No bracelet for me...

Well, as I described in the last post, I managed to final table the $5k Pot limit holdem event and was 2nd in chips to start out. I unfortunately was only able to manage a 5th place finish, but that was good for $99,000! Half of it went to my dad for staking me, so I made a nice $50,000 for three days of work. I am pleased with the way I played, but it was just one of those days where things didn't pan out. Here's a quick tournament summary:

The table started off really tight and it took at least ten minutes before we even saw a flop. Then finally a few people started to bust and the blinds started to get rather large and created a lot more action. The table short stack, Jason Lester, was down to 4 big blinds at one point and he just kept doubling up. He was never better than a coin flip and one time was completely dominated and ended up hitting runner runner straight to stay alive. Humberto was very similar except that every time he was all in he would have his opponent out-kicked when both players would flop top pair. It was very frustrating because my strategy was to try to maintain my starting chip stack by playing small pot poker and stealing blinds and antes while some of the shorter stacks got knocked out. I planned on using my decent sized stack to take more chances and gamble some more if we got 5 handed, but it took so long to get there that I was down to 4th place when there were five people left and the blinds were just getting too detrimental. It also didn't help that I was severely cold decked the entire time, and I at one point got 62 about three out of eight hands! Jason Lester raised pot UTG 5 handed, which was about half of his stack, and I put him all in with my 99. He flipped over AJ of hearts and we were off to the races. Flop was beautiful, coming ten high and not giving him any draws at all, and then the turn was another perfect blank. He was down to 6 outs, or about 11% going to the river, and then it came: the Jack of spades. This basically crippled me, leaving me with 280,000 with 20k/40k blinds, so only a little over 4.5 pot sizes. A couple of hands later I got 77 and potted it. Jeff Alisandro min-raised it to isolate but then Jason Lester tanked for like 3 minutes and then shoved for only like 200k more, and Lisandro called. I knew Jason had a hand like AK or JJ, and I was praying the both had a big Ace. Jason ended up having AK and Lisandro had QQ and the queens held. Jason and I were both knocked out on the hand, but he got 4th because he started the hand with more chips than I did (thanks to me doubling him up).

So that was that, and I was off to the exit interview. I did have a press guy come up to me and tell me that he knew some reporters and journalists in the State College area and wants to try and get me interviewed and article written. I thought that was pretty cool and will maybe put me up there with other more well known PSU poker players like Ryan Daut, Martine23, and Aaron Bartley.

All in all, this was an amazing experience, as well as an enriching one, literally! I accomplished both of my goals for the World Series already: Making a final table and having a profitable WSOP. This was most likely my best shot at a bracelet but I'm playing well so far and running semi-good so who knows what else I'm capable of...