Hello, folks, this is Bill Ordine, your usual correspondent at this space who is on a short hiatus.  While colleague Milton Kent has been doing a terrific job serving up his insights on all manner of sports, from Kobe (of NBA fame) to Kobayashi (dethroned hot dog eating champion), I have trekked to the desert empire of "Wow, it's hot" -- Las Vegas -- where it was 116 degrees yesterday.

Actually, I'm here keeping track of -- as I have for the last few years -- the Maryland contingent in the World Series of Poker Main Event, more formally known as the Texas Hold 'em No-limit World Championship, that's been popularized on ESPN telecasts.  As a warm-up, on my arrival here yesterday, I participated in the poker World Series media event -- there's no money involved, meaning no buy-in and donations are made to charity on behalf of the top finishers.

Well, folks, I can now say that I've been to a World Series of Poker final table.  From a starting field of 116 media types (many, it seems, of the Internet variety who work for poker Web sites), your Baltimore representative finished fourth. Frankly, I am stunned.  

Great fortune rather than poker acumen accounts for my high finish, I confess. To plow through the field, I managed to rake in a pair of huge pots on two all-in hands where two other players had committed their entire stacks.  In the first major score, my pocket kings held up against an ace-king and a pair of jacks.  By the second occasion, with chips seemingly covering the entire table, I was hyperventilating so much, I can't recall what the cards were.

But along the way, I discovered that one of the toughest things about tournament poker is scooping up that messy pile of chips after a big win and getting it stacked neatly quick enough so you can pay attention to the next hand.

In the end when I was one of just four survivors, a pleasant Irishman with towers of chips eliminated me. He also went on to win the tournament, I found out later.  By my final hand, I was getting low on chips and was forced to commit my dwindling stack with a modest pocket queen-six.  Actually, I was ahead in the hand -- my competitor had just jack-10 -- but the other guy caught another 10 to end my poker run.

Today, the real players get going in a Main Event field that will have thousands of players who are paying $10,000 each to participate. So many poker hopefuls will be entered, it will take four days to complete just the first round.  We'll keep an eye on it.