Michael Watson Eliminated in 10th Place ($9,049)

It was a really weird day. I battled on a short stack most of the day, and whenever I got my hands on some chips and it began to look like I might make a comeback I would lose a pot and return to shortstackville. Here are a few hands I can remember:

Hand 1: UTG pots it to 21K with not much behind so I figure he can have like anything, I find A247 double suited or something like that. This was actually around the time I had the most chips I had all day with like 97K or something. I figure I have to at least call and I'm probably pot-committed then anyways so mise well jam and try to get it heads up I guess. The BB ends up tanking and folding AAT9 he said, which is pretty sweet, but I still get scooped by KQTT or some foolish hand like that for 30K.

Hand 2: I have like 83K and pot it in EP to 28K with AKKc6c. The SB who as it turns out is a huge huge clown says "pot, pot, pot from you is it? I have a pretty big hand" before calling, and Chad Brown calls in the BB. The flop comes 789 which is pretty frigging awful. They check to me and with 84K in the pot already I decide to gamble and shove, figuring I can easily have the best high hand and i can blow them off a lot of hands that have way more outs than they realize. Clown reshoves with AT73 (wow, that sure is "a pretty big hand" against an UTG pot raise). I'm obviously in terrible terrible shape here. The turn is a 6 and I'm like drawing dead except the river is a 3 and I get a quarter. I should almost certainly have checked behind the flop but I play bad and stuff and I thought they could easily both have missed that board since you're not supposed to be calling my raise with many middle cards there.

Hand 3:So now I'm pretty screwed but people bust left and right and we collapse to one table of 10 (this doesn't really count as making the final table though). I have 32K and we high-card for button and I'm the BB. Oh crap. I fold my BB to go to 24K then double to 48K on the next hand when it folds to me in the SB and my A479s wins against some high cards. On the next hand the 2nd shortstack pots in EP and I have AsTs2h9d. His pot from EP shows a lot of strength but I'm a monkey and I don't fold A2 with a suited ace when I have 6 bets so I jam. The BB who is the clown from the previous hand then instajams over top of me so we go all-in 3 ways. Then this happens (note clown is obv the one with A3): http://www.worldseriesofpoker.com/tourney/updates_pn.asp?tourneyID=3469&groupid=309

Such a sick river, 13 cards for 3/4, 4 cards for 1/2, 17 cards I get 1/4, and 2 cards I get nothing.... Sigh. Also, the pocketfives live guys covered the tournament a bit and I introduced myself to them. You can check out the coverage at http://www.pocketfiveslive.com/. There is also a picture they took of me on there in which I look completely retarded. I'm not sure what I'm gonna do tomorrow, probably not much. Thursday is the $5K 6-max NL I've been looking forward to so much, still looking for that first final table.

Mike