Matusow is deep in the WPT Doyle Brunson North American Poker Classic

For once, Mike's not sitting down in front his computer taking wicked beats on Full Tilt Poker. As I write this entry, Mike's sitting as one of the chip leaders at the World Poker Tour Five Diamond World Poker Classic (though this event is called the Doyle Brunson North American Poker Classic) hosted at the Bellagio Casino (man, that's a friggin mouthful).

Folks, let's all follow the progress at Card Player and pull for Mike from the virtual rail. He's in 8th place at the moment with 490K in chips, separated from the leader by less than 200K in chips. It's worth noting that Joe Hachem and Daniel Negreanu are also in the mix in 2nd and 3rd place respectively.

Of the 583 that ponied up the cash to play in this tourney, Mike sits with a mighty stack of almost 500K. As the blinds approach 4000/8000 it's a safe bet that most of the remaining 63 players have a case of chip envy. One of the key pots that helped vault Mike to his chip position was against Chau Giang earlier today. With four limpers including Mike, Chau raised to 24K from the button. It's folded to Mike who is the only caller and on a flop of Q T 9 with two diamonds "The Mouth" fires out a 40K bet. Chau didn't think long before pushing all in and is called by Mike. Chau turns up bottom pair with a King kicker and Mike shows the Q T with two diamonds for top two pair with a flush draw. The diamond on the turn has Chau already stacking up chips to slide over to Mike. This single pot was worth around 250K according to my railbirds reporting in.

The last man (or woman as Krity Gazes and Evelyn Ng are still in it) standing among these final 63 players will walk away with almost 2.2 million dollars. Mike, let's buckle down and do this! I know you've got a fire inside just burning for a win. I'm not posting again 'till you're the chip leader so let's get it done!

You may find yourself the chip leader at the next big WPT event, you can qualify for WPT events right here online.