coming out from the shadows of the world series

so i went in to work on thursday expecting a night of dealing cash games and found out as i went in that i was going to deal the final table of the main event of the world series of poker europe (WSOPE). i wasn't sure whether to be happy or extremely nervous. i watched rob for an hour and then dealt for my first hour at 9pm. i was shitting myself as there was loads of cameras and people watching. my hands were clammy and i got the shakes a little bit. the actual dealing was fairly easy as all the players were playing very conservatively and Jack (the TD) was doing commentary and announcing everything i had to do. the thing that made it hard was the fact that i was so petrified of fucking up and i became paranoid that i would make a stupid mistake like forgetting to move the button.

anyway, during my first hour there was a couple of big hands and 2 players (including daniel negranu) were knocked out leaving only 3 in the tournament at 10.30pm. i thought it would be all over in another couple of hours but to my surprise it was 3am by the time we got down to the final 2 when some bloke that's also on the final table for the main event in vegas got knocked out.

so then there was 2 .... the final 2 were john juanda and stanislav alekhin. juanda was nice and chatty and is quite well known. the other guy was russian and reminded me a bit of ivan drago. rob really wanted to deal the final hand and i quite wanted him to to it as he was so keen but he dealt his hour and next it was my turn. i expected it to end during my stint but despite 2 called all-ins i couldn't finish it off. rob was up again next and he came close to ending it but stanislav hit trips on the turn. by this stage everyone was getting tired and wanted to get home, it was 6am which is just too late to be playing poker.

we came close to it all ending a few more times but it was ultimately 11am before John Juanda won the £860,000 first prize with quad 6s. i got to deal the final hand which i was quite happy about as it's a good story to tell down the pub