A look back at the World Series of Poker 2007 through the eyes of Dr. Pauly:
Seventeen hours of high stress poker in front of the ESPN cameras came down to the final hand of the final table of the final event of the 2007 World Series of Poker. Holding all of the chips and the only chair left Jerry Yang claimed the 2007 World Champion Poker Player title after defeating Tuan Lam in a hard fought heads up battle. The winner of the 2007 WSOP Main Event received a custom Corum watch, a very special platinum and diamond bracelet plus $8,250,000 in cash.
The event was the finale of the 2007 WSOP that has been played daily over the course of the past 46 days. Fifty-five poker players from around the world won bracelets in separate events that began on June 1 and finally ended early Wednesday morning.
On the 205th hand of the final table, Jerry Yang, a psychologist from California, won the 2007 WSOP main event. He took down $8.25 million and collected his first bracelet.
On the 36th hand of heads up play, Yang busted Tuan Lam. Here’s how…
Yang raised 2.3M from the button. Lam moved all in for 22.2M. Yang called with 8c-8d. Lam flipped over Ad-Qc. It was a coin-flip. The flop was Qc-9c-5s and Lam’s railbirds erupted. He took the lead and was on the verge of doubling up. The turn was the 7d which gave Yang a gutshot. He silently prayed and the river was the 6h. Yang rivered a straight and he busted Lam.
With that lucky river card, Jerry Yang became the next WSOP champion. Tuan Lam won $4,840,98 for second place.
“The Lord was watching over me,” said Yang in his post-victory interview with ESPN’s Norm Chad.
Yang will be donating 10% of his winnings to three different charities… Feed the Children, the Ronald McDonald House, and Make a Wish Foundation.
The final moments of the 2007 World Series of Poker provided the expected excitement associated when a poker player receives $8.25 million in prize money. The turn of the final card for 2007 gave Jerry Yang the win and brought the crowd out of the stands and onto the ESPN stage. The moment the final card hit the table an unidentified man raced out of the darkness and leaped over the media table onto the stage in front of Yang with an outthrusted microphone and tape recorder. The ESPN crew tried to hang onto the intruder but he slipped away and ran into the stands with security in hot pursuit where they quickly surrounded and led him away from the area.
The guy had told some of us earlier that he was a reporter with ABC News but I never confirmed if this statement as fact.
I’m very fortunate to have been there in the mix, as a working stiff, but there nonetheless. I got to witness first hand the days and hours of play among this bunch to get to this point on TV. Viewers get to see the sanitized, miniaturized, ad enhanced, pre-packaged colloidal soup poker hour. My version was the long one filled with more hours of boring wait time than the ESPN 2007 TV Series fills in its entirety, and they didn’t play a hand of poker. This was just the accumulation of time from the dinner breaks, player breaks, TV breaks, chip-up breaks, crew breaks and break breaks.
Fortunately, when they are playing I had available a nice bevy of professional still cameras and equipment plus a badge that allowed me to use the stuff. I got to see and record the WSOP from my unique camera angle. Sometimes, I even lucked into a money shot after holding a manual focus for what seems like hours.
The Super Star pros are absolutely the most difficult to master. With most of the Reese, Hellmuth, Ferguson, Brunson, Chan, Ivey level player the photos all look alike, no time divined difference…same face, different year. It’s like shooting a statue, a fixed expression attached to an immobile mask. Oh joy! when they finally move. Ironically, the Easter Island pose is just one of the many prerequisite talents that turned them into magicians.
Not all of the greats are stone still all the time, there’s another group with an added challenge all its own. The Negreanu, Laak, Matusow, and I must add Tuesday night’s star, Burt Boutin, to the list of pros that tend to constantly be in motion. Like a boxer, they weave and dodge their way along the felt. The intense eyes constantly sweeping the opposing players while they naively hold open court with their game pieces. Lucky for me, this group is most likely to reward with some of the classic ‘frozen in time’ action shots.
Glamour most definitely exists at every poker tournament and I get to see it up-close through the Nikon’s viewfinder. Oh! Nikon, the very word is a stimulant. Nikon, a high precision tool that has the best odds of soliciting a response from some of the World’s most beautiful women. The camera screams at you for your best look, a look I promise to share with the world. I get to photograph women that are filmed for the big bucks. I get to connect through the lens to produce an image that screams, “Look at Me!”
