The preliminaries of the PokerListings Run-Good Challenge are over! Event 3 played out earlier today and with the exception of a few sudden-death tiebreakers the roster for next week's Grand Final is all but set.

Kid Dynamite was this week's champ, with yours truly as runner-up. Here's how it went down.

Seventeen players were able to overcome their Saturday-morning hangovers to play today and, in addition to making the money, everyone was looking to grab a few more points toward the nine seats at next week's Super Happy Grand Final Championship.

A few players were in the clear already, thanks to their stellar performances in the first two prelims, but there was plenty of room for movement on the leaderboard for the bottom slots.

Event 3 got off to a slow start, and it took nearly three-quarters of an hour for the first player to hit the rail. 2008 WSOP bracelet winner Jason Young was dividing his time between this freeroll and the $1,000 tourney at the Winter Bayou Poker Challenge in New Orleans, and he was the first to go.

When he busted it seemed to break the seal, so to speak, and the eliminations came in a flood. Michele Lewis went next in one of the worst suck-outs of the day. Kid Dynamite opened from under the gun to $300, at $50/$100, and Michele flatted on the button, leaving herself $885 behind.

The flop came down 8♥ 6♦ 3♦ and KD quickly set her all-in. She snap-called and showed queens to KD's pocket fours. Lewis looked to have a lock on the hand but the river was a four, nailing Dynamite's set.

It's good to run good.

One by one the field shrank to the final nine and we were merged to the final table. When it got six-handed one of the biggest hands of the tournament developed between Poker Shrink and Kid Dynamite. KD opened from under the gun plus one and Shrink defended in the big blind. The flop came down A♠ 6♥ 4♣ and after a check from Shrink, Dynamite fired $600.

Shrink made the call and the turn was the K♦. Dynamite bet again and Shrink moved all-in. KD called and showed pocket fours, which had Shrink's A-J drawing dead. These two were among the biggest stacks at the table when the hand started and with this elimination Kid Dynamite took control of about half the chips in play.

When we got to the bubble I was the short stack, hovering around 10-12 big blinds, and Change100 was in a bit better shape on the high side of 15 big blinds.

I had been treading water by shoving for the blinds and antes for a few rounds when I picked up A♥ T♠ and shoved from the small blind. Dr. Pauly was in the big blind with A♣ 7♣ and made the obvious call, unlucky to be dominated.

I doubled there and picked up pocket tens on the button the very next hand. I raised, Pauly three-bet and I shoved. Neither of us had enough chips for my shove to have any fold equity, and Pauly called with pocket fives. The board bricked and he was left with $1,550 with the blinds at $100/$200.

Hammer time.

I picked up the blinds with A-K on the next hand and Pauly raised the one after that, all but committing himself to call a shove. I looked down at 7-2 and there really wasn't much of a decision. I shove, he calls with A♠ T♣ and I river a deuce to bust him.

Change100 had $2,005 at the start of her last hand and shipped it from the big blind after I raised to $750 from the button. I called with J♣ Q♣ and outflopped her A♠ 8♠ to get heads-up.

Kid Dynamite and I were about even and we battled it out for 22 hands before I was dealt the death blow. I thought things were fairly even but judging by the comments from KD like, "Showell is too good," and, "I play so bad," perhaps I had the advantage. Either that or KD is just condescending.

At any rate, we were both raising in position a lot and with a fair amount of three-betting, I was pretty confident my A-9 was ahead of his range when he four-bet shoved on me in hand 22.

He had pocket sevens which held up for the pot, the Event 3 title, nine leaderboard points and $600 in cash.

Here's how the final leaderboard looks. Since one of the seats at the Grand Final is reserved for a PokerListings player, I just squeaked in by besting Dan Skolovy's score of eight.

Right now seven of the nine seats at the final are locked up. Because Spaceman, Pauly and Kid Dynamite all have nine points, and there are only two more empty seats, some sort of tiebreaker will have to be done this week.

We're not sure what the game will be but we'll let you know where, when and how as soon as the terms are set.

As we near the end of the second PokerListings Run-Good Challenge we'd still like to extend an invitation to poker bloggers all over the world to join us for RGC Part 3. If you have an independent blog that's been around for a substantial amount of time, is regularly updated and has a base of devoted readers, you too could test your run-good skills against the bloggers mentioned above.

Leave me a comment at the bottom of the article with some info and we'll see if we can work something out.

Check back later in the week for an update on the Grand Final roster and if you're on PokerStars next Saturday drop by the private tournaments tab and sweat the action.

More Run-Good Blogs

• Sacre Bleu! Benjo Wins Run-Good Event 2!
• Run-Good Challenge II: Event 2 Preview
• Run-Good Challenge II: Event 1 Wrap-Up
• Return of the Run-Good Challenge!