July 2008 Archives

PokerStars has upped the guarantees on most of its guaranteed tournaments. Overall, the site is now hosting 483 guaranteed prize pool tournaments per week, up from 199 just last week. The overall guaranteed prize pool? That’s going up by quite a bit as well, from approximately $7.5 million to more than $13 million.

Starting this Sunday, the PokerStars Sunday Million will now have a $1.5 million guaranteed prize pool. That’s not just a one-week promotion. That’s the way it’s going to be all the time.

The Sunday Million is not the only big tournament getting a boost. Also starting this Sunday, the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up will see its $500,000 guarantee increased to $750,000. The Super Tuesday, held each Tuesday night at 19:55 ET, is changing from a $250,000 guarantee to a $300,000 guarantee.

Finally, if you missed the news, there is now a weekly $530 No-Limit Hold’em tournament on Sundays with a $250,000 guarantee. At the end of each month, this tournament will have a $1,050 buy-in.

So, there you have it. It’s not the kind of news you see very often, but when it happens, it’s big. The guarantee increases have already started, so go forth and get your share.

PokerStars Macau has wrapped up another Macau Cup and the results are in.

If you're not aware, PokerStars Macau opened a few months back as the first-ever live poker room in Macau. Since then, it's been home to the biggest poker play going on in China. It will also serve as host to September's Asia Pacific Poker Tour event in Macau (more about that event at the end of this post.

In the meantime, here are the results from the second Macau Cup event (all prizes HKD).

Macau Poker Cup Charity Event

1. Kim Lee from Hong Kong – Prize: APPT Macau Entry to Main Event
2. Sae Hon Lee from Korea – Prize: APPT Macau Entry to Main Event

59 participants each paid a $500 entry fee and made a $1,500 donation to Caritas de Macau. In total, $88,500 was raised for the Caritas De Macau

Deep Stack Event

1. L Devadason – Prize: $20,520
2. Manuel Chu – Prize: $14,108
3. Barry Chang – Prize: $7695
4. Philip Prause – Prize: $5130
5. Alex Low – Prize: $3847

Red Dragon Event

1. “Denny” Dengfeng Yu from China – Prize: $119,040
2. Celina Lin from Australia – Prize: $81,840
3. Ivan Tan from Singapore – Prize: $44,640
4. Jean-Philippe Buanton from USA – Prize: $29,760
5. Luke Wei – Prize: $22,320

$500 Challenge

1. Ted Fu – Prize: $6120
2. Gang Wang – Prize: $4208
3. Stephen McDonagh – Prize: $2295
4. Kin Man So – Prize: $1530
5. Dak Bong Daniel Poon – Prize: $1147

If you find yourself in Macau in the next month or so, take some time to visit the room for these events.

Asia Pacific Poker Tour Macau
September 1-6, 2008
Entry Fee: HKD 25,000
Guaranteed Prize Pool: HKD 10,000,000
Qualify at PokerStars Macau, or online at PokerStars

Saturday 100K Guarantees
Entry Fee: HKD 2500
Guaranteed Prize Pool: HKD 100,000
Every Saturday at 8:00 PM beginning August 9, 2008 at PokerStars Macau

This weekend, the Sunday tournaments on PokerStars kicked off with a certain bang we don't hear every week. The PokerStars 2X promotion turned the Sunday Warm-Up into a $1 million guarantee event with a second chance for people who busted out before the first break. The United Kingdom's richlizard walked away with the win and $114,662 after a three-way deal. Elsewhere in the UK, avkid86 cut a four-way deal in the Sunday Million and picked up $138,101 for the win (REPORT)).

That wasn't the only big news of the weekend. Team PokerStars Pro John Duthie won the $5,200 winner-take-all event (after cutting a heads-up deal). What's more, the last weekend of the month meant we saw the $1 million Turbo Takedown (REPORT) and a big Battle of the Planets Triple Shootout (REPORT).

Full Sunday Tournament results are below. Congratulations to all the winners this week.

PokerStars Sunday Million Final Table Results
Based on finishing order and four-way deal
REPORT)

1. avkid86 (United Kindom) $138,101.11
2. strahhh25 (Austria) $118,193.34
3. pokerbrat13 (Canada) $113,016.99
4. Gambooooool (Belarus) $138,077.96
5. tonijeromi (Germany) $58,590.00
6. dapoopta (United States) $41,850.00
7. Jimboski30 (Canada) $29,295.00
8. gio_piso (Ireland) $19,251.00
9. DonC33 (United Kindom) $11,718.00

PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up Final Table Results
Based on finishing order and three-way deal

1. richlizard (United Kindom) $114,662.37
2. ShowM4n (Germany) $120,409.59
3. LION8HART (United States) $78,356.64
4. Bumbulbee_G (United Kindom) $56,170.00
5. nederen_dk (Denmark) $44,936.00
6. Bozz814 (United States) $33,702.00
7. LukeLasko (Poland) $22,468.00
8. hoyd78 ( Norway) $14,042.50
9. mnkyman (United States) $9,099.54

