Last Call for Late Night

Along with about 14 million others I watched David Letterman’s show last night, his last after more than three decades of being a fixture on late night television. Was laughing pretty hard from beginning to end thanks to a lot of well chosen and edited clips and other funny business.

I remember when Letterman was late, late night -- as in a 12:30 a.m. start. In fact I even dimly remember his stint with a morning show, too. I was barely a teen when Late Night with David Letterman first premiered in early 1982, at time which happened to coincide with that period in my life when I would be staying up late a lot, too.

Watched enough of him during those years to be as influenced as anyone else by what was then considered a somewhat alternative style of comedy and general TV spoofing. Like most of my generation I continued to pay fairly close attention to Letterman right up until those “late night wars” surrounding Johnny Carson’s retirement in 1992.

Kept watching occasionally after the CBS show began airing in the summer of ’93, although by then whatever late nights I kept were school-related as for the next several years I’d be pursuing graduate degrees. Then came “real life” and full-time employment, and thus fewer late nights watching the tube.

After that came this second career writing about poker which again has me up all hours, although more often watching people play cards than crack jokes on the teevee. So while I occasionally would keep tuning in to watch the Late Show it would only be now and then, and rarely in the elective way I’d watched the NBC show.

I wasn’t paying attention, then, when Letterman had Chris Moneymaker on as a guest after he’d won the 2003 World Series of Poker Main Event -- in June, that is, before that year’s WSOP had aired on ESPN. That episode doesn’t seem to be online anywhere, although Moneymaker told me once how he was pretty sure he had a tape of it somewhere.

I do recall Joe Cada’s turn on Letterman’s show in 2009, where the youngest-ever WSOP ME champ appeared just a day or two before he turned 22. Earlier that same year I wrote something here after a Steve Martin appearance on Late Show which included a funny story about Martin playing online poker after taking Ambien.

I’ve found myself distracted some over the last couple of days reading others’ stories about Letterman’s show and its significance while also looking at various clips, mostly from that first decade or so he was on the air and I was watching practically every night. And I greatly enjoyed the finale, primarily because of how Letterman characteristically downplayed the significance of the event -- entirely expected, and fitting, of course, given the self-deprecating core around which most of his humor has always been based.

I liked the sweet yet not overly sentimental way he acknowledged his mother (whom we all remember fondly, too). And I also liked how he found a spot to include his wife and son (whom we hadn’t met before), saying to them “I love you both and really nothing else matters, does it?” without being at all maudlin about it, but rather just stating a fact.

Others have (and will continue to) assign significance to his contributions to television, comedy, and the culture in general. Like Letterman himself, though, I’m dissuaded from trying to articulate any profundities explaining what it all was about.

The Return of the Champ

Joe Cada’s victory last night in Event No. 32, the $10,000 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold’em Championship, marked the first time one of the last 12 WSOP Main Event winners -- dating back to 2002 champ Robert Varkonyi -- has been able to follow his ME title with another WSOP bracelet win.

Carlos Mortensen was the most recent champion to follow his ME title with a win in another bracelet event, having won his second (and so far only other) WSOP bracelet in 2003 in a $5K limit hold’em event.

That was a big year for former Main Event champs, actually, with no less than six different ME winners collecting bracelets in 2003. In addition to Mortensen, Chris Ferguson, Phil Hellmuth, and Johnny Chan each won two events apiece, while Doyle Brunson and Huck Seed won events as well. (Ferguson finished runner-up in another event that year, too.)

There hasn’t been as good a year for former ME winners at the WSOP since, not by a long shot. Chan and Brunson would each win bracelets in 2005 -- the last for both. Scotty Nguyen would win the $50K H.O.R.S.E. in 2008. And Phil Hellmuth won WSOP events in 2006, 2007, and 2012, while also winning the 2012 WSOP Europe Main Event.

