The Coach and I sat down for breakfast in Vegas. We had both just been knocked out of the World Series of Poker Main Event 2009, the lowest day in both our respective years. We both ordered beers (it was 4pm) with our Steak’n’Eggs. It seemed a long time to wait until next year, but that’s life for the professional tournament poker player, filling in the time from one Big One to the next. So we made a plan; an odyssey of tournament poker, 12 months, 12 tournaments, 12 venues...and 1 Novice. Someone who had never played a tournament before, someone with the guile and ruthlessness of a winning player; a challenge for us. We would invite some Guests to play, teach and lift the lid on life inside the poker world; a micro-cosm of society if ever there was one. Winners and Losers, Nerds and Nutters. We would finish back at the Big One next year...The World Series of Poker Main Event 2010. I bet the Coach he couldn’t get The Novice into the money at next year’s Big One at 10-1.

This is our story.