2010 WSOP, Day 14: Late Night Draw

Not a lot of time for posting today, I’m afraid. Some times you draw an early night at the WSOP. And sometimes not.

Last night I drew the late night.

The event I’m helping cover, Event No. 19, the $10,000 Deuce-to-Seven Draw Lowball Championship (No-Limit), went later than expected, leaving me little time for much beyond grabbing a few hours of sleep, eating a little something, and getting back over to the Rio today for the final day of play.

The plan last night had been to play down to a final seven-handed table or to play ten one-hour levels, stopping with whichever came first. No one expected us to get from 72 to seven in ten levels, so we all were expecting the night to end somewhere around 2:30 a.m. with the end of Level 18.

When the tourney reached 15 players -- one off the money -- and hand-for-hand play commenced, the tourney clock was stopped (as is usually done). And it took an especially long time to have another elimination, probably at least 45 minutes.

In fact, the time it took was lengthened considerably because when hand-for-hand play began, there were a few instances of players deliberately delaying play so as to allow each other a bathroom break. We were only a minute or two away from the end of Level 16 when the 16th-place player was eliminated. Players were in fact surprised we were not going to take a break but play through without stop until the next elimination.

So for the first two or three hands of hand-for-hand play, at least one player at one table spent five minutes before acting so as to allow others to run across the hall. Jessica Wellman (of Bluff and “The Poker Beat”) was hanging out with us a bit and had a line about “pretending to tank to empty the tank.”

While the mood was generally light-hearted (despite the fact they were on the cash bubble), a couple of players were not amused by the tactics and complained. As I say, by the time hand-for-hand had finally concluded, it was already pushing 2 a.m. The players went on their scheduled break, then came back to discover we’d still be playing two more levels and not stopping at 3 a.m. as most expected.

So we continued on into the night. Play starts back at 4 p.m. this afternoon. Still have Bloch, Juanda, Negreanu, and Seidel among the final ten, plus David “Whooookidd” Baker, back to another final table after making the $50K Player’s Championship FT last week. Should be interesting. As always, you can follow the coverage over at PokerNews.

Meanwhile, let me point you to a new Betfair piece of mine up today about being at the WSOP. Have a good weekend, all!