PokerStars Sunday Hundred Grand Final Table Results

1. bdubs3737 (United States) $23,960.00
2. joeybech (Denmark) $16,772.00
3. Broberti (Netherlands) $11,980.00
4. freewilly777 (Denmark) $9,584.00
5. DRAYMOND2322 (United States) $7,188.00
6. Zimmy41 (United States) $4,792.00
7. WILDWOOLLEY (United States) $3,594.00
8. jpjona (Canada) $2,396.00
9. trenaman (United States) $1,797.00

PokerStars $215 Weekly PL Omaha Final Table Results

1. bd3109 (United States) $5,566.00 l
2. Tulkaz (Denmark) $3,872.00
3. Dhess (United States) $2,940.30
4. Elliestar (United Kindom) $2,178.00
5. zaphrail (Belarus) $1,452.00
6. atlanticNJ (Spain) $1,210.00
7. cliff47 (Sweden) $968.00
8. loooser17 (Israel) $726.00
9. TavNasty1 (United States) $605.00

PokerStars $215 PL Omaha Hi/Lo Final Table Results

1. simmsux (United States) $7,038.00
2. rose17 (Australia) $4,896.00
3. MrCasino (United States) $3,717.90
4. FishList_net (United States) $2,754.00
5. squashnut (United States) $1,836.00
6. Exit4afilm2 (United Kindom) $1,530.00
7. golferjon123 (United States) $1,224.00
8. NDTour (United States) $918.00
9. gaffel (Norway) $765.00

PokerStars $215 FL Omaha Hi/Lo Final Table Results

1. PTHETRUTHD (United States) $7,735.00
2. RBC* (United States) $5,642.00
3.. gaffel (Norway) $4,277.00
4. IFiNishfish (Finland) $3,276.00
5. Miklan300 (United States) $2,184.00
6. YoHon PD (United States) $1,820.00
7. schaddy (United States) $1,456.00
8. shaundeeb (United States) $1,092.00
9. Zacpacker (Canada) $728.00

PokerStars $215 Weekly FL Hold'em Final Table Results

1. jugment (Netherlands) $4,860.00
2. FoldingSuks (United States) $3,240.00
3. captn fracas (France) $1,944.00
4. acavs (United States) $1,620.00
5. THC1212 (United States) $1,296.00
6. nasud 11 (Czech Republic0 $1,053.00
7. Purki67 (Germany) $891.00
8. pooli (Canada) $729.00
9. ImaLuckSac (United States) $567.00

PokerStars $215 Weekly Stud Hi/Lo Final Table Results

1. Goral (Poland0 $2,880.00
2. A1Kingbee (United States) $1,920.00
3. Pyas (Sweden) $1,344.00
4. Philster (United States) $960.00
5. WB123456789 (United States) $768.00
6. TerpGirl (United States) $672.00
7. gaffel (Norway) $576.00
8. espodans (Denmark) $480.00

PokerStars $215 Weekly HORSE Final Table Results

1. Seb86 (France) $12,500.00
2. zenman (United States) $7,950.00
3. TorontoToro (Canada) $5,625.00
4. CONNIEC (United States) $4,000.00
5. OnlyPlayRagz (United States) $3,100.00
6. LaurenMarie (United States) $2,250.00
7. folderquick (United States) $1,725.00
8. shipitdotcom (United States) $1,250.00

PokerStars Sunday Second Chance Final Table Results
Based on finishing order and three-way deal

1. junior4718 (United States) $41,264.56
2. AlBrvs4Life (United States) $46,597.72
3. MrteddyKGB (United States) $41,205.72
4. DenverSports (United States) $22,960.00
5. carmenomar (United States) $16,400.00
6. toddinhu (Brazil) $13,120.00
7. jvtilt (United States) $9,840.00
8. joejackson06 (United States) $6,560.00
9. paze1 (United States) $4,592.00

PokerStars Sunday $5,200 Results
Based on finishing order and two-way deal

1. John Duthie (United Kindom) $49,000.00
2. venetianshow (United States) $11,000.00

PokerStars $215+R NLHE Final Table Results

1. poker_lord76 (New Zealand) $56,540.00
2. JohnnyBax (United States) $38,807.00
3. ale3560 (Brazil) $26,471.00
4. SNo0oWMAN (United States) $20,560.00
5. agriffrod (United States) $15,420.00
6. s00tedj0kers (United States) $12,079.00
7. NestOfSalt (United States) $9,252.00
8. GRinDer444 (United States) $6,682.00
9. toetagU (United States) $4,112.00

PokerStars $1 Million Turbo Takedown Final Table Results
REPORT

1. riffery (Netherlands) $100,000.00
2. nsewell4 (United States) $60,000.00
3. kipa58 (Latvia) $40,000.00
4. papa333 (United States) $32,500.00
5. jitterbug777 (United States) $25,000.00
6. Badboy Orrie (Netherlands) $20,000.00
7. HipsterDufes (Canada) $15,000.00
8. gambler2k4 (United States) $10,000.00
9. roybaauw (Netherlands) $5,500.00

8,370 players ponied up $215 to take part in the biggest weekly tournament in poker – the PokerStars Sunday Million. 1,260 players took home a piece of the $1,674,000 prize pool, with avkid86 taking down a first prize of $138,101.00 after the final four players made a chip count chop. After nine and a half grueling hours of poker, Jimboski30 took the chip lead into the final table, with a slight lead over his opponents. The first 30 minutes of final table play was almost tentative, as the players took their time feeling out their opponents.

