but to no avail.



I was pretty excited to watch young Canadian Devon Armstrong make the final table of the $1500 limit event. Devon is a talented player and columnist for Canadian Poker Player, who has had an unbelievable track record online. He also has a very balance perspective to poker and life. His expanding poker bankroll has not influenced him to give up his day job as a television camera operator. And his girlfriend, although back in Canada, was kept in the Vegas loop through a constant barrage of emails, forum posts, phone calls that rivaled the communications network of a large corporation.

Devon was the youngest member of Team Canuck, a strange but talented collection of Canadian players trying to take the WSOP by storm…or at least to win enough to pay the beer tab. Devon did not get many breaks at the final table, and at one point asked me to stroke the beaver figurine that Team Canuck uses as their good luck talisman. And while the beaver did not produce a bracelet, Devon's 6th place finish and $72,380 did pay for a few beers.

While the limit hold'em event did sport one of my favorite pros, Peter Costa (finishing seventh), and the youngest WSOP bracelet winner to date, Eric Froehlick, I'm not sure I am going to nominate it for the most scintillating poker of our generation. Even heads-up the play was decidedly passive, leaving destiny in the hands of the rising blinds.

Mike Matusow has always been something of a controversial figure in poker. But despite his issues, I've always thought him to be open and true. He, like many of us, has been his own worst enemy. But you know, there are some well known players in this industry who are not all they are cracked up to be. There are some players in this business who don't pay their debts. There are some that have knowingly put their families at risk or in distress. And there are some that have such a total disregard for other people that they wouldn’t piss down someone’s throat if their heart was on fire. Yet if you read their press, they are the Mother Theresas or Mahatma Ghandis of poker. I guess I'm always surprised when people are so anxious to give Mike shit for the flaws he is more than willing to concede, while letting others live in impunity behind the carefully constructed personas they've created for media consumption.

I got a chance to spend a little time with Mike this series. And one of our more candid chats can be found in the WSOP video tab on the pokerpages home page.

Days of the week and the time of day no longer have any meaning. I am flotsam drifting in the endless sea of the WSOP.