In an earlier post, I mentioned that a late arriving player could still get in at any time given that their chip stack in the empty seat was still able to ante and as well meet any blinds. And in theory, a player could win without ever playing.

Well, the last remaining absent player in this tournament is finally out, having exhausted their chip stack at 23:41 (twenty-three minutes and forty-one seconds) into the third hour of play on Day Two.

I found out fast that it is really impossible to interview an absent player.

As the table count declines, there are a few tables that the folded players are watching (i.e. the OnePass version of the “whale” table), here’s one:

Halfway through the fourth hour of play with the chip stack average up to 183,533, there are 60 players left in the bid to win 21 million frequent flyer miles. And if you are a fan of FlyerTalk.com, there are five players left who are active members of that community.

The biggest sounds from the crowd now are the applause for the “survivor” hands.

“This tournament is really backwards. Now that so many of us are out of it, we’re ready to party but for the 40 that will be left to play tomorrow, they are far too serious to really get a party going!”

More serious (read: poker) faces with every deal of the cards. There are only 55 players left at the end of hour four (still need to drop fifteen players to get to 40).

The average chip stack sits at 200,000 miles.

Here’s what hauling in the chips looks like today!

During the last break I ran into a long-time subscriber to InsideFlyer magazine from Houston who is starting the fifth hour with 65,000 miles in chips. He’s got a great story.

Why is he playing? All for charity. In the past he’s given one million miles to each of three charities: Make-A-Wish, his church and his university. Now he wants to win the 21 million miles to go back and give even more to these three important things in his life. Nice story and just some of what drives these frequent flyers to go after the ultimate frequent flyer prize.

35:23 (thirty-five minutes and twenty-three seconds) into hour five we are down to 50 players with an average stack of 224,000. (Remember, only the top 40 go onto tomorrow’s final round for a chance at 21 million miles).

And if you really must know:

• 13 players still wearing  baseball caps (including the single Kanjol cap)
• 4 ladies
• 7 players still wearing sunglasses
• 8 players still listening to their iPods (actually, I just noticed that 3 of them are listening to music from iPhones)
• 1 player confined to a wheelchair
• and no bald heads (I’m assuming of course that those baseball caps aren’t hiding nothing)

Poker is like golf? They are similar in the way that crowds start to form at the important final holes. Watch golf on TV and you’ll see swells of fans crowding around certain holes or real close matches. Poker is like that as we get close to the final round.

There’s about two dozen spectators In the sixth hour and as soon as an “All In” is announced, they all immediately swarm over to the table with 8-10 players and watch those final cards play out. We’ve had two “Survivor” hands with All In in the past 10 minutes and in each situation, the survivor won to play another hand. Very exciting to watch the crowd watch the players. Now you know how poker is like golf.

At the end of six hours of playing, a much slower pace emerges as players really start to study both the cards AND those playing them. The chip stack sits at 238,297 with 45 players remaining.

If you must know, on the tables:

• 7 bottles of water
• 3 Diet Cokes
• 2 Coronas (one with a napkin wrapped around it to keep the hands dry)
• 2 Starbucks coffee – regular size
• 1 Starbucks iced green tea.
• And 1 Jack and Coke.

And you might find this interesting: a spectator of the tourney mentioned that while he believes in Divine Intervention and total randomness, he’s not convinced that there is such a thing as luck in playing cards.

Break time comes along and all the players head for the nearest bathroom. I head for the guy in front of all the chips. After all, he sees everything. Chatting with three of the dealers in this tournament reveals that all of them see dealing as a job. But … all of them are doing it for one particular reason – to be better card players and do better in tournaments. Yes, they do it to learn from the better card players they deal to in a typical day.

In an 8-hour shift, they may deal 110 to 120 hands and during that time really are able to pick up tips and best practices from the better players and as well, the worst practices from the ones they are no longer dealing to. Bet you didn’t know that.

The applause gets louder. That can mean only one thing – we’re almost at the 40 player cut for the final round. As we start another hour of play with 41 players, the “blinds” are now 5,000 and 10,000 and the average chip stack is 273,170.

The reason that the applause gets louder for each player leaving the game is that the remaining players fully understand they are now one player away from surviving to a new day – when cards can change and luck may improve. Seven hours down today and many hope it’s just minutes to the end of the day. We’ll see.