After a break, the field started to thin rapidly, as two players went out in the first four hands back from break. In the first, Gambooooool raised preflop with Ad-Qd, and DonC33 re-raised all in with Ac-Kh. Gambooooool made the call, and hit the flop hard when the board ran out Qc-9c-As-4s-Ah. Gambooooool flopped top two and rivered a full house to send DonC33 home in 9th place – a respectable $11,718.00 payday.

Just two hands later, gio_piso open-shoved with Jd-10d and found one caller in Jimboski30, who tabled Ks-6s. The board missed both players as it ran out 3s-5c-3h-Qc-8s, and Jimboski30’s King played to send gio_piso home in 8th place with $19,251.00 for consolation.

Jimboski30 found himself on the short stack after losing a big hand to pokerbrat13, and he jammed the last of his chips in the middle preflop with 9h-10c. Strahhh25 called with As-2c, and picked up a deuce on the 8s-6s-2d flop. The 8c on the turn gave strahhh25 two pair, and the 3d on the river sealed jimboski30’s fate. He headed home in 7th place, earning $29,295.00 for his day’s work.

As the blinds and antes skyrocketed, the field continued to thin. With the big blind at 1 million, dapoopta moved all in preflop with pocket deuces. Avkid86 made the call with As-10h, and we were off to the races. Maybe sprint would be a better term, because the Ah on the flop made for a short-lived race. Avkid86 made aces up to send dapoopta home in 6th place, good for $41,850.00.

Tonijeromi’s second Sunday Million final table ended a bit shorter than the last time, as he busted in 5th place for $58,590.00. Tonijeromi shoved all in preflop with Ks-10s and found himself racing against Gambooooool’s pocket threes. The flop of Jh-3h-Qd put a quick end to the race, as Gambooooool picked up a set and left tonijeromi looking for an Ace or a 9 for the straight. The Jc on the river gave Gambooooool a full house instead, and tonijeromi was done.

When the field reached the final four, a deal was struck among the remaining players based on chip counts, and each of the remaining players locked up a $100,000+ win for themselves. Based on chip counts at the time of the deal, the payouts were –

Avkid86 - $108,101.00
Gambooooool - $113,016.00
Strahhh25 - $118,193.00
Pokerbrat13 - $138,077.00

The deal left $30,000 to play for, and the final four settled in for a final showdown.

Gambooooool was the first to fall when he and strahhh25 tangled one last time. Strahhh25 raised in early position and Gambooooool re-raised. Strahhh25 three-bet all in, and Gambooooool called with Kd-Qc. Strahhh25 showed Ad-Ks, and nothing unexpected happened on the board of 5d-Js-3c-9h-4h. Gambooooool fell short of the extra $30,000, but still picked up $113,016.00 for 4th place.

Pokerbrat13 locked up first place money in the chip count chop, but back-to-back big hands with avkid86 left him out in third place. In the first hand, avkid86’s As-7c outran pokerbrat13’s Kh-Qs on a board of 8c-6d-6h-7s-Js. Then the last of his chips went in on the next hand with 5s-7c, only to run into avkid86 again, this time holding As-8d. The flop hit both players, coming down 8s-4s-10c. Avkid86 made top pair, top kicker while pokerbrat13 picked up an inside straight draw. No help for pokerbrat13 on later streets, though. The turn and river came down Kings, and pokerbrat13 headed to the rail with $138,077 as a result of a chop.

Heads-up play was quick but tumultuous, with several chip lead changes in the dozen or so final hands between avkid86 and strahhh25. Finally, after a huge pot worth over 77 million chips, strahhh25 moved all in preflop with Qc-7h. Avkid86 made the call with Kc-5s, and then saw a dream flop of Ks-3s-5d. Strahhh25 was way behind, and was drawing dead on the 9h turn. A meaningless 3d came on the river, and strahhh25 was done in 2nd place, picking up $113,016.00 along the way.

Avkid86 came from last in chip when the chop was determined to nab the extra $30,000 for the champion. That made his final total $138,101.00 for almost 11 hours of tournament poker. Congrats to all the 1,260 players who cashed, and especially our champion avkid86!

With everyone showing up to the final table with more then 20 big blinds and a slow structure this is sure to be a lengthy battle for an incredible prize pool that is completely funded by Frequent Players Points (FPPs). Only grinding out those FPPs on the cash, sit and go, and multi-table tournaments will get you into this massive event. 11,962 either bought in with the 5,000 FPP entry fee or managed to weave thru the many satellites that are offered daily to reach this event that paid out in 4,000 places with $100,000 going to our winner tonight. A tough hand of KK vs. AA for sjemmy from Rotterdam and our final table of nine was set.

