Regarding the Main, what can I say? I just wasn't winning hands on Day 3.

I got a brief reset of the situation when a double-up with 33 on a 39T board against JQ took me close to the stack I came into the day with, and then I actually got right back to that stack by winning the next hand.

However, that was pretty much all she wrote.

I kept running into what appeared to be real hands over and over (both preflop and postflop), and I was getting little action on the hands I hit, aside from the aforementioned 33 hand.

I also had the annoying situation of certain amateurs at the table randomly deciding when to hero call and when not to. One time a guy laid down AJ on an A-high board on the turn because he was worried I had a big hand (I did -- I had a set). He did this after thinking for like 3-5 minutes. However, another amateur hero-called KK on an A-high board with an identical turn bet, despite being fairly low on chips and being in trouble as to what to do on the river if I bet. (I didn't bet because it seemed he had talked himself into calling -- or perhaps was slowplaying a big hand, so I didn't want to shoot off most of the rest of my stack betting big enough to get him to fold.)

Keep in mind that I had been running people off pocket pairs (even JJ/QQ/KK) on A-high boards with a single flop/turn bet all Main Event, with a high rate of success. Just this time it didn't work. In case you think this guy was just a masterful player who read me like a book, keep in mind that he tank-called his KK pre against my 64k shove over his 22k 3-bet on the SB versus my button AQ. (Blinds were 2500/5000/500 at this point.) He took about 2 minutes. Why? Because he thought I might be "fake tanking AA". LOL!!! That was the hand where I busted, and it was so tilting to see he had KK after his tank made it clear to me that I was at least racing, and perhaps ahead. Believe it or not, I was very close to folding that AQ, despite only having 5 orbits' worth of chips left, and it being a button/SB confrontation.

Anyway, the day just didn't go well from the start, with the exception of that 333 hand. During the first 2 days, I won an incredibly high percentage of pots played (though no big ones), and was seemingly always making the right move. When I check/folded and gave up, I seemed to be always against a monster (I would either be shown the hand by the opponent, or I would see it on showdown against a 3rd player). When I checked back the turn with a strong hand, again, it turned out I was against a monster and a trap was being set. When I value bet, I was correct. When I bluffed, I was correct. So I really "saw" each hand extremely well during days 1-2, even against good players. Day 3 was the opposite, where I ran into real hand after real hand, and lost a high percentage of hands I played. I also played better on Days 1-2, perhaps both because I was running better and had a better table image.

But that's the way it goes. Day 3 has been a tough one for me, as I've gone out a few percentage from the money in 4 of the last 7 Main Events I've played.