Privately, I thought maybe the 2005 WSOP was really Woodstock, with everyone enjoying the good vibe of the post-Moneymaker boom and the nod to history by holding the final table for the last time at the Horseshoe. That would have meant the 2006 WSOP was Altamont, which certainly fit: uncontrolled crowds, absence of order, authority figures we didn’t trust. The 2 million unaccounted chips were the poker equivalent of someone getting stabbed by the Hells Angels during Sympathy for the Devil.

But I couldn’t use that analogy for the foreshadowing I wanted to suggest. After all, if 2005 was Woodstock and 2006 was Altamont, what would that make 2007? What would be WORSE than Altamont? Disco?

You still got the picture, right? I thought signs pointed toward something really bad at the 2007 World Series.

Nothing about the first couple days of the Series suggested otherwise. The lines were ridiculously long even though they were ridiculously long at the beginning of the 2006 Series. Then there was the playing-card fiasco.

But you know what? Harrah’s won me over. I know everyone doesn’t agree, and I have a lot of qualifiers. I believe, however, that they are backing up their claims of caring about the players, caring about poker, and caring about the institution of the World Series of Poker. For two years, they’ve talked the talk. I think the signs are unmistakable that, in 2007, they’ve started walking the walk.

I noticed a HUGE difference in how the Series was run in 2007 from 2006. I don’t know if it simply took a year for the Pollack regime to understand what it really meant to do right by the players, the game, and the institution. Or maybe it was the blowback from their shabby treatment of dealers (and resulting poor quality of work) in 2006. Or perhaps the Players Advisory Council did better or was listened to more. Or the color-up catastrophe of 2006 served as a wake-up call. Or maybe all of the above.

Overall, two conclusions are inescapable: (1) The 2007 WSOP was a much better experience than the 2006 Series; and (2) Pollack et al. care about the players (while also caring about things that may be inconsistent with what the players want, like making Harrah’s money). To reach these conclusions, I tried to look at as many aspects of the just-concluded World Series of Poker as I could. In some, Harrah’s did a very good job. In others, they definitely improved, either from 2006 to 2007 or from the beginning of the 2007 Series to the end of it (or both). In still others, it’s clear that even where there were problems, it’s not fair to blame Harrah’s alone, at least not presumptively. And there were a few things that stunk and continue to stink, though my conclusions on all the other elements suggest that there’s a reasonable chance they’ll do better next time.

This is how it all looked to me:

THE MONEY SHOT

Harrah’s makes a lot of money from the World Series of Poker. I’m generalizing over a lot of categories and a lot of people, but I think they have more streams of revenue than most people realize (the business everyone at the Series does in the restaurants and shops and especially in the pits, ESPN, internet coverage, radio, pay-per-view, deals with all the marketing partners from Milwaukee’s Best to Planters and Hershey, WSOP logo merchandise, etc. etc. etc.) though some of them may be worth less (at least in the near term) than people think (e.g., some of the high-profile companies starting relationships with Harrah’s and the WSOP, like Planters and Hershey, are probably not paying Partypoker.net-type money).

I think that’s all fine. If you play poker to win, you’re a capitalist, and we have to recognize that Harrah’s bought the World Series of Poker – Steve Wynn could have bought it, Doyle Brunson could have bought it, you and I could have bought it, but it was Harrah’s that followed through – and they are entitled to all the profits they are able to make. It would be legal, but not really sporting, if they took advantage of the situation, and I’m sure that’s what many people believe is the case.

I’m not willing to assume it, though. Let’s look at what they charge and what we get. I think (a) they are entitled to charge what the market will bear and it will definitely bear what they are charging; (b) compared with what the Bellagio charged for the Bellagio Cup, Harrah’s was not crazy with the rake; (c) they are taking risks and making investments and building the brand but they are making more money apart from the rake than anyone else who runs a poker tournament, so they should take that in consideration when deciding what to charge us; (d) they are generally NOT greedy about the intellectual property rights of players; and (e) the business of how to cut the players in on some of their revenue streams is very complicated.

I’ll try to explain all that. First, the market says charging 9% rake for a $1,500 event isn’t too much. The $1,500 no-limit hold ‘em events were mob scenes, averaging over 2,500 players. It’s hard to say how much of an arm’s-length transaction the relationship between $1,500 hold ‘em entrant and Harrah’s is. Certainly, the player can choose not to play, but it’s the WORLD SERIES. I can’t applaud Harrah’s if they are taking advantage of the situation, but I can’t condemn it either, at least not very strongly.

Besides, look what they are charging for the $50,000 HORSE: 4% or $2,000 per player. These are the highest-stakes players in the world, and this event was invented for the 2006 Series – in part by the Players Advisory Committee – and Harrah’s instantly exploited it for ESPN, even spreading it to five days and adding extra TV coverage. If Doyle Brunson and Chip Reese and Andy Bloch and Howard Lederer are willing to pay $2,000 apiece, who’s willing to say they are foolish for doing so?

When I looked at what the Bellagio charged for the Bellagio Cup, which ran concurrent with part of the World Series, I thought it was about half what Harrah’s charged for the Series. Bellagio charged 6% on its $1,500 events, just under 5% on $2,500 events, and about 3% on the $5,000 events and the $10,000 WPT Main Event.

