Well it's been a long time coming in my poker career, but I've finally made my first televised final table!

I'm really excited but am trying to stay focused on the goal. No matter how much money is on the line this is just like any tournament I play: I came to win.

Here is the table by seating assignments:

1. Lee Markholt - 264,000
2. Curt Kohlberg - 1,086,000
3. Eric "Efro" Froehlich - 1,014,000
4. Cornel Andrew Cimpan - 3,691,000
5. Soheil Shamseddin - 2,954,000
6. Matt "Allinat420" Stout - 1,579,000

I'm going to avoid recapping a lot of hands right now until the tournament is over, especially ones that never went to showdown, for obvious reasons.

I will say that I played the biggest pot of the entire tournament all in preflop with A♠ A♦ against Tommy Dobrilovic's K♠ K♣ and Soheil Shamseddin's 9♠ 9♥. I will also say that had I won that ~2.7 million chip pot, I'd have had nearly 4 million of the ~10.6 million in play.

But I took that hand in stride, and was glad to still be alive since I was the chip leader when that hand occured. I was left with ~1.1 million and made a comeback from there. I've worked really hard and played some of the best poker I've played in my life for five straight days.

No matter what happens I'll be happy with my effort in this tournament, but of course there's a certain ring to the term "WPT Champion"...

-- Matt Stout