Wsop 2006

With just a week to go before the opening of the World Series of Poker 2007, I thought I would look back at my thoughts a week before last year's WSOP. How much of what we (I) thought would happen at the 2006 event did happen and what about this year.

Last year's words are in italics and today's comments are in bold.

June 19th, 2006

All true: everything was bigger at WSOP 2006; this year we expect a mixture of bigger (like the number of events) and smaller (like the number of entries in the Main Event).

Marcus from I'm not sure where wrote in a while back wondering:

Dan,

Long time reader, first time writer. I was reading today about the PPV offering of ESPN of the final table tomorrow. My question is, how are they going to prevent people from watching the coverage and relaying the information to the players in the tourney. I'm sure that this has been thought out, but I have not seen any blogs or news explaining what all will be on the PPV (pocket cams, etc.) or if there will be a delay.

Any inside info?

Thanks,
Marcus

Marcus, that is a great question. And truth be told, I don't really know the answer. But I bet someone here does. I am thinking the live coverage had to be done on a 5- or 10-minute delay, similar to the various "live" events put on by Full Tilt and Fox Sports. I do know that the TV's showing the final table at the Rio simply didn't show what the hole-card cams were seeing.

Actually, if I recall, while listening to Phil Gordon in the media room, I DO seem to remember knowing when Jamie Gold was bluffing, and when Allen Cunningham ran into a very unlucky river. But since we were sitting some 100 years or more away from the action, I am not certain what sorta delay there was. Amy? Shrink? Jen B.? Do any of you have some hard facts on this? It's a relevant question as I expect/hope to see more "live" coverage in the future.

As many of you and Change100 noticed Harrah's seems to have fired their first bullet (blow? peep? hint?....) by having the announcers on the ESPN broadcast mention the missing chips and then NOT COMMENT FURTHER. I have to say that for commentators who had no problem dumping and redumping on Mr. Friedman and Mr. Lisandro for their behavior last week; this seems awfully mild for a Two Million Chip mistake. You think they had Mr. Chad by the throat? or perhaps the wallet!

We have been told by several sources that the Harrah's investigation is complete and we should expect a press release "within days." Methinks we already have heard the party line.

We have also been told by several "higher" sources that the investigation is not complete but there will be an official statement "by next week."

Remember Mel Gibson's character in Conspiracy Theory? OK, its a non-religious film and yes that was Lyle Lovett's wife as his romantic/stalker interest. Mel's role was Jerry Fletcher, the a man who sees conspiracies everywhere.

"But if you keep doing this long enough, sooner or later you're going to get one right."

Well both Amy and I (and dozens of internet posters) have made humorous remarks about conspiracy theories regarding the Chip Screw-Up at the WSOP. In our lastest article, we added a private email address [TwoMillionChips@yahoo.com] to receive tips, rumors and information that might be out there in the hands of people who do not want to be named in print or who might fear for their jobs.

We have gotten some replies and one in particular was just perfectly "Jerry". Our 4th article contained reponses from the poker community and included a discussion on the use of micro-chipped chips. Our "Jerry" feels we are missing the graver consequences of this technology:

"Legalizing microchipping or worse than that giving themselves absolute power in the event they get caught trying to do so by the electorate is equivalent to handing over any and all rights as guaranteed by the constitution to your enemy."

The only reason I don't find this completely absurd is:

"....sooner or later you're going to get one right!"

This one is more than a rumor. It actually happened. The Main Event (10,000 starting chips) had 878 starting tables spread over four days with alternates (2080 were seated to start each day). All rounds were 90 minutes and, of course, all tables played the same structure.

Except one....

Near the end of Day One D, it was discovered that a single table, including 1998 Main Event Champion Scotty Nguyen, had been playing the entire first level with 25/25 blinds; while the other 8763 players played their first round at 25/50.

Oopsie!

