WEEK IN REVIEW: Reporters’ notebook

For the first time in its 42-year history, the World Series of Poker had seven nations represented at the Main Event's final table.

Throughout the two days of competition, the Rio's 1,800-seat Penn & Teller Theater took on the feel of an Olympics, with the U.S., Germany, Czech Republic, Ireland, Belize, Ukraine and Great Britain all vying for the gold (bracelet).

Flags were waved, colorful costumes were worn and chants and songs in different languages rained down from the audience.

Badih Bounahra's supporters were the loudest and most colorful, until the player from Belize exited in seventh place.

In the end, two contingents of central European poker fans took over the theater during the six-hour heads up play between eventual winner Pius Heinz of Germany and runner-up Martin Staszko of the Czech Republic.

Heinz posed for photos after his victory surrounded by stacks of $100 bills while draped in the German flag.

But take heart, America: Our poker fans weren't exactly wallflowers.

One of Ben Lamb's supporters came to the event dressed in a woolly costume and wound up dancing onstage with some scantily clad ladies.

For a moment, the man in sheep's clothing appeared to be part of the show. Then he was shepherded off the stage.

HOWARD STUTZ

Friday's Veterans Day parade was the last for members of the local Pearl Harbor Survivors Association chapter, who say they are getting too old for such pageantry.

Clifton Dohrmann, 89, the chapter's president, was in a car driven by his wife, Ginny. Two others, Ike Schab, 91, and Hal LaLone, 88, followed in another car.

Asked after the parade what he was going to do for the rest of Veterans Day, Dohrmann said, "I'm going to go home and take a nap."

KEITH ROGERS

TWEET OF THE WEEK: @howardstutz (Review-Journal business and World Series of Poker reporter Howard Stutz) Between the alternating chants in German and Czech, all we need is a Vuvuzela to complete the World Cup feeling in the theater. #wsop