A Nearly Perfect Champ, a Nearly Perfect Rumble; Watch These Nine, and Feel Quite Humble

Let's create a foundation for a world championship.

Start, if you will, by imagining that you're physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted (if not exhausted, at the least quite drained).

Now, set up some expectations: Add to the mix the fact that a chance of a lifetime (at least for most people) has presented itself to you, but the opportunity comes when you're physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausted.

Next, add some surroundings. Imagine that while only a few hundred people will be watching live as you pursue this opportunity, tens of thousands of your peers and quite possibly millions of spectators are later, through the magic of televised holecards, going to peer inside every effort you make, praising you when you succeed but also looking upon you with disdain if you make the slightest error.

Just for kicks, let's add a randomizing ingredient, pure chance, that can at any moment jump up and ruin your best efforts, with no "justice" or "fairness" involved.

To build a sturdy foundation, recognize that to pursue this opportunity, you will not merely have to conquer the world's toughest foe – yourself – but eight skilled individuals, and they want the prize just as much as you do. Maybe some of them want it more.

Now remember that if you don't want your foundation and hence your chances to fall, you're going to have to avoid micromanaging, and trust the process – in this case, by putting most of these obstacles out of your mind, and staying in the moment.

Welcome, my friends, to the final table of the $10,000 buy-in no-limit hold'em championship at the Horseshoe Casino in Downtown Las Vegas. The foundation you've just set up had better be sturdy, because the results here, be they good, bad, or indifferent, will be with the combatants the rest of their lives.

The process of building a championship may be fun, but you'll be dancing on ESPN's worldwide stage with no opportunity to change your mind if you make a misstep. Of the millions who watch you, only a few hundred will really be able to relate to the hurdles you'll face, and even those few can't really relate, because none of them have ever had to work so many hours to reach the promised land, and none have had this kind of money dangled in front of them.

On the other hand, you might discern stratagems of brilliance and legend that will be discussed endlessly by your peers. You might finally bury fears that you aren't good enough or lucky enough. You might win enough to change your financial outlook forever. You might have more fun in the moment than you ever thought was possible, and memories of that fun might last a lifetime.

Fear vs. Greed, You vs. Them, You vs. You. Lady Luck and you against the world, or the world and Lady Luck against you. What a potential dream. What a potential nightmare. What a rush.

I'm enormously happy to report that every one of the nine brave souls who faced poker's ultimate test of that which lies within and that which lies without acquitted himself with honor and distinction. The game's very nature – the turn of a card, the fact that someone must finish ninth and someone must finish eighth and someone must finish first – meant that each competitor had to leave the table in a unique position, some much more desirable than others, but years from now, when the subject of the 2004 World Series of Poker championship table comes up, anyone who was part of it should be able to speak of his effort with pride.

With the foundation for the contenders' challenges and opportunities laid deeply enough to build a skyscraper from them, let's now take the elevator up the many floors of that skyscraper, and view the actual deeds seen on each floor.

When play began at what was practically a record for promptness, given ESPN's needs and the logistics of moving players, spectators, the press, money, and chips all to the right locations, the clock read 1:38 p.m. PST. The final nine had emerged from the record-shattering field of 2,576. Forty of those did not show up; their money was added to the prize pool, but because they never registered on-site, they never had stacks set out to be blinded off into nothingness, so the chip totals were closer to $25,360,000, not $400,000 higher. The final nine took their seats with the following relative chip counts and seat positions:

1. Mattias Andersson – $740,000

2. Josh Arieh – $3,205,000

3. Al Krux – $1,305,000

4. Greg "Fossilman" Raymer – $8,215,000

5. Matt Dean – $4,920,000

6. Dan Harrington – $2,245,000

7. Glenn Hughes – $2,275,000

8. David Williams – $1,575,000

9. Michael McClain – $885,000

Naturally, the playing field wasn't level, even though it started that way the previous Saturday or Sunday, depending on which day you started. Depending on how well he had played or how lucky he had been, each player started the day with a unique chip position, and in some instances, the random draw for seat assignments played a mighty role in determining the final outcome.

Indeed, it's even possible that the random draw that led to either a Saturday or Sunday starting date may have played into the outcome of who arrived at the final table. 1995 World Champion Dan Harrington, who had already accomplished the almost impossible by returning to the final table one year after his third-place finish last year – a feat I and many others consider more impressive than winning this tournament in consecutive years in its early years when fewer than a hundred entrants was common – had performed that feat in the face of another hurdle.

According to Harrington, he checked with the other eight finalists, and he alone had started on Sunday and had thus needed to play for six consecutive days, while his eight opponents had played for a day, received a day of rest, and then played for only five consecutive days. The sample size admittedly isn't large, but Saturday intuitively seemed a better starting day than Sunday to most, and the 8-to-1 final-table ratio seemed to back that guess up.

(Maybe the field was just tougher on Sunday. After all, I started on Saturday.)

With $25,365,000 in chips on the table, an average starting stack was $2,818,000, and even though Raymer's formidable lead meant that only three players started "above average," the blinds started at $25,000-$50,000 with $5,000 antes, meaning that at least for the 14:02 remaining on the clock at this level, you could sit out a round at a cost of $120,000. This meant that the larger stack owners could, if they wished, be extremely choosy about what kind of starting hand they took into the fray.

