Final Table Info

I have a few hours to kill before we start our final table at 4:00. I am pretty pumped about playing very well yesterday and dodging a few bullets when I could have gone broke. There is one hand in particular yesterday that I feel is one of the best hands I have played in quite sometime. It happened at the 300/600 level when we were down to 13 or 14 people left. I was in the SB for 300 chips and two players in middle position limped in for 600. Limping is usually uncommon at this stage in the tourney but at our table it seemed to be happening quite a bit. I look down at my hand and see 96 of spades and decide to call and try to hit a big flop. The BB is a very good young player who is from Michigan and plays quite a few live tournaments. He also checks his option and we see a flop 4 handed. The flop is beautiful; 8 of spades, 5 of spades, and the 4 of hearts, so I flopped a flush draw and a gut shot straight draw meaning that I have a lot of outs to hit a big hand. I decide to check instead of betting into the field so that I can see what the other players will do. It checks around and we see a free turn with 2,400 chips in the pot. The turn is a BEAUTIFUL Jack of spades giving me the flush. I decide that the best way to play this hand will be to bet it out and hopefully one of the limpers will raise me with a hand like AJ or KJ. I bet 1,800 chips and the young player in the BB calls the bet, the two limpers fold. This call kind of confuses me because I don't think he is the type of player who will call that bet with the Ace of spades, so I kind of put him on a hand like AJ with the ace of spades or the A of spades and another pair. So the dealer burns the last card and puts out a beautiful Ace of Diamonds on the river. This is my PERFECT card because it may have given him two pair and also looks like it would be a card that scares me, so if I check the river he may bluff at the pot. I do a Oscar nominated acting job and finally check it to him. I really want him to bet the end here and I don't think he could possibly check behind me in this spot. He ponders for a while and then bets 4,000 chips, which is not as large as the pot and only leaves him 4,500 more behind him. UGHHHHH.... That is not what I wanted because a bet like this is rarely a bluff, if he was bluffing he would have bet the pot. I now am pretty sure he either made two pair on the river, or also turned a flush. I study him for a little bit and and he looks way to calm to be bluffing. This is not a situation where I can fold unless I was sure he had the flush, so I start talking to him and tell him I am either thinking of raising or calling, he doesn't give me any information and I finally decide to just call the 4,000 chips. The call only leaves me with 5,000 chips left and he flips over K7 of spades for the 2nd nut flush. I lost a very big pot, but I feel like I lost the absolute minimum that I could have on that hand. After I showed him my 9 high flush he said that I played the hand very, very well and he thought that most all other players would have gone broke on that hand. It was a very good compliment from a very good player. After that hand I went on a rush and raised 4 of the next 5 pots, doubling up once and building my stack up to 19,000 when we finally got down to the final nine players. Here is what the final table looks like:

Scott Clements: Seattle, WA 36,400 chips
Dean Hamrick: East Lansing, MI 35,200
David Anderson: Seward, NE 19,000
Hans "Tuna" Lund: Dayton, NV 17,900
Dennis Ferreria: San Jose, CA 16,400
Daniel Klein: Sacramento, CA 13,000
Jon Perez: Concord, CA 11,100
Aaron Faulkner: Cordova, CA 6,200
Les Spear: Zephyr Cove, NV 4,900

Hans "Tuna" Lund is the most experienced player at the table. He made TWO final tables at the Main Event of the WSOP in the 1980's. The other player I'm worried about is Dean Hamrick who won the big pot off of me with flush over flush earlier. I feel very confident going into the final nine and will be disappointed if I don't win. I'll update soon after the Final Table is over.