 22, Eastgate has been playing for just three years and will look to become the youngest main event winner in history. Phil Hellmuth was 24 when he won the ME in 1989.

Ylon Schwartz (12,525,000), 38, of Brooklyn, New York is in fifth place. He will also be among the favorites based on experience alone – he has 11 WSOP event cashes since 2005. But this will be by far his biggest score to date. He took home a $28,000 payday for a cash in the 2006 WSOP. And he took third in the WPT finals in 2005, cashing for nearly $50,000.

In an interview at pokerlistings.com, Schwartz says he has been gambling for 25 years – doing the math that would take him back to the age of 13. He said he played chess on the street at that age, and has been playing games for money ever since – including pool, darts and backgammon.

Just behind Schwartz is Darus Suharto (12,520,000) who cashed the 2006 main event for $26,000. That’s the only live tournament cash on his record. He got into the main event by turning an $80 buy-in into a main event seat through a series of satellites.

Suharto, 39, is an accountant from Toronto, Canada, and says he has been playing poker for just three years.

In seventh is David “Chino” Rheem (10,230,000), who has the most tournament money cashed of any of the players remaining, with more than $600,000 in live earnings. More than half of that came in the 2006 WSOP when he took second in the $1,000 No-Limit Hold’em with Re-buys event for more than $327,000. He also made a final table this year, taking fifth for $93,000 in Event No. 4, the $5,000 Mixed Hold’em event.

Rheem is 28 and lives in California now, but he is originally from Miami. Interestingly, a newspaper article says there is still a warrant out for Rheem’s arrest on a 2003 misdemeanor charge. He’s also served four months in jail on other charges.

Just behind Rheem is Craig Marquis (10,210,000), who has earned his fourth WSOP cash, despite the fact that he says he took up poker just last year. He finished 18th in Event No. 17, the Hold’em Shootout event.

The 23-year-old from Arlington, Texas, is a college student and actually led the main event field heading into Day 7. He also busted Dean Hamrick, the man who bubbled the final table.

The short stack will be Kelly Kim (2,620,000), a 31-year-old from Whittier, Calif. He has a long string of tournament cashes on his record, the biggest coming in 2006 when he took third in an L.A. Poker Classic event for more than $62,000.

Kim, now a professional poker player, was a business analyst before he quit to play poker full time.

Live Coverage @PokerNews.com: This is a great source for live reporting, chip counts, etc. If you’re looking to follow a friend or you’re just a fan of a player, you’re going to have a hard time finding better coverage of hand-to-hand action than what the staff over at PN provides.

Worldseriesofpoker.com: Obviously, the official site for the series should provide an immersive experience, and this one doesn’t disappoint. Live broadcasts, player interviews, comprehensive results and player bios – if it’s ‘officially’ going on at the WSOP, there’s a good chance it’s covered here.

Gutshot.com: One of the pioneers of WSOP coverage, gutshot doesn’t offer the depth or breadth it did before the WSOP inked exclusive coverage contracts with other websites, but you’ll still find solid on-the-ground reporting and interesting perspectives on the events. You’ll also find plenty of online poker conversation, resource reviews and more.

Wicked Chops: The guys at WC leave the blow-by-blow reporting to the other sites and instead focus on the more interesting (read: involving hot girls, gossip or various social oddities) b-plots of the WSOP. No other poker blog really comes close to matching their wit and knack for noticing the key details that make the WSOP an entertaining experience.

MTT Community at 2+2: If you’re a poker player, you should probably already be a 2+2 member, but just in case you don’t know: This sub-forum of 2+2 is hopping around WSOP with tons of threads that tell thes tory of the WSOP from a broad array of perspectives. Since it’s a poker forum it’s largely unedited and prone to massive tangents, but in between all of that noise are real stories from real players having the full spectrum of poker experiences and sharing them, unfiltered, with the rest of the community.

First, prepare to hike to the tournament area even if you’re staying in the Rio. . The WSOP is located in the convention area at the back of the casino, which is a good one-quarter to one-half mile from the main casino area. If you are coming via cab or rented car, go to the right when you enter the Rio’s entrance and direct your cabbie to let you out at the convention center entrance or if in your own car park in that lot or enter the valet lane.

