4 hours and 15 minutes of gut wrenching poker ended with a very near miss. Out of 185 players I finished 12th. 1 - 5 place got a $13k price package so I was pnly 7 positions from making it to the WSOP main event. I have played in 3 buyins for WPT and WSOP tournaments and finshed 12th twice and 8th once. If I keep getting that close, then one day I'll make it.

This is how close I came. Late in the tournament with about 5000 chips (getting kind of low at the point) I caught KK in the big blind and got all my chips in the pot only to find an opponent also had KK. If I had not split that pot I would have been near the lead and had enough to survive the coming frozen wave of cards. I didn't catch many cards after that and stayed alive just by stealing blinds here and there and dodging the bigger stacks for what seemed like hours. I finally went out with A T against a small pair when I was nearly out of chips but the cards didn't flop my way. I don't really think I made a poor decision the entire time. The only other tough beat that I had was when I raised on the button late with KQ and a guy called my raise from the blind with K 6. The flop came K 6 T. Luckily he had a shorter stack than me so I only lost about 40% of my chips. That hurt but I bounced back. I can't believe he called that. He had been playing pretty tight, but I guess he got tired of me stealing his blinds.

I have played many tournaments but these WSOP satellites were very tough. Not the usual party poker events at all. I can only imagine how stressful it would be to play 10 hours a day for 2 weeks. My hat is off to the guys that make the final table this year. It is more difficult than you might think. I am use to long nights of concentration and attention to detail but 4 or 5 hours of intense poker wears me down mentally and emotionally.

Well I still have a couple weeks, maybe I will try again this weekend. I think I'll have a cigar anyway.