FULL TILT POKER BLOG

#894 – WSOP Final Table Update #2 – The End of the Waiting

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It’s 12:34 PM as I write this. We are officially 11 minutes late. Someone was doing some short interview before the final table introductions so, after telling the audience to make a lot of noise – no encouragement needed – they pleaded with the audience to be quiet for a few minutes. It was like trying to ask for your virginity back.

At 12:38, tournament director Jack Effel announces, “The biggest day in poker history has finally arrived.”

The end of the build-up was moving. After presenting Barry Shulman with his bracelet for winning the WSOP-Europe Championship and the National Anthem, Jack Effel introduced the players:

Seat 1 – Darvin Moon. Moon has 58 million chips, nearly 1/3 of all the chips at the table. He has nearly 100 family and friends in the audience. They don’t have any “uniform”, like some of the other cheering sections, because he has no logo-based theme. He is not affiliated with an online poker site. (He doesn’t even own a computer, according to the Media Guide.) He is wearing a New Orleans Saints hat, but I don’t think that’s an endorsement thing. His supporters are loud, but polite.

Seat 2 – James Akenhead. He’s the short-stack at the table, with 6.8 million chips. He almost won a huge-field bracelet in a 2008 NLHE $1,500 event. In the final hand, his opponent tried to make a move against him and they got it all in. James had A-K, the other guy T-4. Then he had to watch in horror as the board made him a tens over fours full house.

Seat 3 – Phil Ivey, with 9 million in chips. The crowd just ROARED when his name was announced. It didn’t have to do with supporters or cheering sections. The cheers were so long and loud that I got chills hearing them, and Phil was alternately breaking into a giant grin and biting his lip to keep from breaking into a giant grin.

Seat 4 – Kevin Schaffel. He is the oldest player at the final table, 51 years old. He has 80 supporters in the audience, most of them wearing white tee shirts that say “Schaffel up and deal.”

Seat 5 – Steven Begleiter, financial manager formerly with Bear Stearns. 20% of his winnings go the players in his home game, from whom he won his seat. He has the third largest stack.

Seat 6 – Eric Buchman, 34 million chips. Eric is an impressive player, 26 years-old, already 9 WSOP cashes, a second-place in 2006 in LHE. I don’t see a uniform on his supporters and they don’t seem especially large or loud.

Seat 7 – Joe Cada. Just 21 years old, he has the biggest and loudest rooting section, all decked out with maize-and-blue tee shirts and Michigan hats. They chant JOE-Y, JOE-Y, JOE-Y!

Seat 8 – Antoine Saout. Saout, with the chance to become the first French world poker champion, broad a group nearly as large and as loud as Cada, and I assume most of them had to come from France. They all wear France’s blue, white, and red.

Seat 9 – Jeff Shulman. Like Ivey, he doesn’t have a rooting section. He is a local and is very well liked. He is a very successful tournament player in part-time playing duty and also the publisher of CARD PLAYER Magazine. For the second time during the introductions, I got chills from the audience reaction.

By now it’s 12:55 PM. Jack Effel announces that there are 7 minutes, 16 seconds left in level 33, 120k-240k/30k ante. He then introduces Peter Eastgate and Doyle Brunson to announce the “shuffle up and deal”. But it’s kind of awkward. They both stand, but Jack introduces just Peter. Then he asks Peter (rhetorically) to join him in introducing Doyle. This is the third time I get the chills. “… two-time World Champion, winner of ten World Series of Poker bracelets, Texas Dolly …” And I don’t even hear the rest.

Doyle makes a short and graceful acknowledgement of the history being made and the thanks owed to Jeffrey Pollack, Ty Stewart, and their team, and says, “Shuffle up and deal.”

The audience explodes in cheers and Brunson walks back to his seat. Jack Effel tanks Doyle Brunson and Peter Eastgate – though Peter walks awkwardly back to his seat next to Doyle looking like he’s wondering what the hell they asked him up there for, because he didn’t say anything or introduce Doyle or say SUAD.

1 PM. Cards in the air.

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