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WOW! Now this is
an event! When you enter the Rio, signs direct you to the convention, and
a convention it was!
It took us a while to find
the poker tables through all the vendors that were exhibiting!
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This was the scene when we
entered...they started with less entrants than speculations let us to believe
- a total of 5661 have signed up, not 6600. About 1/3 of them are playing
in today's flight. (Learned the lingo... each of these 'day 1's' is called
a 'flight')
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MZ's
table was RIGHT up against an outside edge - PERFECT spot from which the
entourage could watch! This was MZ's table at the start of Level 2.
On his table, is Barry
Greenstein, the "Robin Hood of Poker". He's the guy in the pink
shirt next to the guy in the red hat. Barry is one of the premier players
of today.
Need it be said...yes!
Barry didn't make it through day 1, but Mike did!
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And
watch we did... through 14 grueling hours... painfully seeing the number of
tables slowly drop. They played till 66 tables were left - that took part way
into Level 8, which the players did not expect. |
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This
was MZ's table just near the end of Level 8..... umm...not a major
difference from 14 hours ago you might notice... But OH the drama in
between! |
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This
was the dreadful hand that cut the stack in half. The Q's are MZ's... the
other guy had a pair of 10's |
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There
was playing, and thinking, and more thinking...stack moving up and
down....Read the details in the star's own
words. |
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He
went All In a number of times...this one was called and won - doubled up! |
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No,
he's not actually stunned these chips came his way... just doin' a quick
count... |
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Before
piling them up |
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MZ's
table was at the spot where ESPN (who was filming the whole thing again)
was doing exit interviews of the pro's. We saw Jennifer Harman and Barry
Greenstein as they were out the door (while MZ was still in!) |
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I
number of stars (Brad Garrett from Everybody Loves Raymond on the right,
Chris Ferguson on the left))
and pros played today, too... oh, but none of them are coming back on
Sunday!! |
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Here's
some shot's of the entourage at work... it's hard getting these pictures,
because no flash photography was allowed.
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And
for those that were worried, fear not - the entourage held a dinner table
for our star, so dinner was stress free! |
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Despite
our star surviving the pro's and playing brilliantly, it did not go to his
head... he even paused to take some pictures with the entourage!
See ya at day 2!
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