On to Conference Final Table in US PokerBowl

I'm on to our conference's final table of 9 as the chipleader in the US Poker Bowl. My teammate Jon Little also advanced from my original table and will be at the final table with me. Cody "thugmoneymkr" Slaubaugh our good friend finished in the final 3 with us for the Minnesota team. His teammate Jordan "Octavian_C" Rich was eliminated early and Cody played very well by himself to eventually make the final 3. I'm not going to go into too much detail, but I'll tell some of the showdown hands. In the first 20 minutes JC Alvarado raised in EP to 225 and Octavian_C reraised to 825 from the cutoff. I found black AA in the SB and thought before reraising to 2925. JC folded and after 15 seconds of thought Octavian moved me in for my 9800ish total. I quickly called and he sheepishly showed me AhQd. I don't mind his play because I can really only call with AA and probably KK. The flop looked ok on K42 with two hearts. The turn was the scary Ah, and I had to sweat a heart on the river. The river was red, the 6d and I doubled through and crippled Jordan to 1000. A few minutes later Jon Friedberg was busted by a young lady on team Seattle named Traci Wolfe. In a raised blind battle Traci bet pot/bet pot/bet AI and showed Jon 88 on the end of AA987 for the winner to bust him. Then an incredible hand came up and Traci knocked out BOTH JC Alvarado and Jared Hamby of team Cleveland with QJ against their AA and 96o respectively. We were 7 handed now and lost Jordan a short while later to get 6 handed. Then, a sickening pot came up to knock me down from 21000 to 7800 as time expired to end level 3. Six-handed Cody opened UTG to 525 at 1/200 (25). I called on the button with black threes and the blinds folded. The flop came 553r. Cody bet 700 and I decided to just call. The turn was the 2s putting two spades out. Cody bet just 700 again. I really felt that coball picked up a combo draw with Ax of spades on the turn. I decided to call again. The river was the Qs. Cody thought and then bet 4000 into the 4300 leaving himself around 6000. I didn't want to Hollywood, so I quickly moved in for his last 6000. He called and turned over quad fives, lol. The sick thing was I thought about just calling. If the river was an offsuit Queen as opposed to a spade I really do think I would've just called with the bottom full house. A few hands after break I got all-in against Traci with AKo against her 99 in the blinds. The board came an exciting 7668K to double me up. I already had my iPod headphones wrapped up on the turn card. A little while later Jon doubled up through Cody in a button/SB war with AJo vs 77 on an AJxxx board AIPF. We were winning races...yay. Next, Traci doubled up against me for her last few chips with AQo vs my 55 on A3K2x. We all battled 6 handed for a while before Coball eliminated Traci with ATo vs her KQo. Five handed Jon and I were left against 3 guys from 3 different teams. The NJ team guy got AI for his last few chips UTG with KK vs my A4o to double through 5 handed. Jon then doubled through Cody with KTcc vs Cody's 74o in the blinds. We finally lost the NJ guy in fifth when his Q9dd was called by Cody's KQ. Four handed it was down to me, Jon, Cody and the guy from team Seattle named Jesse Martinez. He moved AI UTG for 8700 at 1500/3000 (300) and Cody called in the cutoff. I was in the BB and decided to call the 5700 more with A4cc in hopes of eliminating the guy on the 4th place bubble. Cody and I checked down a board of T736x and Jesse's JTo was good enough to almost quadruple up. I was crippled to around 7000 and eventually got it AI for my last 2700 when I called AI on the button PF. Jesse called and Cody checked. My Ace high was the nut on a board of KT2TT against their 76cc and 73o respectively. I then had a couple of blind steals and was right back in it with the monster blinds. On the final hand of the night I raised to 6100 UTG 4 handed at 1500/3000 (300) with KThh. Jesse quickly moved in for his last 12000. Cody and Jon folded and I was in a race against his red eights. The flop came a nice TJ4 with 2 hearts. He missed his black eights and the three of us advanced.

I'll take 45100 to the FT and Cody and Jon will have 35500 and 19400 respectively. The final table won't be easy. Eric, Cody, Scott, Justin, Jon and I represent over 6 and a half million dollars in on paper gross tournament cashes, and our average age is below 24...if that's any indication of what the FT's going to be like. The counts:

Shannon Shorr (Chicago) 45100

Eric "Rizen" Lynch (New Jersey) 38800

Scott Pendergrast (New Jersey) 36000

Cody "thugmoneymkr" Slaubaugh (Minnesota) 35500

Scott "BigRiskky" Clements (Minnesota) 35100

Keith Bartlett (Seattle) 32400

Shannon Pendergrast (New Jersey) 31600

Justin "ZeeJustin" Bonomo (Cleveland) 26100

Jon "FieryJustice" Little (Chicago) 19400.

Blinds are going to be rolled back to 1/2000, but there still won't be much play when we resume on Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. All five teams from the conference will be represented at the final table with NJ having 3 players, our Chicago team having 2, Minnesota having 2, and Seattle and Cleveland having 1. Lucky for us Minnesota's Mike "GASSIT" Pickett ran like death on the bubble of his tournament and went from CL to out on the bubble. We would've been sick if Clements, Slaubaugh and Pickett were all in the final 9. GASSIT was a complete gentleman in defeat as we railed. Unfortunately our four teammates all ran pretty bad at their tables. Sorel got sucked out on hard twice and I'm pretty sure Mike "inissint" Glasser got sucked out on atleast once. z32 and bigjoe basically shoved into coolers when the blinds were huge at the TV table. We've made no money yet but our team will get 100000 if Jon or I win that table on Tuesday. In that event, our whole squad will compete against the other 24 players from the other 4 winning conferences for half a million dollars more. Should be fun. Tomorrow we're having a LAN party at Jon's house to play the Sunday MTTs.

It'll be fun to sit back and watch the next couple of days of the PokerBowl before we play again Tuesday.

SS