Now it Gets Interesting

Now the fun really begins.  They’ve stopped playing tonight at midnight again, and the field is set for Friday’s March to the Final Table.  We have a new chip leader for Day 3, Dmitri Nobles, with a whopping $553k in chips.  Daniel Negreanu made a massive move on the ESPN Feature Table.  We play into the money on Friday, and it will be a fascinating day.  Duke home game participants Doug Kim (l) Jason “strassa22″ Strasser (r).  Jason should be in the top ten in chips with $330k.

Is a player a luckbox when they’re sucking out and besting superior hands right and left?  Or is is just a statistical norm when the inferior hand wins <18% but wins when you're all-in?  Nobles was doing some major damage indiscriminately.  He brutalized one guy from Martins Poker that I'd seen over time; actually, this guy:

Dude always looked fairly scary whenever I saw him, anyways, here is how CJ described the sick action:  “On the very last hand before the last break, Dmitri decided his pocket T’s were good after a flop of J-9-x. His opponent, however, was holding AJ. Dmitri wasn’t worried. The turn was a 7, giving him a gutshot straight draw. That meant any 8 or 10 would be a winner. Dmitri called out for an 8, figuring there were four of them in the deck. Of course, there were only 2, since the player in the 1 Seat folded pocket 8′s. It didn’t seem to matter much, because the dealer peeled the 8 off the deck anyway.”  Players fled to the break as I was watching a pot, screaming about his play.  Jason Strasser told me this when we met today:  “Look, I’ve got alot of chips, but there are $90MM in play, so it’s really miniscule.  We have a long way to go.”

Melissa Hayden had me take her photo a second time (she’s a crack photographer).  She didn’t say it with disdain, but I then looked at my puny Sony camera and felt embarrassed to even be holding it.  I’m pretty sure she’s into Day 3.

Cyndy’s in, so that interview will just have to wait a wee bit more.  That’s all good for me.

Some folks may use botox, but I tend to go for the Haagen-Dazs chocolate and almonds. I’m hoping that no one photographed me today as I have absolutely the gayest looking shirt around.  The good thing was that it was easy to see me, which is either good or bad.  Saw BadBlood, who stopped by the Media Room briefly.  He invited me to the G-Vegas game, so I just gave him a twenty.  I figured that’s what he meant.

Oh, so I did this article on the WSOP MBNA credit card, and Linda comes to chat and keep me going.  She asks if we can go by the booth as she wasnted to get something, and lo and behold who is in the booth but Johnn Freakin Chan, who she then hauls me up to and introduces me.  I tell him I’d like to interview him about ChanPoker.net, his new venture focused on the Asian and European market, and yes I get an impromptu twenty minutes.  I’d thought about it, which was good, but I didn’t get to get a full-blown CC interview.  I got his phone number and email address, so I’ll angle shoot for a follow-up interview on him.  Oh, and thanks for Doyle’s email address, Linda.

As you all know, I’m not fly like that with any of this.  I’m a people person when I’m in a service capacity, and so that has worked very well when I’ve latched on to folks and sweated them.  When I’m in a social situation, it’s not so good.

We got new media guidelines, which I think will be very positive.  It will be more restrictive for us red badgers (meaning we’re the masses vs. CardPlayer, ESPN, etc.), only a certain number of folks allowed in the ropes, no talking to players who are in hands, etc.  I sometimes will throw my voice and say “Raise” as I walk by someone.  That usually gets the floor called over, sort of like a live straddle.

I need to head out, have to do the wrap for tomorrow.  Looks like I’ll pull an all-nighter as I have a client telecon in about six hours or so.  All the comments and emails have just been great.  I’m no big shot or anything, and I’m continually given encouragement by Dr. Pauly.  I guess he knows how I’m wired, like a little puppy who needs to scratched on the head every so often.  I’ll go back through and figure out where we are on the swag, and let you know when the next swag hits.  Plan is to do the wrap, get working on client stuff, have the call, eat, then go to sleep for a long, long time.  I plan on doing a Day 3 prequel article for tomorrow leading into Friday.