Chauncey Gardener: I like to watch.

On Friday afternoon, everyone in the office was quietly cranking away. At 2:00 pm central time, I stood up at my desk and bellowed, “Shuffle up and deal.” It’s been a number of years since I missed the WSOP first siren’s call to poker players around the world. I sat back down at my desk and continued to work, my head in Austin — my heart in Vegas.

Once home, I got even more verklempt after receiving a nice note from WSOP Media Director and friend, Nolan Dalla. By the time I came across Pauly’s shout out, I was downright home-away-from-home sick. When I made the choice not to go out to Vegas this year, I knew it was going to be hard. I didn’t realize how hard until the first day of play.

But if I was going to miss a year, this was the year. I truly think that this will be the best reporting year the series has ever known. This will be PokerNews’ second year as the exclusive media provider – and I think it makes a big difference that they already have one under their belts. For one thing, PokerNews was able to bring back experienced veterans like Change100 and Mean Gene. They’ve got BJ Nemeth in his “sweet spot” providing features and color. I was stoked to hear they picked up Snoopy and Dana. And talented additions like Short-Stacked Shamus and F-Train are only going to raise the bar.

Without the shackles of a reporting “day job,” Pauly is cranking out his best stuff on Tao. At this rate, Pauly may have a book’s worth of material before the WSOP is done. And I’m also pleased that, even with the media restrictions, other tried and true poker outlets continue to belly up to the WSOP media bar.

But even with the great reporting this year, I still missed the unbridled optimism of the first day. With 55 bracelets yet to be awarded, every poker player walks into the Amazon room feeling the potential of their moment. I also miss the fact that I couldn’t be there to watch Shaniac amass a large stack in yesterday’s Event #2 Day 1A – or see writer Jay Greenspan survive the night.

I woke up a 4:00 am to start my Event #2 recap, only to discover that Event #1 was still in play. Just as I was finishing up, so did they. It was 4:30 am pacific time. But the final table line-up makes me think it was worth the wait. Chris Bell, Kathy Liebert, Patrik Antonius, Andy Bloch, Mike Sexton, Phil Laak, Nenad Medic, Amit Makhija, and Mike Sowers will all have a shot at this year’s first bracelet in the $10,000 Pot Limit Hold’em event. Amazing.

I will be heading out to Vegas at some point – unfortunately not in time to catch the semi-annual bloggers gathering. So I’m counting on y’all to put all the gory details up on the web.

Photo Notes: Picture frome the movie Being There (1979) and Chris Bell WSOP (2007)