Quest of a Closet Poker Player

I’ll have an article up on John Armbrust in the morning, but I wanted to dump a few things here in the interim.

I bumped into John again when he was with Jeff Norman early in the tournament. “I know you,” I said, and rushed over to reintroduce myself. I’ve followed him since, and it’s been some kind of ride. He got to ride the rush with Jeff as he surged to the chip lead of Day 2. He’s hung around, and today has been as brutal as you can imagine. Every great poker player wants to play, and there was incredible pressure on John all day to make a mistake, to get fed up with it all, and just shrug your shoulders and shove. He outplayed Gus Hansen, he outlasted the Great Dane, he got down to 200k and probably was in last place. It was painful yet invigorating to watch.

John with a big decision yesterday.

John with Gus Hansen to his left.

John down to no chips makes two A’s for pocket aces. He finally got them two hours later.

John scaring all of the other players as he looks like a dork.

Lots more stuff, but I need to get back out there to sweat him. More later.

UPDATE:  2:10AM

Ayaz Mahmood is the most popular man in the room, although it’s unfortunate for the long-time tourney pro.  He’s out in 37th, and John is safely through along with 35 other men (Maria Ho was the last lady standing).

This is what it looks like when you’ve just earned at least $285,678.  Bagging chips heading to Day 6 of the WSOP Main Event.  Pretty sweet…

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 15th, 2007 at 3:56 am and is filed under Uncategorized.