Sunday, April 29, 2007

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Greenstein closes book on WPT episode 101

By Christopher Hunt

Episode 100 got all the pub, and rightly so: Carlos "The Matador" Mortensen took down the star-studded $25,000 World Poker Tour Championship in a history-making finish to the WPT's fifth season. But episode 101 - filmed the next day - will be worth a look too.

Called "Poker By the Book: Chapter 2," the field was definitely smaller. And the stakes were substantially lower.

But the buy-in was certainly one of substance: You not only had to be a poker player of renown, but a poker author of renown as well.

And any time six of poker's best players - in this case Daniel Negreanu, Dan Harrington, Tom McEvoy, Johnny Chan, Barry Greenstein and Antonio Esfandiari - sit down to play a few hands, there's always something to learn.

With the stakes being "merely" a seat in next year's $25,000 World Poker Tour World Championship, tensions were rather low and jocularity high, with the six cheerfully tipping a few back along the way and dispensing their fair share of compliments and "which chapter is this in" jokes.

And they did play some poker.

Poker legend Chan went down first, with Negreanu and Esfandiari following shortly thereafter.

Action Dan hit the bricks in third, leaving McEvoy and Greenstein to battle it out for authorial bragging rights.

In the end? A missed flush draw knocked out McEvoy, and Greenstein was your episode 101 champ.

For all the details, visit www.worldpokertour.com

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