by Simon Young

No sooner had Brad put up the last past about Joe Hachem and Jeff Williams biting the dust, than I chanced upon Team PokerStars' Vanessa Rousso's table to find her down to small change. A pile of green 25 chips, and a few black 100 ones added to no more than a thousand or so. It's a pretty vulture-like job we do here, and I had to stick around since, knowing Vanessa, it would not be long before she pushed.

First hand she's on the big blind and faces a raise. Here we go, I thought, but she passed. Next hand, though, it's folded around to her small blind and she sticks the greens and blacks over the line. The man to her left had her well covered. He looks at his first card. "It's an ace," he says, "so I have to call." He flips over A-4, Vanessa has the rather depleted J-3. The board started well with a flop of 2-6-3, but the turn and river were both fives. Vanessa was out to the straight.

She leaves the arena, but her partner Chad Brown, who had a good run in this season's London EPT, is still in.

Meanwhile Patrik Antonius, he who set off like a greyhound earlier to reach more than 35,000, has fallen back to 21,000. But he's not afraid to keep making moves. On a 5-J-4 flop he raises and is check-called. The 5 turn sees a bigger bet - 1,000 - check-called again. The river is a Q and his opponent leads out this time with 1,200. Antonius, the chisel-jawed former tennis coach from Finland, showed strength by re-raising to 3,000. His opponent thought for a moment and called. Showdown - opponent A-J - Antonius 7-9 for, er, nothing. That's the beauty of his game, though, no-one really knows exactly where he's at.

Great Dane Gus Hansen continues to boss his table around, and is drawing a big crowd. At the moment, all they see is Gus stretched out in his chair chatting on his mobile phone. Another big name, Ireland's Andy Black is up to 25,000. We need not follow his table too closely, since his booming voice keeps most of the room informed of his progress.

Team PokerStars' Lee Nelson is having a quiet time of it, and is hovering around the 12,000 mark, just ahead of The Big Deal author Tony Holden, who is flying the PokerStars flag, and who has 9,000 or so.

Phil Hellmuth is also drawing a crowd. Dressed head to foot in his usual black, the "Poker Brat" is busy telling anyone who will listen that he will "trap them and take all their chips. Just like that". Well, we are waiting, but it has not happened yet. No matter, he is up to 20,000 or so and looking solid.

We are now into level 3, with blinds at 75-150, with 333 of the day's starters still in their seats.