"If they wished" turned out to be a key phrase here, because the action throughout the day, and in particular during the first 32 hands, came so fast and hard that it seemed more like a one-table satellite where the high blinds meant no one had more than five big blinds to his name, even though an average player here had 56 of them.

Mike McClain held the button in the No. 9 seat for the first hand, and Glenn Hughes wasted no time in creating action: He raised to 200K, and Josh Arieh decided to call from the big blind (BB).

(I suggest, by the way, that to help yourself follow the action, you draw a little chart of the players and their seat positions. It will make it much easier to see who was acting from early or late position and to follow the action in general.)

The flop came J 5 4, and both players checked. The 7 hit the turn, Arieh led out for 375K, and when Hughes folded, the 29-year-old Atlantan and father of two had drawn first blood. By the time the fourth hand had ended, Arieh seemed positively vampiric. He'd taken hand No. 3 with an uncontested raise, and was one of four players who decided to enter after Harrington, whose well-earned reputation for tight play usually draws little opposition when he raises, brought in hand No. 4 for a raise to 150K. The flop came Q 8 3, and after his four opponents checked, Arieh bet 400K and took the 750K pot.

On hand No. 5 (I'm not going to report every hand, even though it seems that way, but if four players coming in after a Harrington raise hasn't already clued you in to the action level, I can let you know that it took only 99 hands to eliminate six players, and 14 more to finish what could have been a five-hour battle among the remaining three), McClain opened for a raise to 150K (perhaps these small opening raises were creating some of the action; while three to three and a half times the big blind is a fairly standard no-limit hold'em opening raise, once antes are involved, the multiplier usually rises to somewhere between four and five).

Raymer, who had wielded his big stack beautifully the day before, looked like he was picking it up to muscle yet another opponent when he made it 500K to go. McClain was almost certainly going to be pot-committed if he called, so he went ahead and moved all of his remaining 830K into the pot. Raymer called the bet, and turned over pocket tens. McClain, meanwhile, had received what every short stack wants: aces and an opponent willing to pay them off as a 9-2 underdog.

The flop came J 10 7, though, and Raymer's set blew McClain out of the final table in ninth place, just five hands into the game.

Even though the action had been "fast" in terms of betting, these five hands and the decisions involved had eaten up the time remaining in the round, so the level ended with the blinds moving to $30,000-$60,000 and the antes to $10,000. Eighthanded, it would now cost $170,000 to sit out a round, and that meant that Andersson was going to have to find a hand or make a move fairly soon, unless he was willing to let his stack grow so small that he would have virtually no chance to force someone out of a pot with a bet.

Andersson found two eminently playable cards just two hands later. He wasn't necessarily going to be pot-committed if he raised to a reasonable number like 200K or 225K, but instead, he made a strong play that perfectly accomplished his trapping goal. By pushing his entire 670K all in, Andersson was making it appear that he didn't want action, and Raymer, whose chip lead had already swelled from his unexpected takedown of McClain, decided to call with the A 10.

Andersson wasn't quite the 9-2 favorite that McClain had been, but he was 2.9-1 with his A K. Everything looked fine when the flop came Q-9-7, but when a jack hit the turn, Raymer's 10 was now giving him an open-end straight draw. Although he'd lost the 10 as an out (it would have given Andersson an ace-high straight), he could now win with either an 8 or a king.

Andersson, a 24-year-old whose biography sheet indicated he was quite a performer (he had been the Swedish National Magic Champion when he was 21), said later that he could sense it was going to happen, and alakazam, there it was, an 8 on the river for a straight. If magic was involved, he had invoked the wrong card at the wrong time. Andersson had also written on the bio sheet that his personal motto is, "Respect all of your fellow players and try to play your best game." He'd succeeded at the second part here by trapping Raymer with his oversized bet, and stuck to the first part by accepting a proffered apologetic handshake from Raymer.

I knew Andersson had felt the card coming off because I was close enough to hear his ESPN interview, wherein he said he felt "devastated" when he saw the last card. "I hate the turn, I could almost feel the river coming," he said. Yes, it is a hard thing when a beat ends your dream, and we'd seen two rough ones in three hands.

Arieh, meanwhile, kept adding to his stack, sometimes with uncontested first raises, sometimes with big turn bets, and once, in a confrontation the likes of which we were to see many times this day, on hand No. 18, when he opened for 250K and Raymer flat-called from the small blind (SB). Both checked the J 8 4 flop, but Raymer led out for 350K when the K hit the turn, and Arieh called. The J hit the river, Raymer backed off by checking, and folded when Arieh bet 600K. Arieh rarely let any sign of an opponent's weakness go past him.

Two hands later, Arieh got involved in another big hand. David Williams, a 23-year-old SMU student majoring in math and economics, decided it was mathematically favorable to try to steal 160K in dead money with a low opening raise to 120K. Arieh, deciding he wasn't going to give an undersized bet credit for danger until his opponent had proven that possibility likely, took his A K and his momentum and shoved 620K forward, a raise of 500K. Williams called very quickly, and Arieh understandably looked a little surprised. What kind of hand is worth an undersized initial raise and a relatively huge call, but not a reraise? We'd soon find out.

