Jeff Simpson chips in with some insight on covering big poker tournaments in Las Vegas

LAS VEGAS, Nevada -- One of the most enjoyable elements of my job during my tenure as a casino business reporter was covering the biggest poker tournaments in the world.

I love playing poker, particularly poker tournaments, and the opportunity to cover the best players and the top events was incredibly exciting.

Luckily for me, the four years I spent as a daily reporter spanned some of the most exciting contests in the history of poker.

My first World Series of Poker, in 2000, was the year that Chris "Jesus" Ferguson won the championship event at Binion's Horseshoe.

I had a front-row seat for the final table, the last year the televised final table started with only six players. (Since then nine players make the televised final table.) Ferguson started with a huge chip lead, and four competitors were quickly eliminated, leaving only Ferguson and the man who had started the day with the shortest stack of chips, T.J. Cloutier.

Cloutier's play was awesome, and he ended up with almost as many chips as Ferguson before making a big all-in bet that Ferguson called. Cloutier had a huge advantage, holding an ace and a queen against Ferguson's ace-9, but a 9 fell on the river (the fifth of the five shared community cards in Texas hold 'em) and Ferguson won the title, the championship bracelet and $1.5 million. Cloutier had to settle for a bit more than $900,000, but he took his defeat like a man.

The next year a 29-year-old poker pro from Spain, Carlos Mortensen, won the $1.5 million prize. The nine-player final table was an eight-hour marathon, more than twice as long as the prior year's skirmish. The tough table included stalwarts Phil Hellmuth, Phil Gordon and Mike Matusow, and culminated in a heads-up battle between the eventual winner and Dewey Tomko.

In 2002, Robert Varkonyi combined a run of good cards and even better luck to win the $2 million top prize. That same year I covered the very first World Poker Tour event as well as the WPT Championship event, both at Bellagio. Cool sets, excellent hand analysis by commentator Mike Sexton, and a great concept for a poker tour combined to make the events and broadcasts a huge success.

2003 was the last year I had the privilege of covering the World Series of Poker final table, and it was a spectacular event. Most poker insiders believe that Chris Moneymaker's triumph was the single most important event in the history of tournament poker, as Moneymaker's perfect name and amazing story - parlaying a $40 Internet satellite into the $2.5 million prize - inspired thousands of imitators to take their own shot in subsequent years.

My copy editor gave my front-page story a perfect headline: "From $40 to Moneymaker."

Now that I no longer report on poker events, I've missed covering the last three WSOP championships won by Greg Raymer, Joe Hachem and Jamie Gold.

Raymer and Hachem won in spectacular style, beating increasingly larger fields.

But after watching ESPN's coverage of this year's final table, and reading Sun reporter Liz Benston's story about how Gold intends to welsh on a deal to split his winnings, I'm sort of glad I missed Gold's victory.

His constant banter during the final-table broadcast was highly irritating, as was his arrogance. Even though he was a big cash winner, Gold is looking like a loser. And that, unfortunately, will hurt poker.

Copyright © Las Vegas Sun. Inc. Republished with permission.