It may have been fatigue. It may have been that I didn't have enough caffeine in my system after staying up with the Moneymaker Millionaire finals until 6am. Regardless, for some reason, I didn't believe we were going to make it to the money. Now, it's pretty clear we will. Even if my head isn't clear, the faces of the players are.

***

The Ed Report

We have 370 players remaining at the start of level 8. Early on during the level Jon Friedberg doubled up with 77 v AJ. The AJ did not improve and Jon now has around 45K.

A large crowd seems to have sweated David Williams this tournament and he invariably seems to be involved in the action. Having raised to 4K the SB moved all in 10.2K more. David says 'let's gamble' and called with J7 diamonds. The SB turned over AKo which fell woefully behind as David hit a flush and even his back hand of a pair of Jacks would have been enough to send the SB packing.

KidPokerJD has started well today continuing from where he left off last night. About 20 min into the level he elminated a shortstack at his table with 99 v A7 and that put him up to around 65K.

Elky also appears to be involved in plenty of action. David Singer had raised from across the table to 3,500 and Elky in the BB raised it 6,100 more. David did not take longpassing. A little while later Elky lost a monster all in preflop pot when his AA was cracked by JJ when a Jack hit the flop. That brutal card knocked Elky down to just over 30K.

Tom McEvoy has seen his stack steadily dwindle today. Clearly intending to do something about that he raised from early position to 3,500 and was called by both the SB and BB. The flop came out 3-5-7(all clubs). The action was checked to Tom who fired 1 blue 5K chip into the middle. This was subsequently raised to 15K from the SB and the BB called this bet. Tom then moved all in for a further 44K which effectively set either of the others all in. The SB with a similar remaining stack to Tom folded whilst the BB called all in for his last 8,700. Tom had a set of sevens vs a made Kind high flush. No help for Tom on either the turn or river and he is down to 36K.

Bill Chen has just recently been eliminated. The cut off had raised his BB and Bill defended with Q-10. The flop was Q-J-10 and all the monet went in and Bill found himself up against 9-8(a flopped straight). Again no help for our boys on the turn or river and Bill is gone.

David Williams has just taken an enormous pot off Vanessa Rousso and left her looking pretty short. On a board of 8s-Kc-2c-Ah and around 70K in the pot, Vanessa was facing an 26K bet which was enough to put her all in. After a very lenghty think and some semi trash talking from David she folded and David showed KQ.

Notable Chips at start of level 9

**290 players remaining with average stack of 64K**

Bill Chen OUT
Jon Friedberg 34K
Leif Force 24K
Mimi Tran 20K
David Singer 80K
-db- 95K
Katja Thater OUT
Julian Gardner 40K
Tom McEvoy 40K
Steve Paul Ambrose 170K
John Pham 70K
Victor Ramdin 45K
Elky 30K
Spiro 130K
KidPokerJD 21K
Michael Mizrachi 65K
Daniel Negreanu 90K
wattabackyard 48K
tigerti 20K
David Williams 160K
Vanessa Rousso 22K
Martin Wendt 100K
gobboboy 110K