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Event 53 was the last under card event before the insanity of the World Series of Poker Main Event took center stage. Anybody who thought that the last day of this event would just wilt under the shadow of the WSOP signature competition and that this would be just another day at the office would be completely wrong. The final day of this event was perhaps one of the most entertaining of the entire World Series of Poker season.

David Daneshgar has the sort of resume that most poker players would like for themselves. His lifetime earnings top the 1.5 million mark. He has gotten paid in over fifty of the tournaments he has entered, five of those being first place finishes, and in cash games he has been a consistent money maker. After a while players seated at the casino table with him submissively wet themselves when he makes a bet. The only thing missing from his credentials was a high profile tournament win. In short, there was a bracelet sized hole in his resume that he was looking to fill at this year's WSOP. Event #52 was his best chance to finally attain this prize.

When most casual fans hear the name J.C. Tran, they just assume that this is a player who has more than one World Series of Poker bracelets. A lot of these people would be surprised to hear that coming into Event #49, J.C. Tran has never won a WSOP event before. He has had so much success at the World Poker Tour, and throughout the rest of the sport of poker, it just seems odd that he has never found success on this particular stage. That all changed for him this year. After Event #49, he could finally add that elusive WSOP bracelet to his resume.

Phil Hellmuth had probably spent the night before the Event #51 final table working out the choreography for the touchdown dance he was going to perform after accepting his 12th bracelet and working on how to get just the right inflection in his voice when taunting the second place finisher. Alas, it was not to be. The day started with twenty players, and the final table did not get started until after the dinner break. Phil started off the final seating number two in the chip count, and he never would overcome the chip leader Tommy Hang.

If break down the earnings of Richard Lyndaker and Joe Commisso during Event #46, and figure out an hourly rate, they are both still doing pretty well: not quite what Bill Gates makes per hour, but still more than most world leaders. Lyndaker and Commisso started the day as the top two players in terms of the chip count. Lyndaker acted as a hammer during this event, taking out three of the four players that had to be moved out of the way so that he and Commisso could dance uninterrupted.

Marty Smyth has cashed just about everywhere in the world. His bank has accepted checks from 2007 Irish Open, 2008 PartyPoker World Open, along with dozens of other tournaments. Rumor has it he even took some cookies off a girl scout by beating her pocket Kings with a set of Aces; of course there are also rumors that the moon landing was faked, and Tom Cruise prefers the company of male hair dressers, so we can't really rely on a rumor mill for good information.

The final table of Event #44 was unusual in one particular respect: none of the players seated around the piece of felt covered furniture had ever won a World Series of Poker bracelet before. Something just looks odd when you see nine players competing for one of the sport's most prestigious prizes and none of them has been to the promised land before. It's sort of like watching nine guys who have never had a date chasing after Heidi Klum.

Usually when somebody puts on a display like the final table performance of Event #43 champion Martin Klaser, people usually start in with nicknames like "Klaser the Conqueror", "The Great", or the "The Terrible". In the case of the last example "terrible" is a compliment that hints to the fact that he personally eliminated half of the final table. It wasn't all roses and nicknames for King Kong Klaser: he may have started the final day near the top of the pack, but he had to work his tail off to break away from the pack on Day 2, and put himself in position to win it all.

Somebody once made the reasonable observation that paybacks are hell. This was pretty much the theme of the Seniors No Limit Holdem event. Day 2 ended with Dale Eberle knocking Dan LaCourse out of the chip lead on the last hand, and Day 3 ended with Dan LaCourse knocking Dale Eberle out of the tournament and collecting his bracelet on the last hand of the day. If given a chance, Dale would probably have given up his Day 2 chip lead in order to be the one doing the eliminating at the end of Day 3. At the start of Day 3, only 50,000 chips separated Eberle and LaCourse.

Ryan Hughes is the first person in WSOP history to have a Stud hi/lo bracelet for each wrist. To accomplish this feat he had to overcome a Day 2 mini-disaster that put a hurt on his stack just before the end of play, and a final day field where he was in 9th place out of the remaining 13 players. Even though starting towards the back of the pack, he was the lead dog by the time the final table rolled around. After having a bit of a stumble, and temporarily losing his lead to Alessio Isaia, Ryan reasserted his dominance by making his first "final table" victim a name synonymous with good, sound poker: David Sklansky.