Seat 1: riffery (4893590 in chips)
Seat 2: HipsterDufes (1801996 in chips)
Seat 3: kipa58 (5752600 in chips)
Seat 4: roybaauw (4932239 in chips)
Seat 5: nsewell4 (7700895 in chips)
Seat 6: gambler2k4 (2240724 in chips)
Seat 7: jitterbug777 (1868552 in chips)
Seat 8: Badboy Orrie (3107026 in chips)
Seat 9: papa333 (3588378 in chips)

Riffery made the first big move of the final table after tabling pocket Kings to dominate nsewell4’s AKo. After a board of blandness, riffery’s newly acquired nine million chip stack was good enough for a solid lead over second place kipa58 early in the final table with blinds at $50,000/$100,000 ante $10,000. Almost like watching a well oiled hockey power play, the disks of money were moving swiftly across the felt for nearly the first hour of the final table the chips merely shifted from side to side as riffery’s stack was depleted a little, then roybaauw who got several chips from riffery placed those newly acquired chips in the stack of gambler2K4 and HipsterDufes on back-to-back all ins preflop.

Sometimes the best hand pre-flop does win but takes a little while longer to get there. Riffery’s under the gun raise was called by roybaauw while everyone else got out of the way. A flop of Qd 3s 6s got riffery to check to roybaauw who calmly put out a $600,000 chip bet leaving $2.8 million behind. Aggressive the entire final table riffery answered with all-in shove for his chip leading stack of $7.4 million. But, roybaauw saw thru the huge check raise and found his QcJs well ahead of riffery’s AcJc. The seven of diamonds on the turn left just three cards to dodge, but roybaauw’s agility to dance around those outs on the river wasn’t good enough as the Ace of the diamonds spiked and added to riffery’s chip lead. $5,500.00 for FPPs is points well-spent by our ninth place finisher roybaauw.

Gambler2K4 was slowly acquiring chips in the first hour as he called raise from kipa58 with KcQc. The 2s Kd 7s flop found no one’s attention as they both checked. The Queen of spades on the turn gave Gambler2K4 top two pair, and when kipa58 checked to him a $400,000 bet went into the middle. Kipa58 answered with a check-raise all-in which gambler2K4 quickly called only to see the one-outer on the turn hit for kipa58’s pocket queens. Still alive with two kings left in the deck, gambler2K4 watched the four of diamonds fall and left us with ten grand in his bankroll for poker, craps, roulette, or whatever gambler2K4 chooses to make his next wager on while finishing in eighth place.

The massive stacks of kipa58 and riffery pushed the other players to jockey for position among themselves. HipsterDufes tried to breach the solid wall of chips having riffery on his right and kipa58 on his left by push his remaining $1.8 million in chip with blinds at $80,000/$160,000 ante $16,000 into kipa58’s big blind. HipsterDufes’ Kh9h wasn’t thrilled to see the call sign flashing as kipa58 turned over pocket threes for a race. Two hearts on the flops looked great, but a closer look told a sad tale as the three of hearts gave kipa58 a set of threes and a commanding lead. No flush filled on the turn and river and HipsterDufes will have an extra $15,000 in seventh place to keep up with the latest fashion trends.

Out of the shorter stacks nsewell4 has made the biggest moves to challenge the big stacked players to his right. His efforts were helped after racing pocket Tens versus the all-in from Badboy Orrie (Boston Bruins fan in the Netherlands perhaps?) who held AKo. A coordinated flop of 6s 7h 8d helped no one, two of spades on the turn had nsewell4 looking further up the pay scale, and the Queen of clubs on the river sent Mr. Orr flying to the ice but alas no goal this time as in a highlight reel shot shown time and time again on Sportscenter. Badboy Orrie gets $20,000 for his efforts in sixth place tonight.

Dancing is not a forte of mine, but Jitterbug777 literally tap danced his up the pay ladder with steals and catching a few double ups with his short stack. All songs end eventually and the sweet footed Jitterbug777 had to face the music with big slick versus kipa58’s pocket twos all-in pre flop with his remaining $1.5 million in chips and blinds at $90,000/$180,000 ante $18,000. With a board of 9c Js Jh Qs, Jitterbug had several outs to counterfeit kipa58’s deuces but the 3d hit the river and his great short stack play earned him $25,000 in fifth place.

With less then ten big blinds papa333 found Ah6h in the small blind pushing his remaining $938,396 in chips with only riffery standing in his way of gathering some much needed chips pre-flop. But, the cagey riffery held pocket fours to make the easy call. Much like the previous bust-out hand the pocket pair withheld a minefield of outs as 5h 3h 8s was laid out on the flop. But, papa333 could not find any help to give the kids in his hand on the turn and river. $32,500 in fourth place money is good for a year or two of college for papa333’s kids at home, depending on the new dorm room costs of course.

Then the two big stacks became one. Several preflop raising wars broke out during three handed play with kipa58 coming over the top of riffery and visa versa. Finally riffery decided to stand up to the other chip bully and they played the biggest pot of the tournament after some preflop betting and all the money into the pot on the turn of 7c 8d 7d Th

Riffery: Qs Qc
Kipa58: Kh Td

Riffery dodged the trips and two pair outs on the river and banked the massive $21 million chip pot. Later they would tangle again, but this time the money went in preflop as kipa58 shoved his remaining $6.4 million in chips holding AJo and riffery made the call with pocket tens. It’s the night for pocket pairs as riffery’s hand held up and he would take a 6:1 chip advantage into heads-up play against nsewell4. The third place finisher, kipa58, will enjoy $40,000 for his play tonight.

