Biggest Cash in my Poker Career!

I just 4-way chopped a $1000 tournament at the Bellagio for $18,395!!!!

I wasn't scheduled to play any WSOP events today so I decided I was going to play one of the $300 buy-in tournaments at the Venetian for their Deep Stack tournament series. When I looked at the schedule and realized it was a HORSE event, I decided to pass and instead play the $1000 tournament at the Bellagio.

The tournament had 102 entrants and a 5k starting stack. Everything went pretty smoothly for me all the way down to the final two tables. I never had to go all in and just built up slowly while constantly staying above the average. When we got to the final two tables, the blinds started getting large and I was beginning to get short. I managed to double up on a nice cooler where I got QQ in the small blind and the big blind had JJ. This allowed me to head into the final table in about seventh place. Here I went card dead for awhile as two guys got knocked out and I was in about 7th or 8th out of 8 remaining. I managed to double with AJ vs. A3, which kept me afloat for a little longer as another player busted. I began to get short again (about 10 big blinds) when I got 7c9c and shoved over a button limper. The big blind, who had about as many chips as me, woke up with AQ and called, but I hit a 9 and crippled him. It felt really good to win one of those for once. This left us with 5 people and I was just barely in second place after winning a couple of smaller pots. The fifth player (an internet guy who said he is sharing a house with lilholdem, gbmantis, and some others that I wasn't able to hear) busted a little later and then we decided to chop. We chopped by percentages because the blinds and antes were getting crazy with the chip leader getting $24k (he had about 50% more chips than I did) and the rest us getting between $17,500 and $21,000.

It feels really good to finally break the $10k+ mark for the first time, especially in a live event. This is also gives me some confidence going into this next stretch of WSOP events, especially some of the bigger buy-in events with deeper stacks. Hopefully I can set another record on this trip and do something truly amazing like win a bracelet or two, but for now I am very happy! I only wish I had some people out here to celebrate with...especially my girlfriend!