There always has to be one at every WSOP and unfortunately it was Tim.

Tim McDonald, an American fisherman bubbled out of the WSOP Main event after four days on high intensity poker in Vegas when his pair of ladies met Erkenovs Aces and Two’s 

It was inevitable though. When 7,319 people knew they were going to enter the event, there was always going to be the 748th player who is the last unpaid place.

As a result, McDonald walked away with nothing. If he had hung on another minute or so, he would have won a minimum of $19,263.

To make things a hell of a lot worse, as McDonalds world crashed around him, the remaining 747 all stood up and hugged each other as they knew they would all be going home $10,000 richer.

A shattered McDonald said afterwards: “I felt like I could sit there and go ahead and grind out a check, but I was trying to play good poker no matter short-stacked or otherwise.”

The US celebrated yesterday, the 18th of July, as National Ice Cream Day. This was great news for poker and slot machine players in Atlantic City and Las Vegas who were in the midst of soaring summer temperatures and experiencing the loss of air-conditioning in several casinos. Things got so hot prior to National Ice Cream Day that The Trump Plaza Resort & Hotel had to shut down after facing damaged air conditioners.
 
Marvin Blascow, a poker player in New Jersey said: "Today, I took time out from my daily poker tournament to enjoy ice cream with the wife and kids. It was a fun day."

The Las Vegas Strip also celebrated the day. With the WSOP going on for a month, the main event concluded yesterday when the final table was announced and players and spectators took to the strip to choose their favourite flavour and cool down after a month of heated poker playing.

After two weeks of play we are down to nine players for the November Nine.  After a marathon 18 hour sessions, the event has come to the final table and the clock is set. Finally at around 6am, Brandon Steven was eliminated in seventh place leaving nine players battling for the final $8.94m final prize when the Event reconvenes in November

Jonathan Duhamel ended the night/morning with the chip lead after eliminating the November Nine bubble boy Brandon Steven in 10th place just before 6 a.m. Duhamel holds 65,975,000, much of which he accumulated during the nearly six-hour period of play on the November Nine bubble that put an exclamation point on a 17-hour day of poker.
From the 7,319 starters we are left with just the following nine:

Seat 1: Jason Senti (7,625,000)
Seat 2: Joseph Cheong (23,525,000)
Seat 3: John Dolan (46,250,000)
Seat 4: Jonathan Duhamel (65,975,000)
Seat 5: Michael Mizrachi (14,450,000)
Seat 6: Matthew Jarvis (16,700,000)
Seat 7: John Racener (19,050,000)
Seat 8: Filippo Candio (16,400,000)
Seat 9: Soi Nguyen (9,650,000)

Former FBI agent, Joe Navarro, and mind-set coach, Sam Chauhan were part of a team of poker and mind-set coaches all giving seminars in the WSOP Academy, a poker training academy that took place prior to this year’s WSOP. While neither of these 2 men are poker pros they are both experts in poker-relevant fields; Navarro in body language and Chauhan in mind power.

Navarro has 25 years experience as a federal agent working in counterintelligence and looking for various tells in people. Tells are mostly unconscious indications of what a person is really thinking. Navarro is an expert at picking up his students’ tells and making them aware of them so that they can change them.

Chauhan, on the other hand, coaches students on how to internally clear themselves of the anxiety and self-doubt that is often what separates a good player from the best.

"If we know what we're looking for, those behaviours can very accurately predict what a person is thinking, what they're feeling, what their desires are and what their intentions are," Navarro has said. Navarro also adds that a consistent signal of a player holding a strong hand is when a player holds his/her cards with fingers pressed together upward. Players will hold onto the cards of a good hand as if they are precious and conversely, if they are holding cards "as if it were a dirty diaper," it is generally an indicator of a bad hand.
Navarro has identified over 200 tells. Many of the tells are in the face or hands but some are in less obvious places like the chest or the feet.

Chauhan takes a bit more of an esoteric stance:  "You may not be able to control what other people do, but what you can do is not be someone who is sabotaging yourself and that you know you are capable of doing anything as long as you put your mind to it." Learning how to maintain this mind-set in the highly stressful environment of the WSOP are what Chauhan’s seminars are structured to assist with.

Poker pro, Gavin Smith, is one of Chauhan’s clients. Smith says of Chauhan: "What Sam did was make me look at how good I really had it, especially when you consider what other people are going through," and "You can say that one of things he is, is a cheerleader. He helps me visualize where I want to go, what I have to do to get there, and be more grateful for what I have." Smith went on to win a Canadian tournament for over $188,000 this year as well as also taking a mixed hold’em event for over $268,000 with his first title bracelet.

So it seems in order to really get ahead in this game you need to learn how to control your irrational thoughts and emotions that promote self-doubt.

The world has had its spectacle. South Africa hosted a fantastic world cup, bar the vuvuzela’s but now it’s over. Journalists are writing their last words about the beautiful game and everything is about to round down. This seems to happen after almost every single multi-million dollar sporting event... but does it happen to the WSOP?

But on the other side of the spectrum are the fans. Are you feeling something is missing from your life? Is there a void that that needs to be filled? Actually doing work at work? This might be the start of World Cup withdrawal for some..

As many as 40 percent of British soccer fans, their days no longer filled with World Cup matches, are at risk of Post Tournament Depression (PTD), according to a survey done a couple of days ago by a British website.

The reality of having to wait more than a month for the new soccer season and until 2014 for the next World Cup has left many fans feeling flat, bored, and unsure what to do with their days.

Now the question is, does this happen to the poker players? Do we as well suffer from of Post Tournament Depression? To a degree I’m sure; but we are not as showy truth be told. There are no posters of Helmuth adorning buildings in downtown Vegas. No Phil Ivey themed poker shoes and no stadiums built for us (though this is not necessarily true)

But it comes down to this, we have to have 1 year to be get our WSOP fix. But we’ve also got a WSOPE, the EPT, the APPT and event the Aussie Millions. We’ve got our fix, and even if we did get PTD, we’d put on a poker face.

Jack Ury, the 97 year old geriatric again has been getting ridiculous amounts of TV coverage at the World Series this year as he made it to day 3 of the tournament.

Ury, the oldest ever player to play in the history of the WSOP starting player poker in 1953 but only played his first WSOP Main Event in 2007 at the ripe old age of 94. At the Main Event in 2007, the ESPM cameras fell in love with the old man, and he landed up being one of the stars of the tournament.

One amazing thing about Jack is he has little or no vision in one eyes and the other eye only has around 20% vision. Plus add to the fact that Jack can only hear out of one ear gives him one hell of a disadvantage.

The senior citizen who hails from Indiana needed a tad of assistance during play, and it was great to see the other players help. Opponents helped Jack with his blinds and antes, and his grandson Seth was behind him to help him stack his chips if he won a pot. Players also helped him by announcing raises and letting him know what was on the board.

And plus; I must say, I’ve never seen such an old person wearing a baseball style hat. He looks fantastically cool. I’m going to get my grandfather a hat this week.

Play resumes on Monday with Ury sitting on around 8.200 chips.

Let’s hope he wins.