Two players who have experienced mixed fortunes in the field today are PokerStars players Darus Suharto and Jason Glass. Darus Suharto, who lost a few hundred thousand late last night returned today with 1 million and now sits with 1.6 million. Understandably he’s upbeat, although he's still some way off the 2.4 million average but up on the day.

“I’m feeling okay. The blinds are still low so it should be okay, still a lot of play. Yesterday was tough. I started with 1.4 and ended the day on one million. It was really rough. I didn’t get any cards or anything. But today started really good, and I busted a person.

Like most players here Darus has home town railbirds if not many among the crowds here.

“My family and friends and all my buddies keep texting, emailing and calling me, how you doing, they offer a lot of support for me.

Darus Suharto

So with this upward momentum and the final table literally hours away, would a bit payday be a job-quitting haul?

“Don’t ask me if I would quit my job!” he laughed. “Nine million is a lot of money. I’m not sure I quit my job, I love my job. I’m an accountant with very good pay! I’m not sure. I’ll see when I get there!”

Also on an upswing, albeit a milder version, is PokerStars player Jason Glass who began with 629K but has steadily climbed a few rungs of the ladder to 750,000.

Jason is an online cash game pro from Illinois and mainly plays tournaments for fun. That said, he’s already played 15 events at this year’s WSOP, not cashing in any of them until now – hardly the stuff fun is made of. He’s had some bad luck along the way in this year’s main event, big hands not paying off and an aces hand against... aces.

But he’s already bettered his performance in last year's main event by some way, a feat that is possibly down to his “lucky jeans”. Back then he came 318th for a $39,445 payout and now, although in the region known as short-stacked, he’s still hanging on and is guaranteed at least a $135,100 payday, which is keeping his friends on the rail in fine spirits.

Stop press: Did we mention the "lucky jeans"? Jason just doubled up to close to one million chips.