Upon entering the convention area doors hang a right. The Amazon ballroom is the main WSOP area and is in the back left corner of the convention area, which is all the way down the hall after you make that right turn. Last year, Harrah’s had an outdoor tent in addition to the 200 tables in the Amazon ballroom, but after players complained about the faulty air conditioning and worrisome wind conditions in the tent all play will take place indoors this year – so you won’t be at the mercy of a tournament dir.

WSOP Tournament Director Jack Effel recently told me that there has been a move to alleviate congestion that has taken place in the Amazon ballroom in the past. The registration area will be moved into a separate room, with 21 windows dedicated to registration or payouts. In addition, the satellite area will be moved to a different ballroom.

“We have the Cardrunners satellite room this year,” Effel said. “We have 23 tables and a fully-functional cage. There will be five windows for registration and payouts, and everything that happens in that room will be single-table satellites. That will be great because in years past the single-table satellites in the general population with everything else created chaos. Now we’re giving the single-table satellite area much love. We’re giving it the love that it really deserves, and I’m looking forward to it.”

Effel didn’t specify which ballroom will contain the satellites, but it will be near Amazon and surely will have plenty of signage directing patrons in the right direction. In fact, several ballrooms in the Rio will be dedicated to the WSOP this summer for the first time. Effel said another room will be acquired on June 14 (presumably after a convention ends) that will provide an additional 65 tables. He also indicated that the Rio poker room, which is usually closed during the WSOP, could be used if needed this summer. In all, the WSOP will have 274 available tables to accommodate massive fields. However, Harrah’s will not accept alternates this year so if those 274 tables are filled, no one else will be allowed into the tournament.

To enter any tournaments or satellites you will need a Harrah’s Total Rewards card. If you don’t already have one or forgot to bring yours, there’s a desk catty corner to the Amazon ballroom where you can get another.

There are a variety of cash games for both high and low rollers at the WSOP. They have been held in Amazon in the past, but with the additional spaces available they could be moved to a separate ballroom. The most popular cash games are $2-$5 and $5-$10 No-Limit Hold’em, with a dozen tables of each running at any time (sorry, no $1-$2 NLHE). You can also play $10-$20 or $20-$40 Limit Hold’em or $10-$20 Omaha Hi-Lo with a half kill. If your bankroll is bigger, use your imagination. There is no shortage of big buy in games, just watch yourself in that Chinese Poker game, ok?

Food is available at the WSOP Kitchen near the Amazon ballroom where you can get your share of overpriced pizzas, burgers, sandwiches, salads and other chow. For some reason, Harrah’s doesn’t offer comps in the cash games during the WSOP. (You will get $10 off a meal with any bracelet event tournament entry though.) The Sao Paulo Café is the closest casino restaurant to the convention area and offers a nice variety of food.

A recurring issue at the WSOP is bathroom availability. To help alleviate the congestion, the WSOP implemented staggered breaks during tournaments, which has helped some. If you have to go during a break and find a long line into the main bathroom just in front of Amazon, walk further back to the entrance to the convention area. Just past the entrance along the left wall is another bathroom that few people walk all the way back to. Using this restroom should save you time during breaks.

The schedule this year has a variable cornucopia of events, further moving the WSOP away from the “World Series of Hold’em” as poker pro Daniel Negreanu derisively called it a few years ago. Included on the slate are a record eight $10,000 buy-in events, along with a similar number of $1,500 buy-in events for us more recreational players.

Gary Thompson, director of communications for Harrah’s, said there was a real call for more variety among the parties who help give input into the schedule.

“We talked with the Players Advisory Council and the International Players Advisory Council and there seemed to be a real desire to have something for everyone. For the elite players, people who can afford a $10,000 buy in, they like the idea of having smaller, more experienced fields that they can go up against. It’s less of a crapshoot they say than an event that attracts three or four or five thousand players,” Thompson said. “At the same time, we want to have the lower buy in events because there are tons of people who have not had an opportunity to play in the World Series and don’t have $10,000, but who also want to have the opportunity to play in an event and win a lot of money.”

Included on the schedule for the first time this year is a new $10,000 Mixed Event that includes the five HORSE games, plus Pot-Limit Omaha, No-Limit Hold’em and Deuce-to-Seven Triple Draw Lowball. “It was another thing that the Players Advisory Council said they wanted to try out this year, so we found a place for it. It will be interesting to see how it actually works because there are a lot of games,” Thompson said.

