I finally saw where the hand histories are kept in Pacific Poker. Y'see, there's a little bar at the bottom of the lobby page titled "Hand Histories". When you click that, you get a splashy, graphically intense page broken out by game and type. When you finally make your choice, the history is presented in reverse hand order with your bust-out (or winning) hand first. You can see your hole cards, the board, the amount you bet, the amount (if any) you won, and your running chip total. You can click on a little movie camera icon to see the hand played out. Sounds cool, doesn't it? Well, it ain't.

1. You have to be running Pacific Poker. Tough when you're blogging from work or are using a work computer to download the client.
2. It's painfully graphical, meaning you actually SEE the cards in all their colorful glory. If your boss happens by, well, I hope your 401K is well funded.
3. You have to pull up the gameplay one hand at a time rather than seeing the entire history in one fell swoop.
4. There's no easy way to condense the play for analysis or discussion (cut/paste) since it's graphical rather than text-based.

All that being said, I'm up $120 for my time there. I placed 3rd in a 20-seat $16 last night for a plus $46. I didn't do anything spectacular and much of my success is due to simply making it to the final table, and being seated behind the big bully of a chip leader. He was stealing blinds left and right, and made it really easy for me to fold my borderline trap hands. If he raised when I had a good hand, I would simply call and hope I hit the flop. If I hit, I could let him lead out and take him down for a decent pot. If not, I could bail right behind his big bet with very little harm done. He was stealing enough blinds to bankroll his bully strategy, and the other stacks dwindled fast. If I had a good hand and he folded preflop, I would raise it up and get some chasers who were sick of being bullied by the big stack. This worked really well for me, and to use a racing term, I "drafted" him to get to the final three. Me and the other stack were close to even with about 3K-4K vs. the 8K-10K of the big stack for a few orbits. I ended up pushing back on what I thought was a blind steal with AQ. This time, he had KK and flopped a K to put me out.

Everyone else is coming up with predictions for the Monty, so I go ahead and post mine.

1st - Otis. If a horse wins two legs of the Triple Crown, would you bet against him in the Breeders' Cup? I don't think so.

2nd - One of the readers. Everyone seems to be picking bloggers for the top five. I think one of the readers will be a ringer, and will step to the cash window.

3rd - PokerGenius. Seriously, how can you not pick a genius?! And a Poker Genius to boot! Plus, he's a buddhahead. And you know those Asians do nothing but play cards...

4th - (tie) Sean and Iggy. Once we get to the final five, Sean and Iggy will go all-in with AK facing QQ and lose to a reader who hits a straight after a KQ9 flop.

All I'm trying to do is make it to the first break. If I'm knocked out first, I'll be embarrassed... if I'm knocked out early, I'll be miffed... if I make top half, I'll be content... top quarter, I'll be happy... top ten, I'll be shocked. See ya Sunday!