The period since 2003 has seen fields expand dramatically, although the number of bracelet events has essentially doubled, too, since 2003. And while there have been a lot of ME winners playing a lot of events, getting all of the way back to the winner’s circle has proven difficult for nearly all of them.

Cada was a likely candidate to break through to get that second bracelet, having come close several times recently with two fourth-place finishes last year and a runner-up in 2012.

Greg Merson has cashed three times already this WSOP and seems capable of being the next WSOP ME winner to win a bracelet. I’d say Jonathan Duhamel probably would be a good choice, too, to win one, even though he’s off to a rough start at this summer’s Series.

Then again, Hellmuth is 11th of 38 in another event to start today (Event No. 36, $1,500 NL 2-7 Draw), and so perhaps he’ll be the next ME winner to grab more gold. Again.

Kudos to Cada: WSOP Champ on Letterman

You might have heard -- the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event champion Joe Cada appeared as a guest on “The Late Show with David Letterman” last night.

Kind of a coup for the WSOP and poker in general, really. And PokerStars, with whom Cada has signed.

Stars sent out a presser yesterday noting that “Cada is the first poker player to be on the show since 2004.” Not sure, but I think the reference might be to Annie Duke having been on the show after winning the Tournament of Champions as well as a bracelet in the $2,000 Omaha Hi-Lo Split event that year. I know Chris Moneymaker appeared on Letterman’s show in June 2003 -- following his Main Event victory, but prior to its airing on ESPN (and thus, really, before the resulting “boom”).

You’ll recall how last year WSOP Director of Corporate Communications Seth Palansky noted that efforts to get players from the November Nine to appear on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” and “Ellen” had been unsuccessful. So you know folks like Palansky and others are proud -- justly -- to see Cada accept the invite and this moment in the spotlight.

The interview itself came in the second half-hour, following a monologue with a lot of Sarah Palin jokes (she was just on “Oprah,” apparently), the Top Ten Signs Your NFL Team Owner Is Nuts, and a couple of segments with Penelope Cruz. Finally, Cada was introduced, taking his seat as Paul Schaffer and the CBS Orchestra banged out the chorus to Lady Gaga’s “Poker Face” (surprise). Cada was wearing a spiffy black shirt and sporting his new WSOP Main Event bracelet, about which Letterman asked his first question.

“Yeah, that’s what you get when you win it,” said Cada, still grinning. He’ll probably be that way for a while.

Letterman’s questions demonstrated some familiarity with the WSOP, with poker’s increased popularity and changing status in the culture, and even his understanding of backing deals and other aspects of professional poker.

The host started out by referring to how the WSOP had been at Binion’s, and Cada explained that “after the Moneymaker year” it had moved over to the Rio. (2005 was actually the first year at the Rio, and 2006 the first year the WSOP ME final table was at the Rio.) Letterman then asked Cada how long he’d been playing poker, to which Cada responded “about four years,” then noted how he got started playing online when he turned 18. (Cada turns 22 today, in fact.)

Letterman followed by asking Cada how his parents felt about him playing poker. Cada explained that they weren’t thrilled. Interestingly, his mother is a blackjack dealer at a casino in Detroit, “so she relates everything the same as gambling,” said Cada. “She wasn’t too happy.”

Cada was asked what was the most he’d lost playing poker. “In a day?” Cada replied, and Letterman chuckled. The answer to that was $100,000, which Cada said had happened since July (after he’d already earned the $1.2 million-plus for making the final nine). Before that, his worst day was a $40,000 loss. But Cada explained he’d never lost more than he could afford. “It’s not like I’m in over my head,” he said.

Letterman asked more questions about how the WSOP and the Main Event worked, which Cada did a good job explaining, as well as about the mental and physical exhaustion caused by the ME and the “atmosphere” at the final table. The only real comedy came when Letterman addressed how poker’s cultural status has changed of late from a sketchy pursuit to a more respectable activity.