It's been about ten days since Amy Calistri and I put up our series of articles on the Mystery Two Million Chips in the WSOP Main Event. We have been hearing from a lot of professional players, final table players, tournament officials and you. So we wrote a fourth article on the Poker Community Responses. We have comments from Daniel Negreanu, Barry Greenstein, Gavin Smith, Andy Bloch and others. And because PokerBlog allows us to write what other sites will not, we are going to share with our audience here some of the more "suspect" items, rumors and gossip we have heard from the world of poker.

If you have something you would like included but a bit too sensitive to put in our comment section here, send it along and we'll give you some cover: TwoMillionChips@yahoo.com

OK. So Dan has let the feral cat out of the bag.

Indeed I did interview Jamie Gold along with my Hold'em Radio co-host Lou Krieger. And like Poker Shrink eluded to - this interview was postponed several times. And as Dan eluded to - the condition was that we could not bring up the restraining order, freezing half of Jamie's $12 million first place casharoo.

If you listen to the interview, you might find my questions and comments almost sploogey with softballs and compliments. I was testing just how far the Gold ego could go. But I have to say he was more restrained about his accomplishment in our interview than some of the earlier interviews I heard. I think our little Jamie is growing up. He also talked about setting up a charitable foundation - again a score for Gold.

My personal low point: When I tell him that "I'm hot - but not a Mom" when he asks about casting me on his new reality show "Hot Moms."

Jamie's low point: When he confesses to a situation that reeks of collusion.

But overall, I was more impressed with Gold in this interview and his enthusiam relative to being a positive spokesperson for poker. Maybe I started with low expectations. But either way, may it last...

Oh...a link? It's currently in the Show Vault, under "Keep Flopping Aces with Special Guest 2006 WSOP Champion Jamie Gold."

Poker Shrink's conspiracy theories aside -- I'm just waiting for some crazy attorney to file the class-action $10k refund lawsuit -- Richard "Lion Tales" Brodie gives some mad props to Tim and Amy for their work on the chip "scandal."

I still think scandal is a bit of an overstatement. But it is fun to see real journalism introduce itself to big-time poker operations. I gotta wonder if big-time-poker officials aren't giving more serious consideration to Andy Bloch and the others who have been wondering why can't we move to computer-chipped tournament chips.

ON THE POKER ROAD: I would apologize for again pimping the articles Amy and I wrote about the "extra" 2 mllion chips in the WSOP but Amy taught me long ago that shameless self promotion is definitely about 'loving the one you are always with'.

So, let's talk numbers:

With 8,773 entrants the Main Event of the 2006 World Series of Poker should have had 87,730,000 chips in play. However, by the final table there were officially 90,140,000 total chips on the table, which works out to 2,410,000 too many.

Now our articles suggest that about 2 million of those excess chips came from a floor staff mistake during a color-up but we now hear that Harrah's will admit to that mistake but more in the range of 1.75 million.

This leaves us wondering, if there had not been a mistake of 1.75 million or 2 million.... Would we still be wondering about those "other" chips. I mean do the math. If the mistake was 2 million then where did those other 410,000 chips come from and if the mistake was only (did I just say "only"?) 1.75 million then how about those other 660,000 chips.

Numbers, numbers, we got more numbers.

Now we need answers, answers, more answers.

You may have noticed that I find the procedures and practices of running big field tournaments to be, well, out-dated. The size of the events these days has put more and more pressure on floor staff to create new systems to handle the overflow crowds. But why should the frontline staff be the only ones thinking about the game and why aren't the resources of the big corporate casinos being brought to bear on the new realities of poker?

Here is another example of lax security with tournament chips. Remember tournament chips represent "our money" not the casino or house money.

Perhaps the biggest security lapse at the WSOP this year took place in the early morning hours after Day 1B had ended. As was the practice at the end of each day’s play, after each table of ten players had bagged their chips and filled out the forms for the next day’s play, each table had all of the bags collected and placed in another larger “five table” bag (think Hefty), which was labeled with the table numbers of all five tables. Finally, the floor staff collected all of those black bags and moved them to the tournament cage for lock down. In the wee morning hours of Day 1B, one lonely garbage bag with 50 player’s chips was left unattended out in the tournament area until it was stumbled upon, fortunately by an off-duty tournament official.

