Final Table

Thanks to the geniuses at ESPN, we get to see their pay-per-view coverage of the final table for free!

It's pretty fun to watch this event as it's now down to four people competing for the top prize from the largest pool in sports history. The finalists were Jamie Gold, Michael Binger, Paul Wasicka and Allen Cunningham. First place will pay $12 million and fourth place will earn $3,628,513 out of a prize pool of $82,512,162.

I like seeing a televised tournament without the luxury of a hole cam. The commentary from Phil Gordon, Mike Matasow, Jennifer Harmon, Phil Hellmuth and others becomes vital to following the action. They seem to be doing a pretty good job, but I guess we'll see how accurate their reads are when we see the hole cards during the real broadcast.

I also enjoy being able to view all the hands that will never make it to the edited ESPN broadcast -- the blind steals, the small pots and the flow of the tourney that explains the action leading up to those crucial moments that will decide it all.

Right now, Gold is limping into a lot of pots despite being the big stack. Why?

It's hard to tell without the benefit of seeing his cards. Even Harmon says she has no clue what he has or why he's playing this way. Whatever he's doing, it's working well. He's killing these shorter stacks on the turn and river.

The short stacks are playing really weakly. They're either raising preflop and then check-folding after the flop, or they're limp-folding to a bet.

Everyone is scared of Gold. He has so many chips.

Cunningham is all in with TT vs. Gold's KJ. A King comes on the flop, and Cunningham gets no help. It's down to three. There's one representative each from Full Tilt, Bodog and 888.

The winner will be decided as we sleep.

UPDATE: Gold wins! He kept his big stack intact throughout the entire final table and busted multiple players.

He had a 75 M to 11 M chip when it got heads up, and then he won it all with top pair Queens.