NAPT Venetian TV Premiere

Once identified as a professional poker player, you receive two standard questions. "Can you really make a living doing that?" and "Have you ever been on TV?"

The answer to the first question is of course, "yes." For the second, I have been using a somewhat cumbersome "well, I've been on TV in Europe" for the last couple years.

Monday night ESPN2 will air the final table of the $5k North American Poker Tour event at 11 PM EST, and I will have a simpler answer to that second question. My appearance will likely be rather limited, but it is an exciting thing to be on national TV.

I was running on fumes on day two of the tournament before my pair of fives outran Bill Chen's queen-ten. Then I picked up a few hands, made a big call against Michael Kamran, picked up a few more hands, picked up a few more hands against a steaming Jon Turner, and ended day two amongst the chip leaders. I ran really hot again on day three, winning huge pots with hands like seven-four suited, king-three suited, and ten-eight offsuit. Day four was not as smooth, but I doubled through chipleader Sam Stein on the TV bubble and went into the final table of eight second in chips to Stein.

With my stack and position (to Stein's left) entering the final table, I felt he and I were the two favorites to take down the $827k first prize. The other players ranged from solid to excellent. I was particularly wary of Thomas Marchese, and told anyone who would listen to watch out for him. He did not have a ton of chips starting the final table, but I knew him to be an extremely skilled and fearless player.

My interview with ESPN was somewhat awkward, as the interviewer kept asking about the subject matter of my book. I answered candidly, and am somewhat scared of the jokes Norman Chad may have in store. I will be an easy target if chosen for that role.

I wish I had gotten a haircut.

After the interview was kind of an odd period, as there were a couple hours to kill before the final table and my crew of friends flying in hadn't arrived quite yet. I idly drove west from the Venetian, stopped at a 7-Eleven for a snack bar and deodorant, then drove back to the Strip and ate crepes with the crew. As expected it took a while for the final table to get started. A woman involved with Pokerstars told me I needed to remove my Victory Poker patch, which didn't come as a surprise. It takes a while for everyone to get mic'd up, there are various production issues that need to be ironed out, the players and crowd need to be situated properly, etc. When we finally got started I raised the first hand with a respectable jack-ten suited, only to see Miami John come over the top for most of his stack.

The final table went rather poorly. I lost small pot after small pot. I made some minor mistakes in a couple of these hands. ESPN could show one or two of these hands. But more likely they will just show my bustout hand, and I may be relegated to the brief clip where they say something like "while we were away, Thomas Fuller was eliminated with a pair of jacks against Daniel Clemente's pocket queens."

If this is the case, no worries. It won't be the last time I'm on TV for poker.