Jon Bryan

Well, after 50 minutes of playing on day three of the WSOP Main Event, I stood up and shook hands with the guy who knocked me out and wished everyone at the table good luck. My World Series of Poker experience was over.

Out of 8773 competitors, I am unsure of my exact finishing position and it won't be officially recorded. It is about 1100th. I finished in about the top 12%, but it's the top 10% who make the money.

Everyone on my table was canny enough, but it was clear early on that I was on a table with players better than I had encountered to date.

Having said that. There was still some strange (and unlucky) plays early on.

The third hand brought drama to the table.

Seat 9 (who was from Dorset) and the largest stack at the table raised to make it 4200 to go. Seat 1 raised to 16000. Everyone folds back to the original raiser. Seat 9 asks the dealer to count down the stack of seat 1, which caused some annoyance to seat 1. He had about another 85K. Seat 9 moved all in for about 150K and the bet was called. Both players turned over pocket Kings. I couldn't believe that these players wanted to get involved with each other, and when the last 4 cards where all diamonds, it was seat 1 with the King of Diamonds who doubled his stack of chips.

A short time later, seat 2 raised before the flop and then called quite a large re-raise from seat 5. The flop came 10/9/7 and all the money went in. Seat 2 showed pocket tens, and Seat 5 turned over pocket aces. He was clearly gutted and no other cards came to help him out. He was eliminated after less than 20 minutes.

I was getting nothing to play with, although I did think about moving all in with Ace-Five unsuited with just three other players to get through, but I folded it. We saw the flop on that hand, and it wouldn't of helped me.

With 45 minutes gone, I had lost about 6000 chips just through the blinds and antes, and now we had lost a player, we would be playing 9-handed until the end of the tournament.

The player first to speak called the big blind. This was seat 2, who had already knocked someone out. It was folded to me, and I looked down and found pocket tens. I moved all in for a total of around 18000 chips. Everyone folded, but seat 2, kind of reluctantly, called.

We both turned over our cards and I was ahead and slight favourite to win the pot. He had the Ace of Spades with the Jack of Clubs against my pair of tens.

The flop (first three cards) were all clubs, and then the fourth card was another club. This gave him a flush and knocked me out of the tournament.

I wished everyone good luck and then me and Kay walked out of the tournament area and made our way back to the hotel.

I knew at the start of the day that I would have to go all in maybe 2 or 3 times to get into the money. I couldn't just hang on with what I had.

Looking at cardplayer.com now 4 and a half hours after the start of today, there are still 25 players to be knocked out before the money starts, and I have no regrets about how I played that hand.

It was the first time that I had put all my chips at risk in the entire tournament, and I know that overall I have played very well.

I was pleased to be greeted at the start of my day by a player from my table from the end of day two. Both he and his wife wished me good luck for the day and congratulated me once again for laying down pocket Queens at the end of day two. I remember him saying that his wife was knocked out halfway through day two.

As I write, cardplayer.com inform me that other notable players to go out before the money today have been Phil Ivey (who Kay managed to snap - above), Layne Flack, Carlos Mortensen (WSOP Champion in 2001), Freddy Deeb, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson (winner in 2000) and Josh Arieh (3rd in 2004).

Thanks for following this blog and my play in the World Series.

We may post more photos and stories of our exploits in Las Vegas until we leave here on Friday August 11th - eventually arriving back in Newcastle late on Sunday night - but for now, my WSOP adventure is over.

Thank you all for your support.

Thanks to www.pokerapparel.co.uk for providing the shirts.

And thanks to Paradise Poker for getting me here via their Player Points tournaments.

Best wishes from both Jon and Kay

PS - Velma Kay got her wish of seeing Ross Boatman in Las Vegas. He was at the airport with her as she was going home today. At least I can say that I outlasted most of The Hendon Mob, but I think Barny Boatman is still in. http://www.thehendonmob.com/about-the-mob.html