The bloodshoot insanity that precedes history is as difficult to predict as the history itself. There is no way to propery prepare for the unknown. Not to get too big-picture on you, but the only way to accept anything in the next two weeks is to open yourself to everything. Hell, somebody said a monkey is playing in the main event. My response: Only one?

Today is a day of such massive organizational cluster-futzing that no one can be sure if we are playing poker tomorrow or electing a world leader. I think we're actually going to be doing both.

If you've not been hitting refresh for the past 12 hours, you've missed a lot and I encourage you to read some of the great work already coming from Team Blog (see below). Also, on this final day of action before the main event, we are still watching Jason "strassa2" Strasser at the final table of the last $1,500 NL Hold'em event. With, seven players remaining, Strasser has come from the bottom of the pack and is currently fourth in chips. (UPDATE: Strasser ended up placing in seventh. Well done, sir).

What's more, the WSOP media event will be played out tonight. Several of the members of Team Blog will be getting in their last bit of action before they work like dogs for two weeks. Last year, Team Blog's Dr. Pauly took sixth in the event and donated his winnings to the Charlie Tuttle Foundation. I like my team against the field. Not to declare anyone a monkey among the media field, but in a news conference ten minutes ago, one media member had the audacity to refer to Joe Hachem as an amateur (perhaps ignoring a WSOP main event win, two 2006 WSOP final tables, and one WSOP Circuit final table in the past 380 days, not to mention the fact Hachem has been playing in cash games in which the average buy-in equates to said media member's annual salary).

With all of that out of the way, here's some light reading from the past 18 hours:

The Calm before the Storm (Dr Pauly)
Hot parties (Mad Harper)
Strassa2 makes final table (Otis)
Fossilman finished fifth in 2-7 (Wil Wheaton)
An Australian Lady in Las Vegas (Ali Lightman)
The Life of a Journeyman Pro (Max Shapiro)