The hours tick by. Many spectators become bored. People wander aimlessly in and out of the Amazon room. Security guards huddle in a group and start chatting. Members of the media complain about how long it’s all taking and start checking their schedules for the next day, moaning about lack of sleep. To make matters worse, the Starbucks closes for the night and the lack of coffee becomes a serious matter.

Meanwhile on the poker table, it’s the same story amongst the four players. Raise, fold, fold, fold. Raise, fold, fold, fold. Raise, fold, fold, fold. It’s like an intense high stakes game of watching paint dry. But who can blame the players, there is too much at stake. And everyone knows, at some point, two players are going to catch a decent hand and fireworks will erupt. It is just a matter of time.

In fact, it takes a painful 107 hands before the fourth player, Alex Kravchenko, is finally busted out at 12:55 a.m. Forty-five minutes later he is followed by the third place player, Raymond Rahme. We are down to heads up, only two players remaining. Surely this is it, as heads-up play is notorious for being over very quickly. The crowd left remaining want it to be over. In the previous three years, it has taken an average of five hands of heads-up play before a winner is determined.

But not so this year. Not for Tuan Lam. Jerry Yang has more than 100 million in chips, the first man in the history of the world’s poker tournaments to do so. Lam has a mere 20 million or so. But Lam isn’t playing ball. He isn’t going to rollover and quietly die. In fact, he lasts for an incredible 35 hands, over two hours of play. He shows a surprising ability to fold, even heads-up, and his chips dwindle to about 10 million until he picks his spot, and doubles up to about 20 million again. The crowd is dismayed — they want this to be over. It is past 3 a.m. We are in the thirty-sixth level of the tournament and the blinds and antes are now almost incomprehensibly huge: $400,000/$800,000 and $100,000 respectively. No-one is used to dealing with numbers this big, not the players, not the dealers, not the crowd, not the commentators.

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These two men have now played more than 70 hours of poker in the tournament. Finally, just before 4 a.m., it happens. Lam moves all-in for his remaining 22.2 million chips, and Yang calls. After the flop, Lam is in front, and it looks like the tournament could drag on for some time yet. But Yang luckily picks up a runner-runner draw to hit a straight and we have our new champion. The crowd goes wild and the celebrations begin. No-one gets to bed until after sunrise.

If you ever decide one year to watch the entire final day of the World Championship, be prepared to experience fireworks — 10 percent of the time. For the other 90 percent, make sure you have a pillow and a blanket.

Andrew Scott is a high stakes gambler and gambling writer based in Sydney, Australia, who travels the world.

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