With blinds at $150,000/$300,000 ante $30,000 nsewell4 managed to double up off riffery and chopped his large chip lead down to 2.5:1 but riffery’s constant button raises and re-raises have made this heads-up battle seemingly one-sided. One stretch saw the chip leader take down nearly ten hands in a row with only two of those even seeing a flop. Riffery’s aggression would gain all the chips lost during the double up, and then some while expanding his lead to a 10:1 margin.

Nsewell4 was down to his last $3 million in chips while finding big slick all ready to do battle as he shoved his remaining chips against riffery’s big blind. Riffery called with KsQc but the huge chip lead could take the wound. First aid was not needed as the flop showed 6s Qd Th turning nsewell4 into the player needing three outs. The inside broadway straight never filled and Nsewell4 will receive a sizable $60,000 as a consolation prize. Showing once again that aggression wins tournaments, riffery goes to valuetown and receives $100,000 for his PokerStars Million Dollar Turbo Takedown win!

PokerStars $1 Million Turbo Takedown Final Table Results

1. riffery (Netherlands) $100,000.00
2. nsewell4 (United States) $60,000.00
3. kipa58 (Latvia) $40,000.00
4. papa333 (United States) $32,500.00
5. jitterbug777 (United States) $25,000.00
6. Badboy Orrie (Netherlands) $20,000.00
7. HipsterDufes (Canada) $15,000.00
8. gambler2k4 (United States) $10,000.00
9. roybaauw (Netherlands) $5,500.00

PokerSavage1 and prezado are currently on a break to decide the final seat in PokerStars’ Battle of the Planets monthly Sit and Go tournament triple shootout freeroll. After a short break the final seat of the triple shootout was filled. Perzado made the final table with a couple of tough hands of two pair versus a flush and a straight against PokerSavage1 and ended the round of 81 with an AQo versus ATo battle. If you are new to this promotion kindly checkout the leaderboard on the PokerStars website for information on how to gain points and possibly sit at the final table next month with a shot at $25,000!

Here’s how our final table stacked up this week, as the winners of two tables to reach here are going home with no less then $1,550.00:

Alkaatch (Neptune)
Domerboy
Dutch-nOOb
JohanEll
Landsoflore7 (Venus)
Martin-king
Pebah
Windysufan (Mars)
Prezado (Neptune)

Chopping up the final table money was thrown back and forth across the table for the first thirty minutes, and after some negotiations that would rival international treaties being drawn up at the United Nations headquarters, the players decided to reward themselves with $6,000 a piece. Being the Sit and Go kings they are, tonight we are playing for 50%-30%-20% of the remaining $17,920 prize pool for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd which mirror the normal payouts for a nine player SnG.

1st = $8960.00
2nd = $5376.00
3rd = $3584.00

Still a lot of money on the table for these folks but we will see if the guaranteed $6,000 will have an effect on the speed of play. At least three orbits went by after the deal was struck and still our original nine have chips to battle with. No clear cut chip leader has emerged but windysufan has been the short stack for the majority of this final table.

Dutch-nOOb certainly did not play to his namesake as he was one of the more aggressive players who clamped down on any preflop limping with timely raises but sadly exited first today. With blinds at $50/$100 and an opening pre-flop min-raise coming out of dutch-nOOb’s stack, landsoflore7 came over the top holding an unsuited big slick. Dutch-nOOb made the call with the remainder of his $1,300 stack with pocket tens. Two pair on the flop of Ah 2c Kd, left dutch-nOOb shaking his luckbox icon for all its worth, but blanks on the turn and river left him in ninth place.

Landsoflore7 was not done gathering chips as just four hands later his pocket Queens saw yet another race begin preflop, except this time he was facing the unsuited big slick of JohanEll. Little cards tapped the across the board, and a Jack on the river sent landsoflore7 up the chip ladder to a significant lead and sent JohanEll in eighth place with the chopped $6,000.

With the tight play at the beginning, the next dozen hands at the $75/$150 blind levels were a plethora of all-in aggression and bust outs. The short stacks of windysufan and alkaatch decided to all their battling pre-flop and in the blinds, both holding decent heads-up hands for short stacks. Alkaatch was in great shape to double up and knock out the resilient windysufan when his Ad9c dominated windysufan’s Kc9s. The 4s 5s 7h flop looked safe enough and only a runner-runner straight, flush, or a King would help out windysufan’s hand. The King of diamonds on the turn turned the tide and blank on the river left alkaatch with just 160 chips which were donated on the next hand with an unimproved hammer (that’s seven-deuce offsuit) versus domerboy’s QTo that paired the turn and left alkaatch in seventh place.

Pebah did not give up despite the rising blinds for everyone, and made a great play for the blinds while left with just $1,050 in checks and the blinds at $75/$150 with a middle connecting hand of 7s8c. But windysufan has been riding the wave as he called with Ac6d leaving just $230 behind. The flop made no connections, the turn gave no answers, and the river hung up the phone on pebah’s Battle of the Planets run. Windysufan’s Ace high got him one step closer to the extra chopped cash and left pebah out in sixth place.

