On to Day 4 with 197000

We're in the money, and I'm on to day 4 of the 10000 dollar WPT Mirage event. We're down to 18 players. The average stack is around 343000, so I have some work to do. On the first hand of the day I found two red tens UTG and raised to 11000 of my 65500. It was folded to Amnon Filippi in the SB and he reraised to 30000. I went into the tank for several minutes before John Esposito called the clock on me. I still wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but eventually time ran out, and I folded. I felt like there was a very good chance AF had a hand like two queens, and never, ever a pair lower than TT. AF is a friend of mine and told me he had AA, something he confirmed in a post-day interview. On the very next hand, David Matthew raised to 12000 from MP, and I sent my 55000 with AQ. He instacalled and showed KQ. Board bricked, and I was up to 120000. I got up to 160000 after a couple of blind steals. Next, a big hand came up. With 150000 or so in chips, the Finnish (I think) player Mico raised UTG to 13000. I found ThTs and called in the cutoff. The flop was 7d 7c 6d. He checked, and I bet 25000. He thought for 20 seconds, asked how much I had left, and then moved all-in. I took about 60 seconds before calling off my 140000 on the bubble. He showed me 9c8d and was dead to a 5, 8-8 or 9-9. Turn 7 to ice it though and river was a meaningless ten to give me TTT77. I was up to 315000 and around fifth in chips with 29 left. From there, the next 90 minutes went pretty miserably and I ended the day with 197000. One pot I sent 80000 over to my roommate, Jon when I had QJhh against his KK on Q4294. My stack is still good for 11th chip position of the remaining 18. Jon and I will be playing together again tomorrow, and we definitely drew the tougher of the two tables. This group of 18 players is so, so, so sick. It's possible this is the best group of 18 players ever left in a World Poker Tour event. Our table tomorrow has Jon in the 1 seat, Jon Friedberg in the two, Mikko Pispala in the 3, Phil Ivey in the 4, Amnon Filippi in the 5, David Pham in the 6, Alan Goehring in the 7, me in the 8, and Darrel "Gigabet" Dicken in the 9. There is not one weak spot at the table. Hopefully tomorrow goes well and Jon and I become the first roommates (maybe?) ever to make the same WPT TV final table of 6. I did another interview with worldpokertour.com that can be found here http://www.worldpokertour.com/tournament/index.php?x=updatesnews&pageID=5

Right now we are guaranteed 23 thousand dollars or something, but obv all of our minds are on the 1.06 million dollar first prize. SS