But they raked twice: Bellagio takes a fee on top of the entry and then they take some of the prize pool. I don’t have their tournament documentation handy but if you look at the payouts for their events, it’s pretty clear. For their $5,000 NLHE event on June 22, they had 48 players and a prize pool of $232,800. The entry, however, was $5,000 + $180. So they charged $8,640 (the $180 from each of the 48 players) AND took $7,200 from the gross entry pool of $240,000 ($5,000 x 48). [Incidentally, I’m pretty sure the Bellagio discloses all this to players. I just don’t have the payout sheets in front of me.] The players put up a total of $248,640 and were paying $15,840 of that to the Bellagio and/or its dealers and staff. If a WSOP $5,000 event had the same number of players, Harrah’s would take out 6%, but that means they are taking LESS (albeit from a smaller pool) than Bellagio, $14,400 from a pool of $240,000.

I’m not saying Bellagio charges too little or too much. I’m not saying their quality of facilities is better or worse than Harrah’s and the Rio. I’m not saying a 48-player event costs more or less to run than the giant events operating daily at the World Series. But I am saying that Harrah’s is not off-the-charts crazy compared with what other venues are charging.

A lot of people probably won’t believe this, but I think Harrah’s wants to find a way to cut the players in. (The easiest way, of course, would be simply not raking as much.) You notice how these guys are very good at lining up corporate partners and finding new things to make money from at the Series – Planters, the official nut of the World Series of Poker? They are clearly adept at figuring out ways to exploit the World Series brand. Yet they have not gone out of their way – in contrast to the World Poker Tour – to lock up the players’ intellectual property rights.

They could probably get away with it. The WPT gets away with it; they are being sued but it’s a tiny minority of players who have gone to the trouble, and nearly everyone else is still playing the events (including at least one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit). Harrah’s knows how to charge a high rake, so it’s not like they are afraid of making players unhappy.

Yet they don’t. Their release is NOT a ridiculous abuse of power. I’ve seen them personally deal with players who had problems signing the release and showing flexibility in working it out. (I saw, first hand, the OPPOSITE behavior from Steve Lipscomb on this issue.) I don’t think they want to take advantage of the players. But because the players don’t have an overall negotiating entity, they can’t work out a simple way for compensating players other than involving a few individual players in deals they have with sponsors/partners, like the video game companies.

Maybe I’ll be proven dead wrong on this, but I don’t think so. I believe Harrah’s is looking for a way to clarify what they make on the Series and cut the players in on some aspect of it.

It wouldn’t be an inappropriate gesture, to start, for Harrah’s to lower the rake on the televised events. After all, they make extra for those particular events because of the TV deal, right?

Now, let’s talk about the operation of the Series itself.

LONG LINES

I don’t know whether Harrah’s should put this in the win column or the loss column. There were HORRIBLE lines at the beginning to register, hours long, even in the middle of the night. And then it cleared up and wasn’t a problem for the rest of the Series. Kudos for straightening it out. But why was it a problem to begin with?

That said, they have to do something about the process of getting people paid. I know some delay is inevitable if the bubble bursts and they have to process 25 or 50 players at a time. But there MUST be a faster way of doing it.

First, they had computers set up all around the payout room, but I think they were props. Most of information they asked for was already provided when I initially registered (or was certainly provided by the second or third time I got paid during the Series), yet they still asked for and hand-wrote all the information on a form. Second, there were multiple levels of clerks and places to march around. First you had to get the floorperson to give you the bust-out ticket. Then someone in the bleachers noted your information. Then you went to the payout room where you gave them your players card and ID. And then you waited, a prisoner really because there’s no way for you to leave the property while they have your identification. After the wait, someone with a big, underused computer would take your information, give you a tax receipt and assign you to a valet who would accompany you to the cashier’s cage. And if there was a wait at any point up to now, there would also be one at the cage.

VARIETY OF EVENTS

This was a winner from the start. They had lots of mixed events and provided many, many more non-no-limit hold’ em events. I counted about 10 new events in 2007, either mixed events or forms of poker they didn’t have in 2006. And there was still plenty of no-limit hold ‘em.

DEALERS AND FLOORSTAFF

Huge improvement from what I could see, from 2006 to 2007. I don’t know the details but I remember dealers complaining bitterly about their treatment during 2006 and I had the impression that they weren’t making what dealers ought to be making. With few exceptions, the quality of dealers was just fine, keeping in mind that they needed about 1,000 a day. Likewise, I didn’t hear much about the job the floor did in making rulings and running the events smoothly – which is usually the biggest compliment you can give tournament administration.

When I explained the controversy surrounding David Singer’s elimination from the tournament (Posts ## 199-201), I was surprised that several of the comments I got attacked David and defended Harrah’s decision. Attacking David was unwarranted, but that sentiment is FAR from the way people would treat a controversial decision by the floor in 2006. People ASSUMED back then that if the floor decided something that wasn’t clear, that they were wrong. The sentiment has reversed, and good for Harrah’s that they’ve won some confidence.

THE AMAZON ROOM

By the way, Harrah’s had a good idea from the start by having the tournament in the Amazon Room. It’s a haul from inside the casino but it’s great from outside the casino – so good that I sometimes took my car from the garage outside the Masquerade Tower and drove to the convention center.

Good job on the look of the Amazon Room. The fabric pictures of the champions were beautiful. The lighting was very good. The final table stadium was much better this year than last year.