The flop came A 6 5, and Williams checked. Arieh liked his hand and didn't want Williams hanging around to catch any potential flush draws or sets to a pocket pair, and moved in, his stack easily covering what Williams had left. Williams called even more quickly than before, but this time the reason was clear: He'd played 5-5 for a 500K raise, a play that looked questionable on the face of it unless Williams had had some plan to use his call as a springboard for a play after the flop.

Arieh, probably deducing that chance, had seized the initiative, with no way to know that the flop had brought one of the two available cards that could crush him.

Spectators got unduly excited when the A hit the turn: While the card gave Arieh trips, it also gave Williams a full house. It did leave Arieh with outs on the river, though: An ace, 6, or king could win. The 10 didn't qualify, and Arieh, who had been accumulating chips in small and medium-sized bites from the opening bell, had to ship another $1,105,000 to Williams. When you added in the blinds, antes, and money bet on the flop, Williams was now the proud owner of $3,610,000 that Arieh was probably thinking some, most, or all of belonged in his stack, from the way he got up from the table to pace in an unhappy manner.

I'd watched before the event started as Williams kept bringing friends in twos and threes to Co-Tournament Director Jim Miller, trying to get seats for them together in the bleachers. These friends were clearly true friends pulling for their buddy, as opposed to something else that happened a little later that reeked of (gasp!) advertising.

On the very next hand, No. 21 overall, Krux, about whom you might not have heard much lately but who won a bracelet in 1996 and who made the final table of the championship event in 1990 (sixth), opened for 250K. Raymer, who had been eliminating players with such apparent ease that I was looking for an alternative to "Fossilman" (like "The Fossilmaker" or "The Raymernator"), muscled up once again and pushed the quaint total of 865K forward.

Krux, who had already seen two huge bets from Fossilman and who had not yet entered one pot voluntarily, must have been picking up such dreadful hands that he decided the 6 6 was a big enough hand to move in with, even though the raise was so tiny that this really possessed far more of the attributes of a call than a raise, and Raymer called immediately with A-K.

The flop made Krux's decision look solid: J 9 4. The A hit the turn, though, and suddenly Krux was a man on a draw. Because Raymer held no spades, Krux's 6 was going to be good if any spade hit the river, and the 2 it was. Someone had finally slowed down Raymer's run, ironically enough, in a come-from-behind fashion that appeared similar. Krux now owned well in excess of $2 million, and he added about 650K more when he called a Matt Dean opening raise two hands later and check-raised Dean right off his hand on the K 9 8 flop when Dean pushed 300K forward and Krux moved in.

Tournament Director Matt Savage then offered up a chip estimate after a mere 24 hard-to-catch-your-breath hands. It was a welcome quick guess, but added up about a million less than the total in play, so I spread the extra wealth fairly evenly among the remaining seven:

2. Josh Arieh – $3,000,000

3. Al Krux – $3,115,000

4. Greg "Fossilman" Raymer – $7,650,000

5. Matt Dean – $4,150,000

6. Dan Harrington – $1,800,000

7. Glenn Hughes – $2,050,000

8. David Williams – $3,600,000

Although no one ever needs an excuse for slightly inexact estimates when players won't keep their chips in stacks of 20, Savage had one of the more outstanding varieties of excuses available to him. Seven hands later, he said, "We're going to take a little two-minute break here," and because such events are common enough when ESPN needs to change a tape or a light or some such fixture, this time ESPN was involved only as a co-conspirator.

Savage asked people to stay in their seats as he strode toward press row with the microphone still in his hand, and I now knew why the AP reporter sitting next to me had drawn a sharp "shhhhh!" when he spotted a small blue box near some roses on the table usually reserved for holding lots and lots of money. Savage started talking about all the people important to making the tournament work, and then mentioned that one in particular had been the key for him, his girlfriend Maryann Foronda, and traditional romanticist that he is, he dropped to one knee to ask an apparently quite surprised Foronda if she would marry him.

"Of course!" came the enthusiastic reply, and the "two-minute" break became a slightly longer "engagement break" as various friends came by to embrace the happy couple. Any slob can use the giant screens at a baseball game to propose (I recall only one failure, but it was impressive, as the woman slapped the gentleman in question and strode angrily from her seat, in one of the more major "bloopers" of that particular baseball season), but Matt Savage had halted the World Series of Poker championship event and caught the future Mrs. Savage's reaction for all time. Nicely done, Matt.

Apparently, the engagement break discombobulated more than Maryann, because on the first hand after we returned, Raymer raised from the button, and Harrington decided to play from the BB. The flop came J 9 7. Harrington checked, Raymer bet a hefty 300K, and Harrington sprang his trap, moving all in, a raise of about 950K more. The play was quite understandable, because Raymer had been assaulting Harrington's blind on a fairly regular basis.

