Final Poker roundup

Well, I'm back home in Dreamland with stories to share, hats to wear and some new refrigerator magnets (Excalibur, NY NY & WSOP 2006). This is a photo of the ESPN Featured Table. Last year's champion, Joe Hachem is on the monitors.

Here is my WSOP rundown:

1. After 2 hours, I had about 12,000 chips after starting with 10,000
2. After 4 hours, I had about 19,000 chips as I busted out a loser with a big unlit cigar, who mumbled all the time and had showed up about 40 minutes late. For some reason he was trying to stare me down, but I've already been stared down by the King of Stares, Jay Lakumb, so I was immune. I guess he thought I was bluffing because I had a Queen high flush and he had a pair of Jacks and there was also another Queen on the board.
3. After 6 hours, I had about 15,000 chips and it was dinner break
4. I goofed on dinner and got stuck in a really slow restaurant and got back late to the table and missed a couple of hand. I wasn't back in the same groove as before. I should have slowed down, looked at my rules again.
5. Monica Reeves, the poker & blackjack pro from Canada, was sitting to my right and to her right was another pro from Australia. I just didn't realize that they both were "the Grinder" because I hadn't heard of them. They were the ones I needed to stay away from on day one. She went all in for her last 10,000 chips and was doing some big time "Hollywooding" (over-acting), but my mind was just wasn't ready to figure it out and for some reason, I thought she was trying to bluff me out of the hand and I should have realized that she knew I was playing tight (conservative), so the only way she was going to risk getting knocked out was if she knew she had the best hand, but c'est la vie, I didn't figure that out and I lost about 13,000 of my chips and only had about 2000 left, which lasted me about another 45 minutes. I wasn't pot committed and if she bluffed me out, I still would have only been a little bit under the average chips.
6. I stole some blinds twice without getting called. Unfortunately, one time I had pocket Aces and wanted to get called, but then I went out when the pro from Oz had pocket Kings to my A-Q and didn't improve. I ended up playing about a little over 7 hours.
7. Today would have been my second day of playing and after getting a good night's sleep in my own bed, I was still tired, so it would have been all adrenaline and power bars to get through day 2.
8. I think that whoever wins will really deserve it and it's just as mentally & physically gruelling as the Tour de France.
9. The final count was: Players 8,773 Prize Pool $82,512,162
10. I was sitting right behind the guy with the Nemo hat. I guess he wanted his photo taken, so it worked
11. PartyPoker.net paid $22 Million to have their logo on every table, so all logowear with .com was banned, hence the need for massive duct tape as seen on my hat below.
12. I didn't get on TV, at least not that I know of, but I did get mentioned in the PokerStars blog - http://www.pokerstarsblog.com/2006/07/wsop-main-event-day-1c-begins.html
13. The third photo below is Daniel Negraneau getting interviewed - he said he thought the final table would be at least 8 out of 9 players that nobody had ever heard of.

Click on the photos for larger images.