“All of a sudden poker is everywhere,” said Letterman. “And in my mind, the winner of a big pot... they find dead in a rental car.” As the audience laughed, Letterman asked “That doesn’t happen anymore?” Cada did a good job explaining how poker was indeed generally unlike what one sees in the movies, and that poker is “a fun thing to do, socially.”

Cada was circumspect when Letterman inquired about backing arrangements and whether he had to split his winnings with anyone. “Something along those lines,” said Cada, perhaps prudently avoiding sharing details of his arrangement with Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy, who reportedly had at least 50% of Cada’s action for the ME. “That’s where the rental car comes in,” Letterman cracked.

And that was it. Less than five minutes, but as I say, a coup of sorts for the WSOP and for poker. And Cada should be commended for conducting himself well and taking on the daunting responsibility of trying to represent poker to the rest of the world. Sort of stuff looks a lot easier than it is -- getting interviewed in front of a sizable studio audience and before an audience of millions. If you think about it, that test last week in which Cada had to perform before the crowd at the Penn & Teller Theater at the Rio -- and the ESPN cameras -- probably didn’t hurt as a kind of preparation.

Of course, last night Cada couldn’t really rely on getting lucky to do well.

The Green-Eyed Monster

Noticed over the weekend that a new thread had popped up on Two Plus Two begun by the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event champion, Joe Cada. Cada’s post begins “Lets first by saying if anyone thinks I'm denying I got lucky at the final table then im not.”

The rest of Cada’s message is a bit difficult to parse, but he appears to be both acknowledging his having been the beneficiary of some good cards on his way to winning the Main Event while defending himself as a skillful player who made some good decisions, too.

“Did I run like god at the final table 100 percent correct,” he admits. Then, referring to that big hand versus Antoine Saout (Hand No. 272), Cada writes “Now 22 when your playing 3handed opening basically every pot and the person to the left of you is really aggr and has 3bet a lot and you have 40 bb with tons of fold equity noting 1hand he thought up to 5min getting it in preflop to a button 4bet after he 3bet with ak in bb is not bad.”

Like I said, a bit difficult to parse. More than a bit, actually. “Some may not understand this but oh well,” adds Cada. Not sure if he’s referring to the play or the way he’s described it.

The post generated many responses, with some congratulating Cada for his win while others took it as bait to issue further challenges regarding Cada’s poker playing ability. The responses are somewhat interesting, I guess, but more intriguing to me is the fact that Cada felt the need to defend himself at all. His post obviously responds to other threads and reactions to last week’s final table, particularly those that characterized Cada and his opponent Darvin Moon as somehow undeserving of having landed the top two spots in poker’s biggest tourney.

The thread made me think of something I’d heard on the Casino City Gang podcast late last week. Have been enjoying that weekly show -- hosted by Vin Narayanan, Gary Trask, and Dan Igo -- quite a bit. In this most recent episode (the 11/12/09) episode, the trio shared reactions to the November Nine. Toward the end of the discussion, Trask noted how disappointing it was that so few of the top pros -- many of whom had been there on Saturday -- did not come back to the Penn & Teller Theater on Monday night for the heads-up portion.

That led to some speculation about why so few were there for the finale, with Narayanan suggesting that some of “these pro players are stung by the fact that they are not winning the Main Event,” and that until one of them does, it will continue to be “a big sore point among the top professional players.”

Narayanan then talks a bit about Mike “The Mouth” Matusow, who had been there to see Phil Ivey bust on Saturday, but did not come back on Monday. Matusow did send some tweets on Monday, however, showing that he was following the action. Narayanan notes how Matusow “was just killing” Cada and Moon on Twitter, “talking about how the two biggest luckboxes of the tournament were sitting there playing for [the championship] and that poker was not a game of skill anymore.”

