My friend Frank (staeljmun at partypoker) played the WSOP $300 qualifier this morning and I was sweating him nearly all the time (in between I had two meetings and several phone calls, talk about workplace productivity, lol). 210 players entered, 4 seats and $4500 for 5th and $2700 for 6th place finish. He played well the whole time. When he got to the final table he needed to change location, as the danger of someone coming in wanting something from hin here in the office complex was to big and every missed hand could have meant a serious blow.

I had the same thing yesterday, buying into a $100 SNG. I folded the first two hands and when I got dealt 88 my project manager came in - I quickly folded, turned "I am away" on and we discussed some issues of second-level importance (because they were not poker related stuff) for about 60 minutes. When I returned I saw that without playing one hand at all I got 4th in that one - talk about wild party games!

Back to Frank: with 6 players remaining and $2700 secured one player got crazy, blewing his chip lead to less-than-average. Frank stayed calm and quite (being on a tablet pc without a keyboard may have helped him stay out of chat :). One busted with a crap hand and then there were five left. Blinds were at 2000-4000, he had about 25k left, being one of the shorter stacks. When he was in the SB and everybody folded he moved in with AKo agaionst the BB, which was the chip leader. That guy called and turned over - KK! No help on the board and Frank was out on the bubble, with a $4500 payout. Outch.

We talked for a while and the payout was no help for his pain. Maybe it will be later today but now he is a little depressed. Sorry, pal. I am sure you will make it and we will party together in Vegas for the big one!

My own poker story is nothing to write about: I had a big loosing month in April because of my Vegas tilt but since then I lost something as I am loosing online also. Not every day but my figures are pretty red. Not very nice 4 weeks ahead of the biggest and longest tourney this year... I will think about a solution now (maybe winning could help?).