Just a minor security oversight? No big deal? What if I tell you that the same, exact scenario happened the very next night?

If you have read the three articles Amy and I wrote about the extra chips in the WSOP Main Event, you know that a lot of people thought those chips came from players cheating. And while we pretty much dismissed those speculations in our articles, I must admit that I at first thought that was exactly what had happened. Below is a blog I wrote during the last few hours of the Final Table back on August 10th.

I didn't post it then because it just felt wrong. I could not convince myself that any player or any team of players working together could actually get over 2 million extra chips onto the tables of the Main Event. But I thought about it and I thought about it and I just tucked the thoughts away.... So today let me share with you some of my late night ponderings from a month ago.

LAS VEGAS. AUGUST 10, 2006.

I am going to tell you straight up front that the WSOP officials and staff will never answer this question. In my opinion, this single issue undermines the entire validity of the 2006 World Series of Poker Main Event.

Since Amy & I broke the story yesterday on the extra Two Million Chips in the WSOP Main Event, a lot of talk has erupted all over the net. One interesting theory is that chips from 2005 WSOP were slipped into the 2006 WSOP. Well this may have happened in the early rounds but we know that last year so many high denomination chips went missing from the Series (staff souvenirs) that all new chips were made for this year's event in the higher denominations. New chips, new colors, no match to the 2005 chips.

All of the $5,000, $10,000, $25,000 and the "mint green and chocolate" $100,000 chips were all new for 2006.

Well Dan funny you should ask about those extra WSOP chips. We have all been wondering about those extra chips in the Main Event for weeks now. Well someone found them, oh wait, it was Amy and me!

We will both (all!) have a lot more to say and we will be saying it right here on PokerBlog but if you want to see the articles now, here is the link.

UPDATE: Apparently there will be no cover-up. Harrah's officials seem ready to admit that at least 1.75 million chips were added during the $5,000 chip race-off on Day Seven of the Main Event. We will have their statement for you as soon as it is released.

This is a leftover linky post I meant to put up a while back ... but does anyone know whatever became of the "controversy" over those extra 2 million chips in the main event? I came across this interesting post by Jerrod Ankenman, co-author (with William Chen) of the forthcoming book The Mathematics of Poker, explaining how Harrah's explanation is mathematically impossible.

via Richard Brodie

Interesting Question I was asked the other day:

"How long is the World Series of Poker?"

-
I was explaining how the Series works, the number of events, two day and three day events and, of course, the two week long Main Event.

There are several answers to the question: 47 days, 46 events, 13 days of the Main, which became 12 and 9 days to the final table that became 8.

Here is the translation.

If you came to the 2006 WSOP to be there for every event, every day, then you spent 47 days in Las Vegas. There were 46 total WSOP bracelet events this year, 45 were scheduled and one was created on the fly.

Speaking of schedules, the Main Event was originally scheduled for 13 days: (4) Day Ones, (2) Day Twos, a day off; then Day Three through Nine. But during the course of Days 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7; the WSOP tournament staff decided to accelerate play and make up a full day. So , in fact, there was no Day Eight.

Players at the final table of the Main Event played a total of eight days, including five consecutive days on Days 3 thru 7.

Next year? Well rumors are that the $50,000 HORSE event will be a five day event and that the Main Event may have as many as (6) Day Ones.

How long is the World Series of Poker? Ask me again at the Rio next Summer or will it be at Caesars next Spring?

Let's take a trip in the Little Wayback Machine.

SATURDAY JULY 22, 2006: WORLD SERIES OF POKER

At the series today there are a lot of tournaments being played. First there is Day Three and the Final Table of Event #30: NLHE Short-Handed with Jeff Madsen, Erick Lindgren and Captain Tom Franklin among the final six players. Its also Day Two of the $2,000 NLHE Event #31. Also starting at noon today is Event #32: $5,000 PLHE and then at 2 PM is the start of Event #33: $1,500 Seven Card Razz.

