We had our first crack at a really big score last week. It was a thrilling ride.

After the disappointment of myself and Vicky going out right at the end of Day 1a, it was a huge relief to see The Coach bring back a healthy stack for the Monday, Day 2 of the WSOPE. The usual 12pm start had been pushed back to accommodate those players who were stymied by Yom Kippur. Apparently God does not like to see Poker played on holy days. Fair enough!

The Coach came back with just under 90,000 chips and the average was 60k, so he was in good shape. He texted me to say he had a good table and was making hay. Then a few minutes later that he had busted Eric Seidel and was over 100k.

I watched the coverage on Pokernews.com. It wasn’t that good but The Empire casino was a terrible venue for “railbirds” so it was better than nothing. There were still 150 players left from the original 336 so there was a long way to go but I still dreaded hearing my phone vibrate every time a text came through. I assumed the worst every time but there was only one text over the four days of poker that had bad news and it was the next one I got:

“jst lost hlf my stk with QQ v AK. K on flop. Dwn to 50”

The rest of the day went something like this:

“jst won nce pot. Back ovr 60”

“dnt win a pot in last level. Dwndld dwn to 35k. raised wth aq spades. Flopped flsh drw. Got it allin v 77. Rvr spade!”

“last level today. 100k”

And on that note I jumped in a cab to man the bar as The Coach “bagged up”. 80 or so players would be coming back the next day (Day 3) to play down to the money spots. 36 players would be paid and The Coach would start with 110k, pretty much average.

I was playing golf on the Tuesday. We teed off at 11.51, just before play started at 12pm. I kept my phone in my pocket and prayed it wouldn’t go off too soon. Clearly being on edge is good for my game and I played a blinder, but my mind was elsewhered. This is as much as I got:

On the ninth green “good 1st lvl. Up to 160k. devilfish avoiding me!”

On the tenth tee “jst won huge pot v devilfish. Over 300 now!”

On seventeenth green (in one!) “on feature tbl. 50 left”

Then, at dinner: “280k at dinner; dribbled dwn. Nvr saw a hnd that lvl. Onward and upward!”

And on my way to the Empire “Jst bstd Julian AA v 88. 400 now”

Baby doll! (sorry Julian). Now he should be in the frame for a money finish. I put my foot down. I wanted to be there for the bubble, the point when there is only one to go before the money. It would be incredibly tense and the difference between 37th and 36th was worth £21,000.

When I got there, there were 39 left. 3 to go. Keith was in good shape with around 600k. On his right was Daniel Negreanu:

(http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=s&n=181)

one of the most successful and well-known poker players in the World. Lots of people have different opinions about Daniel but he strikes me as a thoroughly nice bloke and there is no doubt he is a genius level player. A few years ago when they opened the Wynn, to gain publicity Steve Wynn staked him to challenge anyone at the game of their choice heads-up for $500,000 each. The winner to get $1,000,000. I watched him every day and I never saw him lose (although I’m told he did lose some). It was fantastic to watch!

On his left was Men Nguyen, or Men the Master. This is his track record:

http://pokerdb.thehendonmob.com/player.php?a=s&n=184

Supposedly Men has a chequered past but you can’t argue with that record! Despite being about 3ft tall (he has a habit of wearing 8 inch platform shoes to make him look 4 ft tall), he is a giant in the game.

Opposite him was Steve Zolotow, another huge winner on the US tour. On the other tables were Doyle Brunson, Ram Vaswani, James Akenhead, Antoine Soaut, Dave “Devilfish” Ulliot, John Kabbaj, AND Teddy  Sherringham!

“Teddy Teddy ship us yer chips!”

When we got to the bubble time slowed to half pace. They played “hand for hand” which means that each table only started dealing the next hand when all the other tables had finished the previous hand. It is to stop the short stacks taking an age to make every decision in order to play fewer hands. The last five tables were all over the casino so none could see what was happening on the others. I tried to keep an eye on the short stacks to report back to The Coach. Eventually I reported that Doyle Brunson was all in with 77 v AA. He reported it to the table and the rumour spread round the room. Embarrassingly for me, it wasn’t Doyle who was all-in. Doyle wasn’t even in the hand. He had just stood up for a stretch and was sitting back down to count his chips for Day 4 because the guy next to him was stacking the pot he had just won with trip 7s. The bubble boy was getting up and leaving at the other end of the table. I avoided Doyle’s eye-contact so he couldn’t work out it was me that had announced his death to the room.

Keith counted his chips and we retired to the Bar and had a few beers with some of the reporters and players. Despite the release of tension from the bubble bursting, there was still an overhang from the magnitude of what the players were coming back for the next day. Life changing money!

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