I thought I’d get right in on the action by sitting in the front row and bring you inside stuff like I did last year. I believe they moved the tables closer to the center by several feet so you can’t hear or see what you could last year. Either that or I’ve aged markedly in the last year because it didn’t seem much different than the cheap seats in the bleachers where I sat for the hearts bracket. Luckily, there was still some interesting stuff going on.

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I’m writing my account of the Diamonds bracket and following the Clubs matches but I have to interrupt that. Phil Hellmuth has been eliminated from the feature table on the third hand. He limped on his button. Tom Dwan raised. Phil reraised. Dwan moved all-in. Hellmuth instacalled.

Phil had aces, Dwan had tens. The flop was K-7-2, with 2 spades. Phil had the ace of spades. The turn was a miracle for Dwan, ten of spades. Phil still had ten outs but didn’t hit any on the river, and was eliminated. The room is stunned.

The only positive is that Hellmuth negotiated insurance with Patrik Antonius for 5% juice so I guess he gets back most of his $20,000 entry.

About 12:10 PM, half hour into the Hearts bracket of round 1 as I start this post. Media row is the absolute worst place to view these matches. You can neither hear nor see what’s going on. 6 matches still going. These are my notes of the rest of the Hearts-bracket first round, from a place so removed from the action that I only THINK I’m still at Caesars. And our internet connection goes out about once per minute.

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After less than 20 minutes of the first stage of the first round, two players have been eliminated. Significantly, year’s final table is gone.

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Amazingly, I’m getting all these previews posted before the matches really get underway. I’m still not finished with WSOP Europe. I never finished “best of 2006.” Yet here is the last of the 4 preview posts.

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I think this bracket has the best round 2 “teases”. Huck Seed v. Brian Townsend? The winner of Greenstein/Lederer v. the winner of Benyamine/Harman? The winner of Farha/Doyle v. Lindgren/Elezra?

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Andy Bloch and Shannon Elizabeth are at the feature table. Andy originally wasn’t chosen to be part of the field; he busted me in the Satellite to get here, but himself busted in time to play the Sunday night HORSE on Full Tilt. I thought maybe they extended him an at-large bid because of his heroic busting of me in the sat., but as usual, I got it completely wrong. Brad Garrett was invited to play but pulled out when the settlement of the writers strike in Hollywood required that he be back at work pronto.

So this match-up of 64 of the best includes an intruder, Andy Bloch, who weaseled his way in when Brad Garrett, one of the chosen 64, had a more pressing commitment.

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[SUBSEQUENT ADDENDUM: I just noticed - at 10:10 AM Friday, that I mixed up the hearts and spades brackets. This summary that follows is the SPADES bracket. It's the last bracket to play. I've changed references in the title but I don't know if they'll "take". These are the SPADES matches.]

I’ve just returned from the pairings party. It’s 1:30 AM and I was up at 5 AM, having driven 300 miles to get to Vegas for this show. You are going to read A LOT of material from me over the next three days. Stay tuned because there will be multiple updates daily.

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I’m feeling ill so I have to keep this short. I had my best day as a poker player Sunday. It took me 15 1/2 hours but I filled some holes in my online playing resume, reclaimed another tournament, and won over $46,000.

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This post is about a week late. I was in Las Vegas when FTOPS VII drew to a close so I missed the last several events not to mention the incredible performance of Thomas Wahlroos, who finished runner-up in the Main Event, earning over $276,000. This should put to sleep (at least for a little while) the business about how the red pros suck at FTOPS. (Yadda yadda, to the converse. It doesn’t START claims about how the site is rigged because I hear those every time I win a pot.

But a red-pro recap of FTOPS VII is in order. With the help of my statistician William, here is how it all came out:

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