I had a problem with the timers. Because they were at floor level along walls, they were in one of the few places non-players could stand/gather. There was almost always – I’m talking about, say 90 times out of 100 – somebody in my line of sight when I wanted to see the length of time left in a level, unless I was seated directly in front of the timer. I don’t blame Harrah’s for this; it’s just something to work on.

Maybe take those overhead monitors with the chip counts – which weren’t comprehensive or updated anyway – and put the timers there.

THE GOLDILOCKS/MENOPAUSE PAVILION

Let me first say that the air conditioning situation at the World Series of Poker is proof positive that Harrah’s is not going out of its way to fatten its bottom line. It’s always freezing in the Amazon Room and often freezing in the pavilion (though it’s sometimes broiling only inches away). Cold in the desert costs money. If anything, they are spending TOO MUCH because it’s almost always too cold.

The pavilion was, literally, coming apart at the seams by the end of the Series. I don’t think they could have anticipated that so many people spending so many hours in that room for so many different events could have aged that tent so much. I hope they break down and annex one of the other convention rooms. I know that’s revenue they’re foregoing but as they correctly determined for the main event, no one wanted to play a $10,000 event (for which Harrah’s was receiving $600 plus all the other streams of revenue) to play poker in something that felt like the LOST IN SPACE set. A lot of revenue is generated from all the action that went on there. Time to give us an actual room.

SEQUESTATORIUM

Obviously, it would have been nice for the people in the room to see Phil Hellmuth win his 11th bracelet. And I heard a couple unattributed, unnamed instances of people whose families couldn’t see them play at the final table. But …

First, more coverage of more events by more media is a good thing. Even better if they players can more directly capitalize but generally better in any event. Second, as I understand it, it was the PAC who pushed for a more severe form of sequestration. I applaud them for considering the integrity of the final table. And I think we have to cut Harrah’s a little slack if we’re unhappy with it. Third, this is the kind of thing I think Harrah’s will fix up. The room gets better each year, the final table stadium gets better each year. This was the first year of the Cone of Silence. Give it time.

FOOD

I think they have to work on this. Two years ago, they didn’t have much more than some guy peddling sandwiches out in the hall. The poker kitchen was a big improvement for 2006, located in what’s now the Menopause Pavilion.

Time for another upgrade. Maybe I’m jaded because I was there for the whole Series, but the selections were too limited for a 48-day prisoner. And frankly, it seemed like the stuff was reheated under those lamps for too long. They’re back down to bad-quality-airport-food level. There was also some issue that they didn’t have cartons or containers to take the food to go. I learned this the first and last time I ordered hot food during the Series. What’s that about?

And let’s take a flame thrower to that horrific restaurant between the casino and the convention center. Who ever heard of a coffee shop in a casino that closes at 9 PM? Especially when you’ve got hundreds of playing until 2 or 3 AM, many of whom don’t go on dinner break until 9. The fucking Gold Spike has a coffee shop that’s open all night. What kind of drugs was the food-service executive on who hatched that place? (By the way, even when it’s open, the place is empty, so maybe I should argue for even shorter hours.)

If you can’t make money selling food at the World Series of Poker, you can’t make money. Maybe there’s a jurisdictional issue – I don’t see Jeffrey Pollack and Ty Stewart donning hairnets and slinging hash – but this is the kind of problem that someone ought to be able to fix.

THE PLAYING CARDS

Positive: before the Series started, they brought KEM back and decided to start each day and each table with a fresh deck. As a writer, I have to take issue with this because that meant there was so much less to write about in 2007. Consequently, without being able to harp on the shabby playing cards, I committed to playing more events.

Negative: the new design they developed for the start of the Series was a disaster.

Positive: They were TRYING at least. The design was supposed to be something the players liked. It just didn’t work out that way.

Non-negative: Harrah’s gets, at most, only partial fault for this. U.S. Playing Card should have been expert at this. Also, I understand that the design was by committee. They got a lot of input from different people, so they didn’t screw up by themselves.

Positive: Jeffrey Pollack didn’t hide. He bore the boos and announced new cards were being rushed to Vegas. They arrived quickly enough that Jeffrey left unstated the possibility the trucks had armed guards with orders to shoot to kill anyone crossing in their path. So Pollack faced a hostile group of players and fixed it. That’s the most you can ask for when something gets messed up. For me, that was a turning point.

PLAYERS ADVISORY COUNCIL

I heard about a number of things that were done in consultation with the PAC. From what I hear, a lot of top players are giving advice – and Harrah’s is always considering it, sometimes following it – on issues like events to run, structures, payouts, etc. This also means on some of the things people are complaining about – like the SequesterDome – it’s not fair to just assume that Jeffrey Pollack is shooting from the hip.

I’m sure there are things I haven’t given adequate attention here. I know there are questions and complaints about the tournament structures and payout percentages. But I also know the PAC was somewhat involved in those, and it’s hard to get a consensus on what’s right, and Harrah’s is trying to get input and be fair.

I also haven’t talked about Harrah’s dedication to charity, which is a positive thing. They picked up the tab for the VIP suite, so the Nevada Cancer Institute could charge $1,000 per player for access during the Series and it all went to the Institute. They did some nice things with Phil Gordon’s and Rafe Furst’s cancer charity and did a great job helping with Annie Duke’s and Don Cheadle’s Ante-Up for Africa. Phil and Annie both specifically told me how helpful Harrah’s WSOP executives were.

