WPT Championship Day 3 Recap

EDIT: A day after I wrote this, I remembered that all of the following activity actually happened on Day 3, lol. I originally titled this entry as"Day 2 recap". I'll have the actual day 2 recap later this week. I arrived to find a day 3 starting table of Erica Schoenberg in the 1, Brent "bhanks" Hanks in the 2, Allen Kessler in the 3, "Are you Smarter Than a Fifth Grader" champion Alex Outhred in the 4, me in the 5, Cody Slaubaugh in the 6, Steve Billirakis in the 7, Vadim Trincher in the 8, and Hafiz "hafizzle" Khan in the 9. I lost two pots to Erica early, including one on the very first hand to send me down to around 170000. On the first hand of the day I raised J9cc from EP to 6500 and Erica called the button with 50000 behind. Flop AK4 rainbow. I led 9500, Erica called, and I gave up and we checked down the turn T and river A. Her KQo was good. A few minutes later I picked up two Aces for the first time of the tournament, 3bet Bhanks, and he folded. Shortly thereafter I won a pot against hafizzle and bhanks. Hafizzle raised from up front to 5200 at 12/2400 (300). Brent called in MP and I found 96hh in the cutoff and raised to 22200. This is far from standard, but hafizzle just seemed weak to me the way he put chips in the pot. Here's where things get interesting: From the times I've played with hafizzle live, I've always noticed how inexperienced he is at dealing with chips, counting them correctly, etc. To my horror, I watched as he slid only 6000 more chips (despite my having raised it 17000 more) apparently miscalculating how much I raised it. The dealer instructed him of his error, and 30 seconds later he had correctly called the raise. Bhanks called as well. Flop AK7 with two spades. They checked to me and I bet 38000 or so which was good enough to win the pot, thankfully. Later, I won another nice one off of hafizzle. He raised to 7000 from MP at 1500/3000 (400) and as deep as we were I had an easy defend with QJdd. Flop T73 with two diamonds. I thought about bet/3betting all-in, but my 3bet would have been very large, and I honestly just didn't feel like playing for all the chips. I checked and hafizzle bet like 9000. I decided to just call. Turn Ks now giving me an OESD to go along with my flush draw. Again I thought about bet/3betting but decided to check. hafizzle bet just 15000, and I called. My line feels really, really weak, but sometimes you just have to play NLHE tournament hands like this. The river was a nice 2d, making my flush. I led 42500 and hafizzle called and I was over 320,000 in chips. I won a nice sized pot against Vadim Trincher when I 3barrel bluffed. I raised 87o to 8000 from the CO and Vadim defended. Flop A96r. Vadim checked, I bet 12500 and Vadim called. Turn J. Vadim checked, I bet 26500, Vadim called. River 2. Vadim checked, I thought and bet 73000 of my last 210,000. Vadim thought for 2 long minutes and folded. A few minutes later eventual 2nd place finisher Ran Azor was moved to my table. The truth about Ran is he's an incredibly nice guy, but he's an amateur player and honestly was the clear mark at our now stacked table and for the remainder of the tournament for that matter. So, when Ran open limped from MP at 2/4000 I raised to isolate with J9o on the button to 15000. Things didn't go according to planned though when the flop came Q42 and he insta-led 35000 into me. I folded. I lost another pot to Ran an hour or so later in a pot that haunted me for several hours after it occured. I found AcAh and raised to 16000 from MP. Hafizzle called the SB and Ran called the BB. Flop 652 with two clubs. Checked to me, and I bet 32000. Hafizzle folded and Ran called. Turn offsuit 9. Ran checked, and as much as I hated it I decided to check because I didn't want to inflate the pot against him and 87 did get there afterall. River offsuit 4. Ran led 30000 into 120,000. I don't think I can fold against him ever here, so I paid and he showed me 32o without a club. I dribbled to around 230,000 before losing a crucial pot to David Grey. David opened to 21000 at 4/8000 (1000) from EP and Ran called in MP. I found 87hh, and despite David being only about 24bb deep and me 28bb deep, I felt like I had to call 13000 more. David was likely very strong for opening up front, and I could almost surely double through Ran if I flopped well and he has a piece of the board. Well, the flop came QhTh6s. I have an easy checkraise all-in and did so after David bet 40,000. David quickly called with 6h6c, I missed my 11 outs, and was crippled to 32000. I folded T6o in the SB to an Evan Mcniff raise and had 26000 on the button when it was folded to me the following hand. I looked down at a King and moved in for my last few blinds. Cody folded and Billirakis had an easy call with any two cards. He showed 86o, and my hand held on K3287. The very next hand I doubled through tennis legend Boris Becker when he raised from the HJ to 25000 and I found two red kings behind him for my last 65000. He called with AQss and my hand held on 5s5h3dKs9s. All of a sudden I was back to around 150,000. I blinded and anted off a little bit and ended the day at 120,000 with the average around 550,000. Like 62 players made it through the day and 50 of us would get paid. Day 4 recap coming soon. SS