King Andy Holding Court in the Lounge

Andy Bloch is still in the house. After a quicker exit than he would have liked from today’s $2,000 No-Limit Hold’em Shootout, Andy spent the afternoon in the Full Tilt lounge doing—what else?—playing poker, this time online in a satellite for the main event of the World Series. No matter that he has already bagged two seats in the championship. When you’re on a roll like he is, you have to keep pushing for all it’s worth.

Like a king holding court, he greeted all those who stopped by to congratulate him on his amazing performance against Chip Reese in the HORSE event. Yes, two days later, it’s still at the forefront of most conversations inside the Rio as it surely will be for years to come. It was a legendary and historic night of poker, the Ali-Frazier II of poker history. This afternoon, fellow Full Tilter Steve Zolotow stopped by to pat Andy on the back and bemoan some of the managerial decision, which have given the tournament the occasional black eye this year.

SZ: It was a great performance, Andy. But they [Harrah’s] made it a stamina contest as much as anything.

AB: You can look at it both ways. “How can they put the players through this?’ but also it IS a stamina contest. The better poker players are able to play longer hours.

SZ: Chip is one of the ones who is always able to bring his A game. I mean, he doesn’t drop off a lot.

AB: Right. You’ve got to be able to sit there and keep your focus. Even though you’re dead tired, you do whatever you need to do.

SZ: Doyle looked horrible.

AB: Doyle wasn’t happy at all.

SZ: What happens when someone has a heart attack after a sixteen-hour day?

AB: That’s what Mike [Matusow] said.

SZ: What WOULD happen?

AB: It would be bad for them [Harrah's].

SZ: This was all done to suit Harrah’s and ESPN. They could have done things: set one more day or start earlier. Oh, no. “We need the tables for this. We need this for that.” You know, he [Andy] started off with a twenty-minute penalty or something for saying the cards were marked.

AB: I started bending them, and they came over and said, “If you don’t stop bending them and if you don’t calm down we’ll give you a ten-minute penalty and I was like, “Okay, give me a ten-minute penalty.” I wasn’t going to calm down so I thought I might as well take the penalty now.

SZ: That is beyond unbelievable.