CONCLUSION

Overall, recognizing that most poker players are skeptical and complain a lot, I have to say Harrah’s did a good job. They did some things well. More important, they IMPROVED. They EVOLVED. They frequently seemed interested in finding out what the players wanted – which is usually a lot harder than it sounds – and worked toward it. They made mistakes, but they frequently learned from them or fixed them.

Arguably, the players should own the World Series of Poker. If the players didn’t show up, that asset – which I think is worth, conservatively, $500 million and possibly a lot more – is worthless.

But the players don’t own it. Harrah’s does. And unless the players pony up $500 million-plus, it’s going to stay that way. It’s possible the owner of the World Series of Poker could screw up so bad that the value of the Series is impair or even destroyed.

I can tell that this group isn’t going to let that happen. The Series survived the feud among the Binions, Ted Binion’s murder, a shutdown by the government, and a resurrection of the Series on the fly just as it was soaring in value. Jeffrey Pollack, Ty Stewart, and Jack Effel have proven that they can make mistakes – but they’ve also proven they can learn from them and fix them. And in doing so, they have demonstrated that they care. No matter how much we have to complain about – and sometimes it’s a lot – that secret ingredient of caring makes all the difference.

I am completing it on Sunday, July 22. I thought that the five intervening days would give me some perspective, though I was wrong. What I felt at the time was exactly what I feel now: a sense that I had shared in something very special. I spent those last few hours thanking everyone I knew – Phil Gordon, Gary Wise, Cory Zeidman, Chris Ferguson, Andy Bloch, Michelle Claiborne, and probably 20 others.

It has been a magical World Series. Of course, cashing in my first event and then making final tables in two of my last four events capped the experience. But there was so much more. I released the book I wrote and edited with the Full Tilt pros, and its reception in the poker community thrilled me on a daily basis. I found interesting things to write about, sometimes where I expected to find them and sometimes in the most unlikely places.

For example, when I explained to Lisa Wheeler just HOW great the experience was, I said, “On the fifth day of the World Series, someone broke through a window of my car and stole my navigation system. Even THAT turned out to be a great experience.” How else would I have been able to negotiate extra-fast service in exchange for giving 1% of my action to the auto-glass guy? How else would I have received – and then turned down – a chance to bunk with Clonie Gowen and Shannon Elizabeth? And how else would I have ended up trapped in Clonie’s shower with her stolen underpants if not because I had to invite myself to dinner to save face to all the guys who howled when I revealed I turned down that invitation?

But the best part was the people. It seems odd that poker is such a solitary experience and yet my enduring memories of the World Series are mostly about the time I got to spend with friends.

And that was driven home repeatedly as Tuesday night bled into Wednesday morning. Away from the crowd of the final table stadium was the ESPN studio, with Phil Gordon and Ali Nejad as hosts. All day and all night, a steady stream of guests arrived to appear for a few minutes on the pay-per-view broadcast. It was like a parade of all my friends from the 2007 World Series of Poker.

CHRIS FERGUSON – THE OTHER JESUS ON TUESDAY

One of the first people I saw in this corner of the Amazon Room was Chris Ferguson. I remember being thrilled when Chris and Annie Duke made a final table together in the Omaha EOB/Stud EOB event. It was Ferguson’s first final table in two years and their first final table together. I cancelled my first trip home to visit my family, then was stuck in Vegas – but not watching the final table – when my car was broken into.

Chris also became part of my Series routine because of his tireless efforts to disseminate the STRATEGY GUIDE. There are pictures of him all over the internet reading it during the World Series and he would ask me for a copy or two every time we were near the Amazon Room. His wrath could be mighty – okay, I’m making that up but his mock disbelief was no fun – if I didn’t have a copy with me when he asked.

When I saw Chris on Tuesday afternoon, I asked him about his post-Series plans. To my surprise, his highest priority was putting in some serious time on Full Tilt. He was back at work in his quest to turn his account from zero dollars to $10,000. As many of you are probably aware, he started by playing freerolls. With a few hard-won freeroll dollars and rigid bankroll management rules, Chris is up to about $2,200.

It’s a remarkable achievement and he has no plans to slow down. In fact, he told me about a bunch of related potential projects: updates on his web site, a book, and a new target.

As was always the case when I was with Ferguson near the Amazon Room, he was besieged by people who want his picture. When a particularly large group each wanted to pose individually with him – I have NEVER seen him turn down a request from a fan – we separated. I saw Cory Zeidman nearby, walked over to say hello, and the next thing I knew Chris Ferguson was on television.

CORY ZEIDMAN

Cory sat to my left during the first night of the SHOE (see Entry #195). I instantly liked the guy and the hours I spent with him Tuesday evening confirmed my judgment: smart guy, funny, a straight shooter, and with a perfect-sized chip on his shoulder. Cory was originally supposed to go on the broadcast at 5 or 6 PM. (Who can follow time in such a surreal place as the Amazon Room, at such a surreal time as the final table of the Main Event?)

I know it wasn’t later than 6 PM because we spent some time talking and I left for 7 PM dinner plans. It was sometime after 11 PM when he actually went on – and he’s not a patient, laid-back guy.

