I've rented a condo in Vegas for two months. By pure coincidence, its at the same complex as my friend Jon Little. I didn't go to WPT Niagara, and I don't plan on going to Foxwoods. After the PokerBowl I really didn't feel like driving back across the country, and I wasn't in the mood to stay in a hotel any longer and go to Canada. I rented this condo to restore some normalcy to my life, so I can actually relax some and try to get in shape. I guess I might not play live poker again until all the prelims here at Bellagio for Five-Diamond. I'll return to Birmingham for a week or so around Thanksgiving but probably won't go anywhere aside from that. I still haven't decided my plans for 2008. I anticipate playing a lot of online tournaments Sunday through Wednesday each week for the next 4 or 5 weeks. Those are the days some big ones run, I guess. Hopefully I can win like a quarter-million or something in one of the big ones on a Sunday. I'm tilted out of my mind because we had to wait like 3 days for power and two more for cable. Since I last posted we've hung out with my good friend Justin "robert07" Young and his wife Morgan a few times, so that's been fun. What else? I was planning on renting a lil furniture for the living room that I don't have. Renting furniture is like ripping hundred dollar bills though, so I settled on buying a sick couch/loveseat combo that I found downtown at a furniture store's going out of business sale. I hired two dudes from Labor Ready down by the strip to move all of my stuff from my storage unit to the condo. Places like Labor Ready are notorious for having degen dudes who stop by to work like two or three times a week. The guys I drew actually worked surprisingly hard. They did break this glass divider I had for my entertainment center, but aside from that the price I paid was well worth not having to touch anything and risk hurting my back again. I took them to dinner and gave them each a generous tip. Sunday I grinded the online tournaments at Justin's apartment. I had a pretty poor day with just two small cashes. I had an above average stack in the FTP 750000 gtd but had AA go down to AQcc for a stupidly large pot and later had Aces cracked again by my friend Luke Staudemaeir inside the money of the 100r on Stars. Listen to me bitching about bad beats like a fishy. I did make money on the day because I had percents of Adam "CSimmSux" Geyer. Adam had arguably the best Sunday in major online tournament history with 7 cashes including 4 major final tables AND finished 18th in the Sunday Million on Stars. Congrats to Mike Banducci for finishing 6th in said Sunday Million. One more gogogogogogo goes out to Jon who is chipleader as usual with 18 left in WPT Niagara. If Jon wins the event he will take over the CardPlayer PoY Lead and join the exclusive club of players who have grossed 3 million dollars in tournament winnings. Tomorrow is Halloween, I think. I scooped a last minute devil costume and Stephanie is going as a Frederick's of Hollywood-version of an angel. Don't know the plans yet. There'll be no shortage of things to do in Vegas I guess. Also, please keep reading and emailing. I appreciate all of your support. Now that I won't be traveling I do plan on getting back to emails much more quickly, I hope.

SS

Blah. It didn't work out. ZeeJustin busted 9th, then Scott Clements, then my teammate Jon Little. I busted Cody in 6th with A9o vs his shortstack's K6o. Five handed I doubled up Shannon Pendergrast with QdJx vs his black AK AIPF. The board gave me hope on Td 8d 4c 2d x. In fifth I busted one of Team New Jersey's players, Scott Pendergrast. He shoved 66 from the SB into my AK, and I turned a King. Four handed Eric Lynch crippled Seattle's Keith Bartlett with 99 vs A7o. I eliminated him the next hand with AJo vs his K6o. We entered 3 handed, and I had 165000ish to Eric Lynch's and Shannon Pendergrast's combined 135000ish. It's a redic spot to be in though because it's 2 against 1, and that really changes what I can do preflop. I was surprised to see they walked me two times out of the first 10 or 12 hands. I got some shoves in and was really starting to accumulate. Then, on the button I looked down at the Th and had an easy shove given the circumstances. Eric quickly called in the SB and Shannon Pendergrast folded. Eric showed JJ and I squeezed out another Ten with it, oops. I couldn't spike though :( Then, a crazy one came up. I had about 110000 at 4/8000 (800). Shannon shoved the button for 57000, and I found A4o for an easy reshove in the SB. Eric had me covered and overcalled. Pendergrast showed the best hand with A9o and Eric showed A8hh. The flop was 552, about as good as I could hope for without spiking with 4. The turn was the case Ace. I could not win any of the pot now, but I could chop the main and side pot with a King, Queen, Jack, Ten, or Five. I could also stay in the tournament by chopping the sidepot with Eric if one of the case three nines came. The river was a 9, so Eric and I tripled SP up. On the button I found 83cc on a basically any-two card shove for my last 52400. SP called in the SB and showed me K3ss, a nasty hand for me to see...giving me just 3 outs. The flop came Tc 7x 6x. The turn was a 7 and the river a 2.

I'm not sure what my plans are. I'm going to do one of three things. Stay another day and pack up all my stuff from Vegas storage and drive across the country to Alabama, Get on a plane to Buffalo, NY and then taxi up to Ontario for the WPT up there, or just catch a plane back to Alabama. I'm not really in the mood to play WPT Canada, I think.

