On to Final Table of Bellagio 2500

Yes. Needed this. I'm on to the final table of the 2500 at Bellagio. I am fifth of the 9 players in chips. I actually took the chiplead to dinner with 17 left, but a couple of hands didn't go my way towards the end of the night. My roommate Eric "basebaldy" Baldwin happens to be the chipleader going into the final table. Also, my roommate Mike Katz finished 16th, so it was an incredible day for all of us today. There were several interesting hands, but it's bad business for me to detail them before the final table because the other final tablists will read this in the morning. I'll try to post the big ones tomorrow. I will say that I played incredibly fast today. It was kind of weird because I am usually nitty, but I felt good playing fast today. I absolutely wrecked the bubble and ran my stack from like 35000 to 68000. One guy was tilting his balls off because I raised his blinds EVERY single time for 2 hours. He made comments that I of course didn't respond to, but I genuinely felt bad for the guy because it seemed like he was REALLY sweating the bubble. The final table tomorrow happens to be pretty damn tough. We stopped by this sick bar that we'd heard all about called Stoney's off of Silverado and Las Vegas Blvd. Has anyone ever been to this place? It is insannnnnnnne fun. That said, I'm tired and will make this blog short. Hopefully tomorrow goes well. It won't be easy as almost all of the other men at this table are marvelous players for whom I have a ton of respect.

Chipcounts:

Eric "basebaldy" Baldwin 155500.

Thayer "Thay3r" Rasmussen 90000

Peter "#1Penn" Neff 90000

John Murphy 83000

Me 81500

Jon Kalmar 74000

Robert Herman 70000

David Levi 58000

Francois Safieddine 40000

Payouts:

1st...148860

2nd...73350

3rd...36675

4th...20000

5th...15005

6th...11670

7th...8335

8th...6670

9th...5335

Anything short of third place money, really, will be a pretty big disappointment (sp?). I look forward to tomorrow. Today I played with a lot of the young internet-turned live guys who are far and away better than the average live pro. It was a challenge, and I enjoyed it. It is really fun to try to get on the same level with them because they really think deep in poker tournaments.

In other news, I cannot stop listening to The Outfield's Your Love the past couple'a days.

SS