As I mentioned in this Blog, I failed to outlast Poker From the Rail blogger AlCantHang in the FTOPS Warm-Up. Consequently, I agreed to play the worst tournament he could find in Las Vegas. We originally thought this would be the 2am at Binion’s. For those of you expecting a tale of late-night filth and humiliation, you will be disappointed. (In fact, in a perverse way, so was I.) But I took my medicine, paid off my losing bet, and had fun besides. But it wasn’t Binion’s at 2am.

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At first, I thought the schedule for the WSOP Final Table included a ridiculous amount of dead time. As long as it took to get heads-up – and it took longer than anyone imagined – that still left forty hours with nothing to do.

Thank goodness I didn’t write what I had planned: a scathing criticism of Harrah’s ridiculous and inconsiderate scheduling.

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Full Tilt Poker announced today that it invited Tom “durrrr” Dwan to join its inner circle of the site’s top professionals, Team Full Tilt.

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At 12:50 AM, Steven Begleiter was all-in with QQ, opposed by Darvin Moon with the hand he must have tattooed on his palms, AQ. Ace on the river, and Steven, a class act who played excellent all day and all night, busted out in sixth place.

Sorry Begs, you deserved better than you got. On the heels of Phil’s bust out, everybody is pretty stunned.

Phil played flawless poker. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. With just over 10 BB, on the first hand after the break, at 12:15 AM, he got it all-in against Darvin Moon with A-K v. Moon’s A-Q.

… and a queen came in the door.

Nearly everybody here is anxious to players to start busting but this was an exception.

No joy in Mudville. But thank you Phil. You gave us one helluva show.

Steve Begleiter is now Full Tilt’s only representative at the final table.

It’s 12:15 AM. We’re still seven-handed with an hour to go in the 300k-600k/75k level, and we’re coming off a 20 minute break. Just as we were about to restart, Shauna walked by and wordlessly slipped by our digital camera, like the theme music for MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE should be playing in the background. The woman on the right is Official Final Table “Hostess” Lacey Jones. The woman on the left? All I know I what it says on the sash.

This has been a pretty remarkable day. Play started at 1 PM and, including breaks, they’ve been at it 10:20 as I write these words. Only two players have busted and, frankly, things could have been not much different and those two players would still be in. We are seven-handed and have been for a long time. It’s getting late, people are getting tire, the forward momentum seems to have stalled.

What’s this like? What does it mean?

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Play restarted at 9 PM. These were the chip counts on the overhead monitor:

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It’s 6:55 PM. We’re about ten minutes from a two-hour dinner break. Barring something titanic happening in the next ten minutes, I’ll continue writing through dinner and make some posts then or after action recommences at 9 PM PDT.

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