Oddly enough -- and fitting for this Blog -- I did get to play against him and my sister in his final poker game...

Last night I was fortunate to be included in an invitation-only celebrity/poker pro party thrown by Full Tilt Poker and Bluff Magazine (I ranked an invite because I helped connect Rhythm & Hues and Fult Tilt to create the graphics for the poker site -- thanks Stacey Burstin!)...

Claudia came up with a good name for me too. The Turtle!

The day started with almost 2000 people, and I made it down to about 700.

My most exciting moment came earlier when I doubled up to $20,000 while knocking out another player. He had less money than I at the time, so I wasn't facing elimination, but if I had lost I would have been very low. I had AK and the flop had come A Q 7. We went back and forth raising until all his money was in -- I thought he was just trying to push me out at first and assumed my AK was good. He wound up having AQ, so I looked dead once I saw that. But the K came up on the turn card and I had better two pair. He was shocked and sulked away.

In the end, I think I played pretty well -- had confidence most of the time -- and never said the F-Bomb to get a timeout. Of course I'd like to blame the cards for my loss. I watched a guy next to me get pocket Aces four times while I got only one high pair, and one flopped set (3 of a kind) dealt to me in 14 hours of play.

I'll elaborate more later once I get some coffee and my spirits back.
Thanks to all who wanted to follow along this year!

All of these players are out on day 1:
Johnny Chan
Chris Ferguson
Danny Negreanu
Chris Bigler
Erik Seidel
Josh Arieh
Scott Fischman
Humberto Brenes
Clonie Gowen
Devil Fish Ulliott
Mike Caro
Eskimo Clark
Barry Greenstein
Jennifer Tilly
Mike Laing
Jennifer Harmon
Phil Hellmuth
Mimi Rogers
Phil Gordon
Cyndy Violette
Dewey Tomko
Evelyn Ng
Men "The Master" Nguyen
Antonio Esfandiari
Kathy Liebert
Tobey Maguire
John Bonetti
Tony Ma
Thor Hansen
John D'Agostino
Tom McEvoy
Jim Brechtel
James Woods
Mel Judah
Andy Block
Chip Jett
TJ Cloutier
and others....

When you analyze a little, you can see just how poor the cards ran for me over 14 hours of play. If you consider that in 14 hours of slow playing one should see 400 to 500 hands (30 hands per hour), then statistically I should have, on average, been dealt a high pair (aces, kings, or queens) 6 or 7 times instead of once. That one time was a pair of Kings in early position which were folded to when I made the standard raise of 3 times the big blind. So I collected only the antes with it.

I was also never dealt a hand of suited connectors (something like Jack-Ten suited) in a position I could play. I did get AQ a couple of times (which resulted in me getting busted) and AK about 3 times.

I made some bold moves, stole some pots, and did what I could with the cards I was dealt -- reaching almost $25,000 at one point in the tournament.

As for fault in my play, I will admit that I probably got pushed out of a couple of pots by one aggressive guy who may have been taking advantage of my tight play to force me to make all-in decisions before I really wanted to. But should I have put in 2/3 or all of my money in with a pair of threes after the flop or AQ before the flop to see if he was bluffing? I decided not to. So he got 5 or 6 thousand out of my bet-before-the-flop attempts.

If there is a lesson I did learn, though, it's that in a tournament like this you absolutely cannot try to hold on and survive. You have to be aggressive and push on the windows of opportunity from the beginning. This was my first time in this event, and I really did want to hold on -- so I was holding back a little. Next time, I won't be afraid to be eliminated in the first hour if that's what it will take.

But there was one situation at my table which did result in a player receiving the 10 minute suspension. It was kind of funny. A player started to throw his hand away before realizing that he actually had flopped a set (3 of a kind). He had let go of his cards, and they just touched the discard pile (the muck). Once the cards touch the muck, the hand is dead. The dealer told him so, and the player, as one would expect, proudly annouced the f-word. Then he dropped his head to the table as he realized what he had just said in front of this strict dealer. He was gone for 10 after that.