The stage was set: in one corner was the 2010 WSOP Main Event Runner-Up, another had one of the leaders for most WSOP Bracelets in history, and lastly a lanky banker with a mountain of chips. Shared among them they had 11 WSOP bracelets, tens of millions in cashes, and 3 DUIs. Eric clearly had the shortest resume, but he had the biggest stack and the most experience. This was his title to lose.

Chips were around 2.5M for Eric, 1.26 for Phil, and 1.25 for Racener as blinds began at the 60k/120k/15k level. Racener quickly lost a few pots to both Hellmuth and Eric and was dwindled down to around 2 Big Bets. It seemed like we were going to get heads-up quickly and cheer-on Eric as he tried to stop Hellmuth from winning #12. Little did we know that Bazooka Joe had a bit of resiliency.

Racener would go on to double up through Eric when they got it all in on 3rd. What happened next was crazy.

Racener got it all in on fourth street with Hellmuth. AK/73 for John and A8/64 for Phil. Phil paired his 4 on fifth and John paired his 3 on fifth. Phil ended up drawing 2-8 on 6th and 7th, respectively, and made it two pair and looking very good against John.

One thing I should mention is that 7th street is such a dramatic street in Stud. Players squeeze the cards rather than just looking at what they have and it can make for some pretty tense moments.

So Racener gets his seventh card down and needs either an Ace, King, or 3 to survive in the tournament. Amazingly the 3h comes and he makes trips and ends up scooping the pot from Hellmuth!

This was only setting the stage for the next hand. Racener and Hellmuth get it in again and cards read the following on sixth street:

Racener: AA/4436

Hellmuth: 9h6h/Kh9d4cTh

Hellmuth squeezes the 7h to make his flush. Racener ends up peeling off the A of spades to fill up and make the boat. Even more ridiculous was that we learned Eric folded a 4 in his hand as well, so Racener was really only drawing to 3 outs.

At this point, a man who is sitting behind us in the stands begins talking with us. He was an older gentleman who had clearly had a bit to drink. He talked about how boring the Stud 8/b was due to the lack of a flop. Since the cameras and TV's were aimed at the center of the table, we had to rely on the narration of the cards by the Tournament Director. Cue the drunk guy who proceeds to yell out "This sucks, zoom out! I can't see shit!" Tirelessly, he continued to berate the staff and the tech team for leaving no visual supplement to the railbirds. His ramblings were pretty hilarious, even though they were a bit distracting, and it did prompt one of the tech members to come up and to explain that the cameras were fixed and weren't able to be moved. Nonetheless, his antics added a bit of fun to the slow night.

We go on break shortly after and talk to Eric about who seems to be the more favorable opponent to be playing Heads-Up. On one hand it seemed like Hellmuth would be a great opponent and great theater however his experience was unparalleled. He'd also been on the winning-end of some key pots with Eric earlier in the night.

Shortly after break, Racener lost a big pot to Eric, and Hellmuth would finish him off. The stage was set.

Entering heads up, Eric had a little over 4M chips to Hellmuth's 900,000. With bets at 100k/200k, Eric couldn't have asked for a better situation. A dominating chip-lead against the biggest personality in poker for the title! Eric, never missing a moment to make something a big deal, decides to shift his seat over to the 7 seat so he's sitting directly across from Phil who was in Seat 2.

So you'd think that being on the biggest stage of his life would mean Eric is focused and honing in on Phil right? Instead he's busy checking his phone, browsing 2p2, and Tweeting. In fact, at one point in the Heads-Up play, the Tournament Director told him to take his phone off the rail! Too funny.

At this point, I had been texting Brian Hastings and providing him updates while he was in the other room playing some HSPLO. It looked like the battle wouldn't last long so Stinger came over to sweat, but unfortunately Phil had a couple of chops and double ups and Stinger ended up leaving before the battle was completed.

The ending was pretty anti-climactic. Phil had about two or three big bets and it was just inevitable that he was going to be getting it all in on 3rd or 4th street at any given time. They got it all in with the players holding the following:

Eric: A8/3
Phil: JT/9

Eric would go on to make two pair and Phil had a gutshot draw going into seventh. He paired his Jack and the event was over.

As PokerNews setup the picture ceremony our group stood by the stage to watch. We ended up talking with Phil, Huck Seed, and Jean Robert-Bellande who were chatting by the ropes. We introduced ourselves and they were very gracious and complimentary to Eric's play. Phil was extremely professional and, while obviously very disappointed, he was awesome. The guys talked about how Ted Forrest and Matusow had told them Eric was the worst player in the field, but that they were very impressed with his play. They asked if we wanted to go celebrate somewhere, but we were all tired and hungry and excused ourselves from the invite.

One thing I learned during this trip was that all bracelet winners get upgraded by the Rio to Diamond-Preferred status. This means that Eric will never have to wait in a line at the Rio ever again. As we headed over to American Grille to get some breakfast at 4a, we tried to open up a private dice game. Sadly, the floor didn't oblige due to a shortage of dealers, and so we drank some champagne, ate some breakfast, and we all parted ways to get some rest.

I ended up grabbing a cab to the Aria and going to the desk to get a room. After I booked a room, I walked over to the poker room and sat in a PLO game. To my surprise, I found Phil Hellmuth playing a mixed game at the table next to me! He told me he couldn't sleep after that Final Table so he was just grinding.

Well, fast forward to about 18 hours later. I was still awake, having slept zero hours since landing in Vegas, and I was eating dinner with CR Pros BallzDeepx, and µ(x+t) at the Wynn. I got a text from Eric and we were going to have a dice date at the Aria with Chris (Deuces coach), Eric's wife, Eric, and myself.

We met up at Aria and virtually had the table to ourselves. Eric was teasing us with a Don't Pass Bet, but luckily peer pressure and "Don't be that dick at the table" made him consider otherwise. First to roll was Chris who managed to spike 3 or 4 points as well as rolling about a dozen 10's before crapping out. I was next and threw for a good 15 minutes, hitting 3 or 4 points as well. Enter Mr. and Mrs. Rodawig who throw bricks. Atleast Niki rolled a few times, but Eric bricked a 7 as soon as he established a point and the rest of our table followed suit with shitty rolls. Chris and I gave up after our next rolls leaving the stage for Eric. Of course he rolls for about ten minutes, before counting his monies and yelling "freerollin." He obviously crapped out on the very next roll.

After we cashed in our chips, I left the boys to go catch a bit of sleep before my flight in a few hours. It was an incredible trip and one that I'll remember for a very long time. I'll write more about non-Eric specific items in my next entry, but congratulations to Eric on his feat. What a cool accomplishement.