4pm: the most titled of us all, Phil Hellmuth, get eliminated. 4.02 pm: elimination of the less titled of us all ... myself ... and at 4.04 pm, my table neighbour Chris "Jesus" Fergusson get the same treatment. For the moment, what I seem to have most in common with the "stars" of this tournament is a trend for early eliminations.

Coming down to fast from 3 to 1000 on 2bb at start, I wait and on the 3rd hour of play, I'm back at 4000.

Chris "Jesus" Fergusson commes to sit at my left, we're both on a 4000 stack. He's of course impressive. I carefully snip one of his blinds, frowns at me and fold. 4pm, we're at our 4th hour of play, and only half of the 1300 players remain.

Blind 100 200 I call an opening of 500, risquy call on A*7*, I look for the jump, the two next players call 2000 to the pot, flop 4*6*9, check, I carefully open 800 on the colors for ace, I can feel it ... "Jesus" folds but the devil raises 2800 ... I have no energy to start from a small stack again ... I'll either go for the 8000 or nothing, I do still have 3 aces and 9 diamonds to have a chance ... he shows TT against the board of 469JQ.

Although I was sitting right of "Jesus", my wish did not come true !

That'll make for good souvenir photos available online tomorrow (monday).