Ever since entering his first WSOP tournament back in 2001, Neil Channing has been an avid member of the annual hunt for bracelet-gold. He's come close several times, but that elusive win has thus far evaded him.
Tomorrow he could achieve his goal.
With just 20 players remaining in event #43's $1,500 No Limit Hold'em, Neil sits in third place with 1,319,200, and just a couple of big blinds behind overnight chip leader Zach Ford.
Having already survived over 99% of the 2,770-strong field, Neil is in a great position to make the final table and adorn his wrist with poker's most illustrious prize - not to mention the $654,380 first prize.
"Transporting your whole life over here is quite a big chunk of my year," commented Neil in a recent interview. "If it was just about money, it would be better to just find a nice cash game at home and sit all day long in that and never bother travelling... But the bracelet, it matters."
Neil's journey to Day 3 was relatively smooth with few obstacles encountered along the way. At the end of Day 2, he held a credible 57,100 in chips, but quickly increased his stack when battle recommenced.
As the day progressed, he shot into the chip lead when his A-A held against A-K, before remaining in the top three by eliminating German pro Julian Herold with queens versus sixes.
At one point, he tweeted: "I have about 1.5m. If I saw a geezer with my stack I wouldn't be in a rush to 3-bet him with no hand, but luckily everyone is different."
Nevertheless, Neil stood firm and now heads into the final day with 19 others, including former bracelet winner James Mackey and online phenom Randy 'Nanonoko' Lew. Blinds will be 8,000 and 1,600 with a running ante of 2,000 and 623,250 average stack.
"The cards definitely helped me," added the 2008 Irish Open Champion," but it's always good to prove an idiot can do well in these things. It helps boost the numbers. I also really needed something to put in my next blog."
Other Brits who cashed were Najib Kammand, Sadan Turker, Ash Mason and Paul Foltyn, as well as Black Belt Sam Razavi who finished in 108th for $4,113. This was Sam's third cash of the Series from just four attempts, including a recent 33rd place finish in event #39 for $14,094.
In other news, Warren Wooldridge was unable to replicate his third place finish from last year when he bubbled the same event this time around. Event #44 attracted 2,949 hopefuls, but Warren fell inches short of the money when his jacks failed to unravel queens - to the chagrin of this week's 'Slice of the Action' winners.
Meanwhile, Richard Ashby has made it through to the second day of the $50,000 Poker Players' Championship. Whilst this doesn't say too much when every single one of the 104 entrants followed suit, he does carry over an inflated stack of 195,400 into today's proceedings.
Finally, congratulations to Blue Belt Jamie Burland who last night qualified for the Irish Winter Festival, just days before heading out to Vegas.
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