Posted by Andrew Feldman
It's Friday afternoon in Las Vegas and all of the players are hanging out with their family and friends. Many of them are having parties this afternoon as a thank-you to everyone who has come out to support them. Kevin Schaffel is even taking his entire 90-person contingent to the Terry Fator show at the Mirage! All of them are finding ways to relax and be ready for Saturday's action.
Eric Pierce For ESPN.com
This was definitely a highlight of my day.
As for me, the morning started nice and early with a special ESPN Inside Deal featuring Peter Eastgate. As we prepped for the show in the Penn and Teller Theater, one of my former ESPN.com co-workers, Darren Rovell, was doing his sports business thing by interviewing commissioner Jeffrey Pollack, Darvin Moon and Steven Begleiter. He asked Pollack about the economy and how it has affected the money and Pollack, smooth as ever, boasted that the WSOP is alive and well. Each of these interviews can be found at cnbc.com.
Once Rovell was off the air, the Inside Deal took over right from the final table. We invited Peter Eastgate on the show during this special since let's face it, nobody knows what it's like to enter the November Nine final table besides the nine from last year, and the man who won the bracelet probably has some good advice. Indeed he did.
Eastgate shared his thoughts on the players at the table, how he's spent his year as poker ambassador and whom he'd like to see earn the bracelet this time around. Earning over $1 million in tournament winnings over the past year, Eastgate had a very successful tenure as champion and unlike many of the other recent champs, I don't see him fading out of the spotlight anytime soon.
Bernard Lee, Laura Lane and I then discussed what we're watching for on Saturday and made some final predictions on how this entire table will play out. After we finished the show, I interviewed Norman Chad, Chops from Wicked Chops Poker and some random poker fans in the Rio, including one who asked if Phil Hellmuth was at the final table.
Guess not everyone's been watching every Tuesday night on ESPN at 9 p.m.
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Small Blinds
Doyle Brunson was on ESPN 1100 AM and offered to coach Darvin Moon if he would wear a Doylesroom patch during the final table. Moon declined. … Moon also spent a good chunk of the morning at the Texas Hold 'em pit game with Kevin Schaffel's sister. By the way, he's still running good and won another $1,000. … The portraits of the previous WSOP winners are hanging in the halls of the Rio. … Unlike last year, the Penn and Teller Theater is really open, allowing for a better view for the spectators. … However, it doesn't look as though much of the general public will be able to watch this year since the players brought out so many supporters. This is definitely something I think they need to fix next year. … I spoke to Jeffrey Pollack on the Poker Edge podcast and we talked about the Hall of Fame situation. I'm pretty confident we'll see some more changes to the process in 2010. … Hans "Tuna" Lund passed away today after losing a lengthy battle with cancer.
Poker
