by Craig Cunningham

USC Trojan Scott "SCTrojans" Freeman started the day solidly with 7.36m in chips. He's been a force at the bid PokerStars MTT's, and he's a force here with twenty-eight players left. "He's the third best player in our home game," said one of his friends supporting him. "He has a dog named Daisy!" shouted another.

His table includes 1998 WSOP Main Event Champion Scotty Nguyen and Alex Kravchenko, a WSOP bracelet winner earlier in the event. It has been other players who have put him to the test.



John Armbrust in the 4s raised to 100k, and Scott in the 5s made it 625k to go in a battle of the blinds. Armbrust laid the hand down. A few hands later, Armbrust made it 100k again, and Scott made it 550k to go. Armbrust then re-popped him another 850k. Scott was forced to lay down. He got involved next with Ron Kluber in the 1s. Kluber called Scott's 165k raise in the big blind, then both checked the 8d-As-Js. 3h on the turn brought "I'm all-in" from Kluber. "Wow!" exclaimed Scott, and he stood up to begin the process of thinking through the hand. It was a 2.8m bet, another bizarre twist in this Main Event. After a couple minutes, Scott said "I call," and showed Ad-9c. Kluber flipped over Jd-9h, dead to two outs. 3c sent Kluber home, and put him up to 7.4m.

He was back to square one, and eight players left in the first level of the day. The former Magic player will take that, no question.