Viva Las WSOP: Watching Poker Legends & Having Fun

VIVA LAS VEGAS -- August 6th -- This year's World Series of Poker is the grandest yet with 8,773 players in the field, and an astounding 1st place prize of $12 million. At this moment, 85 players are left, with Joseph Hachem being the last WSOP Champion eliminated, just prior to Daniel Negreanu, each winning $42,882.

The women poker players accounted for 3% of the field this year, while about 30% of the spectators, by my count, were women. Susan "Sabyl" Cohen is the last woman remaining with a little over $1 million in chips, and Annie Duke was eliminated in 88th place, in the money at $51,129. Debra Lalor was bumped out at 117th, also winning $51,129.

ESPN provided coverage of the WSOP this year, and those of you who don’t want to wait for the WSOP to be released in the fall line-up, take heart! ESPN will be airing the Final Table of the 2006 WSOP on “pay-for-view” TV this August 10th, so pay close attention to your TV guide if you don’t want to miss it.

There were three reasons I went to the WSOP this year, first and foremost being the WSOP, of course. Secondly, due to all the personal health problems with my family and friends, I simply needed to unplug as a support line. Thirdly, and probably most pressing, I needed to check out towns in Nevada where I could move to. You see, where I live in Washington State, it’s now illegal to not only bet & play poker online, it is also illegal to even write about poker online; talk about a major violation of our 1st Amendment right to free speech, but I’ll touch on that later on in this article.

Meeting the poker players was actually allot easier than I had anticipated, as most of them are very approachable; somewhat like running into Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones on Park Avenue in New York City? I say ‘somewhat’ in that if you run into Keith, you’re likely to be able to chat & walk a bit with him, whereas at the WSOP, time is crunched into playing & very short breaks, so the players don’t really have a whole lot of time for socializing with their fans.

While attending a press conference for the new poker movie, “Lucky You”, starring Drew Barrymore, and poker greats Doyle Brunson and Jennifer Harman, I had the good fortune to sit next to, and speak with Joseph Hachem, who was there in the capacity of reigning WSOP Champion.

During the press conference, hosted by the new WSOP VP Jeffery Pollack, poker legends T.J. Cloutier and Billy Baxter were inducted into the Poker Hall of Fame, and along with Joseph Hachem, took questions from the audience. The big question, who felt they would win the WSOP, and both TJ & Joseph replied that they’d be happy just to make it past day 1.

One reporter errantly ‘accused’ Joseph Hachem of having made it to last year’s WSOP via an online satellite, and was quickly rebuffed by Joseph as needing to “get your facts straight”. Actually, Joseph has been a professional poker player for over 10/years, and put up the $10,000 entry fee himself last year.

While briefly walking and talking with Joseph while heading to the Amazon Room I asked him how his two handsome sons were dealing with his being rich overnight. He smiled and said they were taking it in stride, and basically “just being kids”. I said it sounded to me like he raised them right then, and he said, “Exactly!” We were then separated by the many fans wanting to get snapshots with the WSOP World Champion.

After that I met the new WSOP Tournament Manager, Robert Daily, had a brief chat with Doyle Brunson, and while talking with newfound friends from Sun Poker at the Cryptologic lounge, I was able to interact, again briefly, with Scotty Nguyen. Great guy Scotty, and he definitely has a super attitude, “Just have fun, baby!”

That’s exactly what I was doing too, having fun, that is if you don’t count the technical difficulties I had attempting to update my sites (unsuccessfully) and losing a full disk of great photographs; my bad.

Concluded tomorrow ....

Kurt

Editors Note: I’m Kurt, the publisher and editor of the ComKings network, which includes: PokerNewsweb, PokerAllstar, and GamingInvesting.