The only problem here was that despite Harrington's tight reputation, Raymer had started with a real hand that had improved: the A J. Harrington had been semibluffing with the Q 9. The 3 hit the turn, and Harrington was about to exit when the 9 hit the river, giving him a third 9 and turning the tables, a bit, on Raymer's early knockouts of McClain and Andersson.

Strange things do happen when love is in the air; three hands later, what started as an innocent limp-in battle of the blinds between Arieh and Williams got serious when the flop came K J 9. Williams led out for 300K, and Arieh raised it to a total of 800K. With equal or greater speed than he had earlier called Arieh's 500K raise with his pocket fives, Williams called the same raise here. Each player checked as the 2 and 8 finished off the board. Williams produced A-9, and it was good! He had slapped Arieh hard twice now, and was now over the $4 million mark.

It's a curious poker phenomenon that the worst players and the best players seem to share a characteristic: They often get involved in hands almost immediately after a big loss. The bad players, naturally, are on tilt and lose more; the great players figure they have an image they can exploit, and usually have the best of it. Arieh came right back with a $1 million pot win against Raymer two hands later and a 600K win against a couple of limpers on the hand just after that.

Arieh really didn't come to this table to watch. He lost all of his freshly recovered gains to his consistent foe, Raymer, three hands later (why Arieh and Raymer played so many hands against each other is something I'm going to ask both about in follow-up interviews), but in a "the third time's the charm" hand, he went up against Williams again.

Williams had opened for 250K, with Arieh flat-calling from the button. The flop came 9 6 5, and Williams called Arieh's 250K bet. Each player checked when the K hit the turn, but when the J hit the river, Williams led out for 500K, and after some thinking, Arieh made an impressive call with pocket eights! Williams had only ace high (A-Q); his mere call on the flop and check on the turn had convinced Arieh he was holding high cards, and a cool million changed hands … again.

I mean, come on, this was hand No. 44, and we'd had more action than most tournaments provide in 200 hands … at a time when the blinds and antes were not forcing this kind of big-bet poker. With the adrenaline pumping to replace sleep, this table was reminding me of a souped-up version of the 2000 final, when T.J. Cloutier came in as the chip trailer and the four "bit" players in the long final got blown out of the building by Chris Ferguson and his big stack in 45 minutes.

After exchanging several more big raises of the next few hands, we hit the break after hand No. 49, and the officials counted the chips as follows:

2. Josh Arieh – $4,620,000

3. Al Krux – $2,635,000

4. Greg "Fossilman" Raymer – $7,730,000

5. Matt Dean – $2,505,000

6. Dan Harrington – $2,805,000

7. Glenn Hughes – $2,125,000

8. David Williams – $2,745,000

The officials counted them twice and came up with the same numbers each time, even though the total is exactly 200K short. I'm leaving it as is, figuring either that someone had some 25K in chips hidden in somewhere amongst his tens, or that this late in such a long Series, anyone is entitled to get a little loopy.

A few themes had emerged during the first 49 hands. Even though Arieh and Raymer each had taken some beats, and each had engaged in the dangerous practice of doing battle with each other – two of the only three big stacks, for much of the time – they had emerged just fine. Dean, who is either a very nice guy or one of the world's great BS artists, had told me that he'd read my article about last year's finale "about 100 times," and that that story was what had drawn him into poker in general, and to participate in this year's Series in particular.

"I feel like I'm not keeping up with the others, though," Dean said to me. "I'm not playing as many hands."

"You've lost some ground," I told the 25-year-old aspiring math teacher, for whom I suddenly felt a certain responsibility, "but I don't think it's because you're playing too few hands. I'm kind of stunned that everyone else has been playing as many as they have been. You just haven't come out well in enough of the hands you've played, although I don't see anything wrong. Actually, those in press row have been saying you're one of the few players who seems not to have gotten caught up in the risky process of committing huge chunks of his stack all the time." I decided it was time to back off. "Don't start changing on account of me, though," I said. "Your game got you here, it's enough to get you through."

My conscience felt pretty clean. I'd told him to play his own game, and that he didn't have to start playing lots of big hands. Somehow, this translated into his immediately playing two big disastrous pots.

The blinds had moved up to $40,000-$80,000 (this was kind of funny if you stopped to think about it: It was costing eight entire buy-ins just to post a blind), with the antes remaining at 10K. Dean brought hand No. 57 in for a raise to 225K from late position, and got called by Arieh out of the BB. The flop came K 5 4. Arieh checked, Dean bet 200K (a bit odd; post-flop bets are usually a bit bigger than preflop bets, because the pot is already larger), and Arieh called. The 3 hit the turn, "and that, officer, is when all the shootin' started."

Arieh led out for 400K, and Dean decided to do exactly what he'd been speculating about doing on the break and exactly what I'd told him he didn't need to do: play big-pot poker. He kicked it up for a 700K raise, a total wager of $1,100,000. Arieh moved all in, and Dean mucked. I think Dean had made up his mind that he needed to speed up, and no words were going to convince him otherwise.

