This is part IV in a multi-part series covering my trip out to Las Vegas to cover the 2010 World Series of Poker. Please see part I, part II, and part III.

My second full day in Vegas started out a lot like the first. Wake up, shower, valet, Rio….ground hog day? [ Though I should mention that Ground Hog Day is used at the WSOP by the media to refer to the 4 Day 1’s. Each of the Day 1’s start with roughly the same number of players, same starting chips and same blind levels for four days in a row. ] So this wasn’t as bad! But the Hard Rock has great rooms, great showers and a Starbucks in the lobby so I can’t complain.

Today is Day 7 and we will play down from 78 to just 27 players. It’s also the day that I became more proactive. The first day and a half I was just going with the flow as more of a spectator, but on day 7 I was shooting pictures, going inside the ropes, tweeting and talking to the players a lot more than before.

The players I focused on today were: Scott Clements, Jean-Robert Bellande, Eric Baldwin, Michael Mizrachi, Joe Cheong, Soi Nguyen, Ronnie Bardah and John Racener. By watching these guys throughout yesterday and today I knew one or more would make the November 9 (turns out 4 would).

At one point in the play down to 27 the “Media Moat” would collapse as the spectators swarmed in and rendered our access useless. The Harrah’s security staff seemingly gave up and there were more than a few disgruntled media members. I can see how it got to this point: as they started breaking down the outer tables to centralize the non-feature tables they were constantly reworking the spectator ropes. At some point it was overlooked for too long and the fans took advantage. During the dinner break the staff  reworked the tables and and recreated the moat giving the media better access to report on the event.

In back to back hands we would see Bryn Kenney eliminated in 28th place. On the 1st hand, Kenney would hit runner-runner for two pairs after c-betting a 5c-Qs-8c board with Ks-Jc. Kenney made a 1.3m raise on the river and his opponent, Pascal LeFrancois, thought Kenney had moved all-in so called and tabled a set of 8’s. Kenney still had under 1 million behind so lived to see another hand. “Sick runners…” said Kenney.

The next hand would see Kenney and LeFrancois all in preflop. LeFrancois raised to 300,000 and Kenney moved all in for the remaining 850,000. LeFrancois snap-called with AA and Kenney was way behind with 22. The board came out As-4h-6s-9c-8h and Kenney was eliminated.

That ended play for the day, we would return on Saturday for Day 8 to play down from 27 to the November 9. As we were leaving we ran into Matt Waldron (see Matt’s Flickr Stream) who was eager to blow off some steam. I had only been there a few days but keep in mind that many of the media members had been there since the end of May! They could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Matt and I exchanged cell #s and I headed back to the Hard Rock for a much needed shower.

About midnight I took a taxi down to the Stratosphere to meet up with Matt and have some drinks. I found him solo at the “Ultimate Texas Hold’em” table playing with a dealer named Darlene. I sat down and bought in for $100 and he taught me how to play. It’s an easy game and if you know poker, it’s a little easier to win. The house still has the edge, obviously, but a little poker knowledge goes a long way in minimizing the edge. Or at least, that’s how I see it.

We went on a roller-coaster of variance and had to reload on a few occasions but both finished with a small profit and as many free drinks as we could consume. It was getting really late so we called it a night. I headed back to the Hard Rock and crashed sometime after 4 am. I would need to wake up and pack in a few hours so I welcomed the sleep.

Thanks for reading this far and stay tuned for part V!