Indeed, over @TheMouthMatusow the pro starts by saying “I can't go see the two worst players of the final 9 play for pokers biggest prize its too embarrassing,” then adds “These 2 hu os a new low point for poker as any kind of skilled game so om staying home gl to both.” He goes on to call Cada “a stone idiot” who has “no clue how to play poker,” before finally signing off with less-than-sincere sounding congratulations and a final message that “this is a lesson on bow not to play hu poker.”

Kind of an interesting phenomenon, the way that this year’s final table generated this sort of response. Of course, it happens just about every year -- doesn’t it? Not sure what I think of the whole “pros are jealous because they aren’t winning” argument, but I think we’re all pretty familiar with how one poker player’s success at the tables tends to elicit others’ envy. One could argue there is something in human nature that makes us that way. As Jonathan Swift once wrote in his elegy to himself “Verses on the Death of Dr. Swift” (1731), “What poet would not grieve to see / His brethren write as well as he? / But rather than they should excel, / He’d wish his rivals all in hell.”

Speaking of good writers, I just finished Vicky Coren’s For Richer, For Poorer: A Love Affair with Poker this weekend, and it is absolutely terrific. Very smart, witty, even “literary.” I plan to say more about the book here eventually, but I will share one passage she includes about poker players and “schadenfreude” -- that weird, German-derived word that refers to our tendency to derive pleasure from others’ misfortune.

“Poker players are the bitterest, most resentful, most grudging, most jealous humans on the planet,” writes Coren. “They enjoy nothing more than schadenfreude. They hate nothing worse than someone else’s success. They are happiest when describing a huge pot lost by a regular opponent. They don’t care who won it.... That delights them.”

“God, I love them,” Coren adds, a kind of winking punchline to the discussion.

And really, you have to. ’Cos that’s how people -- especially poker players -- are, for the most part. So all you winners out there, don’t expect everyone else to rejoice in yr triumphs.

Comeback Kid Cada 2009 WSOP Main Event Champ

Sat up into the wee hours following online that there heads-up clash last night. Went much longer than most observers -- including yr humble gumshoe -- had guessed it would. Over three hours, I believe, with Joe Cada finally outlasting Darvin Moon in a genuinely compelling, hard fought battle for the bracelet.
(Photos in this post by the great FlipChip, natch.)

Had great fun following the coverage on PokerNews, reading all the tweets, and listening to the Bluff Magazine audio. Usually I’d first read insta-reports of each action on Twitter, then hear David Chicotsky, Phil Hellmuth, Joe Sebok, and a rotating group of others comment on the Bluff feed, then read the short hand narratives by FerricRamsium and Donnie Peters. I’d also occasionally skip over to Dr. Pauly’s live blog, the ESPN blog kept by Andrew Feldman, the PokerStars blog, and a few other sites, too, to help fill out the scene. (Oh, and while yr poking around those links, check out F-Train's “November Nine Errata” for a few more items of interest.)

Altogether gave a pretty good sense of what was happening, although I’ll certainly be intrigued to watch what ESPN puts together for tonight’s show, too.

As I say, the action last night was fairly gripping, I thought. Some high-drama hands in there, as well as enough back-and-forthing for some thought-provoking patterns to emerge.

It appeared on the very first hand that Moon had missed a great opportunity -- and perhaps displayed yet another example of awkward (or flat-out bad) play. Moon chose to limp in from the small blind/button, and we’d soon learn he held pocket queens. Cada then raised to 3.5 million from the big blind, and Moon called. The pair managed to put another 20 million each in the middle on the next two streets, but both checked the river, at which point Cada showed pocket nines. The two kings and one ace among the community cards surely kept all of Moon’s chips from going into the middle in that one, and it seemed clear that had he gone ahead and committed them preflop, Cada probably would’ve come along.

In other words, it looked like from the first hand that Moon should have doubled up and taken the chip lead away from Cada, but instead he’d only closed the gap to about 110 million to 85 million. It also looked like the night was going to be over quickly.

