After five days on the HORSE horse, it's time to climb down and see what else is going on. After Barry Greenstein walked out of the Amazon Room, I assumed I wouldn't see him again before tomorrow. Frankly, I think he assumed the same thing.

However, there at table 98 inside the Players Pavilion overflow tent sat Barry with a small stack of chips. It was the 5pm $1,000 Stud Hi-Lo event.

"This is what happens when you have people betting on you," he said with a smile.

Greenstein was already on his way home when he thought about tens of thousands in side bets people had on him in fantasy poker leagues and the like. Around he turned and bought into the Stud event. Despite being a specialty game, the relative cheapness of the event drew a large crowd and featured a lot of big names, so Greenstein isn't alone in the field.


Shannon ELizabeth in the Stud event

Today actually marked the beginning of two interesting events. If the cheap 5pm drew a huge crowd, the noon $5,000 no-limit short-handed event drew the big buy-in crowd.

Nestled off in one corner was Greg "FossilMan" Raymer. As I walked up, Greg had just folded to a pre-flop raise and a player said, "Eight-deuce. I knew you had eight-deuce."

"That's amazing," Greg said. "You knew what I had before I even looked. I should probably just give you all my chips now." Then he checked his watch and asked what time he should plan on leaving.


Greg Raymer checking his watch

Across the way, fellow champion Joe Hachem was in good spirits and sitting just one table away from his brother, Tony.

"How's it going?" he asked me.

"Another day," I said. "Another day where you have lots of chips it looks like."

Hachem looked down at his stack, "Let's not talk about lots yet."


Joe Hachem

Joe's buddy Emad Tahtouh sat one table over and is remarkably facing off against Vicky Coren, the woman who bested him in the EPT event in London last year.


Emad Tahtouh

Elsewhere in the room, I caught sight of John Duthie, Bill Chen, Terrence Chan, Isabelle Mercier, and Victor Ramdin. Chan is looking for his second final table of this year's series. The rest of them are in search of their first big win of their year.


Isabelle Mercier


Terrence Chan


Victor Ramdin

Both of these events are just in Day 1 action and will be a while before we know if any of the Team PokerStars players will finish one off with a bracelet. After getting so close in the HORSE event, it will be fun to see where these two events go.

And, all else fails, I'm sure Barry will do something interesting.