Hey, it was another long day and I'm pretty tired so I'm just going to write something here quickly. I'm the chip leader heading into the final table of 6 tomorrow with 5.06 million. It was a pretty sick day, I tried to monkey off my stack at one point but I failed by sucking out on Choron pretty bad with TT vs AA preflop. Right after that csimmsux monkeyed off a million to me with AQ vs my AK preflop and I was chip leader again. With 9 left everything slowed to a crawl and I went up and down a little playing pretty much only small pots. I started to pick up some hands as the night wore on though and built my stack up over 4 million. Then I won a fairly big pot against John Phan where I reraised him preflop and he called, the flop came K-hi and after 10+ minutes of thinking he folded QQ face up to my 1 million chip bet. The day ended shortly after that. The final table is fairly tough, with myself, my friend Luke "IWEARGOGGLES", John Phan, Ralph Perry, David Benyamine, and Gabe Thaler. All the hands from the final table today appear to be posted on worldpokertour.com.

Tomorrow is the "televised" final table (in quotations because sadly WPT does not have a TV deal yet for this season :-(). I have to do the whole deal with makeup, interviews, etc etc.... The final table starts at 5PM PST, but I have to be at Bellagio around 1 for all that stuff beforehand. There should be more interviews of me up on worldpokertour.com and cardplayer.com if you want to see me look goofy in front of a camera some more. I need to get some sleep, one more day of run good please for 1.67 million!

Mike

Day 4 - First Break
Day 4, First Break

Day 4 - Second Break
Day 4, Second Break

Day 4 - 10 to go Chip Leader: Sucked out TT vs. AA
Day 4, Down to 10


Day 4 - 9 to go - Dinner Break
Day 4, 9 left

Day 4 - 9 to go - Still leading
Day 4, still 9 left


Day 4 - 7 to go - Still leading
Day 4, still 9 left

Editor's Note: Mike must have been a bit too tired to call in after the end of the day, but we're happy to report that he is the chip leader entering the WPT TV table today with $5,060,000. Below are the seat assignments and chip stacks. You can see a video of Mike and some of the other players at:

WPT Live Updates

Good luck, SirWatts. Take it home!!!!!

Seat 1: Ralph Perry - 1,635,000
Seat 2: Luke "IWearGoggles" Staudenmaier - 3,495,000
Seat 3: John "The Razor" Phan - 3,495,000
Seat 4: David Benyamine - 4,860,000
Seat 5: Gabe Thaler - 1,550,000
Seat 6: Mike "SirWatts" Watson - 5,060,000

Well, I had another super sick day at the Bellagio Cup. I was chip leader for most of the day and finished with 2.272 million chips to take a solid chip lead into Day 4 tomorrow. There are 32 players left and we'll play down to the final TV table of 6 players. We played 7 levels today so play went pretty late, so this is going to have to be a quick blog so I can get some sleep. I ran my stack up early in the day by making the toppest pair against Thayer a few times in some medium sized pots and abusing the bubble a little bit to get to 625K after the first 2 levels. After that I basically just played very solid for the rest of the day and was lucky to make a lot of hands. Here are the 2 key pots I played where I got most of my chips:

Hand 1: 4k/8k a1k I have around 700K and open 99 to 22k in EP. A player who seems kind of weak flat calls on the button with around 600-700K and a french player Philippe calls in the BB with around 500K as best I can recall. Flop A93 with two hearts. Philippe leads for 40K and I decide my best way to get action is to call and slowplay here a bit as he's the type to just lead out with an ace here and I don't want to scare him out. Also, this gives the button the chance to make a mistake (such foreshadowing). The button calls. Turn is another 3. Philippe checks and I bet 100K. The button raises to 350K, Philippe thinks for a long time before folding an ace, and I move in. Button calls and shows 34ss. Lucky for me as an ace hits on the river. I had around 1.4M after this hand.

Hand 2: 5k/10k a 1k Peter Costa had raised the previous hand and shown kings or some such monster when everyone folds, and in this hand it folds around to him in the CO and he quickly raises to 30K again. I have A9hh on the button and am considering reraising, but something about the way he raised seems very strong to me. I decide not to reraise but then instead of just folding I ended up calling, which is probably a mistake considering my read. Both blinds call and the flop comes K87 with two hearts. Peter bets 80K, I call, and both blinds fold. The turn is the 6h. Peter checks and I bet 160K which he calls. The river is a blank, he checks and I bet 400K which he eventually calls. Someone told me he apparently had KK here which I'm inclined to believe. After this hand I was up to around 2.2M.