It was actually hilarious, talking about a variety of unrelated subjects (a poker show he’s hosting on the Game Show Network, his preference for Stud over Hold ‘Em and for limit over no-limit, the debate over who’s the best player in the world, why everyone was making such big initial raises at the final table, and a bunch of other things), and periodically busting his balls over his interminable wait. First, they got backed up during the first few hours, so the area outside the studio looked like a high-stakes bus terminal. Second, Cory was supposed to go on with Jennifer Harman (they have a famous WSOP TV-table history, including a hand where Cory’s straight flush beat Jen’s full house and, due to a misunderstanding regarding the bets, she thought he slowrolled her on the final call) but Jennifer was playing at the Bellagio. I don’t know if she didn’t want to leave the game when she was winning or didn’t want to leave the game when she was losing – maybe both, at different times. But she held out the possibility, if they called her just before it was time, that she would try to make it.

Maybe her indecision, I suggested to Cory, is her means of getting back at you for the supposed slowroll. Then I started coming up with a list of ever more obscure poker names who were coming to the studio at this moment to appear while he continued to wait. (The funniest of them was ME, as I got the call from Eric Drache to appear before Zeidman actually went on. I was actually back at my computer outside the media center, returned to the studio where Cory was waiting, and told him, “They said they wanted to have me on just before you. But they’ll get to you right away, promise.”

What I really wanted to do was go on WITH Cory Zeidman. He’s so sharp and funny that I could have played of his mock anger at having to wait so long to appear on the broadcast. (At least I THINK it was mock anger.)

MIKE MATUSOW TAKES A CURTAIN CALL

Mike went on with Shawn Shiekhan (while Cory was still waiting). Mike had a great World Series, but just below the radar screen. He missed making a final table in a No-Limit Hold ‘Em event by one hand and finished in the money in the $50,000 HORSE. He also had a lot of chips late in a few events where he ran into some awful luck; one Stud Eight-or-Better event sticks in my mind. He ended his streak of eight consecutive years making a final table – and T.J. ended his streak of FIFTEEN years, giving Phil Hellmuth, at nine years in a row, yet another place in the World Series history books. But he ended up a big winner, playing well and consistently, and coming incredibly close to another long-held and unrealized dream, that of winning a World Poker Tour championship.

On Saturday night, he finished second in the Bellagio Cup. He played brilliantly, beat himself up over one mistake (but did not tilt, and it ultimately made no difference in the outcome), and survived being short-stacked for much of the final table. I watched him at the final table and I’ll soon be writing about that experience.

Mike was mobbed after his appearance at the ESPN desk. This was not recorded in front of an audience per se; it was just the friends, family, and fans who decided to forego watching the final table. But a huge crowd followed to watch Matusow on camera and they surrounded him after. While he posed for endless pictures, he yelled to Shawn, “Get the cards, let’s play some Chinese.”

To which Shawn called you, “Whenever you’re ready, bi-atch!”

I mentioned something I considered important to Matusow in the few moments we had. In the final hand, he knew his opponent had a big hand but he forced the action after the flop when his 8-7s turned into an open-ended straight-flush draw, giving him 15 outs to the nuts.

“Mike,” I told him, “The best part for me was watching you KNOW you were going to hit it.”

“I was CERTAIN it was going to come. I still can’t believe it didn’t.”

“But that doesn’t matter. You believed. That’s a long way from the guy I’ve seen a bunch of during the last year-and-a-half talking about being cursed, never hitting, always taking the bad beat, always getting sucked out on. That guy’s gone and now you’re in charge, a guy who does his best and thinks something good will happen.”

THE REST OF THE PARADE

There were so many old and new friends that I probably can’t even remember them all.

Paul Wasicka was over by the studio. He spent a little while together in consecutive photo shoots for Full Tilt during the Series, and then analyzed a hand together for ESPN.com. (Neither of us realized it while we were discussing it on camera but it was the hand in which Sam Farha SHOULD HAVE won the Championship in 2003. With top pair against Moneymaker, he made too big a bet on the flop, made an indecisive call on the turn, and then folded on the river.)

Greg Mueller – I got to know him at the Series, mostly by watching him go deep, it seemed, every single time he played. I don’t think that guy ever went out of an event before midnight.

Andy Bloch – We talked awhile during the evening, and Andy was at least as mystified as me about the size of the opening raises – 4-6 times the big blind was standard when they were 4-handed. I had a fun evening with Andy right toward the end of the Series. I’ll be writing about that soon.

“DOES ANYBODY KNOW MICHAEL CRAIG?”

So it was a wonderful experience, the whole Series and the chance at the end to see many of the people who helped make it wonderful. But don’t worry about me getting a swelled head. I was reminded, as the Series drew to a close, of the actual marquee value of a poker writer, even if he is friends with Andy Beal, Annie Duke, Andy Bloch (and those are just the "A"s!), and even if he did make two final tables.

Watching the closing moments with some Full Tilt people on a video monitor between the studio and the stadium, Michelle Claiborne mentioned to me that she was hungry. As I thought about it, I hadn’t eaten much in the previous 24 hours, the only meal I recall being shared with Tony Holden and Des Wilson, who fought like an old married couple. It was a delightful experience, but I didn’t eat much.

Michelle Claiborne decided at about 2:45 AM that we should order room service. So I ordered potato skins, she ordered something, a few other people ordered, and Michelle told them to deliver it near the bar. They said it would take 45 minutes, which was ridiculous, but what could we do? Eat something from the Poker Kitchen?

