Bill wins!
Watching Bill at the final table today was such an extraordinary pleasure. During my brief stint in the 5k no limit tournament, Allen Cunningham was seated directly to my right. At one point, another player at the table commented, "Poker is war" when describing his mental approach to the game. Allen Cunningham replied, "I don't think poker is war, I think it's a party! I come and sit down, people give me tons of money, I get to go out to great restaurants all the time . . ."
For Bill, today's final table (and pretty much any time he sits at a poker table) was a party. While many poker players are sallow-faced and grumpy looking--particularly with the pressure of a final table--Bill just has a great time. During today's final table, Jerrod and I lamented the fact that it would not be televised as we imagined a montage of bill's frenetic body language set to Beethoven. From the way he points his finger in the air when he says, "raise!" (eerily reminiscent of Einstein's "Eureka!"), to the giggling shrug when he takes a bad beat that cuts him down to the smallest stack at the table, he enjoys the game and does a better job than anyone I know of keeping the uncontrollable aspects of poker in perspective. This attitude has a way of rubbing off on people around him and has been invaluable to my mental health.
Nobody deserves a bracelet more than Bill and I am ecstatic to see him win it. The thing is, for a guy like Bill, the bracelet is not itself an achievement, it's the by-product of achievement, a by-product I suspect he'll be wearing for a very long time since he'll never figure out how to take it off.

Matt