New Orleans Day 4: Final table and a late night session.

The final table setup was really cool. It was going to be aired on a 1-hour delay at worldseriesofpoker.com as well as on Bluff's website. When the final table finally began, the fireworks weren't delayed for a second.

Miles raised it up on the first hand, which I expected him to do anyway with the chip lead. Ed Jatho re-raised behind Miles, something I also expected. Jatho was a solid player that liked to whack off the younger kids when he felt that they were getting out of hand. He probably just figured Miles was getting out of line and would re-raise here with a pretty wide range of decent hands, I'd say 6s or better and AJ+. But then Marc Fratter thought and smooth called behind Jatho. Now, this just wreaks of a huge hand from Fratter, I'd say KK or AA, more likely AA. Action folded back to Miles (all three of these players in the hand were seated right next to one another) and he thought for a while before announcing re-raise. Now, Miles is smart enough here to know that the flat call behind by Fratter is really strong so in order for him to re-raise, I can only see him having AA or KK as well. But because it's more likely that Fratter would be flatting with AA, Miles re-raise to me looked like he had AA. Could two players really have AA on the first hand of the final table? With a player trapper between?

Jatho didn't give it much thought and moved all in, this seemed to be a mistake in my opinion. I just don't think he really thought that hand out. Fratter made the same mistake and went all in behind Jatho rather quickly. Miles quickly made the call after a short hesitation. I know the feeling that Miles had, 'Is this really happening?!?!?' Miles showed AA, Jatho JJ, and Fratter QQ. Wow! The first hand of the final table and we have some big hands all in preflop.

Miles ended up winning the hand and amassed an enormous chip lead over everyone else. This is when I said this tournament is over. There's just no way anyone will be able to take him down now. The feeling around the rest of the room was mutual and you could see the heads of the other players at the table sag as if they knew Miles was going to just run them over.

The other player I thought would have a great showing, Jeff Tims, did well until he got unlucky in a hand. He got it all in PF with the best of it, but went down and was on the short stack. He did manage to cash for over $70k, so he made a pretty solid showing this entire trip; up over $120k. Lou Esposito did well also and cashed pretty good. He was on the short stack for most of the final table and couldn't really get much going. He final tabled the final 3 events of this circuit, which is pretty damn good.

I believe it took under 60 hands to get down to heads-up play. That was pretty amazing. When we got to heads up, the players were both so deep that it seemed like this could go for a long time. Miles made it along with Nick Ceci. Both these players had such contrasting styles. Miles was an excellent post flop player and liked to play small-pot poker, chipping away at his opponents' stacks. he never really seemed to get involved in huge pots. If he did, he either had the best hand or was putting a ton of pressure on the other player. Ceci on the other hand was betting like a madman. I don't really know if he had a method to his madness, but some of his play was absurd. He'd fire out bets of two and three times the pot size often, it was so weird. PF he would raise to 5-6 times the BB from the button and generally called any raise that Miles made from the SB. I remember Miles making a few comments about Ceci not wanting to play small pots. I believe Miles was just going to wait him out and wait for a mistake from Ceci with such large bets.

When the final big hand came up, I believe Miles thought just that. Ceci made some insane overbet of the pot and Miles thought he had the best hand and knew Ceci wouldn't fold once putting that much money in so he fired all in. Ceci actually had a better hand than Miles here and there's not much Miles could have done. I do think that Miles may have gotten a little impatient with Ceci's playing style. This hand didn't knock Miles out, but it pretty much ruined his chances. He was down 2.3 million to just his 150k. It would be a huge mountain to climb to get that back. In the end it was Ceci coming out on top, despite being the far inferior player in my opinion.

Congrats to all players and winners. It was such a sick tournament and I can't even imagine what the WSOP is going to be like.

After that, we wrapped up and headed back to the hotel to get changed. We then headed back over to the casino and I sat in for a $1/2 NL session. Let me tell you, these players were horrendous. I had two guys at my table that brought their hole cards up to their face with both hands every time. I kid you not, they really did this. Some of the plays people were making were just atrocious and I was almost drooling at one point. I put in a 4-hour session and finished up $175. I'll be posting some of my key hands later on.