Went to the Rio to watch the Final Table of the WSOP and to go to Mike Sexton’s Hall of Fame Induction. A cool night all the way around.

Watching the play I was not surprised at the results. No doubt Joe Cada got lucky to beat JJ with threes and to do it again later with 2’s. No doubt BUT what I admired about his play was he was willing to get in there and gamble. I didn’t find that to be the case with Shulman or especially Ivey. They just got blinded off. Ivey was in a better position than anyone else at the table to play without cards because ..he’s Phil Ivey. The entire poker world thought he would win and those other 8 players knew his reputation. I really don’t think he even began to capitalize on that and had said early on I did not think he would win.

I felt for Darvin Moon as he made some missteps and struggled as a result. However, as I too have learned the hard way, you can’t get real final table experience unless you’re at a final table. Moon – as did I – got his on national television. I think he did fine.

The best player at the table, in my opinion, was Eric Buchman. After losing a big pot he began to push, more needless than necessary (easy for me to recognize the trait as I suffer from it also) and tried to run back up the top of the mountain instead of slowly climbing back up.

All in all I enjoyed this more than in the past. Having played the WSOP every day this summer, following and knowing some of the players, I was intrigued with how this one played out. I’ll be at the heads up match tomorrow to watch with great interest.