The WSOP is in full swing and all I can do is watch from afar, checking chip updates, watching the big names that fall while all the time thinking 'why the f*ck am I not playing?' It's an anguished thought that keeps popping up in my head leaving a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and a look on my face like I've just smelt a 3-month year old baby deliver one of its finest.

Thankfully I've got the reason, well, excuse if I'm to be honest, that Iâ™m not. I was told I wasn't allowed to play any qualifiers as I'd have to stay to look after the mag while editor Woods drunkenly camped his way Vegas. Not that I'm bitter but the thought of the excitable 6ft toddler stumbling around in a Ritalin haze while 'working' for 3 weeks is enough to make me gnash my teeth each and every morning.

But on the upside it does mean that I'm perfectly fine with the fact that I'm not contesting the money spots and rather than being jealous I can watch the days leading up to the Main Event final table with real excitement rather than sheer regret. Big names and young guns are breaking through as chip leaders - Gus Hansen, who I once had a drunken argument about football with, last year's on-fire player Chad Brown, this year's on-fire player JC Tran, former Main Event winners Huck(leberry) Seed and Scotty Nyugen and up-and-coming online destroyer Sorel Mizzi are all still in. As in some Italian kid that looks like youâ™d want to slap him each time he took a pot from you. Jon â˜Skalieâ™ Kalmar is also one of the names riding high. Heâ™s a top bloke, a Brit and I wish him well.

Unfortunately one of the other players that Iâ™d been keeping an eye on, John Duthie, has fallen by the wayside. Okay, I admit I was being fairly partisan with my support for the former Poker Million winner who now runs the European Poker Tour. Duthie is a well respected figure in the poker community and, most importantly, a Brit but I wanted to see him have a good run at the Main Event because he spends all year sorting out the EPT but for obvious reasons heâ™s not allowed to play. So when a big tourney like this comes around he must be raring to go like a teenage boy given the thumbs up from his special lady for the first time. Actually, drop the teenage from that, like any red blooded male that has been given the green light. Maybe he got carried away and spunked his chips away prematurely, but like all the Main Event players that built a stack â“ I bet he enjoyed every second of it (until getting knocked out).

And that's actually the reason why you'll know where I'll be the July after those in charge of PokerPlayer towers are done with my services. That's right, I'll be dry humping a WSOP official's leg in uncontrollable excitement as I get my name registered for that yearâ™s Main Event.

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