Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi, Oi, Oi!

After six weeks of poker and 42 events, the World Series of Poker is over. It is already time to start qualifying for next year. In this issue, Lee Munzer provides a wrap-up of the championship event, in which there were 5,619 players. It will be impossible to get full appreciation of the event unless you were there because it was truly amazing and the vibe was electric. CardPlayer.com provided event video interviews and updates, photos from every day, chip counts at least every hour, play-by-play recaps of every hand at every final table, reports on all big pots that were played, commentary throughout, and live audio coverage of the final table of the championship event.

Final-table action started at 4:50 p.m. and did not finish until about 6:45 a.m. It was the longest final table in World Series of Poker history, and some of poker's best players and I did play-by-play and color commentary during every minute of the action on CardPlayer.com through RealNetworks. Phil Hellmuth and I started at 4 p.m. sharp, and sharing the microphone with Phil for the duration of play through the night were Daniel Negreanu, Jennifer Harman, Erick Lindgren, Layne Flack, David Williams, and Chris Ferguson. Todd Brunson, John Juanda, and Joe Cassidy also stopped by for a few minutes apiece to help out, as well. Thank you all for the great audio broadcast and the time that you put in to make it happen. Also, thanks to our entire staff, who worked long days for six weeks to bring everyone at home up-to-the-minute reporting.

This was the year of the professional, except for the championship event. When the play was down to the final three tables, there were only four big-time professionals left in the event. Last year's champion, Greg Raymer, got 25th place. Greg was by far the crowd favorite. He took a very bad beat, and had a legitimate chance of repeating as champion in this enormous field. Minh Ly, a very high-stakes poker player, finished 19th. Phil Ivey took 18th place and also had a great shot, as did Mike Matusow, who had chips throughout the event and ran into bad luck at the final table and captured ninth place. Tiffany Williamson, an attorney who lives in England, was the highest-finishing female. She won $400,000 for 15th place.

Everyone who made the final table became a millionaire, and our world champion won $7.5 million. The final nine players were Mike Matusow, Brad Kondracki, Daniel Bergsdorf, Scott Lazar, Andrew Black, Aaron Kanter, John "Tex" Barch, Steve Dannenmann, and Joe Hachem. Joe and Steve got heads up early in the morning, and Joe, who's from Australia, won and is poker's 2005 world champion. Joe was short-stacked, but never gave up. He won one big hand at the final table and, once he got chips, started to dominate. Every time he won a hand, his friends from Australia chanted, "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi! Oi! Oi!" That chant is still ringing in my head. After Joe won, he addressed the crowd and thanked everyone in the room for sticking it out as long as they did. Joe Hachem will be a great champion.