[Photos courtesy of flipchip at lasvegasvegas]
Seventeen hours of high stress poker in front of the ESPN cameras came down to the final hand of the final table of the final event of the 2007 World Series of Poker. Holding all of the chips and the only chair left Jerry Yang claimed the 2007 World Champion Poker Player title after defeating Tuan Lam in a hard fought heads up battle. The winner of the 2007 WSOP Main Event received a custom Corum watch, a very special platinum and diamond bracelet plus $8,250,000 in cash.
The event was the finale of the 2007 WSOP that has been played daily over the course of the past 46 days. Fifty-five poker players from around the world won bracelets in separate events that began on June 1 and finally ended early Wednesday morning.
On the 205th hand of the final table, Jerry Yang, a psychologist from California, won the 2007 WSOP main event. He took down $8.25 million and collected his first bracelet.
On the 36th hand of heads up play, Yang busted Tuan Lam. Here’s how…
Yang raised 2.3M from the button. Lam moved all in for 22.2M. Yang called with 8c-8d. Lam flipped over Ad-Qc. It was a coin-flip. The flop was Qc-9c-5s and Lam’s railbirds erupted. He took the lead and was on the verge of doubling up. The turn was the 7d which gave Yang a gutshot. He silently prayed and the river was the 6h. Yang rivered a straight and he busted Lam.
With that lucky river card, Jerry Yang became the next WSOP champion. Tuan Lam won $4,840,98 for second place.
“The Lord was watching over me,” said Yang in his post-victory interview with ESPN’s Norm Chad.
Yang will be donating 10% of his winnings to three different charities… Feed the Children, the Ronald McDonald House, and Make a Wish Foundation.
The final moments of the 2007 World Series of Poker provided the expected excitement associated when a poker player receives $8.25 million in prize money. The turn of the final card for 2007 gave Jerry Yang the win and brought the crowd out of the stands and onto the ESPN stage. The moment the final card hit the table an unidentified man raced out of the darkness and leaped over the media table onto the stage in front of Yang with an outthrusted microphone and tape recorder. The ESPN crew tried to hang onto the intruder but he slipped away and ran into the stands with security in hot pursuit where they quickly surrounded and led him away from the area.
The guy had told some of us earlier that he was a reporter with ABC News but I never confirmed if this statement as fact.
I’m very fortunate to have been there in the mix, as a working stiff, but there nonetheless. I got to witness first hand the days and hours of play among this bunch to get to this point on TV. Viewers get to see the sanitized, miniaturized, ad enhanced, pre-packaged colloidal soup poker hour. My version was the long one filled with more hours of boring wait time than the ESPN 2007 TV Series fills in its entirety, and they didn’t play a hand of poker. This was just the accumulation of time from the dinner breaks, player breaks, TV breaks, chip-up breaks, crew breaks and break breaks.
Fortunately, when they are playing I had available a nice bevy of professional still cameras and equipment plus a badge that allowed me to use the stuff. I got to see and record the WSOP from my unique camera angle. Sometimes, I even lucked into a money shot after holding a manual focus for what seems like hours.
The Super Star pros are absolutely the most difficult to master. With most of the Reese, Hellmuth, Ferguson, Brunson, Chan, Ivey level player the photos all look alike, no time divined difference…same face, different year. It’s like shooting a statue, a fixed expression attached to an immobile mask. Oh joy! when they finally move. Ironically, the Easter Island pose is just one of the many prerequisite talents that turned them into magicians.
Not all of the greats are stone still all the time, there’s another group with an added challenge all its own. The Negreanu, Laak, Matusow, and I must add Tuesday night’s star, Burt Boutin, to the list of pros that tend to constantly be in motion. Like a boxer, they weave and dodge their way along the felt. The intense eyes constantly sweeping the opposing players while they naively hold open court with their game pieces. Lucky for me, this group is most likely to reward with some of the classic ‘frozen in time’ action shots.
Glamour most definitely exists at every poker tournament and I get to see it up-close through the Nikon’s viewfinder. Oh! Nikon, the very word is a stimulant. Nikon, a high precision tool that has the best odds of soliciting a response from some of the World’s most beautiful women. The camera screams at you for your best look, a look I promise to share with the world. I get to photograph women that are filmed for the big bucks. I get to connect through the lens to produce an image that screams, “Look at Me!”
[Photos courtesy of flipchip at lasvegasvegas]