Now that was a fun day, lots to report and lots of players to follow and a whole lot of antics. Mike Matusow and Phil Hellmuth at the same NLHE table making 'last longer' bets with Huck Seed, who was playing an entirely different event. So lost in the enjoyment of that day, here is a little story that got missed.

Around 1:45 PM I came upon the Dealer's Shift Supervisor with a clipboard and some young dealer's in tow. He was walking down a row of tables checking each dealer and asking:

"Have you dealt Razz before?"

If the answer was Yes; the dealer was replaced by one of the youngsters and the 'qualified' dealer was sent to set-up for the 2 PM Razz event. This is how the World Series of Poker staffed its Razz event. Let me remind you there had been several problems with dealers on each of the first three paydays at the Series and between 100 and 200 dealers had already left the Series by this time in the tournament.

At the next table was a dealer I knew and knew to be a long-time, highly qualified dealer but when asked the 'Razz' question, he said:

"I have never dealt Razz."

The supervisor's response:

"You’ll be fine. Take table 14."

.
WORLD Series of Poker.

Some stories grow with time, others just get distorted. I have been hunting around for the "facts" on this one and fortunately stumbled upon them over the long weekend. You know how when you are looking for something you misplaced, you always find something else you forgot you had lost..... Well this weekend I was looking for something completely different (which I promise you will hear about really soon!) but I came upon this other item I thought I might never get the real story on.

The rumor is that a player had a 5,000 chip in the Main Event before those chips were ever put on the table; and that he got tossed out of the event (perhaps temporarily) for cheating.

WRONG!

First of all, it was Event #34 $1,000 NLHE with rebuys. Some Elvis look-alike named Hellmuth eventually won it. The problem happened on Day Two. One of the floors noticed that a player at one table had a $5,000 chip and indeed those chips had (in theory) not been introduce yet. So the floor staff consulted and decided to watch the table. Now there were several intervening issues.

April, your book review seems to make it an appropriate time to dig up this leftover, unpublished podcast from the WSOP. It was recorded in the Rio poker room as our own Tuscaloosa Johnny had advanced to Day 2 of the main event and was eyeing his potential competition -- as Day 1 came to a close -- with none other than Jay Greenspan.

Click below to hear Johnny and Jay talk about how atrocious play could be at the WSOP.

"For the early levels in particular, the people don't understand deep-stack poker," Jay says regarding the prevalance of two-card poker. "They don't really understand how to play the additional streets."

MP3 File

P.S. I'm actually in Jay's book, and happened to have one of my worst sessions ever when he was in town. Should the subtitle worry me?

You may have noticed that I do not use a lot of pictures in my posts. Mostly because I have a teeny, tiny, digital camera and I am not very good with it, but I am learning. I want to thank Amy, Steve and Jennifer for those great shots I used during the Series. Today I want to talk about poker photography and one particular conversation that I overheard during the Event #38, the last tournament before the Main Event.

By this time in the Series most of the media had arrived and I had noticed that the length of the lenses on the dozens of cameras in the room was... well.... getting a lot bigger. Now I don't know much about photograpy, don't know much geneology but I just had to know why the official photographers of the WSOP, ImageMasters, had managed to shoot the entire Series up until then with only 6" and 8" lenses and now suddenly there were a lot of foot-long plus monster being wagged around.

So I talked to my buddies at Image Masters and got a quick tutorial on why size does matter but not as much as some would have you believe. I actually think I heard that from my first wife some years back and she wasn't even a photographer.