The biggest news in recent weeks was the decision to delay the main event final table from July to November, allowing ESPN to air it “plausibly” live (it will air less than a day after play is completed). The decision has been controversial, with some people arguing the pros and cons of the move. Effel likes the fact that the decision builds anticipation in the months in between.

“Obviously, the tables get turned as far as the perceived notion of who’s going to win the tournament, and I think that is a big thing. Traditionally, the World Series of Poker has been played out in its entirety and usually by the time the winner is crowned there’s a brief moment in publicity and then sometimes you hear about that person doing something and then sometimes you don’t. Like last year you didn’t really see a lot after the fact and I think this actually builds up the momentum as far as who’s going to win and the overall excitement wrapped around the final table,” he said.

Some have argued that players making the final table can then get months of coaching and study their opponents, which is unfair to the traditional end of a tournament. Effel argues that everyone has an equal chance to do this.

“Everybody is on a level playing field in that everyone has the same opportunity to pursue a coach, to train, to learn about their opponents – just as you would in any other sporting competition. Instead of you being able to see through the play of hands over the course of a few days playing the final table as scheduled, now you have time to really look into your opponents and improve your skills and really compete. The competition is going to be really tough. I think we’re in uncharted territory, but I think this can be a really good thing.”

There are a handful of new rules this year, as well. For one, you can’t use your cell phone within one table length of your assigned table, even if you aren’t in a hand. I recommend just keeping the thing off until you go on break.

Tournament officials can also penalize players for excessive celebration. Will we see fewer shark antics this year? Effel said the rule gives officials more leverage and guidelines to work around.

“We’ve always had a rule that any disruptive behavior could draw a penalty, and we’ve just gone beyond that because of some of the theatrics that have occurred over the last couple years to put the excessive celebration rule in there. If a person gets out of line, is yelling, screaming, throwing chairs – that’s disruptive. It clarifies now more what is considered excessive and what isn’t. It’s still not 100 percent and you’re still going to have to make the decision, but I think putting it out in the open for the public to see, that you do take this very seriously, then hopefully it will divert people from engaging in overly disruptive behavior,” he said.

Meanwhile, more major changes could be in store for 2009. WSOP Commissioner Jeffrey Pollack has said that due to the growth of the Series, he may look to expand further.

“Space at the Rio is our biggest challenge. I’m confident that in 2009 we will have an entirely new footprint for the World Series of Poker and I’m confident that…2008 will be the last year we play in the Amazon ballroom as our principal tournament area,” he said.

Asked if that could entail a move to another Harrah’s property in Las Vegas, Pollack responded, “The only thing I will say to that is the following – the Rio has been a terrific home to the World Series of Poker the last few years and in a very short period of time it’s become equated with the World Series of Poker. I think it’s a terrific host for the WSOP and I hope we’re here for a very long time.”

These include:

* The Deep Stack Extravaganza at the Venetian
* The Orleans Open at the Orleans
* The Bellagio Cup at the Bellagio
* The Mega Stack Series at Caesars Palace
* The Binion’s Poker Classic at Binion’s
* The Grand Poker Series at the Golden Nugget

The Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza – the third incarnation of that tournament in 2008 – will run May 29-July 16, with buy ins ranging from $330 to the $5,000 main event. There will also be a handful of other events included, such as Pot-Limit Omaha, Omaha Hi-Lo and HORSE.

Rio’s sister property Caesars Palace will hold its own deep stack tournament series called the Mega Stack Series. The event, running from June 1 to July 9, features mostly NLHE events with buy ins from $225 to $540 with some other games included. A $1,060 NLHE main event will be July 7-9.

The popular World Poker Tour event Bellagio Cup will be held behind the fountains in the Fontana Lounge on July 1-17. The NLHE only tournament series will have buy ins ranging from $2,000 to $5,000 for preliminary events with a $15,000 WPT main event. There will be three days of $1,500 super satellites for players to punch their ticket to the big one.

The Binion’s Poker Classic, which is mostly designed to mirror the WSOP with similar events (but at a tenth of the buy in), will run from May 28 to July 8, making it the longest of the competing summer tournament series. It also has the greatest variety of events. Many tournaments are $150 and the series concludes with a $2,000 championship NLHE event.

The Golden Nugget will hold its brand new poker series in its recently completed event center facing Fremont Street. The Grand Poker Series will run June 6-July 6 with buy ins ranging from $225 to a $1,080 championship NLHE event. The series opens with a charity event hosted by television personality Montel Williams to benefit Multiple Sclerosis.