The food still hadn’t arrived when Jerry Yang hit his straight on the river at 3:50 AM to win the World Championship. It finally showed up at a few minutes past four. We both kept our eyes peeled on the bar area, though the harried food monger claimed to have combed the room looking for us.

“I swear, I looked everywhere in this room for you. I must have asked a hundred people, ‘Does anybody know Michael Craig?’ But no one did. I was about to give up.”

Lucky for her, the tip was already included. Of course, the potato skins were cold.

Just a few moments before Michelle called room service from the Amazon Room, I ended my year-and-a-half association with BLUFF Magazine. Ironically, I thought their behavior was EXACTLY like that of the room service waitress, except there were no potato skins.

Even so, if I had to live those 48 days all over again, I can’t think of anything I would do different, though maybe I’d throw those jacks away on the river.

What an impressive operation. Over 20 people crammed into this tiny truck, 140 video monitors showing every angle and every angle FROM every angle. A concentrated hum of coordinated activity, carried on in total darkness.

But truly, no room at the inn. No place to sit. No place really to stand. Leaning against the door, the only unoccupied space, I am jarred every minute or so whenever someone enters or exits. and if I linger a moment as the door opens or closes, someone yells, "Keep that door closed!"

At about 12:30, Ty Stewart walks in. I had a great meeting with Ty yesterday, talking about ideas for the Hall of Fame, WSOP-Europe, and generally how he and Jeffrey Pollack and their team were increasingly winning over the players that they were good to their word that they would be responsible stewards of the World Series of Poker and all it stood for. We also discussed the possibility that I would watch him and/or Jeffrey at work for part of the day and share how THEY spent final table day. Stewart also mentioned something about helping me get a good seat to watch the action.

Ty pats me on the back, exchanges a few words with someone in the production truck, and nods at me as he walks back through the door.

Even though he looks hurried AND harried, I member something about our discussions from yesterday.

"Sure ... later ..." he says as he moves out of earshot, quickly leaving the production trucks for the Amazon Room.

To the chorus of "Keep that door closed!", I too leave the production truck. Not to ride on Ty Stewart's coattails. He was not, at the moment, in a social mood, not that he wouldn't have reason to be in a rush. But neither the executive suite nor the ESPN production truck seemed especially welcoming, at least not right now.

I returned to the Amazon Room, to collect my thoughts and watch a bit of the action in one of the auxiliary seating areas. I hoped I could find a seat.

That wasn't a problem. All those areas, teeming with spectators just a half-hour ago, were largely abandoned. In a moment, I saw why: no audio, just one overhead camera angle on the multiple video screens. Unless you were accustomed to watching your poker from a helicopter, this was a place to rest your haunches and nothing more.

Harrah's has proven adept at learning and evolving and I'm sure this will be no different. Their final table set-up for the preliminary events was much better than last year and I assume if I ever get inside the stadium area I'll find the same is true comparing the Main Event final table year-to-year.

But they have a way to go with the auxiliary areas. They clearly WANTED to accommodate people - they set up lots of seating along with the video monitors. They weren't charging these people and it's hard to see a strong nexus between these people dropping money in the casino and their attendance at the final table, set as far as you can possibly be from the casino and still indoors at the Rio.

They'll get it and maybe even before the final table is finished. But it's not a place to see anything.

It's a shame that I'm writing most of these words just 100 feet from the action. It's shaping up to be a very exciting final table. Jerry Yang, regarded as the tightest and least experienced player at the final table, may be shaping up to be this year's Steve Dannenmann. He won the first two pots, first with an under-the-gun raise and second with a gutsy RERAISE following Alex Kravchenko's large raise. Alex folded, showing 9-5o, one of the many poker hands named "Dolly Parton."

* * * * *

I'm back in my room now, the last place I expected to be on final table day. I'm half considering throwing all my possessions in my car, checking out of Vegas after 47 days, and driving home. I can catch the last 5-10 hours on Pay Per View, where I understand Phil Gordon and Ali Nejad are already doing a great job with the early action.

I'll look through my notes to see what I can salvage of value from the experience. I think I'm going home for a day or two, then I'll return to cover the remainder of the Series. Thanks an enormous amount for all your good wishes and interest. I played some great poker this Series, and played a lot of great poker today.

On the fourth hand of the day, I was dealt K-K. It turned out I was against A-A and I lost 4,000 of my starting 20,000. My opponent, after the hand, said, "Congratulations, sir. I think a lot of people would have gone broke there." From that 16,000, it was a steady upward climb to 60,000. I got some great luck with the cards, but I MADE some of that luck, based on how I used position and betting to get free cards, induce bluffs, and mask the quality of my cards. It wasn't even like I had a big hand and someone else had a second-best hand. I was wringing the bets out of opponents hand after hand. And I was card-dead for nearly two hours in the middle.

It was going very well until the guy with 8-8 beat my J-J. I was blindsided by him hitting that eight. I didn't think that was what he had. I lost 11,000 before an ace came on the river, which should have been my chance to get away. He moved in, hoping I was hanging around for an ace. Those last 14,000 that I called will haunt me. It was a terrible call. I convinced myself that he wouldn't move all-in with an ace, nor would he have bet the flop and turn with ace-high after I flat-called preflop and flop. And then I convinced myself that he wouldn't have done this with K-K or Q-Q because he'd be worried that I had the ace.

There was about 25,000 in the pot when he moved all-in at the end for his last 14,000. When I called and lost, I had about 35,000 left. It was right before a break and the average was 33,000. I was still in fine shape and I don't think I'd have played much differently if I folded and had 49,000 ....