As in any SnG once the blinds get high so does the speed of the bust outs as prezado and martin-king were left with just a few big blinds they shoved their hands in preflop looking for a little light in a dark tournament place. Unfortunately, they both ran into dominated hands preflop, prezado took his A5o up against windysufan’s ATo and after the river ten appeared with no straights, flushes, or trips for prezado, he exited in fifth place just short of the extra pay scale. Martin-king made the right decision and pressed his chips for all they were worth from the small blind with only 926 chips left and blinds at $125/$250 Ante $25 but domerboy in the big blind found a call and saw his K7o well ahead of martin-king’s 74o after no love on the flop, and turn, the big King on the river cemented our final three players to play for the remaining prize pool.

In an amazing turn of events, the heads-up play began with the former long term short stack windysufan in the lead over domerboy. Landsoflore7 played a great aggressive game with his chip lead but winning coin flips is essential to every tournament win and his final hand was a classic race of his AKo versus domerboy’s pocket Jacks. As I already gave away the ending of the race in the first sentence, landsoflore7 took home the chopped $6,000 plus 3rd place money of $3,584!

With a couple of pushes, Domerboy stole the heads-up lead from windysufan and pressed continuously with raises and re-raises preflop while taking a 5:1 chip lead with blinds at $150/$300 ante $25 and leaving windysufan with under ten big blinds in his stack. But, windysufan caught domerboy with a well-placed trap after turning a straight, domerboy complied by diving into the net turning the game into an even-up affair after a few more blind steals by windysufan.

$1,470 was the chip lead windysufan held over domerboy as the game turning hand began with domerboy limping from the button and windysufan checking his option. 8c 8h 6d on the flop got domerboy to lead out for $600 and a quick flat call by windysufan. The ten of hearts on the turn got domerboy to lead out for $900 and was met by a quick all-in from windysufan. Flopped trips for windysufan was a yet another trap laid by the Syracuse University fan holding 8s4h, but domerboy caught up on the turn as he quickly called with TdTc for the turned boat which avoided the one-outer on the river for a dominating 12,030 to 1,470 chip lead.

Two hands later both players got their remaining chips into the pot:

Domerboy: AsQs
Windysufan: 5dQh

Domerboy’s preflop advantage was never questioned, never in danger, and finally gave him the biggest slice of the chopped pie as he was awarded $6,000 plus $8,960 while becoming this month’s Battle of the Planets champion! Windysufan made the most of his cards and perseverance in rallying from a huge chip deficit at the beginning of the final table and was rewarded with an extra $5,376 for second place on top of the $6,000 all the final table players received. Congrats to all of all winners today, and be sure to start your qualifying runs for next month’s Battle of the Planets competition tomorrow!

July Battle of the Planets results:
(based on nine-way chop leaving prizes awarded for the final three players)

1. Domerboy $6,000.00 + $8,960.00
2. windysufan $6,000.00 + $5,376.00
3. landsoflore7 $6,000.00 + $3,584.00
4. martin-king $6,000.00
5. prezado $6,000.00
6. pebah $6,000.00
7. alkaatch $6,000.00
8. JoahnEll $6,000.00
9. dutch-nOOb $6,000.00

It's time for another Macau Poker Cup this weekend at Grand Waldo Casino in Macau. The exciting series of events will include a $1,000 buy-in Deep Stack event on Saturday at 12:30 and a $10,000 Red Dragon event at 8PM.

There will also be other events, including a charity tournament benefiting Caritas de Macau on Friday
night, a $500 buy-in MTT on Sunday, as well as APPT qualifiers.

Players from at least six different countries will be participating. Among them, you'll find:

Steve Chung (Hong Kong) who won a HKD $100,000 package at PokerStars Macau in June to the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas and placed 667th of 6844 players

Tony "Bond18" Dunst (USA) who won a Bellagio Cup event in Las Vegas 3 weeks ago for $193,720 US

Celina Lin (Australia) who cashed in 24th place (of 352 players) in last November's first APPT Macau

Roger Spetz (Malaysia) who finised 6th at APPT Manila (of 255 players) and 7th at APPT Seoul (of 186 players)

Here's a full run-down of this weekend's activities:

Thursday, July 26: 8PM - Freeroll to win tickets to this weekend's events (Free entry)

Friday, July 25: 8PM - PokerStars Macau Charity Event - HKD $500 (450+50) plus Charitable donation of $1,500

Saturday, July 26: 12:30PM Macau Cup Deep Stack Event - HKD $1,000

4PM - Mega Satellite (Phase 1) to APPT Macau - HKD $600

8PM - Macau Cup Red Dragon Event - HKD $10,000

Sunday, July 27: 12:30PM Macau Cup $500 Challenge - No-Limit Hold'em - entry: HKD $500

4PM Mega Satellite (Phase 2) to APPT Macau - HKD $2,700

You can find full details HERE

You may already know how it is. You put in the hard work, the graft and the hours to win yourself a spot in one of poker’s most prestigious events such as the European Poker Tour. You arrive determined to do well in your first live event but soon realize that it takes more than a knack online, and that it just isn't easy to go deep to where the real action is.

