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#559 – London 2008 #66 – WSOP-E – Night of the Living, Part II – Howard Lederer is A-L-I-V-E
It was a serpentine road that led me to this final table, even as an observer. as you know, I had played this event, and busted late on Monday night. I thought my effort was a valiant one, and unrewarded until I saw the coverage on Pokernews.com.
At the World Series in June, they were very nice about including me in the chip counts and updates after I got over the uncomfortable business of telling them who I was. Their coverage has been a very helpful reference of both current and past events.
They were even nice enough to describe my short-stack struggles in the HORSE in sufficiently Herculean terms: “Short stack Michael Craig looked as unworried as a squirrel with a key to the nut factory despite having shrunk to just 600 chips at one point.” (emphasis added)
When I busted near midnight, I thought my involvement in this World Series had ended. I hadn’t yet considered entering the Main Event, so I regarded my playing time complete. Although I had a media credential, I wasn’t particularly encouraged by Full Tilt to use it. (”We don’t think last year’s coverage really attracted much attention,” Uncle Tilty told me, explaining that they wanted me to primarily cover the Million Pound Challenge and the Million Dollar Cash Game.)
So I left the Empire Monday night, barely pausing before the sight of a young woman in a terrifically short dress, surrounded by four other young women in terrfically short dresses, puking her guts out 50 meters from the Empire.
That’s someone else’s concern, I thought, making plans to visit Geneva and Al Alvarez and Tony Holden – well, not all three at once.
On Wednesday afternoon, when Melissa and I got into cab to visit Al and Tony, she said, “Isn’t that remarkable about Howard?”
I looked at her, dumb.
“In the HORSE.”
Me, still dumb.
“Come on. There are eleven players left and he has the chip lead. And Phil Ivey’s still in it. It could be a remarkable final table.”
Oh great, I thought as we sped AWAY from the Empire. When they ask me why I was in town, at THEIR hotel, now on THEIR master account, smoking Montecristo No. 2s that THEY paid for, hoping to hit them up for a loan of a million dollars to becoming THEIR payment processor, it’s not going to be a good excuse to say, “I thought you didn’t want me there … covering Howard’s run at a third World Series bracelet.”
So after the get-togethers with Melissa, Al, and Tony, I high-tailed it back to the Empire … arriving moments into the 2-hour dinner break.
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