Greg Solano Blog: My Trip to the World Series of Poker Part 3

Here is part 3 of my trip to the World Series of Poker.

After a little sleep (very little) I went back to the Rio arriving by 9 am because I was told Doyle Brunson would be at the Doyles Room Hospitality suite between 10 and 11 am before he was scheduled to play in the 11 am $1500 buy in Holdem tournament. I got there and found out that there was an early satellite tournament with a $175 buy in. The winner would get a seat in the $1500 tournament which included Doyle and Todd Brunson, Phil Hellmuth, Jennifer Tilley, John Juanda, Mike The Mouth Matasow, Phil Hellmuth and about 340 others. I decided to give up meeting Doyle in the hospitality suite and play in the satellite tournament.

Here I am playing in the WSOP Satellite tournament.

So I sat down put on my sunglasses and got set to play my first game in the same room as the greatest players in the world for a seat in a WSOP tournament and a chance at a World Series of Poker Bracelet. The first hour went well, I held my own and had nearly doubled my chip stack. The Main event was getting re-started at 11:00 so our table was moved to the other end of the room. I think this began a change in luck or my playing. Which ever it was I began to lose hands or be forced to fold when the turn or river killed me.

I received pocket kings and went all in pre-flop hoping to at least pick up the blinds and maybe get one caller with A,K or a smaller pair. I got two callers and immediately got nervous. One lady turned over pocket twos which made me sigh with relief and the other player turned over K,Q unsuited. I thought I had it won. The flop turned with only rags (low cards that did nothing for any of us). The turn came and it stung like a thousand bees. It was a two, I knew I was sunk but still held out hope as I asked the dealer to turn over a king. No king came and I was out of the tournament. I congratulated the lady and got up from my seat. I kept thinking to myself, HOW COULD SHE GO ALL IN PRE FLOP WITH TWOS! Oh well now I know how Phil Hellmuth and Mike the Mouth feel the only difference is I held the anger in.

I walked away and decided to go back to trying to meet as many big name poker players as I could. First to come within my radar screen was Jennifer Tilley. I was really happy about this after missing my chance for photo's and an autograph yesterday when I ran into her at Binions. Not to be shy I stalked her for about 30 minutes as I watched her play until a break. I then approached her introduced myself and gave her one of my Sheriff's Pins. I secured an autograph on an article about her in ALL IN Magazine and a photo with her. Much to my

surprise she put the pin on a green sweater she had previously had hanging on her chair and then she put the sweater on. Late that night I ran into her again and she was still wearing the pin but had been knocked out of the tournament.

Next I hooked up with Todd Brunson and retrieved an autograph from WSOP Champions Johnny Chan, Barry Greenstein, Chris Jesus Ferguson, Mike Caro, Greg Raymer, Clonie Gowen, Daniel Negreanu, Mike Matusow, Amir Vahedi, T.J. Cloutier, Kathy Liebert,Cindy Violette, and finally the grand daddy of them all Doyle Brunson. I actually got to spend a few minutes with Doyle and felt truly honored to have spent that time with a living legend. After Stalking all these players, watching the main event all day and spending more time collecting free stuff, I headed back to Binions at about 11:30 at night, still excited about my two days at the World Series of Poker.

Here are some of the pics with the players.