"Put a fork in him, he's done," I heard someone say, and it was hard to disagree. Dean's stack, an impressive second when the day had begun, had been shrinking over the first couple of hours, and now he'd just lost $1,525,000 on one hand that must have been practically a pure bluff (it's hard to imagine what else he would have abandoned with so much money in the pot). Dean had left his comfort zone of a patient waiting game, and lost much more than half his stack in one hand. He was going to have a hard time coming back.

Dean picked a few chips up with a reraise to 500K from an opening Hughes 200K bet on hand No. 62, but two hands later, the roof fell in. He opened for a raise to 250K, but Williams made what I like to call a "Yellow Alert" reraise: He made it only 500K. Williams had earlier raised only the absolute minimum once, but that had been the time he was making the first raise, not the second (the hand in which he held the 5-5, made it 120K, and later called Arieh's raise to 620K). Here, it seemed like the kind of raise that screamed, "I want you to call me, because I have the best of it, and I want to make sure I get at least a little more out of you now but also feel committed to the pot."

Dean called, and I winced, not because of his call, but because the flop came 8 8 3 (almost, but not quite, the exact flop that had helped eliminate me late on day two last year, when one of the eights was a spade and I held A-A; the unpredictable Amir Vahedi had called my preflop raise with 8-7, and you can figure out the rest for yourself; ha, I told a bad-beat story, revenge for the 1,581 I had to listen to at this WSOP).

Anyway, Dean continued his shift toward big-bet poker, not "dancing with the one who brung ya'," as a colorful friend of mine used to say. Williams fired 300K at this flop, and instead of gracefully retiring his useless hand (A-10), Dean decided to make a move, pushing all of his chips forward.

Williams held A-A, and when he called, he was facing an opponent who was drawing close to dead; only consecutive tens could save him. Once the 3 hit the turn, the hand was over, and the A that landed on the river only meant that Williams had eliminated this very nice young man with aces full against aces and eights, instead of with aces and eights against just eights.

I don't think I'd ever been as happy with the flattened payout structure that put more money into spots like seventh place as I was at this moment. Dean didn't hang his head. He raised his index finger (the good one, in case you're not sure) into the air, in a kind of "We're still No. 1" gesture, and this immediate acceptance of his win as the big win it was, rather than the more typical immediate feelings of despair that turn into "Hey, winning $675,000 was actually pretty good" a couple of days later, inspired the SRO crowd to give Dean a thunderous cheer as he exited.

In his ESPN interview, when asked what he was going to do next, Dean did college students everywhere proud with his answer: "Party." He then exhaled rather deeply, as if the experience had been so hugely pressure-packed that part of him was glad it was over. While that probably wasn't true on a conscious level, it isn't that unusual for people to feel at a subconscious level that the pressure and intensity are indeed mighty uncomfortable.

Williams won the next pot with an uncontested raise, and was now holding more than $5 million in chips, and had passed Arieh as Raymer's closest challenger.

A couple of hands later, Arieh opened for a raise to 225K, and Krux reraised. Arieh played along as each played the K-K-6-A-4 board carefully. Krux won with an ace, and a group of spectators (who appeared to be Krux's friends but who were all wearing identical logo shirts from the same Internet poker room) went crazy with excitement, yelling things like, "It's all about you, Albie," and, "Make 'em run, baby!"

Why mention Krux's "friends"? It's because he also had true friends in attendance. Krux didn't win this tournament, and the moment he was eliminated, his identically clad "close friends" stripped their identical shirts off simultaneously, right at the edge of the spectator area. One had a T-shirt on underneath, while another simply stripped to the skin. I was happy to have seen Krux's son (wearing much more normal attire) cheering for him earlier in the day, but this group was obviously a bunch of hired hands who didn't even have the common sense to wait to change clothing until they left. (Security encouraged the partially clad gents to leave immediately).

ESPN has had a somewhat controversial "dress code" that gave ESPN the right to refuse to allow players to wear logos at final tables. ESPN had paid the rights fee and didn't want the whole thing to turn into a banner-wearing zoo. This attempted "end run" by spectators gives ESPN's position a little more of the high ground. Whether Krux was involved at all, I don't know, and I'm not even sure how relevant it is. Any Internet cardroom could have hired folks to come in and scream like maniacs for one player. It's more effective that way than spacing them evenly through the crowd.

When your true purpose is to cheer for someone, you don't strip off your shirt the moment he gets knocked out of the tournament. It was all a very shoddy attempt to gain attention.

Attention was soon diverted from the tournament for another reason. A big crew carrying multiple cardboard boxes full of $5 million cash came in, and even though the players continued playing, you'd have thought they were playing $2 blackjack for all the attention that was focused on them. People all around me were practically incontinent (yes, I know what the word means) at the sight of the money, and were climbing all over each other to take pictures of it, stare at it, and in general lose every shred of dignity they had left trying to get near it. Fortunately, about a dozen security people came out with it, or I think someone would have tried, once it was all stacked on the table near me, to dive into it, not to steal it, but just to roll around in it.

This probably wasn't such a bad time for the money to come in. All the nervous energy that manifested itself in such big early betting action had hit a lull, and players were getting a bit more cautious. Yes, $675,000 was indeed a big payday, but the "stupefying" and/or "life-changing" money was now both literally and figuratively close, and it seemed to reduce the pot sizes for a while.

