I hurt in the pit of my stomach as I exit the tournament room tonight.  My eye line is the floor before I take the focus off my self pity and realize that I should turn around and see what the status of the tournament is so that I can give y'all an update.

There are 6 tables left with a few open spots so I estimate that I finished 57th today.  It was a tough tournament for me, as we started with 15,000 in chips and I never had more then 22,000 after playing over 9 levels.  The last level for me was 1,000-2,000 with a 300 ante and I had 18,000 going into my last hand.   After grinding for the first five hours I was on a short stack all day.  The way the chips were flying I thought if I could just hang in there long enough that I could pick up a few key hands to launch me back into contention.  They would never come.  I chose not to step out in risky situations today because people were calling off 20k and more with hands like Q-J! So I felt that the best strategy was to sit and wait for a premium hand.  But by the time we were half way through the 1k-2k level and with everyone around me sitting on stacks of 50k and more I had to find a hand to make a stand with soon.  I picked up K-Q in the Cut Off with no action in front of me and made it 11,000 to go.  The big blind came over the top of me and with 7k left, I made the call.  My opponent had A-K and it was an uneventful ending to a slow and grinding day. 

Nam Le and Joe Cassidy came to my table short-stacked and exited just before me.  When I went back it looked to me like the chip leader was Men the Master with over 250k in chips.  Just to his right sat David Pham with about 125k.  Also on that same table was Barry Greenstein with about 70k and the short stack of John Pham with 25k.  Chad Brown was short but still in.  Mike Carson had over 100k as did many other players as the field was narrowing quickly at this level.

I did walk outside for a breath of fresh air tonight to regain my composure after going out, but even the door gave resistance from the force of strong winds.  Once outside a drizzling rain hit me in the face as I gazed up into the dark night.  It can be a lonely feeling out on the road at times like this when you're so far away from home and all you have to go back to is an empty hotel room.  Not looking for any sympathy here, just wanted to give a proper perspective as it's not always television cameras and raining cash.  It will be next week, however, as the WPT main event starts here Sunday.   I hope to be right in the middle of it and then I'll give you the perspective from the other side.

I will be sending reports today from inside the ropes of the 5K event here at Borgata in Atlantic City, NJ.  I got a great night's sleep last night and am just rolling out of bed to stretch and shower.  I'll have my usual championship breakfast of Cherios and strawberries before heading to table 14 and see the competition that awaits.

I signed up for the event late last night along with Chad Brown, Vanessa Rousso, JC Tran, Nam Le and Victor Ramdin.  Chad and Vanessa had just arrived from London having competed in the $20,000 WSOP main event.  Wow, that's 40k between them left on that side of the pond.   To put that in perspective, that's more than my parents paid for the house I grew up in!  I was with them what seemed like just a few days ago (actually a week)  in Biloxi, Mississippi for the WPT there!  Talk about a jet setting hard working  couple...man! In Biloxi, however,  they both cashed, with Chad finishing 23rd and Vanessa 12th. An interesting side note is that I played on Vanessa's table all day and Chad was moved to our table for the last couple of levels.  In that time I had Chad all-in as a 4-1 favorite and had all my chips in the middle against Vanessa as a 5-1 favorite and lost them both!   I'm happy to see they used them well and went on to make a good run there.  

Next report from the tournament floor at the first break around 1 p.m.