PokerStars is now looking to help you solve that problem and take the next step in a major live tournament with the help of some exclusive lessons from Team PokerStars Pro, and 2004 World Series Champion, Greg Raymer.

PokerStars is planning to send you to Barcelona where a team of experts will work with you to develop your live poker talents, adapting your game to this new environment and arming you with the confidence needed to make an impact in slow structured tournaments - into the money, and beyond.

The plan is to host a two day training camp that will include a live multi-table tournament where the top two finishers will win EPT Barcelona prize packages – a total that includes your event buy-in, hotel accommodation and money for expenses.

PokerStars will be running satellite qualifiers--starting as low as $8.80 or 250 FPPs--to the Poker Camp Final tournament from now until August 3.

If you hadn’t already heard, Barcelona is one of the most popular destinations on the EPT thanks to the enviable mix of sun, beautiful beaches, great food and a nightlife like few others. The Poker Camp prize package gives you access to all that and more in a package worth $4,000; three nights hotel accommodation, exclusive gifts and much more. PokerStars will also throwing a drinks and tapas party where you can chill out with other players and celebrity tutors – undoubtedly an appealing way to spend an evening after a day at the tables.

You can find out more detail on the PokerStars Poker Camp schedule page for how things will work and the subjects we’ll be covering. Anyone can enter for a chance to win the package; the only stipulation is that you have a good grasp of English. While you’re at it, why not check out the EPT site to find out how things went at last year’s Barcelona event, which had a total prize pool of €4 million.

For the first time in a very long time, Every Sunday major on PokerStars finished without a deal. That meant the first place winners all walked away with some very big money. Take, for instance, SAM66 who won more than $200,000 for his win in the Sunday Million (REPORT). More than 8,000 players signed up for this week's Sunday Million, proof that even in a regular week, the Sunday Million is the biggest weekly tournament on the planet.

Congratulations to all this week's winners. Here are the final table results for all the big Sunday tournaments.

PokerStars Sunday Million Final Table Results
(REPORT)

1. SAM66 (Switzerland) $209,571.60
2. Shantaram (France) $141,718.50
3. MrMuck1976 (Norway) $95,337.90
4. rubenrtv (Netherlands) $77,301.00
5. pepperdiablo (United Kingdom) $60,123.00
6. my_emolument (United States) $42,945.00
7. moorten (Sweden) $30,061.50
8. Axinar (United States) $19,754.70
9. Cjh1224 (United States) $13,398.84

PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up Final Table Results

1. eisenhower1 (Sweden) $97,664.00
2. seberek (Greece) $69,760.00
3. hanji (Canada) $45,692.80
4. nukemaster1 (Canada) $34,880.00
5. AyeReady1966 (United Kingdom) $27,904.00
6. AA_Legend (United Kingdom) $20,928.00
7. bartleby666 (Germany) $14,998.40
8. ryanfitz05 (United States) $10,464.00
9. truls77 (Norway) $6,766.72

PokerStars Sunday Hundred Grand Final Table Results

1. ftb_1988 (United States) $23,826.01
2. SickLord66 (United States) $16,678.21
3. Havana03 (Germany) $11,913.01
4. MHysler (United States) $9,530.41
5. SvenOLDB (Germany) $7,147.81
6. ncav08 (United Kingdom) $4,765.21
7. NuKEr2k Russian Federation $3,573.91
8. SingleFileD (United States) $2,382.61
9. retros94 (France) $1,786.96

PokerStars $215 Weekly PL Omaha Final Table Results

1. Laph (Sweden) $5,566.00
2. PPfinest (Canada) $3,872.00
3. StarTeenGirl (Sweden) $2,940.30
4. mohamar (United States) $2,178.00
5. KrazyVoodoo Brazil $1,452.00
6. Jackal69 (United Kingdom) $1,210.00
7. MIRCEA123 Romania $968.00
8. MyNewHaircut (United States) $726.00
9. Faraday (United States) $605.00

PokerStars $215 PL Omaha Hi/Lo Final Table Results

1. pstarfish (United States) $6,164.00
2. topset1 (United States) $4,288.00
3. draajcito (Colombia) $3,256.20
4. awobball44 (United States) $2,412.00
5. thedonator (United States) $1,608.00
6. doublerubble (United States) $1,340.00
7. takitdown (United States) $1,072.00
8. Miklan300 (United States) $804.00
9. Yackem012 (United States) $670.00

PokerStars $215 FL Omaha Hi/Lo Final Table Results

1. 7CardRyon (United States) $7,182.50
2. t soprano (United States) $5,239.00
3. gaffel (Norway) $3,971.50
4. MissHerpes (United States) $3,042.00
5. schaddy (United States) $2,028.00
6. omahaking_13 (Canada) $1,690.00
7. Entropy xx (United States) $1,352.00
8. SamENole (United States) $1,014.00
9. simmsux (United States) $676.00