Time does flow relatively. It had only been hand No. 64 when we had lost Dean, and it had seemed like a long lull until No. 77 (my numbering may be slightly off; I know that when I reached No. 96, it was actually No. 99 … I may have missed some hands while the announcers were silent during bust-out interviews), at 5:40 p.m., when Arieh, Krux, and Raymer each entered a pot. The flop came A K 5. It was checked to Raymer, who bet 500K. Arieh called, and Krux, sitting right in between them, made what looked, initially, like a great play to pick up the million dollars plus sitting on the table: He moved all in for a raise of about 925K more.

Instead of moaning about his fate, Raymer made sure that Arieh wasn't going to make some wild pot-odds play to hang around with any kind of draw. He reraised another $1.5 million, and Arieh had seen enough. With Krux already all in, the hands were turned over: the A Q for Raymer, the A 9 for Krux, who had been hoping, I imagine, that the lack of initial action on the flop meant that an ace was good.

The 3 7 finish sent Krux out sixth, and the room went dizzy again. The "faux-Krux" supporters picked this moment to strip, the PA announcer let everyone know that we now "had five millionaires sitting at the table" (fifth place was to pay $1,100,000), and Raymer's chips were piled into mountains, even though he owned hundreds of the red $25,000 chips; he had, after all, just won well over $2 million in tournament chips on the hand.

The atmosphere continued to intensify three hands later. Arieh opened for 225K and Raymer called. The flop came J 10 6, and Arieh fired again, this time for 425K. Raymer wasn't budging. The turn brought the 8. Arieh checked, and Raymer bet a million dollars. (Doesn't that just sound fun, "I bet a million dollars"?) Arieh called, and the pot had gotten completely out of control, with almost three and a half million dollars in it.

The river brought the 4, and again Arieh started cautiously: The board, remember, now read J 10 6 8 4, so if anyone had been messing around with a flush draw, he had gotten there. All kinds of straights were possible, too, but if anyone had been playing a huge semibluffing hand, like the K Q on the turn, the river hadn't helped.

Raymer hadn't pulled off such a big lead by backing off. He moved all in, and Arieh moved all out – of his chair, not the hand. Arieh jumped up and started walking in circles, pondering his decision. The cry, "Call it!" came from the audience, as if it were that simple. Unless Arieh is a world-class actor who was just trying to save face, he had some kind of real hand. Arieh spun around another time or two, and then sat down, hunched over … and folded.

We knew where most of the chips were now, but it was time to estimate where the rest were:

2. Josh Arieh – $3,600,000

4. Greg "Fossilman" Raymer – $12,000,000

6. Dan Harrington – $2,600,000

7. Glenn Hughes – $1,500,000

8. David Williams – $5,100,000

It was convenient that officials had offered this estimate just then, because three hands later, Arieh opened again for 225K, and for what seemed the umpteenth time, Raymer wouldn't let him steal, but just flat-called the bet. This left a tantalizing sum in the pot for Hughes, who decided that it was now or never time for his "pitiful" $1.5 million in chips (context sure is king in this game).

Arieh folded, but the Raymernator requested a count, and when he found that it would cost him "only" $1.3 million to call, he did so. He'd made one of those plays in which you hope you're a slight favorite rather than being dominated, in order to take a shot at eliminating a player. Raymer had called with the 5 5, usually a bad play, but between the pot odds if he were a favorite and the chance to eliminate Hughes, who knows. Hughes turned over K-Q, and swung and missed as the board came A-10-4-10-9.

Hughes was out fifth, and hugged a number of friends at the rail. A long, rhythmic appreciative applause came rumbling up from the crowd for Hughes' efforts, and we had reached "the final four." The next player out would receive what had been a record-breaking total for winning in 2000, $1.5 million.

No doubt, Raymer had watched that day in 2000, because he was assembling his rapidly massing pile of chips into "the Ferguson Double Pyramid of Cheops" style.

ESPN hadn't wanted the clock to be as easily viewable as it had been on other days, and the players each kept taking turns getting out of their chairs to see how long it would be until the scheduled dinner break. The pressure was getting severe and it was fairly clear that everyone wanted a break from it.

At about 6:15 p.m., Harrington, who had now not merely reached the final table in consecutive years, but had reached the final four in consecutive years, passed Arieh but still trailed Williams, the quietly confident 23-year-old SMU student – that's right, Phil Hellmuth, your record as the youngest winner was in trouble again, and I suspect it will remain in trouble for each of the next few years until the inevitable happens and it's taken away – whose mother had been here watching him from the start.

It was a nice relationship these two had. I'd spotted Mrs. Williams several days before and asked her what she thought about her young son playing poker at this serious a level. "I've always supported David in anything he's wanted to do," she said, and it was now looking like David was going to be able to return the support in more than the emotional way he had already provided when he listed his mother as the main reason he'd made it this far.

In any event, the clock watching kept the players hopping in and out of their seats – it was as good a way as any to keep the nervous energy under control – and then on hand No. 99 (the real No. 99, not wherever my list got thrown off), Harrington limped in from the small blind, with Williams checking.

