May 2011: I meet Eric "ChipsAhoya" Rodawig at a Chicago Cubsvs. Cincinnati Reds game at Wrigley field. While sweating the game we talk about the upcoming WSOP, particularlythe tournaments on his radar and his expectations. Eric confidently tells me he's going to gowin the $10k Stud 8/b event because "no one else knows how to play the gamewell." For those of you who don't knowEric, please understand that brash and self-praising compliments are as commonas hearing "epic" or "sick" at a poker table. The dude radiates of confidence but in a hilarious non-douchey way.

Thanks to the Cubs being a horrendous baseball team, Imanaged to win a wager on the Reds with Eric and opted to "let it roll" intohis WSOP tournament package. Thisinitial deposit prompted me to buy a more significant piece his action for theduration of the summer.

11p CT Sunday Night: I go to Pokernews and see that he isstill alive in the $10k Stud 8/b Event at the World Series. No big deal, the field is in their second dayof play but there are still 60+ and only top 16 cash. Of little surprise, the field is completelystacked with multiple bracelets and tens of millions of dollars inwinnings. Negreanu, Juanda, Seidel andHellmuth were just a few of the names remaining in the field as I went to bed.

6a CT Monday Morning: I wake up and check email asusual. To my surprise there is an emailfrom John 'Nicolak" Kim who let me know that Eric was a big chip leader headedto the 3rd Day and that Joe Tehan, another fellow CR Mixed Gamespecialist, was also in sixth place. They were two short of the $30k bubble but both of them were in goodposition.

I immediately begin reading through the live reporting onPokernews, which chronicled Eric's ascent to the top of the chip count. With a 440k first prize, the final table wasno guarantee. Returning for the thirdday were Bill Chen, Cyndy Violette, Ted Forrest, David Benyamine, Justin "BoostedJ"Smith, John Racener, Phil Laak, Phil Hellmuth, and arguably the hottest playeron the planet Erik Seidel.

Through the help of Eric, I was able to book a flight toVegas and be on the ground less than 12 hours after hearing the good news thathe had a chance.

5p MT Monday: Laying over in Salt Lake City, my flight is scheduledto leave in an hour and play had begun at the Rio. Within a matter of 3 hands, two players hadbusted and BoostedJ was the bubble boy. Wewere in the money!

Railing remotely from my laptop in the airport, it seemedthat each time I hit refresh on my browser, another casualty had fallen. Chen, Laak, and Seidel all fell quickly andit looked like this day may be short work. Much to my dismay, our flight wasdelayed an hour!

Fast forward a few hours and I boot up my phone afterlanding in Las Vegas to see that the Final Table had been set. Benyamine, Hellmuth, Tehan, Forrest, Racener,Eric, Ali Eslami, and a random Russian 2p2er made up the Final 8 and Eric hadan enormous chip lead. He had virtually30% of chips in play with eight remaining!

I high-tail it over to the Rio just in time for the start oftheir dinner break. I run into Joe Tehanwho was outside with his wife. Iintroduced myself and we chatted for a bit before I went to the Rio cash gamesand introduced myself to Foldngst8n. Hestepped up from his game and we went to find Eric.

A quesadilla later and we are back to the Final Table. The set was beautiful. ESPN had done a huge upgrade of the stage forthe purposes (I assume) of their live streaming that is being providedonline.



So here we were, on one side ofthe rail was Eric's wife Nikki and several guys from the 2p2 Stud Forum. On the otherside of the stage was Joe's railwith Nicolak, CPar, Knox, Jeff Miller, and several others.

I guess I should take the time to mention that thetelevisions that are mounted above the table are permanently fixated on thecenter of the table, where the flop usually is displayed. Unfortunately for us, the spectators, Stud8/b doesn't have flops. As a result, wehad to listen to the Tournament Director read each street for each player andtry to follow hands in that manner. Moreon this in a subsequent part.

One of the most interesting guys I met during this trip wasChris George, a video instructor at DeucesCracked. He's had a mediocre WSOP that is on the brinkof being tremendous, with cashes in 3 separate 10k World Championship Events ofvarious disciplines. He's a Stud Hispecialist but finished 11th in this Stud 8/b event. A friend of Eric's, he was on the rail allnight and was a great asset. He couldread hands and give us his breakdown of who is likely ahead/behind and what toexpect. Pretty high-level analysis froma guy who obviously knows what he's saying.

My dreams for an All-CardRunners Heads Up Battle For TheBracelet fizzled when Joe busted in 7th place. Play continued on 6-handed for the nextseveral hours despite several stacks being 4-6 Big Bets deep. Lots of all-ins and the nature of a split-potgame contributed to this drag, but Eric was still accumulating chips.

During this time, everyone's favorite Galen "Gakn29"Cranston joined the party and Jeff moved over to sweat Eric with us. Meanwhile, all the Stud guys were gettingbored and began playing Chinese Poker while on the rail.

As the players traded chips back and forth, the consensus byour little posse was that the worst player to accumulate chips was TedForrest. We all felt that Ted wouldpresent the largest hurdle for Eric and thought that any of the other guyswould be significantly easier.

Finally we lost another casualty and the Russian bustedout. Forrest and Benyamine followed soonafter and we were left with Hellmuth, Racener, and Eric (who had almost half ormore chips in play).

I'll wrap this first part of the blog up with Eric entering3-handed play. I'd also like to mentionthat if you thought Erica Schoenberg was out of Benyamine's league, you shouldsee his current girlfriend. Same goesfor Ted Forrest, who apparently is following in the footsteps of BarryGreenstein in having a thing for young Asian women.

Part 2 to come in a few days chronicling the 3-handed Playand HU match vs Hellmuth.