With over five million poker players signed up to PokerStars, making the Tournament Leader Board on a regular basis is no mean feat. But Ted "$urebet" Spencer, from Warwick, Rhode Island, is a consistent presence and currently ranked 71st overall this year.

Fact is, Ted is on online demon - he just LOVES to play poker - and has accumulated over 600,000 Frequent Player Points on PokerStars. He qualified for the WSOP by winning a $16 double-shoot out which took him into a $650 event. Anyway, when Ted arrived in Vegas, he thought he might as well enter another satellite for the main event and pick up some pocket money.

It was a tough $200-with-rebuys event - 307 runners, 14 to get seats. When it got down to the last 15, Ted was not in good shape. "It was chip and a chair time. I had one $500 chip with blinds at $2000/$4000. But I struck Aces and they held up. Next hand, I'm big blind. Everyone folds to the small blind, who makes a mistake, and folds. So now I've got $3,500. Luckily I don't have to make any more running as someone on the other table busted out."

Straight after the tournament, Ted heads out to dinner with three other guys from the table - Carl Sarter, Robert Davis and Don Lawrence. Ted has $10,000 in his pocket and the other three a seat in the main event. Over lobster at the Rio's All American Bar & Grill, the four of them decide to share a piece of each other and a contract is scribbled out a scrap of paper - supervised by Don who just happens to be a lawyer. Ted said: "We agreed that for any of us placed better than 99th, 20% of our winnings is shared by the other three."











At the start of Day 2, it seems Robert might be out but Ted, Carl and Don are all in good shape with $30,000 something each.