But it was like a spell was broken. I told myself all the right things about shrugging it off, not tilting, adapting to the new situation. I even had a 20 minute break in which to do all that. When I came back, everything went wrong. I'd raise and they'd reraise. Or I'd raise and they'd reraise on the flop. Or on the turn. And I just wasn't hitting anything.

Believe it or not, this process, punctuated by instant messages from my friends Marissa and Katie, is making me feel better.

It's been a great Series, and mostly a great experience today. It just didn't end right. And it's not even over. I've got MANY great adventures to share that I'll finally get some time to put on paper, plus whatever I dig up during the last several days of the Main Event. And maybe I'll find a poker tournament somewhere and punish a guy who things pocket jacks are a good hand.

P.S. - After I busted - and dumped several hundred dollars into a slot machine - I decided I wanted to eat some crappy food. Luckily, the Rio has many places where you can get that kind of food. I stopped in the newsstand by the Masquerade Tower elevators and took a bag of Doritos and a Milky Way bar to the counter. The clerk couldn't find the price tag on the Doritos, so he proceeded to squeeze the bag as hard as he could from every angle to find it. I got another bag and showed him the tag. He then tried unsuccessfully to scan the price, eventually squeezing and rending THAT bag, too. Then he told me the register was broken so he'd have to write down what I was buying and do it manually. I swear I wrote the STRATEGY GUIDE faster than this guy wrote "Doritos" and "Milky Way" and their prices. It was as if the guy who woke up in the big blind with aces trained the clerk and the guy who made the set with 8-8 designed the cash register.

P.P.S. - Once again, thank you all, and I will try to reward your good wishes and diligent reading with some more great stuff.

Despite the ambitious title, I am not predicting a victory in the Main Event. It’s a silly thing even to suggest. But there is a mental aspect to tournament performance that I think I am learning at a very high level.

I want to share a few things with you.

You may notice from pictures of me on the Internet that I am wearing reading half-glasses. I suppose it is a sign of advanced middle age when a poker player discards the shades for the reading specs.

This occurred in May as a result of the following hand. I was playing PLO and NLHE with Andy Beal, Robert Williamson III, and a friend of Robert’s. Andy’s friend Craig Singer had played with Beal and Williamson the night before and lost enough to sour him from playing again. That was bad news for me because Singer is an excellent player, and a sensible man besides. In the three (short-handed) ring games I have played with Andy Beal since late 2005, the stakes have gradually risen. In the first game, we were playing $1-$2 PLO. We started with $20-$40 blinds in this May 2007 game.

I told myself that I would quit if I lost $4,000. That’s about the most I’ve lost in a single session of poker. It wasn’t much in this game. Williamson was a world-class cash-game player and we would be playing a lot of PLO, where I hear he knows a thing or two. I’m assuming if Robert’s brought a friend into the game, he didn’t meet the guy at the Hot Sauce Outlet Mall. And Andy Beal? He said the word “pot” three times per hand in almost every hand we played in our last game.

I bought in for $4,000 and lost it all to Beal at NLHE on the very first hand. I thought I was ahead with a pair and was relieved when the river brought a fourth club to go with my ace of clubs. I called Andy’s all-in bet and he instantly said, “Quads,” showing two queens to go with the two on the board.

Numbed, I feebly fumbled my ace of clubs into view and discovered it was actually the ace of SPADES.

I don’t know what felt worse: losing my limit the first minute of the game, misreading my hand, or heedlessly shoveling my chips at an opponent who had me beat even if he spotted me another twenty cards. I didn’t have to decide among them because I was feeling all three.

That’s why I wear the dime-store glasses, to make sure I read the cards correctly. But the reason I mention the story is because of what happened AFTER.

I bought in for another $2,000. I was playing scared and everyone knew it. But I hung in. I persevered. We played another ten hours and I won back my lost $4,000 and even made a small profit.

For me, there was a lesson even more valuable than “make sure that’s the ace of CLUBS you have there.” It was about dealing with reversals of fortune at the poker table, being patient, and making yourself play your best when there are reasons (i.e., excuses) for not playing your best.

I could have easily weathered the $4,000 loss, as well as a further loss if I chased it with that additional $2,000. But I would have had trouble rebounding from the loss of my composure, or if I had given in to pity or embarrassment or anxiety.

I meant to write about all this before the Series started but, like a lot of other ideas for the Blog, I have had to play catch-up. My experience during this World Series has confirmed – or at least been coincident with – this idea.

I play an aggressive style of poker and, being an internet tournament player, I’m not super-experienced at putting on the brakes or making big laydowns. But in my second and third times in the money this Series, I was at my best in terms of NOT GETTING ELIMINATED. I would normally bristle at the suggestion that I play defensively: try to hang on for the money, or the jump in payouts, or the final table. But there’s an advanced element of the Aggressive Game that involves knowing when to let go, and when not even to try it. I felt very comfortable as I got deep in both tournaments that I was picking my spots, and generally keeping myself from busting.

There are definitely elements of luck involved. I drew out with eleven players remaining in the SHOE with all my chips in the pot. And I know very well that the relationship between good play and good results is only a general one. But of all the lessons I’ve learned from the great pros who collaborated on the STRATEGY GUIDE, the last ones I had to find out on my own.

