The first World Blogger's Poker Tour Holiday Classic Tournament is now over; although, I suspect that many of the participants remain in Vegas and are continuing their poker holiday as I write. The event began today at 10:00 am with a meet and greet breakfast that filled the meeting room with more than thirty of the most influential poker bloggers from all around the country, mixed in with some very well known professional poker players. Sounds like a party. The hosts for the tournament were Pauly from Tao of Poker, LasVegasVegas's own Poker Prof and Dick Gatewood from Buy It In Vegas. The facilities, food tables, dealers and security was provided by Sam’s Town Hotel and Casino on the Boulder Strip. The Professionals that were on-hand for the breakfast was Marcel Luske, Kirill Gerasimov, Charlie Shoten, Max Pescatori, Evelyn Ng, Tom McEvoy and Ron Rose. We wish to thank them for getting up early and coming to our event to meet the blogging community. They were also playing at noon in a No limit Hold’em event at the Bellagio’s Five Diamond World Poker Classic.

The tournament began promptly at 1:00 pm in the Sam’s Town Poker Room under the direction of Dick Gatewood, Poker Room Manager. The field was limited to thirty players that included mostly poker bloggers and a few professionals. Max Pescatori and Charlie Shoten shared a table with the likes of Pauly and Felicia Lee (Felicia Lee is a Professional Player that blogs). Unfortunately, I was the second player eliminated when my pocket aces were run down by Max’s Ah,Jh when the turn brought the third heart and a flush. Probably a good thing since I was back on the camera documenting the tournament. For a complete list of the order of finish go to Pauly’s Blog, Tao of Poker. The tournament Champion was Felicia Lee of Arizona. Las Vegas Professional Player, Max Pescatori, was second, and Julie McGovern of New York was third and our own Foiledcoup finished forth. Felicia’s husband, Glenn, took the last money spot when he finished fifth. Dr. Pauly went out on the bubble after coming into the final table as the chip leader. The crowd stayed until the last hand was dealt and the awards were passed out. We will be adding a gallery of the best from the more than three hundred images we are sorting from the blogger tournament.

The Bellagio’s FiveDiamond World Poker Classic played the final table for event #11, $2,500 + $100 No Limit Hold’em, Jim Myung finishing first and collecting $117,000. Jeffrey Littlefield from Texas finished second and received $86,000. Today was the first day of event #12, $3,000 + $100 No Limit Hold’em had a record field of 414 entries. The final table will be played on Sunday with the winner receiving $414,419 and a $25,000 seat in the 2005 Bellagio WPT Championship.

Spending the day with the poker bloggers and professional players, then taking part in a tournament brings us to this weeks Nines list, How do you know you’re in a Blogger’s Poker Tournament.

9. Twenty-five people climb out of one limo
8. The table talk includes words like Linux, blade servers and bandwidth
7. Sitting across from someone named Mrs Al Can’t Hang
6. Cocktail girls can’t bring beer fast enough
5. Thirty people furiously writing in little notebooks
4. Every time someone goes all-in thirty digital cameras flash
3. People chanting, Hammer, Hammer, Hammer
2. Meeting all those players you usually only see on TV
1. Felicia Lee wearing a cowboy hat!

That's it for today. Tomorrow has the Week in Review and J. Santos' "Muck It" cartoon.