The flop came 9 5 2, and Harrington opened for 250K, with Williams calling instantly. When the 3 hit the turn, Harrington checked, Williams bet 500K, and Harrington moved all in. Williams called very quickly and turned over two pair … just the kind of two pair one might hold in an unraised pot, deuces and threes.

Harrington, meanwhile, held the 8 6, and had been making a move with a double belly-buster straight draw (either a 4 or a 7 would have done it). The 3 hit the river, giving Williams an unnecessary full house, and Harrington was out fourth. He received a huge roar, and because the dinner break had arrived simultaneously with Harrington's ouster, I got to spend a bit more time with him than I usually do with an "early" KO.

"I'd watched him play fairly carefully," Harrington began. "I was pretty sure I could get him to lay down anything smaller than two pair with a raise that big, and even if he had two pair, I had outs."

Because a mutual friend had discussed with me earlier how Harrington would likely be focused more on first than on any of the other landing spots, because of all the ancillary benefits that go to the winner in this newly poker-mad world, I asked Harrington if that had been the case, and if he had made the play in an effort to get enough chips to go after Raymer.

"No, I was really playing it one spot at a time," Harrington said. "I was just pretty sure I could get him to lay the hand down. How much (came an incredible question) did second and third pay?"

I explained that fourth paid $1.5 million, second $2.5 million, third $3.5 million, and first the $5 million that everyone had been hyping. Harrington seemed a bit surprised. "That much for third and second, eh?" he half said, half queried. "Hmm. Well, in that case, maybe I'm not supposed to make the play, but I still think he lays it down if he doesn't have two pair. Oh, well."

Harrington can afford to be equivocal. He's already a millionaire several times over, not just from his backgammon and poker playing, but from real estate investing and some other start-up businesses he's involved in.

Everyone was chased from the room for dinner, and a later conversation I had with one of the players who "didn't care if I quoted him or not," which tended to lend credence to the statement, indicated that no one ever brought the subject of a deal up.

I asked Harrington who he liked to win from this point. "Raymer is going to be very hard to stop," Harrington said. "Only David has enough chips, but he doesn't have the experience. He has the heart, though. Josh has the experience, but not the chips. I think the winner is going to be your chip leader."

When the players returned from dinner, the blinds were $50,000-$100,000, the antes still 10K, and the new chip count was:

2. Josh Arieh -$2,100,000

4. Greg "Fossilman" Raymer -$14,965,000

8. David Williams – $8,630,000

Looked at in other ways, it was going to cost $180,000 to play a three-hand round, or $60,000 a hand. As "high" as the blinds seemed, Williams and Raymer, at least, had time to find something. Even Arieh wasn't completely desperate.

Often in these situations, it makes a great deal of difference who eliminates player No. 3. If No.1 can do it, his chip lead is usually significant. If it's No. 2, a long battle can ensue.

Seven hands into the new session, Raymer brought a hand in from the button for 250K. Williams called, but Arieh moved all in from the big blind. This was a raise of $1,305,000, and Raymer called, showing A-Q. Arieh had a real hand with 9-9, but what was that card in the window? A queen? Another one? A flop of Q Q J? Arieh was trailing badly and needed to hit a 9, but the board finished 3-4 to finish Arieh for third place. It was 8:20 p.m., and we were heads up for all the money.

"At this point, I was happier that I was going to be playing David and not Josh," Raymer said. "Nothing against David, he played great, but before the final table even began, Josh was the one guy, even more than Dan, I didn't want to play heads up, because Josh is very imaginative. He'll make a call for 5 percent or 10 percent of his stack if he thinks he has a hand he can outplay you with after the flop. A lot of players won't call. They'll either fold or reraise, because they don't want to face difficult decisions after the flop, but I knew that Josh would be willing to do exactly that."

When heads-up play began, the chip count was:

4. Greg "Fossilman" Raymer – $17,125,000

8. David Williams – $8,240,000

The first six hands were relatively inconsequential maneuverings, and then it got exciting, a statement roughly akin to saying, "My wife got pregnant, and then our lives changed a little."

Heads up, the small blind goes on the button (SBB) and acts first before the flop and second after the flop.

Williams held the button and opened for $300,000, with Raymer calling. The flop came 5 4 2. Raymer checked, Williams bet 500K, and Raymer upped the ante with a raise of $1.1 million more. Williams, as was his style most of this day when facing a big bet, called rather rapidly.

Another deuce, the 2, hit the turn, and Raymer didn't mess around: He led out for $2,500,000 … and Williams called, again fairly quickly.

On the turn, a third deuce, the 2 arrived, and Raymer quickly moved all in. Williams called, and even though it was Raymer's duty to turn his cards over first, Williams had turned up his A 4 (a pair of fours on the flop that had turned into deuces full of fours by the river) within about half a second. Raymer spent about that same amount of non-time in turning over his own hand, pocket eights.

"In hindsight, I shouldn't have bet the river," Raymer told me. "I was moving pretty quickly, I had all week, and I think if I had taken more time, I would have thought, 'What would he call me with that I can beat?' But there was so much energy in the air, I think I reverted to level one thinking, 'I have a strong hand, I should bet,' and I got lucky that he did call.

