WSOP Event #22 No Limit Hold'Em: Greenstein Eliminated

Well, it seems anticlimactic to report it without actually hearing it straight from the man himself, but to be honest, it would be a little weird if Barry Greenstein walked into my hotel room right now, so you'll all cut me a little slack, right?

Yes, it is unfortunately true. Barry was looking to accumulate chips as play got close to the bubble, and he pushed all his chips in with AJ . . . right into Jeff Schulman's pocket aces. I'm sure it will make Barry feel great to know that I ran pocket tens into pocket aces as we neared the bubble in the WPT Invitational this year, and -- wait. Who am I kidding? I think I'll just keep that to myself, and hope that Barry is too busy to read blogs.

After following Barry all day, I thought, "it must have been quite a day for him, on just four hours of sleep, after playing in a marathon tourney against the very best in the world, to get up and come right back for another tournament . . . and is it easy to get excited for a 2K buy-in after playing a 50K buy-in?"

But everything I know about pro players -- and one thing that's been reinforced for me after talking with so many of them today -- is that this is simply what they do, and I can understand that. As an actor, I have frequently worked 14 to 16 hours in a row, driven an hour to get home, slept for six hours, and turned right back around to do the same thing again the next day, and I haven't given it a second thought, because that's just what I do. When you are passionate about something, and you're lucky enough to make your living doing it, you do whatever it takes to do it, because . . . well, that's what you do.

I'm sure I'll see Barry tomorrow, and I'll do my best to get a comment from him, but for now, I am finally going to sleep. I'll be back in the PokerStars hospitality suite early tomorrow morning, where I'll be working on some stories about a friend of PokerStars who made a nice cash it very deep (sorry, I got my notes mixed up) last night, some observations I picked up around the Amazon room tonight, and everything you need to know about Team PokerStars' Joe Hachem.