The Orleans Open returns July 5-20 with a greater variety of events, from Limit Hold’em to Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo to Battle of the Ages and Battle of the Sexes tournaments. There will be nightly $200 second chance NLHE tournaments.

Airfare

With rising gas costs plane tickets are getting more expensive, but thankfully there are a number of options for seeking the cheapest tickets. Our favorite is www.farecast.com, in which you input your travel dates and get four pop-up windows showing comparable rates from Hotwire, Expedia, Travelocity and Priceline. Usually there isn’t much difference between the four, but you will often save $5-$10 (like if one of the services is waiving the booking fees for a promotion) that can be used at the buffet line. A recent look at the site uncovered a number of round-trip flights from several East coast cities for $350-$400 so it appears those $200 tickets are a thing of the past. To save the most money the trick is to fly between Sunday and Thursday. Rates are generally higher on Friday and Saturday.

Another great option is to install Southwest’s DING program on your computer and select Las Vegas and your home airport. This program will pop up daily with one-day only specials for the airports you choose. There are different specials each day and flights to any one city aren’t that common so you will have to be vigilant in checking this, but you can often find a pretty good deal.

Another piece of advice, especially for you first-time Vegas fliers, is to fly at night. The view of the brightly lit neon lights of the Strip after the sun sets over Vegas is a sight to behold as you descend into the airport.

Hotels and houses

In the city that has more hotel rooms than any other in the world choices abound. It’s just a matter of what part of the city in which you want to stay and how much you want to spend. If you plan to be in Vegas for a month or more and your pockets aren’t overflowing in Benjamins you probably want to start cheap. Let’s consider some of those options.

Unless you are renting a car it’s advisable stay on the Strip or in Downtown (where you can ride the city bus to the Strip for $2 if you’re frugal. Otherwise it’s at least $10 each way for a cab). Even if you rent a car it’s still nice to be able to walk out of your hotel room and be within walking distance to the Strip or Downtown, and it’s even better to be able to walk out of your hotel room and into a poker room without leaving the premises. None of the casinos with really good poker rooms come cheap, unfortunately. Your best bets for reasonably priced casino hotels with poker rooms include Binion’s, which offers a poker rate of around $30, and the Sahara, which has some summer specials with rooms under $50. Some other cheap options with poker rooms in the downtown area include El Cortez and Fitzgeralds, though neither poker room features much action.

For those willing to spend a little more Harrah’s is offering discounted rates at its Las Vegas properties, including the Rio, Bally’s Caesars Palace, Flamingo, Harrah’s, Imperial Palace and Paris. The lowest rate is $89 on weekdays and $159 weekends at Imperial Palace. You’ll pay $139 weekdays and $279 weekends at Rio for the luxury of walking straight from your hotel room to the WSOP. If you pre-register and pay for WSOP events, you get $20 to $30 off of your room rates each night.

The Venetian is offering discounted suites this summer during the Deep Stack Extravaganza. The prices are $139 for weekdays and $199 for weekends.

Budget Suites, which has several locations in Vegas, offers weekly rentals. For $239 a week for one bedroom and $339 for two bedrooms, you get a full kitchen and living room and private bedrooms. You can get similar accommodations and rates at Extended Stay America, including a location on Flamingo not far from the Rio.

Another choice is to rent any number of houses and condos during the summer. If you really want to party, you can rent a 5,000 square foot condo with full bar, game room, pool and other amenities for hundreds of dollars a day. Split four or five ways, the price might just be right for you. There are numerous options out there, but you can start at this site: www.travellinkunlimited.com to see a handful of choices.

If you are unsure what type of rental property might be right for you, go to www.myvegaspokerhost.com where you answer a few questions that help match you with a property that will best suit your extended stay needs.

Car rental

The easiest way to rent your car is to use one of the online travel sites listed under airfare. You can get a compact or economy car in Vegas for under $100 a week in many instances, and unless you’re planning a lengthy trip out of town you probably won’t need more than a tank or two of gas during your stay.

One last thing

Our last piece of advice is to get a copy of American Casino Guide for its fantastic coupons. For $15 you get a book filled with discounts for 2 for 1 rooms, 2 for 1 buffets, match play coupons and other casino sign-up bonuses. This year the book includes a $10 chip bonus for playing poker at the Golden Nugget, which almost pays the cost right there. You should get your money back out of this investment several times over.