[LCposter]

I met Phil Gordon, Victor Ramdin, Andrew Black, Barry Greenstein, and Andy Bloch at various points in the hallways of the Rio convention area. All were nice enough to sign autographs and/or take pictures, Phil and Victor struck me as being especially nice. I'll retell the Phil story as a case in point:

I had busted out of the $2K about a minute before the first break. I went to the bathroom during break and saw Phil at the head of the line just as I was leaving the urinal. I waited outside the bathroom, and after he came out, I went to him and asked if he wouldn't mind signing an autograph. He said "Sure", signed, and asked me if I was playing. I told him I just busted out and he said, "That's too bad, better luck next time". I asked him his chip count, he said 6000, and I was ready to let him go but he actually wanted to talk more.

He asked me to describe my bust-out hand. I told him blinds were 50/100, UTG makes it 250, I call from UTG+1 with JJ, and we have 3 callers behind to juice up the pot. Flop comes 887 two diamonds, UTG leads, I raise, all fold but UTG who calls. Turn T (non-diamond), he leads again, I shove, he insta-calls and flips 86o. No J or 9 on river and I'm done. Whole time Phil is asking stack sizes (UTG started with 4000 and I started with 3000), bet sizes, etc. Then he says, "86 off! Where are these guys learning to play!? That's a terrible hand to raise UTG!" and begins commiserating/generally lamenting the state of tournament poker today.

I start thinking "Doesn't he need to get back to the tourney?" and thank him for his time. As he's leaving he says "Nice to meet you. Don't worry about your bustout, any pro goes out the exact same way. Hopefully you don't get cold-decked next time" and leaves. A very nice guy indeed.