WPT Championship Day 6 Recap

I arrived to day 6 of the WPT Championship ready to play. The final 10 consisted of 9 proven professionals and one amateur, so I knew it would be tough and a grind to make it to the final 6. I felt like everyone was in tune with the magnitude of making the TV final table. Early on the table as a whole was playing extremely, extremely tight. At one point we probably went like 25 hands without seeing a flop and maybe 1 or 2 reraises preflop. I won a pot against Elky in the first level when I played two kings pretty goofy to try to confuse Elky, win a big pot, and go ahead and secure a spot in the final 6. In said pot, I raised UTG to 215k with two black kings. Elky called in the hijack and we saw 742 with two spades. I checked and Elky checked. Turn offsuit Jack. I bet 400,000 and Elky thought and called. River offsuit 10. I moved in for Elky's final 1.9M into the pot of 1.45M or so. He thought a minute and folded. The next memorable pot came up when I found KdKs in the cutoff and raised to 215k. Christian Harder called in the SB and then to my delight Ran Azor announced all-in from the BB for 1.375 million. I actually was a little nervous because Christian can have Aces in the SB here a lot, I think, but obviously I moved in over the top. Christian folded and Ran showed me AsJd. The board came Td8x2d9dQx. The turn card was kind of cute, but obviously the order of the cards doesn't matter as all the money was in preflop. Ran actually didn't realize he won the pot and had to be called back to the table. The pot left me with around 3M in chips as we went to break. It would've been nice to have 6 million though :) All 10 players still remained at this point. In the following level, Bruno opened up front very small to 225k of his 2.2 million stack at 50/100k (10k). I just didn't feel like Bruno would open really tiny here with a big hand. I told myself I was going to reraise with any 2 and found 53o in the cutoff and made it 565k. Yevginey Timoshenko then moved all-in behind me for 2.5M. Bruno called all-in, and I folded my 5 high. Bruno actually had two kings and Yevginey had AJo. I was of course rooting for Bruno because Yevginey is a sick player and I didn't want him with more chips on my left. Alas, an Ace came in the door and Bruno was sent home in 10th. I was down to about 2.7M. From this point, I was incredibly, incredibly card dead and honestly could not find spots to get a chip in the pot. We lost Eugene Katchalov in 9th when he shoved his shortstack UTG and to our collective delight Ran Azor collected his chips when his AK held against Katchalov's J7hh. Things were pretty interesting at this point because Brian Rast, Justin Young and myself were all fairly short with two more players having to be eliminated before the TV final table was reached. All 3 of us nitted around for a while before Brian's 22 was able to full double through either Harder or Timoshenko's AK. akjdafhkajdsfk;ads;kfja. Justin Young is a good friend of mine, and I was really hoping we'd both make the final 6. We were now the two bottom stacks. At 60/120k Justin was eliminated when a now healthy-stacked Brian Rast opened from MP and Justin had to go with two nines for his final 1.4M or so. Brian had two queens and the board came A9xxQ. At this point the crowd in the Fontana lounge had grown to a few hundred spectators and I knew almost all of them were just waiting for me to fall off with my final 1.3 million so the final table could be set. I shoved QTdd one time and Christian tanked for a long time before folding in the cutoff. At this point Ran had like 2.9M, Scotty 3.4M, Rast 5.7M, me 1.3M, Timoshenko 5.9M, Elky 5.5M and Harder 9M. I knew that Scotty and Ran weren't gonna put a chip in the pot, and I was kind of eyeing up the stacks to see who I'd need to bust in the event that a monster pot developed. Then, magic happened: I was in the big blind and Yevginey opened UTG to 300k. Christian Harder made it 820k or so, and it was folded to Brian Rast in the SB. Brian thought a full minute and announced all-in for 5.7M. I found 73o in the BB, folded, and then Yevginey asked for an exact count. I'd already noted that these two guys had almost identical stacks, so a call would either bust one of them or one of them would be absolutely crippled. Then, unbelievably Yevginey moved in over the top. Christian folded, Brian Rast showed AKcc, Yevginey showed two kings, and after Rast asked if Christian folded an Ace, Christian replied "I did." The board bricked for Rast, and after a thorough breakdown of the stacks it was determined that Brian Rast was, in fact, eliminated and I'd made it to the televised final table. I recapped the final table about 6 posts down, so check that out if you want. This entire tournament was an incredible experience for me. This is one of the most prestigious and toughest NLHE tournaments each year, so to final table it is something that I'll never, ever forget. I'd also like to thank all of you for the great emails, facebook messages, texts and calls that I received. The feeling I get from those are what motivate me to continue blogging and are the reason that tournament poker will always be a part of my life. I just hope that I can use this momentum to have a great World Series of Poker this summer. That's all for now. SS