What a show!!

The start off to season for of the WPT did not disappoint. The Mirage Showdown had its share of great skill, emotion, and diabolical beats. Four pros that consisted of "Kido" Pham, Chris Bell, Gavin Smith, and Ted Forrest. I remember the last time I saw Kido, he wasn't near as aggressive as he was yet Mike and Vince kept saying he was known as an aggressive playa. Maybe, the show didn't show it as we all know, you gotta be hardcore (aggressive) to succeed.

To my surprise, Ted Forrest, who Vince once called the "Junk Man" didn't play a hand in the 1st hour of the broadcast. Of course, its edited by I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Go back and watch: Ted "The Hitman" (as VVP was callin him that broadcast) didn't "play" a hand until 7PM on the dot with the 4s. I must admit, I was not the biggest Ted fan but damn, he played the best that night. Changing gears, making phenomenal reads and laydowns that I thought were possible from Ted. Mad props Ted; I knew who already won before the broadcast but on the WPT website, it has a poll on who deserves a 2nd chance at the final table: Ted Forrest w/68% of the votes as of this moment.

How about Chris Bell? he played pretty well at the start against the amatuer Eugene Toddthat kept making great facial expressions (should have put that guy in the new FTP commercial with Howard Lederer; would be funny as hell) and then getting lucky against Ted when he hit the "slot machine" on the river against Ted. Damn, I got my tell on Chris there (gotta love all those new cameras installed). When Ted called the re-raise on the flop, Chris showed fear (watch the re-runs if you missed it). Then the river came and he coulnd't contain himself. Still, it takes a lot to laydown top pair and top kicker in that situation, but I probably would have done the same thing after that read.

Oh, other than Eugene Todd's antics, the funniest thing on the show had to be when Mike Sexton said that Eugene Todd was a "bid-ness" major. I about choked on my Gatorade there. :-D