A few nights ago I mentioned that it was a good night to be a friend of Paul Wasicka’s.  Unfortunately, Paul’s run at another final table was ended prematurely today.  Paul was never quite able to get off the ground as he entered play with under 25k.  Sharing Paul’s fate was Doug Kim who was busted about halfway through the day.

However, it has been a good day for the rest of Paul’s friends. 

Even though he was over 100k at one point, Thomas “gnightmoon” Fuller (a PokerWire blogger) has slipped back down to about 50k.  Thomas hit a couple of lucky hands today when he made uncharacteristically big moves with A9 and was fortunate enough to crack KK.  Twice. 

Thomas and Paul’s hometown friend Mandy Baker has been on a heater for the last few levels.  Mandy is known around the PokerWire circles as the Full Tilt Poker “satellite queen” because she wins seats online pretty much at will.  You can regularly find her online crushing young internet  boys’ dreams at $5-$10 No-limit.  Tonight you can find her seated directly to Tobey Maguire’s right.  Yep, that Tobey Maguire.

Chris “pi master” Viox entered the day in the top 10 and has hung around the top of the leaderboard throughout play.  Chris has been an online pro for a number of years, and made a final table in last year’s pot-limit holdem event (although he's from St. Louis, not Colorado).

I just walked into the Media Room and some guy said to me, "What the @$#& are you doing here?"  He didn't ask me to pardon his French, either.  Even though he is from France. 

I digress.  I have made my final wandering of the night, and have noticed a few things:

1. Two PokerWire bloggers are seated next to each other
Thomas Fuller has the little known but succesful Joe Sebok seated to his immediate left.  They are both hovering around the 40k mark.  Sebok had shot up to 80k, but lost a tough hand when he held 98 and his opponent had K9 on a J9X9X board.  After playing every hand in the first few levels, Thomas decided to tighten up a bit and has been average-stacked most of the day.

I have risen from the ashes of personal and professional disappointment to heights I have never before reached. Behind a heap of good cards, fortunate table draws, rail support from the Masters Pi and J33*, a few ballsy moves that somehow worked, stockpiled positive karma, and one big uncharacteristic suckout to end the day, I was able to win two tables at the $1500 No Limit Hold em Shootout and advance to the final table Tuesday at 2 PM.