There is a such thing as “pro temperament.” It can be observed and commented on. It can be learned but it can’t be taught. Starting with Andy Beal and concluding with a pair of endlessly long nights in the Amazon Room from which I remember little but how I kept myself out of the path of elimination, I’m learning it.

I’m a few minutes past midnight and about to turn into a pumpkin, so I’ll conclude with this thought. My goal is not to win the Championship. It’s not to make the final table. It’s not to make the money. It’s not to make it through Day 1.

It’s to play my two cards well. I’m going to keep doing that the best I can – and I know sometimes my best can be brilliant and other times my best can be pretty awful – and then repeating it on the next hand until they won’t deal me cards any more.

Thanks for listening, and an extra thanks to my wife and kids. Someone as lucky as me to have Jo Anne as my wife and Barry, Ellie, and Valerie as my children might just be lucky enough to do something really crazy here; that's been the case so far and I don't see any reason for anything to change.

And, truly, thanks for reading along and rooting.

I wrote in Card Player back in 2005 after sharing dinner with Holden and Wilson:

“I just said good night and goodbye to Messrs. Holden and Wilson, who spent two days in a hilarious battle for who would pick up the check. I don't know if they were fighting to pay or avoid paying; I managed to absent myself from those battles, something they will eventually (and unhilariously) realize.”

This kind of thing has its genesis in both Tony’s prior writing any my own writing style. One of the things that came up repeatedly in BIG DEAL was how infrequently Holden had to pay for anything. This was not a defect of character but the generosity the Binions bestowed on writers and the of friends like Eric Drache, who enjoy the finest dining imaginable and make it almost impossible for anyone else to pick up a check.

Then there’s my own writing style, which is to cast myself as the freeloader. Secondarily, I will cast anyone else possible in that role as well. As you notice from that column in CARD PLAYER, it was ME who skipped out on the check, though I suggested both Holden and Wilson may have wished they could do the same.

Our future meetings became punctuated by this humorous jostling over who would pick up the check. Favors granted would be repaid at fine restaurants upon our next meeting, “and this time I won’t excuse myself to the restroom when the check arrives.”

Both Anthony Holden and Des Wilson are generous men, and speaking for myself I think I’m pretty quick to reach for a check. Somehow, our WRITING about each others’ penurious ways – especially those two, who sometimes fight like an old married couple – has become more frequent and a bit meaner.

In Wilson’s laudatory profile of Holden in POKER PRO EUROPE, he tells a story of how we saw him eating at the table while playing at Foxwoods, worried about “the possibility I would be full up and not available to have – and pay for – dinner.” He then says, “This is another infuriating thing about Tony – he has this amazing ability to travel the world, stay in the best places, eat well – and never pay for it.”

In Holden’s blog, on BiggerDeal.com, he salves his wounds as only a writer can: by picking at the festering sores. “So I will now go score a free meal off someone – Des Wilson, I hope, in my new role as the eternally freeloading Anthony Holden ….” He then describes a meal from the night before, noting parenthetically, “Oh, and for the record, Des, dinner was generously paid for by” someone else.

I’m certain Des won’t take this lying down. I suspect the other shoe will drop when he next writes in HIS blog, on DesWilson.com.

But the fact is that Anthony Holden is an extremely clever man. Writers are generally poorly paid and poorly treated, yet he always manages to find the angle to reap not just financial rewards but the perks that go with being a globe-trotting reporter. For example, Tony’s pen was silent on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal that dogged the U.S. military in Iraq. But he just today told me about three trips he took more than a decade ago to the Caribbean on a magazine’s tab to give them “Princess Diana’s guide to the Caribbean,” sampling the gourmet restaurants, luxury suites, and private spas frequented by the former Princess on her trips to the islands.

It’s all about being smart and resourceful, and it extends to the Main Event, which is the point of “Free Anthony Holden”. We both play on Monday, me at the Devil Spot (table 6, seat 6), Tony at table 37, seat 1.

It occurred to me that Tony has played in the Main Event quite a few times. “This makes eight times,” he told me over brunch on Sunday. (A brunch HE paid for, I had better note.)

Because I had followed Holden’s adventures with great interest long before I knew him, I was generally familiar with several of those performances. In fact, the number was exactly what I thought it was.

That’s when it occurred to me: through three different decades and eight appearances in the Main Event, Anthony Holden has never paid the $10,000 entry fee. In both Main Events that bookend his BIG DEAL year, he won his way in through $1,000 single-table satellites. During the period 1989-2004, he came to the Series approximately ten years out of the sixteen. On three occasions, he won $200 super-mega-hyper-duper satellites. “I tried that route in some of the other years and, having failed, did not play the Main Event.” In 2005, he won an entry worth $5,000 and technically put up the other five grand himself; it came entirely from his profits in his first-ever no-limit cash game at the Bellagio. This was explained in BIGGER DEAL, as was his 2006 entry, won in a tournament in which he outlasted, among others, former champions Moneymaker, Raymer, and Hashem. He so impressed PokerStars that it ponied up the 2007 entry – along with, as a member of Team PokerStars, expenses and entries into several EPT events over the last year.

I don’t know how the business of Holden being a freeloader got started – well, I’m actually pretty sure it was started by ME – but wherever it leads, recognize that he is a generous man. Generous with advice. Generous with friendship. And generous with money.

Unless he can outsmart someone with deeper pockets.