Out of Bellagio 5000 in 3rd Place

Good enough, I guess. I finished in 3rd place and earned 102295 dollars. This is my third highest cash of my career, and it feels really nice. With 13 players left, I raised the button with 77 and the once-chipleader Jimmy Guinther reraised out of the BB. JG is one of the most aggressive NLHE players with whom I've played, so 77 felt like the nut. I shoved without much FE and he called with KQ. The board came an exciting 568K9, and my heart sunk and then returned to its normal place in a matter of seconds. JG ran really bad late, but my hat is off to him. He's a class act and a sick player that I expect to see a lot more of in the future. I arrived second in chips at the 10 handed final table. We lost Roy Winston and then John Murphy to get to 8 handed. Gabriel Alarie, Kyle Hegeman and Mark Muchnik busted to send us to a break with 5 left. I was third in chips. We lost Freddy Bonyadi in fifth, and then Neal Wang somehow held with black 22 against A7hh of Zach Hyman on 995 with two hearts. The turn was a black 6 for even more outs and the river was a black 3 to get us 3 handed. I had just 400 thousand of the 2 million in play when we got 3 handed. Things just never really developed 3 handed. I was 3 handed with Neal Wang and a guy named Matt Casterella who has had some nice cashes in his career. I had NW on my left, and it wasn't very fun. He's severely outplayed me in the blind vs blind pots. I was down as low as 180000 but doubled thru MC with 77 vs his 55 on a scary board of A322x. Later, MC made a sick laydown. NW opened the button for 60000 at 8/16000, MC called and I found JJ in the BB and shoved 350000ish total. NW quickly folded and MC tank folded 77 faceup to put me on life tilt. I was around 295000 when the bust hand came up. NW raised his standard 60000 at 8/16000 and I shoved the BB with K6dd. He snapped me off with AK and I never caught up on Q985x. Not too upset, althought I'd've liked to have won. Stephanie and I are going to dinner at Nove (sp?) Italiano at Palms, then a group of us might get a table at Body English at Hard Rock.

I'm going to exercise some good judgement and skip the 15000 dollar event at Venetian and play the 1500 at Bellagio tomorrow instead.

SS