But that didn’t happen. For the next ten hands Moon chipped away, then took the lead in Hand No. 12 of heads up. Cada raised his button to 2.5 million for the sixth straight time, and Moon called. The flop came , Moon checked, Cada continued for 3.5 million, and Moon check-raised to 8.5 million. Cada called. Both checked the turn, then when the river came , Moon bet 7.25 million and Cada called him. Moon showed -- the flop check-raise had been with air, and he’d paired up on the turn -- and Cada mucked.

Was partly happenstance, but somehow Moon had gotten the lead without going all in. Not once had Moon been all in with his tourney life at risk for the entire WSOP Main Event. That streak was still alive! And would remain so until the very last hand of the tournament, in fact.

After those first dozen hands it had become clear that Moon (a) was not going to play a passive, easily exploitable game, and (b) was not appearing to be playing an orthodox or “standard” game, either. Won’t presume to judge how well either player played without seeing hole cards, but it certainly seemed that despite Moon’s own protestations that he’d had practically zero experience at heads up, he was providing Cada -- who plays mostly heads-up online -- a genuine challenge.

Cada would soon take the lead back, though. And by the time they took their first break of the night (after 52 hands played) they were essentially dead even. Over the next dozen hands Moon took several sizable pots, and suddenly he was sitting with a nearly 3-to-1 chip advantage with 145 million to Cada’s almost 50 million. Cada pushed all in before the flop on Hand No. 70 of heads up, but Moon declined. Then in Hand No. 80 came what was really the pivotal moment of the match.

The blinds at that point were 600,000/1.2 million (with a 200,000 ante). Cada raised to 3 million from the button, and Moon called. The flop came , and both checked. The turn brought the , and after Moon checked Cada bet 3 million. Moon check-raised all in, and after a long think Cada made the call with . Moon showed -- an open-ended straight draw. The river was the , and Cada had rebounded to take the lead once more.

An interesting play by Moon, and it sounded like Cada nearly let go of his hand, but he ultimately made the big call. There was a little break right after that hand, and one could hear the two players talking in the background of the Bluff Magazine audio broadcast. Cada could be heard sincerely complimenting Moon’s play, making reference to the fact that he plays a lot of heads up and that Moon compared favorably to his usual competition. Struck me as a pretty mature-sounding thing to say for the kid from Michigan who doesn’t turn 22 until later this month. Also humble, providing a stark contrast to the commentary by Hellmuth in the foreground.

Speaking of the Poker Brat, he was just 24 when he won the 1989 WSOP, holding pocket nines for the winning hand. And as it would turn out, Cada would also have pocket nines -- -- in Hand No. 88 of heads up, what would turn out to be the last hand of the night.

Again Cada raised to 3 million from the button, Moon reraised to 8 million, Cada pushed, and Moon called with . The board ran out , and Cada became the youngest Main Event champ ever.

After a wild Saturday night/Sunday morning full of surprising suckouts and some pretty obvious missteps, it seems that Monday’s denouement helped improve the reputations of both players as skillful competitors. While each surely benefited from good fortune, sometimes in highly dramatic fashion, both showed they can play Texas hold’em, and so in that battle between luck and skill I was alluding to yesterday, skill did (in a sense) perhaps “win out.”

I’m not alone, I don’t think, in liking both of these guys. Probably somewhat better for poker that the one who seems primed to join the professional circuit -- and not the fellow content to go back into the woods with his chainsaw (as amiable as he is) -- ended up on top.

Am thinking more and more that next year I might just have to angle a way to get back out to Vegas in November to witness this spectacle go down. As I mentioned already, in 2008 I didn’t really have much of a pull to be there once they finally resumed the sucker. But this year I did, and I don’t think it was just because of the prospect of being there to see a Phil Ivey victory.

Yeah, as fun as the online coverage was to follow, I think it would be fun to see the November Nine with my own peepers. And my peeps.

