Alex Kravchenko open shoves from the small blind and Jerry Yang thinks for a moment before Kravchenko starts to speak. Yang immediately makes the call and Kravchenko shows A T while Yang has J T and is dominated…not that that’s harmed him before.

The crowd chants "Sasha, Sasha," as the players await their fates, and the flop comes 8 5 3, helping neither player. The turn card is the 8 and Yang needs to hit a jack to send Kravchenko packing. The river card is the 2 and the Russian has doubled through Yang to stay alive in this tournament.

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Interview with Lee Childs, 7th Place Finisher

So you've had about an hour now to let it all sink in. So what are you feeling now?

Oh I feel great. I mean this is a tremendous accomplishment. My buddy mentioned to me earlier that Doyle Brunson had said that the day you bust out from the Main Event is the worst day for a poker player - and maybe for someone like Doyle and these guys who've done this for years and years and years. They just really believe that they're gonna win it. But I didn't come into this playing it like I was gonna win it. But as you saw, I did get my money in good and the guy had a three-outer. But I feel fantastic and very fortunate to be here. All my family and friends are here.

You said you left your job to come do this.

Well I was actually leaving my job just to take a couple of months off. I wanted to dedicate more time to poker, and just to study more. I was working as a vice president of applications for a division of National Geographic called the Jason Project. It was originally founded by Bob Ballard - the guy who found the Titanic. It's a great middle-school education science program. I got to the point where I felt like I needed some time off.

I had a little extra cushion from a couple of online wins that gave my wife and I time to take these couple of months, and after months of talking about it we just felt it was time to do it. So we did it, came out here for a couple of weeks. After a couple of preliminiary events didn't do anything didn't cash, and then right before we left my dad bought me in to the Main Event - so we came back two weeks later, and here we are!

So does he get a cut of it?

Absolutely.

I saw you lay down the queens. What made you do that?

You know, he could really have anything there. For him to re-raise me when I've raised under the gun, he's telling aces, kings, or ace-king. If he's playing sound, logical poker. I wanted to see a flop, see if I catch the queen, see if there's something I could get away from. When it came out the three low cards, I had to fire the bet, figure out where I was. Don't think i really figured out where I was, but figured he either had a good hand, or had a really big draw. He coulda had A K, he could have had aces, kings, or nothing.

I think he coulda had jacks as well. It's gonna be really interesting to see - Alex [Kravchenko] and I actually have a side bet on that. So we'll see what it was, whether it was a good laydown or not. Several of the top pros have said they think it was a really good laydown. For him to move all-in that quickly.

We've battled a lot and he's shown some suspect hands, so I'm not really sure. But he's got the chips to do it with now.

Seems like you have a pretty good read. On the last hand you called with K-J over J-8 - and he turned an eight. What was going on with you at that point?

Yeah, it was tough. He did turn the eight and that was tough. K-J is not something you wanna call all your chips with. But I just had a strong feeling that time that that was the best hand. And I thought he was putting a move on - and he was. When the spades didn't hit - you know, I had him dominated to begin with. And unluckily, he caught that eight. It's the way it goes sometimes.

I've been fortunate enough to get this far. That was actually the first time I've been all-in the entire tournament and had my chips at risk. And the first time that I've been in a big pot. Actually I was only behind one time in a huge pot and that's the first time that I had all my chips at risk. And I got my money in good and he just - he got lucky. Just the way the game goes.

True. Thank you very much.

You're welcome.