Several years ago I lived in a city with two newspapers; one very liberal and one very conservative. They managed to disagree on just about everything except sports. They had to cover the local teams and they, of course, had to root for them like any hometown media coverage. I kept wondering if they were ever going to find a way to disagree about sports. Well they finally did. The liberal newspaper started to run those short one paragraph pieces down the side on the second page in the Sports Section. You know the ones that just give you a sound byte on some story. But what they did was, each and every day, they included at least one story about a player getting busted for drugs or DUI or domestic assault. We used to make side bets in the office on which sport (NFL, NBA, MLB, Olympics or other) would take the hit each day.

So today, I introduce the 2006 WSOP Main Event Final Table "Call Your Lawyer" Line-Up.

Player Name
Richard Lee Seat 1 --8/29 House raided under investigation for illegal gambling
Erik Friberg Seat 2
Paul Wasicka Seat 3
Dan Nassif Seat 4
Allen Cunningham Seat 5
Michael Binger Seat 6
Douglas Kim Seat 7
Jamie Gold Seat 8 --8/21 Restraining Order placed on $12M first place prize money
Rhett Butler Seat 9

I have it on good authority that Paul Wasicka is innocent. Hey Paul, give me a call--Mike has the number. The rest of you guys: Get out there and bend the rules!

I got a voicemail tonight from a San Antonio friend telling me that Richard Lee had been arrested. Actually he was not arrested, but WAOI reports that vice police were searching Lee's pricey Shavano Park home this evening for evidence that he was "running an illegal gambling ring." Police reportedly have the authority to seize everything, including his cars.

A little sad. I liked Richard. He was one of the good guys sporting his San Antonio sweatshirt instead of selling his soul to Bodog or PokerStars. I smiled as he talked during his press conference about how all he cared about was God, family, and San Antonio, Texas...corny I know...but after living in San Antonio for six years, he made me miss the S.A. pride.

UPDATE: The San Antonio Express-News reports police seized a money-counting machine, five Lexus cars, plasma-screen TVs along with a large amount of cash.

Wow ES (remember that one time, you said I could call you that?) it's been soooo long since we've talked! I know we haven't hung out in ages, and I'm really sorry about that. I've been super busy; you know how it is. I did get to meet a couple of your people this summer, and most of them seemed pretty cool. Though, I have to say, I don't get how knocking someone in the head with a camera is supposed to be a greeting. But maybe it's a regional thing...

Anywho, ES, I watched the first two episodes of the Main Event coverage this week (several times) and that's why I wanted to write you. I'm pretty impressed. Things just wrapped up a few weeks ago and already you've got some pretty sharp looking footage out there. I even caught myself laughing at Norman Chad! More than once!! And I wasn't even a little drunk!!! You're probably not shocked, I know you've always thought he was funny. (But I'm telling you, I really think you're the only one!) I thought it was a little odd to run the Main Event coverage first, cause it kinda makes the rest of it anti-climactic and all that, ya know? But whatever. You do your own thing, I know.

Well while everyone takes pot shots at 2006 WSOP Champ Jamie Gold for whatever reasons, I have pretty much just watched and listened. But earlier today I had a conversation with an "inside source" and this information just showed up. He or she was talking about the extra perks that some players get at tournaments, I will write about those later but let's stick with Mr. Gold for now.

It has been widely reported that Jamie Gold had body guards during the later stages of the Main Event. I can verify that they attempted to do their "we are with the big shot" thing on me once. Didn't work because two of the guards were guys I knew from my 7 weeks at the Rio and they stopped to chat a bit, instead of guarding the chipleader body.

But my inside source tells me that the guards came at Mr. Gold's request and the request came in the form of:

"Do you know who I am? I can't have strangers talking to me in the men's room."

So the 4th Day chipleader got three personal Rio security guards for three days and then six guards for the final two days. All of this because he was being treated the same as:

Scotty Nguyen, Chris Ferguson, Doyle Brunson, Chip Jett, Barry Greenstein, Gavin Smith, Phil Hellmuth, Daniel Negreanu and I won't even mention what Jennifer, Cyndy, Annie and Liz go through just to get to their cars each and every day.

The price of fame Mr. Gold? or just vanity.