2009 WSOP Main Event Heads Up: Moon v. Cada and/or Luck v. Skill

One more day of play at the Rio, and the 40th World Series of Poker will at long last be completed. (Had to share that cool FlipChip pic from Saturday night there to the left.) What a lo-o-o-o-ong, strange trip it’s been.

Joe Cada and Darvin Moon are scheduled to begin their heads-up battle at 10 p.m. Vegas time, although if things go the way they usually do cards won’t be in the air until some time after that.

For those of us here on the east coast, then, that’s after 1 a.m. Would mean a late, late night, but I’m thinking I’ll probably follow along anyhow. Could be wrong, but I am encouraged to stay up by the belief that the match might well be a short one. Gotta couple of reasons for thinking that.

When play resumes, Cada will have 135,950,000 chips and Moon 58,850,000. (Interestingly, Moon has almost exactly the same stack as he had when the final table began, when his 58,930,000 gave him a huge lead over his eight opponents.) They are in the middle of Level 39, with blinds of 500,000/1,000,000 and 150,000 antes. Not sure exactly, but it looks as though they have about a half-hour or so left at this level, after which the price to play Level 40 will be 600,000/1.2 million blinds and 200,000 antes.

Last year Peter Eastgate and Ivan Demidov came back on Monday night to Level 37 (300,000/600,000/75,000), so they are a little farther along in the schedule this time around. Last year players in the Main Event began with 20,000 chips, as opposed to 30,000 in 2009. There were 6,844 entrants in 2008, meaning the final two players had a little over 137 million between them. A total of 6,494 came out in 2009, and so Cada and Moon have just under 195 million on the table.

Was fussing over this some last year -- this business of calculating the “M” of each player here at the start of heads-up play. Remember, a player’s “M” (from Dan Harrington’s Harrington on Hold’em books) is the total “cost” to play one orbit, i.e., the blinds and antes. So here we’re talking about the small blind + the big blind + two antes. Harrington’s “M” figure doesn’t really have the same significance for heads up as it does in full-ring play, of course, although it does provide a way to talk about relative stack sizes between tourneys.

Last year Eastgate had an “M” of approximately 76 and Demidov about 55 when they began, and those two went for 105 more hands. Over at the WSOPE Main Event in 2008, John Juanda had an “M” of around 63 and Stanislav Alekhin of close to 41 when they began heads up, and those two went on for an epic 242 hands (like seven hours or something). That difference proves that “M” doesn’t necessarily help us predict how long heads up will go, since when the “M” is above a certain point how long they play mostly depends on players’ styles and their approach to the endgame.

For comparison’s sake, when they return tonight Cada will have an “M” of just over 75 and Moon just under 33. So theoretically, these guys could go on for a hundred or even two hundred hands, but I ain’t seeing that happening.

One difference from the 2008 WSOP and WSOPE Main Events is the fact that Cada has a more than two-to-one chip advantage here. That alone decreases the likelihood that we’ll see the sort of patience demonstrated in the other examples, although again -- theoretically -- it doesn’t mean they can’t be patient.

However, here I think it is clear that the amateur Moon is not interested in trying to outplay Cada after the flop very much, and so will be encouraged both by his chip disadvantage and skill disadvantage to start shoving right away. In fact, I’d be very surprised if Moon did not begin moving all in from the very first hands tonight. (That said, we’ve been surprised by Moon before!)

Cada certainly improves his chances if he shows some patience and waits for a decent hand with which to accept that first invitation to an all-in challenge, although if Moon does force the issue this way and try to negate (or at least mute) Cada’s skill advantage, the kid is still going to have to have a hand hold up to win the sucker.

We might well see some post-flop poker tonight, but it appears more likely it’s gonna be flipping coins. Moon’ll have to win that first one in order to have a second go. If he does, then Cada will have to win the next one in order to survive. Both made it this far via a combination of skill and luck, but it sure seems that luck will prevail tonight.

