Time for my next Shannon Elizab- err, I mean WSOP update. Yeah, that's it.
So, I headed back to the Rio tonight. I decided to do a quick check on who was left before heading to that party I mentioned. Fischman was up to about 30k. Shannon was close to 20. Gus and Clonie were finally building their stacks, Josh Arieh and Ted Forrest were barely hanging on, Raymer was STILL at the featured table (he's been there pretty much all day, playing great).... Johnny Chan, Barry Greenstein and Devilfish were nowhere to be seen - All had been eliminated.
Rumor has it Layne Flack is playing, but somehow, I managed to not see him once all day. I have about a gazillion pictures of everyone else though.
I walked across the Rio and went into the Voodoo Lounge for the party. I got to skip the long line, but they made me take my hat off before going in. Punks. The lounge is on top of the Rio (yet another party with a ridiculous balcony), and the view was amazing. I didn't recognize a single person there though, so I had one $7 beer and decided to head back down.
Back on the floor, Scott sees me and says "Aces." I said, "You had them? Nice." He says "CRACKED." He was down to about 15k after losing to pocket 10s, all in preflop.
I saw a fairly big hand developing between Paul Darden and Jesus. Ferguson ended up folding to a turn bet. Pretty cool seeing them butt heads. I love watching Ferguson play. He's a really cool guy too.
Rob Boyd (Dutch's brother) was playing well all day. Next thing I know, I notice him counting out chips to pay someone off. His hand was in the muck, but the winning hand had A4 and the board was T4345. Not sure how that hand developed, but I think ESPN caught it.
I went to check on my girl and noticed she was down to about 6000 chips! What happened, I have no idea, but I could see the frustration in her face. I could see that she was getting impatient too. I was seriously considering going over and telling her to relax (she had 3 times as many chips as Josh Arieh, for crying out loud!), but I decided against it. A few hands later, I notice she's limped in in EP. A MP guy raises and she tosses her only remaining chip (5000) into the pot. She didn't say "Raise" though and when she clarified that she wanted to go all in, it was too late. It was a call. It was clear what was coming though, and right about then, ESPN came running over to film (reminded me of last year, when I pointed out to them that Annie Duke was about to be eliminated, only to be pretty much shoved out of the way). The flop came AT4 rainbow, I believe, and Shannon immediately threw in here remaining chips (2600ish). The MP guy called and turned over AK. Shannon showed Ah5h. I started taking pictures, knowing this was the end. The turn was a blank. The river......... It's a 5! She sucked out and doubled up!!! The break was less than a minute away at this point, and as soon as it came, I went over and chatted with her.
I said something like, "Ok, you just had your miracle. You've got plenty of chips. Just relax. Stay patient." And so on. She said she needed her luck to change, and I pointed out that I was prety sure it just had. She wanted to know what pros had been eliminated so far, and I rattled off as many names as I could think of. She was very happy to have outlasted Phil Laak. I told her I expected to see her on Sunday (Day 2, believe it or not), and went on my way. I was beat, so I called it a night.
I realized afterwards that I should have run over to congratulate her as soon as she sucked out with that 5 on the river. That hand is DEFINITELY going to be on tv, and it would have been pretty cool for the world to see me chatting it up with her (and giving her poker advice, no less) - especially if you could read my hat! Oh well. You know what they say about hindsight.......
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