"I think what happened was this," Raymer explained. "I liked my hand starting out, of course, and it looked like a great flop for me, but when he called all that money on the turn, I started thinking, 'Uh-oh, maybe he has a straight.' But when that third deuce hit the river, I had a full house, even if it was one of the worst full houses you could have there, and because I wasn't worried about the straight anymore, I went ahead and bet. That really doesn't excuse it, because he's probably still not calling very often unless he can beat me, but that's probably what happened."

Although I understood what Raymer meant, I speculated that betting might not have been as weak a play as he was trying to make it seem. "David (Williams) was pretty pot-committed at that point," I said. "He might not have liked the idea of playing on when down 5-1 in chips, even though a more experienced player might have been willing to play from that deficit. You also had the TV thing going for you, the fact that he would have hated to have been bluffed out there if you'd been pushing just an A-K or maybe something like 6-4 or 3-3. We all know," I stopped to smile, "how many excuses we can come up with for calling if we really want to … "

"Yep, maybe," Raymer said. "I know it would be hard to find out later that you'd been bluffed out there. Maybe it helped that I had turned over so many bluffs that he had to take into account that I might have been bluffing. I'm just grateful it ended where it did. He showed a lot of heart, and you know how fast a no-limit tournament can turn around.

"You'll see why I was worried about Josh when you see the video," the stocky 39-year-old said. "Context is so important. Josh and I were raising and reraising each other with all kinds of garbage, playing the player rather than the cards, and that's a tougher way to play poker.

"I thought it was the winner," Raymer said, "but he had called so quickly, I wanted to be sure I didn't miss anything. This was not – repeat, not – a slow roll. Time it; a half second isn't very long."

The 2004 WSOP was over. Greg "Fossilman" Raymer was our champion, and he raised his arms in triumph. Williams had 3.5 million consolation prizes, but just as I always seem to do in these situations, he was the one I wanted to find, he was the one whom I wanted to check on. He stood there quietly, obviously quite sad in the moment (Who wouldn't be?) but well-composed. I'll be bringing you more news of him soon. Right now, let's focus on our winner.

One of the first things the swarm of reporters wanted to know about were Raymer's odd sunglasses, kind of goofy "visible fake eyeball" glasses that really would take 1,000 words to describe, so I hope you get access to a picture. (Hopefully, you'll also see the trademark beaded necklaces that he was wearing throughout the tournament.)

"I got them when my family (wife, Cheryl, and daughter, Sophie) and I were on vacation in Disney World, at the Tower of Terror gift shop, just before the World Series, and I thought I'd give them a try," he said. "I see the great players try to stare down people, and frankly, people don't like to look at these glasses for a long period of time (I can confirm this; it really is hard to look at Raymer with those oddball eyeballs staring back at you for very long). It's easy to win a stare-down when you can't blink. The only reason I don't wear them all the time is that lots of times there isn't enough light to see the cards easily."

When I suggested a line of Fossilman trademark sunglasses, Raymer laughed and explained that he was already well ahead of me on that one. A trademark attorney has already filed all the necessary "intent to use" paperwork, and that gives him a year to figure out whether he wants to sell Fossilman glasses, cards, necklaces, card-cappers, or cologne.

While second place paid a hefty $3.5 million, there was a lot more at stake in this tournament than "just" the additional $1.5 million that would go to the winner, and anyone smart enough to go to law school with an actual reason for going (putting him ahead of roughly 98 percent of law school applicants) is going to be able to find the right ways to capitalize on what the market will allow … even though he doesn't strike me as a money-obsessed, "endorse anything for a buck" kind of guy. I get the feeling that if Raymer is going to put his name on something, he'll insist either on quality, or on everyone understanding that it's a gag item (like inexpensive sunglasses).

Raymer took a long time with the media mob, and was pretty good about complying with requests to "hold the money up" or "put the glasses on" for photos, but the best line of the night had to go to some anonymous wag who then cried out, "Now throw the money into the crowd."

"It was pretty easy for me to stay focused through the week," Raymer later said, "even after I had aces cracked, because I realized, 'Greg, you've been playing for a whole week and you've had, what, two bad beats?' I ran pretty well here, and I was able to let the memories of my good fortune keep me from getting upset on those rare occasions when I didn't get lucky."

Final-table results were as follows (for a complete list of those players who made the money, go to www.cardplayer.com):

1. Greg "Fossilman" Raymer, Stonington, CT – $5,000,000

2. David Williams, Dallas, TX – 3,500,000

3. Josh Arieh, Atlanta, GA – 2,500,000

4. Dan Harrington, Santa Monica, CA – 1,500,000

5. Glenn Hughes, Scottsdale, AZ – 1,100,000

6. Al Krux, Syracuse, NY – 800,000

7. Matt Dean, The Woodlands, TX – 675,000

8. Mattias Anderson, Boras, Sweden – 575,000

9. Mike McClain, Davis, CA – 470,400

Editor's note: In an Andy Glazer special feature in the next issue, read more about new World Champion Greg Raymer and World Series of Poker happenings and tidbits.