This is part III in a multi-part series covering my trip out to Las Vegas to cover the 2010 World Series of Poker. Please see part I and part II.

My first full day in Vegas was Day 6 of the 2010 WSOP. We got the car out of valet and headed over to the Rio to prep for the day. Paul gave me the daylight tour of the entry to the convention area (see random video here) and when we walked around the Pavilion room I got a feel for how massive it all was for the Day 1’s.

After the tour, we would head to the media room and have a look at the table draws to map out a plan of attack for reporting and photography. Harrah’s releases the table draws in PDF format and, through the magic of technology, into Google Docs it goes via @Kevmath and @ProfShadow. This makes it easily sortable and searchable and, frankly, makes our jobs easier (thanks guys!!).

The media restrictions from the previous day were still in force today and would be for the remainder of the Main Event. We still had great access, but could only go inside the inner ropes for 5 minutes every hour to get pictures, chip counts, etc. Speaking of chip counts, Paul gave me a speed course in chip counting. Since I am strictly an online poker player, chip counting is something I have never needed to worry about and the unknown was slightly intimidating. After a quick briefing from Paul I was good to go. On a few occasions I was asked by other media members about a certain players chip stack I had counted and they used it (hope I was right!).

We spent the next hour taking pictures and tweeting some of the action. See a gallery of our shots here.

One of the highlight of my trip was a conversation I overheard between Gary Wise of ESPN and one of the 441 Productions (the outlet that films for ESPN) Producers. I missed a little of the beginning but as I heard it it went something like this (paraphrasing):

GW: He’d be good for poker and good for ESPN (they are motioning over to the table with Jean-Robert Bellande, I assume they are talking about him).

Producer: Really??? He’s the shortstack! I guess it’s up to the poker gods.

GW: I don’t believe in poker gods, I only believe in ESPN!

The producer walks away and I crack up. Gary looks over at me with a smile on his face and says “That was good, huh?“.

It was getting close to 6PM Las Vegas time which meant it was almost time for the Twitter Poker Tour, our weekly poker league event. Paul and I would setup right outside the Amazon room and get ready to play and host our weekly broadcast, TPT Live. Besides broadcasting from the WSOP, the TPT Live show started off like any other show. We had over 40 players registered and play kicked off while we discussed the latest poker news of the week. Then things got a whole lot cooler.

We had been broadcasting/playing from the area outside the Amazon room where PokerRoad and The Poker Beat have been recording all month. Setup in the PokerRoad booth, cranking away at work was Matt Waldron (@MattCWaldron | Lifes a Bluff). Matt graciously joined the broadcast and shared his insight into the WPT Bellagio Cup taking place down the street and the WSOP across the hall. he was a great addition to the broadcast and we hope to have him back on again.

Through Matt’s help we were able to land two live guests. Maria Ho and Christina Lindley were walking into the Rio Convention Center and towards the Amazon room when Matt was able to pull them in for an interview. We discussed Maria’s deep run in the Bellagio Cup and poker in general.

Later on in the TPT Live show we were joined by Dan Michalski of Pokerati (@Pokerati). Topics of discussion included the NAPT, WSOP, the Lost Vegas Book and some poker inside-baseball.

Listen to the podcast of the TPT Live show here.

Back to the WSOP:

The day started with 204 players and would end with just 78 (see Paul’s recap here). The most notable bust out of the day would be 2 time WSOP Main Event champion Johnny Chan. Chan ran his KK into AA and was never able to recover. Also eliminated from contention on Day 6 was Phil Galfond, Tristan Wade, Rob Mizrachi, and the last woman standing, Breeze Zuckerman.

Still surviving the day and those that will go onto play Day 7 was: Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, David Baker, Adam Levy, Scott Clements, Eric Baldwin, David Benyamine, Johnny Lodden, Tony Dunst, and on the short stack, Jean-Robert Bellande.

After some recapping, we headed back to the Hard Rock for some Zzzz’s, then Lather, Rinse, Repeat in the AM.

Stay tuned for Part IV, thanks!!