Daily Rewind: Stories from the Main Event, Hellmuth's Offer, Nadal Loses Pot

In today's Daily Rewind we learn of a player choosing god over Main Event glory, get invited to dinner with Phil Hellmuth and watch Rafa Nadal play his first hand of online poker.

The Daily Rewind is your one-stop-shop for a sharp review of the day in poker. Join us here for a mix of the latest news and a more irreverent insight into the poker world. Today we discovered the following topics for you:

WSOP Action

A new meaning to "poker god"

Day 5 of the WSOP Main Event can often throw up some interesting scenarios, but away from some sick bluffs and even sicker beats, two stories hit the headlines in the last 24 hours.

The first involved a player who took his devotion to religion to a whole new level.

Instead of revisiting the felt on Saturday, non-denominational Christian Jarrett Nash let God’s will determine the fate of his 500k stack.

According to his faith, Nash is unable to indulge in “pleasures of the self” from sundown on Friday until day ends on Saturday.

Because of this Nash didn’t rejoin his table and allowed the blinds to eat away at his stack until he was finally eliminated.

Nash knew his Main Event run could end in such a way but, despite only banking $45,000, he was happy with his decision and told Card Player: “God has a plan” for his winnings.

The other story causing a stir was like something out of a James Bond movie as it involved a player, a pen and some pepper spray.

After playing with what he thought was a normal pen, the unwitting player soon discovered it wasn’t after a jet of pepper spray shot from the nib of the pen after he pressed a button.

His actions caused a succession of coughs from the players around him, before the action was paused and the gas cleared from the Rio’s Amazon Room.

Dinner Date with Hellmuth

Ever wanted to sit down for a meal with Phil Hellmuth and feast on his wealth of poker knowledge? If so, then you’re in luck as the twelve-time bracelet winner is offering one person the chance to learn and eat for free.

To win the prize you have to place a unique bid and, according to his latest blog post, Phil has “teamed up with SportsSpectacular and Peace Thru Sports to offer this one-time opportunity to learn new poker tricks.”

As much as we’d like to believe this is another shameless self-promotion exercise by Phil, it’s actually for a charitable cause with all proceeds going to Peace Thru Sports.

To place your bid, visit CharityBuzz.

Hellmuth giving something back

Nadal Joins the Action

PokerStars’ latest high profile signing, Rafa Nadal, has recently played his first hand on the site and judging by the video it didn’t exactly go well.

After being given a short introduction to the site’s software by a Spanish poker coach, Rafa sat down with $40 at a $50NL game and was advised to play the first hand he was dealt.

A few seconds later and Rafa had learned his first poker lesson: “Don’t trust anybody” at the poker table, even if they are an expert.

High Stakes Corner

The online tables have been a little short of drama since the WSOP started, but yesterday’s action saw Ilari “Ilari FIN” Sahamies book one of the biggest wins in recent weeks.

Thanks to a rare game of $200/$400 PLO taking place, Ilari managed to bank $367,000 courtesy of high stake regulars “Phisherman36”, “Terken89” and “0Human0”.

Of the losing trio, “Phiserman36” took the biggest hit after losing $271,000.

Also enjoying a successful 24 hours was Matej “mtvdeuem” Cepon (+$124,000) and “Berndsen12” (+$46,700).

Daily Signoff

She's one of the hottest women in poker and during this year's WSOP Tatjana Pasalic has been playing personal chef to some of the game's best players, PokerStrategy.com's Tobias Block found out more.