Yes, the World Series is long over. OK, its been a couple of weeks. As I unwind from seven weeks in the desert, I have also discovered some tidbits I never gave you during the Series. Little bits of paper with scribbled notes. Half written articles stashed in a desktop file called "stuff" or "other". Well what better fodder for a Sunday morning blog. Here is my first installment of WSOP Leftovers.

On one of the Day Ones of the Main Event I was hanging out with the Spaceman over in that lost corner of the main room, when a loud celebration began a few tables away. Apparently, someone hit "the" card on the river and then went into a long and loud dance and rant. Now the general concensus among the players, staff, media and anyone with half a brain is that hitting a one or two-outer on the river is indeed worth a shout or a fist pump or a long, loud sigh. However, the extended celebrations involving both verbal antics and leaping about the card room neglects the fact that:

"Someone just lost that hand, you ignorant suck-out weenie. And jumping around like a drunken teenager is just bad sportsmanship. Sit the hell down and learn a little class."

Now this celebration went on long enough for us to remember Mattias Andersson from the 2004 WSOP and his long and loud:

"DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!"

For those who have forgotten him that's Mattias in the photo at the 2004 Final Table. Apparently lots of people would like to forget him, as he has been the poster child for bad table manners for several years. Right about the time our current overexuberant player was settling down, we heard Mattias mentioned at the table near us. Joe Hachem, 2005 WSOP Champion, was telling the story that last year just before his Main Event final table, he got a transatlantic call from Mattias, who said that even his mother told him that his behavior was "obnoxious" and the young Swede wanted to know what Joe felt about his antics the year before.

Reigning Champion Joe told his table:

“I couldn’t lie to the guy, I told him—'Yes, you really were a bit of a jerk kid!'”

Here's some more good info on the Jamie Gold lawsuit from our good friends at Wicked Chops, and even more from those krone-schmucks at Pokerati.

As I dig more into this, it's becoming clear that Jamie Gold certainly is no Greg Raymer (and that with Gold's "win" Bodog officially becomes the bad-boys). But at the same time, I am wondering about the reasons behind the suit. Was Crispin Leyser unhappy with his promised "half" coming after-taxes? Surely that can't be it ... so obviously Crispin knows something we don't.

Will be fun when it all becomes part of the public record.

Thursday Aug 24th..Now how long has it been since I was in the box?

You would think as much trouble as we had working with Harrahs this wsop, they could get something right..Where is Our Money...I havent even received the check that most dealers got Aug 10th for our hourly rate.

And so its easy to assume I havent received my check for the two weeks I dealt the main event..

I talked to some dealer friends some have checks,which most say are short downs...most doesnt.
So I guess Harrahs made plenty interest off our money,just as they did the players..

And before you ask..Yes I filled out all the exit forms,etc before I left,just as I was asked so I would get my checks more quickly, as was told.

You would think such a huge company would have a payroll dept. that knew what they were doing..

I entered the media room at the Rio three weeks ago. Three weeks later than most, and truthfully, I was years behind writers and bloggers who crowded the room. Jen Leo, Amy Calistri, Change 100, Pauly McGuire, April Kyle and others were among some of the poker reporter veterans. I had my work cut out for me, and I had so much to learn.

When I signed on with PartyPoker, I was supposed to be a photographer, but in less than 24 hours of arriving in Vegas, my assignment had varied. I would be blogging on PokerBlog too. I started with player profiles of Party’s online qualifiers. It seemed relatively easy. Find the player, get the shot, get their info, and get it up on the blog…but it wasn’t so cut and dry.

While most players had the same story (freeroll or satellite winner), I had to find the offline story. There was the guy who rescheduled his kidney surgery just to play in the WSOP, the Mary Kay lady who doubled up against Joe Hachem, and the custodian who learned to play eight months ago playing live poker for the first time. The more I approached players for their stories, the more I got to know them and looked forward to following them.