After the day was over I did a couple quick interviews with WPT and CardPlayer which you can find on the respective websites. I was named the "Blue Diamond Almonds bold player of the day", which earns me free almonds for the year, one package per week. I am uncertain what is particularly bold about making the nuts a bunch of times and getting paid off, but I do like my almonds so I kept my mouth shut about that. Ahaha I just realized I "made the nuts" one more time even after the day was over! ahahaha. I just found that way too funny I clearly need to get some sleep. Night y'all,

Mike

Oh yeah updates over on worldpokertour.com, I guess CardPlayer.com now too, and I'll be phoning them in to TwoRags.com as well on breaks.

Day 3 - First Break, all good so far -- chip leader with less than 100 left and in the money
Day 3, First Break

Day 3 - Third Break - Chip Leader
Day 3, Third Break

Day 3 - Fourth Break - nothing bad, nothing special
Day 3, Fourth Break

Day 3 - Last Break - chip leader
Day 3, Last Break


Day 3 - End of Day Report - still on top!
Day 3, End of Day


Editor's Note: SirWatts ended the day as the Chip leader with $2.272 million, almost 4x the average stack.

Out of nowhere I ended up having a sick day 2. I won two key huge pots in the last level to vault my stack over 400K. I finished with 427K which must be top 5 in chips with 125 left. The payout structure for this tournament is weird, as it pays 100 spots but there were only 445 runners, so over 22% of the field makes the money which seems really excessive. I have no problem with paying more spots in such a big buy-in tournament but wow. Anyways, here's a rundown of how I got my chips. My table draw was excellent as I recognized almost no one at my table. In level 1 I didn't do too much though and lost a few chips from my 36K starting count. In level 2 I was able to double up without showdown when I kept picking up hands like TT or JJ after a whole bunch of people limped and throwing in a big raise. People either folded preflop or called then folded to my flop bet every time. Level 3 I chipped down slightly again without too much happening.

Hand 3: I'm down to about 55K at 800/1600 a200. I open black AA to 4800, a shortstack calls all-in for 4500 and then the BB makes it 17K. I shove and he calls. The BB shows red QQ and shortstack has KdQ. Can't ask for much better than that. Flop: Jd9d8d. GG Vegas it's been another fun summer. Turn small black card. River small black card. Holy crap.

Hand 4: There is a Russian guy on my right who has been playing very sporadically all day. He's limped or raised and called huge reraises several times with weak hands like suited connectors and then just got it in when he flopped draws. More often than not he hit and he has a lot of chips. He's played extremely passively when he has big hands though and failed to get value with them whenever he's leading the betting.

1k/2k a300. Russian limps in the HJ and I make it 7K with A9o next to act. The SB calls and the Russian calls. Flop A84 rainbow. Both check and I decide to check behind. The turn is the 2d, putting two diamonds on board. SB checks and the Russian bombs out 30K into the 25K pot, and immediately I just thought this doesn't make any sense. He's never bet this hard with a big hand, and all of the big hands that are possible on this board there's a good chance he would have raised with preflop in late position. It seems overwhlemingly likely that he's limped in with another suited connector that he loves to play so much and is now just semi-bluffing with a big drawing hand when he picked up a flush draw on the turn. I count down my stack as I think and realize I only have 53K more after his 30K bet so if I go with my read I'm going to have to commit my stack and move in to get maximum value from his draw. That's what I finally decide to do and he calls quickly and shows 8d7d. OK now I just need to fade a third of the deck again, and when the 2 pairs on the river I do just that and have a 200K stack.

Hand 4: After that the Russian seems to just be on massive tilt for whatever reason and is moving all-in preflop around 2/3 of the hands even though he still has plenty of chips. He loses another race to drop to 50K but people keep folding to him for some reason when he shoves on their raises so he builds that back up a bit. It folds to him on the button and he open shoves probably somewhere in the 80-100K range. It would be a good time to find a hand I'm thinking as I look down at QQ and shove in. The BB, with a bit over 100K or so I guess, thinks for a bit and then makes the overcall with JJ. Wow. Yet again I fade all the bad cards and bust two players to increase my stack to around 400K.

Hand 5: The very next hand a shortstack moves all-in UTG for 25K. I find AJo on the button and make the call. I flop a jack and hold against his KTs to bust my third player in two hands. I end the day with 427K.

Hopefully my table draw for tomorrow will be as good as it was today, but the field in this tournament is fairly tough so I doubt I will be so lucky. I'll start calling in some updates to TwoRags tomorrow during the breaks to keep you all up to date. The only place doing live reporting for this event seems to be www.worldpokertour.com so you can also check in there to see how I'm doing.

Mike