Morning, Day 4

I drank a Coke after the dinner break last night, and slept terribly as a consequence. Nevertheless I wake up in a fantastic mood, thrilled to be alive. Having a relatively short stack is in some sense liberating, as there's less pressure and play is less complicated.

My roommate has 361,000 in chips and is seated at a table where the combined poker tournament earnings are $15,000,000.

With 5/6 of the field gone, it's remarkable that both John and I are still alive. It feels, however, like we are headed in opposite directions: I am facing a tough, gritty struggle to survive to the money while John is trolling the internet sites looking for sponsorship deals. Tournaments are so volatile, however, that this could change in just a few hands.

Just came back from a few laps at the pool. This is the seventh day I've been in Vegas. I bought the New York Times but don't even care enough to read the headlines on the front page. Hell, I can't even bring myself to read Glenn Greenwald, my favorite author.

As always, good thoughts, visions of mountains of chips, energy beamed my way, and even prayers are most welcome.

PS If you haven't seen the golf video, figure out to do it. Colored links are mouse-clickable. And I will be posting to twitter.com/luckyscum throughout the day. If you want to follow the action more closely, check out pokernews.com and click on the $10,000 Main Even live updates link.