SS

I'm on to our conference's final table of 9 as the chipleader in the US Poker Bowl. My teammate Jon Little also advanced from my original table and will be at the final table with me. Cody "thugmoneymkr" Slaubaugh our good friend finished in the final 3 with us for the Minnesota team. His teammate Jordan "Octavian_C" Rich was eliminated early and Cody played very well by himself to eventually make the final 3. I'm not going to go into too much detail, but I'll tell some of the showdown hands. In the first 20 minutes JC Alvarado raised in EP to 225 and Octavian_C reraised to 825 from the cutoff. I found black AA in the SB and thought before reraising to 2925. JC folded and after 15 seconds of thought Octavian moved me in for my 9800ish total. I quickly called and he sheepishly showed me AhQd. I don't mind his play because I can really only call with AA and probably KK. The flop looked ok on K42 with two hearts. The turn was the scary Ah, and I had to sweat a heart on the river. The river was red, the 6d and I doubled through and crippled Jordan to 1000. A few minutes later Jon Friedberg was busted by a young lady on team Seattle named Traci Wolfe. In a raised blind battle Traci bet pot/bet pot/bet AI and showed Jon 88 on the end of AA987 for the winner to bust him. Then an incredible hand came up and Traci knocked out BOTH JC Alvarado and Jared Hamby of team Cleveland with QJ against their AA and 96o respectively. We were 7 handed now and lost Jordan a short while later to get 6 handed. Then, a sickening pot came up to knock me down from 21000 to 7800 as time expired to end level 3. Six-handed Cody opened UTG to 525 at 1/200 (25). I called on the button with black threes and the blinds folded. The flop came 553r. Cody bet 700 and I decided to just call. The turn was the 2s putting two spades out. Cody bet just 700 again. I really felt that coball picked up a combo draw with Ax of spades on the turn. I decided to call again. The river was the Qs. Cody thought and then bet 4000 into the 4300 leaving himself around 6000. I didn't want to Hollywood, so I quickly moved in for his last 6000. He called and turned over quad fives, lol. The sick thing was I thought about just calling. If the river was an offsuit Queen as opposed to a spade I really do think I would've just called with the bottom full house. A few hands after break I got all-in against Traci with AKo against her 99 in the blinds. The board came an exciting 7668K to double me up. I already had my iPod headphones wrapped up on the turn card. A little while later Jon doubled up through Cody in a button/SB war with AJo vs 77 on an AJxxx board AIPF. We were winning races...yay. Next, Traci doubled up against me for her last few chips with AQo vs my 55 on A3K2x. We all battled 6 handed for a while before Coball eliminated Traci with ATo vs her KQo. Five handed Jon and I were left against 3 guys from 3 different teams. The NJ team guy got AI for his last few chips UTG with KK vs my A4o to double through 5 handed. Jon then doubled through Cody with KTcc vs Cody's 74o in the blinds. We finally lost the NJ guy in fifth when his Q9dd was called by Cody's KQ. Four handed it was down to me, Jon, Cody and the guy from team Seattle named Jesse Martinez. He moved AI UTG for 8700 at 1500/3000 (300) and Cody called in the cutoff. I was in the BB and decided to call the 5700 more with A4cc in hopes of eliminating the guy on the 4th place bubble. Cody and I checked down a board of T736x and Jesse's JTo was good enough to almost quadruple up. I was crippled to around 7000 and eventually got it AI for my last 2700 when I called AI on the button PF. Jesse called and Cody checked. My Ace high was the nut on a board of KT2TT against their 76cc and 73o respectively. I then had a couple of blind steals and was right back in it with the monster blinds. On the final hand of the night I raised to 6100 UTG 4 handed at 1500/3000 (300) with KThh. Jesse quickly moved in for his last 12000. Cody and Jon folded and I was in a race against his red eights. The flop came a nice TJ4 with 2 hearts. He missed his black eights and the three of us advanced.

I'll take 45100 to the FT and Cody and Jon will have 35500 and 19400 respectively. The final table won't be easy. Eric, Cody, Scott, Justin, Jon and I represent over 6 and a half million dollars in on paper gross tournament cashes, and our average age is below 24...if that's any indication of what the FT's going to be like. The counts:

Shannon Shorr (Chicago) 45100

Eric "Rizen" Lynch (New Jersey) 38800

Scott Pendergrast (New Jersey) 36000

Cody "thugmoneymkr" Slaubaugh (Minnesota) 35500

Scott "BigRiskky" Clements (Minnesota) 35100

Keith Bartlett (Seattle) 32400

Shannon Pendergrast (New Jersey) 31600

Justin "ZeeJustin" Bonomo (Cleveland) 26100

Jon "FieryJustice" Little (Chicago) 19400.

Blinds are going to be rolled back to 1/2000, but there still won't be much play when we resume on Tuesday morning at 10 a.m. All five teams from the conference will be represented at the final table with NJ having 3 players, our Chicago team having 2, Minnesota having 2, and Seattle and Cleveland having 1. Lucky for us Minnesota's Mike "GASSIT" Pickett ran like death on the bubble of his tournament and went from CL to out on the bubble. We would've been sick if Clements, Slaubaugh and Pickett were all in the final 9. GASSIT was a complete gentleman in defeat as we railed. Unfortunately our four teammates all ran pretty bad at their tables. Sorel got sucked out on hard twice and I'm pretty sure Mike "inissint" Glasser got sucked out on atleast once. z32 and bigjoe basically shoved into coolers when the blinds were huge at the TV table. We've made no money yet but our team will get 100000 if Jon or I win that table on Tuesday. In that event, our whole squad will compete against the other 24 players from the other 4 winning conferences for half a million dollars more. Should be fun. Tomorrow we're having a LAN party at Jon's house to play the Sunday MTTs.

It'll be fun to sit back and watch the next couple of days of the PokerBowl before we play again Tuesday.

SS