The End of Day 3 for Matt

Here's what Matt had to say in his latest e-mail:

We are in the money! We got there at about 11:30 PM tonight, and I just finished play at about 2:30 AM. I believe we are down to about 480 players, and I think I am guaranteed about $27,000, but I'm not sure of the exact numbers. You should go to www.worldseriesofpoker.com to check the latest, since I am too tired to do that now.

I have $268,000 in chips. The average stack is about $285,000 so I am slightly below average but doing fine. We are coming back to blinds of $2,500-$5,000 with a $500 ante, so it will be fast. In other words, we will probably play down from 480 players to about 100. As I've said every day, I am definitely not a favorite to make it through all of Day Four. But if I can do it, that would certainly be sweet.

I had Brandon Cantu at my table for most of the day, who is probably the best tournament player in the world that no one has heard of. He played outstanding, and made it very difficult to make any moves or get out of line. I also had Jeremy Joseph, the chip leader with $1.6 million at my table, so I'm just happy that we get to re-draw tomorrow. I'll take my chances against a new lineup.

Two hands of note. When I had about 125,000, I was lucky enough to pick up pocket aces and have someone else find pocket kings. We got all the money in, and the aces held up. That was pretty huge, and assured me that I would finish in the money.

The second hand was a little sicker, near the very end of the night. With blinds of $2,000-$4,000 I made it $14,000 with pocket queens under-the-gun. A pretty strong player called and Cantu called, and they both had position on me. The flop came K-8-3. I made up my mind that I was going to check-raise Cantu. However, the player between us came out with a $30,000 bet. Cantu folded, and for whatever reason I decided that I was going to take my stand there. I pushed all-in for about $160,000. He thought and thought and said, "I think we have the same hand." He kept saying, "I think we have the same hand," which told me that he had A-K and that I was in very deep shit when he called. In fact, I couldn't see how he would fold. But remarkably, he decided in the end that I must have had pocket aces the way I played it, and he threw it away. Phew. That could have been the end, but instead I get to come back and take another shot.

I'm tired, but feeling pretty good. It's nice to think that I have roughly a 1-in-500 chance of being the next World Champion. It's way too early to be thinking like that, but on the other hand, it's hard not to.

Thanks again to Jeremy for his constant support at the Rio, and to Alan for giving me rides even at 2 in the morning.

Play starts at 1 PM tomorrow (or I guess it's today). I'll let you know how it goes. Best of luck to all of us.

Regards,
Matt


Go get those bastards Matt! If he makes it through today I think I'm going to make an emergency trip to Vegas!