So why no celebrating at the final table?

[Tyler Durden]

Did anyone else find it odd that players at the final table, from what we saw, weren't really celebrating when they won a big hand? One example was when Jason Lester doubled through when Vahedi flopped two pair with KJ but Lester flopped the real two pair with AK. Large hand, but Lester wasn't too visibly excited. Though I know he's seen as a quiet, reserved guy.

Farha wasn't overly thrilled when he called Vahedi's bluff to knock him out of the final table.

The only one who showed any emotion at all was the winner, Chris Moneymaker the first.

Thoughts/Comments?

Remember in 2002 when Julian Gardner called Russell Rosenblum's J5s all-in with AA from his BB? The flop came Jack high with two clubs so Gardner had to fade a Jack, a 5, and a club on each street. He did it and got on his chair and went wild, which is something similar to what I'd do.

[TimTimSalabim]

Most likely it was exhaustion, since they had been playing until 2 or 3 am every night.

[LetsRock]

While I agree that exhaustion played a part in it, I think it could be attributed to (for lack of a better word) professionalism. Pros are used to the ups and downs of poker and it is probably a great benefit to not get overly excited about what would be a very exciting moment to most of us.

I did see several of the players do some celebrating over the course of the tournament (as viewed on ESPN). Vahedi did his share of fist pumping from what I could see, but most of the big celebrations tended to come from the "dead money" players.

It could also be a superstition - premature celebration (over confidence) may cause bad luck in the future just to put me back into my place. Not that I'm a world class anything, but I know I'm very careful of getting too up about an intermediate victory while the battle is still going on - it always comes back to bite me.