If spending a summer in Vegas for the WSOP is like sex, you never forget your first. And as coming years might continue the analogy, there's a first time, and then there's a first time. Jeffrey Pollack called the 2006 WSOP a work in progress, and I'd like to think that way, too. Nothing could compare to the intoxication I felt last year just from being in the room and hearing the sound of the chips being riffled, stacked, and splashed. It continues to be the the reason I give to anyone who plays even a little poker about why they should come by for a day. Because that sound is special.

In the year between 2005 and 2006 I learned a lot about poker, how to watch it, and how to take notes. Last year I would've paid anything to take a poker writing class. Phil Gordon had told me quickly, "Jen, there's no future in chip counting. You have to get the real story."

With that, I'd like to say that my favorite piece that I wrote for poker blog was about Scott Malone. And since I posted it here on PokerBlog, two of his local newspapers have been in touch with me to use the photos for their own pieces about Scott.

Read Scott Malone and the Bear Creek Rounders to hear a story about a small town Kansas man who played with his home game for 40 weeks on a chance to play in the Main Event at the World Series. There are some interesting twists to the story, and like anyone would suggest, look into the story behind the story.

When it was all over, I slipped out the back door by the dealers’ tent to get some air. The 5 AM sky was growing light over the Strip, the first rays of pink peeking out from behind the mountains. I held the door open for a trio of ESPN cameramen as they loaded out their equipment and took in a lungful of arid desert air. Less than an hour after Hollywood agent Jamie Gold claimed victory in the WSOP Main Event, all who had made a home at the Rio over the last five weeks were dispersing to the winds. It was on to the next assignment, the next tournament, the next city on the circuit.

Everyone was fried. Sleep-deprived. Tweaking on too much sugar and caffiene. Some were on tilt after watching Gold hit hand after hand after hand, seemingly invincible behind his mountain of eighty million billion chips, effortlessly swatting aside world-class opponents like Allen Cunningham with the turn of a card. I was one of them. I’ll admit being a little pissed that he won, and so easily. It made for a pretty boring final table. Sort of like a Lord of the Rings movie without the battle sequences. You know Frodo’s gonna make it to the volcano or whatever and drop that ring inside. Just imagine if he and his pals hadn’t run into the slightest bit of trouble along the way. Where’s your epic now, huh?

Unfortunately, I caught a nasty cold that had me down for the count the last two days of the WSOP. I tried to soldier on for a bit on Thursday, but just couldn't cut it and headed for the comfort of my MGM bed.

Like most of you readers I discovered who won the WSOP by logging on and reading PokerBlog. Congratulations to Jamie Gold for achieving the dream 8,772 fellow main event participants had. May Gold be a great ambassador for the game as it gears up for what will be a major discussion with Congress in the coming years on the future of online poker. There's no doubt the effect that the online game has had on the growth of poker offline (8,773 participants in the WSOP being proof number one) and to pull the plug on the online game would certainly reverberate within the real world poker community.

It's always sad to see the WSOP come to an end. There is no other tournament like it in the world; truly nothing comes close. Other tournaments offer trophies, rings or watches to the winners, but there is nothing that compares to a WSOP bracelet. Thousands of professional, intermediate and rank amateur players traveled to their Mecca this summer. Most of them went home empty handed (or with empty wallets), but almost all of them returned with great stories and the experience of a lifetime.

This summer also marked a major change in my life, as my one-year journey through the tournament circuit has now come to a close. I'm returning to Tuscaloosa tomorrow and starting graduate school in a couple of weeks. My goal had always been to play the WSOP main event in 2006 and I was glad I could achieve that goal. No, I didn't go deep in the tournament or become an instant millionaire, but I was able to cash and that was just gravy really.

Thanks to Party Poker and Dan Michalski for putting this blogging team together. I've met new people and made friendships I expect to last for years to come and I've also enjoyed the chance to write about poker and the WSOP on a new platform. As Amy said, this was an experiment that came off very well -- and I hope it will continue.