Or not. Which is why I’ll be staying up to see what happens. Will be truckin’ over to PokerNews’ live reporting page as usual, where FerricRamsium and Donnie Peters will chronicle the hands, and Gloria Balding will interview the players.

See you there!

2009 WSOP Main Event: Cada Can Do, But Moon Has Shot

Wild finish this morning at the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event, with the Michigan youngster Joe Cada hitting hands at the right time and the Maryland logger Darvin Moon likewise running good and surviving some sketchy plays to make it to heads up.

Looked for a while like Antoine Saout and Eric Buchman -- who finished third and fourth, respectively -- were both poised to be there for the tourney’s conclusion on Monday night. But both suffered some misfortune, thereby paving the way for Cada and Moon.

Much will be made of how Cada, whose whopping stack of almost 136 million means he presently has over two-thirds of the chips, survived not one but two all-in confrontations in which he had the worst pocket pair and flopped a set. The first came in Hand No. 195 versus Jeff Shulman. Cada, the table’s short stack at the time with less than 11 million, open-shoved from the small blind with pocket treys only to get instacalled by Shulman who had pocket jacks in the BB. A trey flopped, and Cada stuck around.

Then, once they were down to three-handed, Cada survived in similar fashion in one of the last hands of the night-slash-morning. After Moon folded his button, Cada opened with a raise to 2.55 million from the SB (blinds 500,000/1,000,000). Saout reraised to 7.3 million, Cada thought for a while then announced he was all in, committing his entire 39 million or so. Saout quickly called, showing pocket queens to Cada’s lowly pair of deuces. But a third deuce flopped, Cada’s hand held up, and a little later he’d finish Saout off when his A-K outraced the Frenchman’s pocket eights.

Sometime earlier in the night Cada had survived yet another all in with pocket fours against Phil Ivey’s A-8. So them baby pairs served the baby-faced Cada quite well.

Meanwhile, the not-so-baby faced Moon made several strange plays during the course of the 276 hands played -- already a new record for the longest WSOP Main Event final table in history. (Photo via Katkin for Pokerati.) The forums have already seized upon some of those early hands, such as the early one in which he stumbled into doubling Saout up while holding A-4, or the bizarre one versus Steven Begleiter when he check-raised the former Bear Stearns exec for almost all his chips, then amazingly folded after Begleiter pushed.

(Incidentally, check out this silly article over on Bloomberg about Begleiter’s sixth-place finish. As Change100 noted on Twitter, the author seems to believe the dollar-value of the chips are equivalent to cash!)

As play wound down, there was an eight-hand sequence in which Moon shoved all in three times (Hands No. 249-256), appearing perhaps to be ready to gamble it up once and for all. He wasn’t called on any of those occasions, however. He’d then sit back and watch as Buchman lost most of his stack to Saout in an A-Q vs. A-K hand. Moon would then double Buchman up once, but knocked him out in the next hand (Hand No. 271). That would be the last big one Moon would play, as Cada and Saout’s two big hands shortly followed, and Moon had survived to play Monday with just under 59 million.

If I’m not mistaken, then, Darvin Moon was the only player at the final table never to have had all of his chips at risk -- i.e., not once did he find himself all in and called by an opponent who had him covered. And, in fact, in that interview from July with The Poker Edge, he noted that he’d never once faced that situation during the eight days of play this summer, either.

So out of 6,494 players who entered this sucker, just one can (still) say he’s never been all in with his tourney life on the line.

Have to doubt Moon will be able to continue that streak, though, once he and Cada begin play on Monday. It is possible he could chip up and take the lead without going all in, but it doesn’t seem like that is going to happen. Cada has the edge in both skill and chips, and Moon seems as though he is ready to make it a gambling game, if he can, in order to increase his chances.

Last year heads up lasted over 100 hands, and there were many complaints that ESPN only ultimately showed two of them. This year, there may be only two hands to show. Or just one!

How ever many it is, I know I’ll be watching.