PokerStars $215 Weekly FL Hold'em Final Table Results

1. ozenc (Netherlands) $5,940.00
2. Perplexity (United States) $3,960.00
3. The Omaholic (United States) $2,376.00
4. TiltHappens (United States) $1,980.00
5. sagettarius (Hungary) $1,584.00
6. gboro780 (United States) $1,287.00
7. turataika Finland $1,089.00
8. geord918 (United Kingdom) $891.00
9. Barrbarian (United States) $693.00

PokerStars $215 Weekly Stud Hi/Lo Final Table Results

1. NYC TK (United States) $3,360.00
2. The Omaholic (United States) $2,240.00
3. somebody (United States) $1,568.00
4. tiburonbig (Peru) $1,120.00
5. FishList_net (United States) $896.00
6. thedonator (United States) $784.00
7. Memphie (United States) $672.00
8. domina33 (Slovak Republic) $560.00

PokerStars $215 Weekly HORSE Final Table Results

1. late_entry (United States) $13,300.00
2. Fovedu21 Netherlands $8,458.80
3. captaindoo (United States) $5,985.00
4. Yackem012 (United States) $4,256.00
5. grapenuts (United States) $3,298.40
6. RoyalCrusher (United States) $2,394.00
7. rockets23 (United States) $1,835.40
8. MrSmokey1 (United States) $1,330.00

PokerStars Sunday Second Chance Final Table Results

1. Taknapotin (United States) $57,766.00
2. uncledrkmeat (United States) $43,494.40
3. P0ker D0h (United States) $32,450.90
4. Rugieee (Germany) $23,786.00
5. voyager7o9 (United States) $16,990.00
6. v1nc Netherlands $13,592.00
7. Universe112 (United States) $10,194.00
8. mcatdog (United States) $6,796.00
9. Brezi26 (Czech Republic) $4,757.20

PokerStars Sunday $5,200 Freezeout

1. BrynKenney (United States) $45,000.00

PokerStars $215+R NLHE Final Table Results

1. likeitGOOD69 (United States) $58,784.00
2. FishOnTilt (United States) $40,347.20
3 . PURPLEPILS99 (Canada) $27,521.60
4. 4ofaKindBud (United States) $21,376.00
5. nathalie111 (United States) $16,032.00
6. s00tedj0kers (United States) $12,558.40
7. jclark9001 (United States) $9,619.20
8. dpeters17 (United States) $6,947.20
9. loluno123 (United States) $4,275.20

$209,571 and don’t forget the sixty cents. Thanks to another packed house of 8589 runners for the PokerStars Sunday Million, that is how much will be transferred immediately if not sooner to the victor tonight (unless there’s a deal of course). If there is a let down of poker activity after the grueling month and a half at the World Series of Poker it is not showing at this tournament. 1233 players received a spot of cash for their play this evening, and two players will go home with six figures, here’s how the final shaped up after ZUREHABAZU’s KQo could not out race Shantaram’s pocket nines:

Seat 1: moorten (14903308 in chips)
Seat 2: pepperdiablo (4224128 in chips)
Seat 3: my_emolument (5392975 in chips) out of hand (moved from another table into small blind)
Seat 4: Cjh1224 (1129360 in chips)
Seat 5: Axinar (4769157 in chips)
Seat 6: Shantaram (11552878 in chips)
Seat 7: rubenrtv (12192690 in chips)
Seat 8: SAM66 (23492228 in chips)
Seat 9: MrMuck1976 (8233276 in chips)

SAM66 drops into the final table with the big stack which was accumulated by frequent raises on the second to last table, using his huge chip pile to bludgeon the smaller stacks. Cjh1224 took some grief from the rail for his patience, but the small stack was rewarded with a final table placing, along with a minimum of $5,000 extra. He will need some additional luck and timely cards to advance into the big dollars tonight especially with blinds at $250,000/$500,000 antes $50,000.

At the start of the final table SAM66 has the table shaking their collective heads while amassing an even greater lead and not turning over those two cards he is dealt. At 30 million in chips with approximately 52 million for the remaining eight players, there seems to be no building of clay chips (or pixels in this case) strong enough to defend against SAM66’s chip tank coming thru.

Cjh1224 was the small stack coming into the final nine and unfortunately for Cjh1224, the small stack went out first and not advancing up the pay scale. Rubentv found himself in good position to call with AKo and Cjh1224 having to push with any two cards. With J7o those cards were live for a few moments prior to the flop but an Ace on the door quickly dashed any worst to first dreams for Cjh1224 and with $13,398.84 in his pocket he leaves us in ninth place.

Trapping someone in any game with a set against top pair has players screaming for a call, even more so with thousands on the line. Axinar was looking at a board of Kh 9c 3h with two beautiful nines in his hand making a set and to his right Shantaram complied to stealthy trap with a push for his remaining 5.7 million chips with KcQs. Needing runner-runner for a straight or a higher boat, the Js on the turn gave Shantaram outs when there was none before, and the Tc on the river slid nearly 17 million chips into Shantaram’s stack leaving Axinar with a few antes worth to his name. Right move, tough result for Axinar as he’ll be consoled with $19,754.70 for his eighth place finish.

Crippled by the SAM66 express tollway with a broadway straight on the river after heavy betting on the flop and turn, moorten’s once sizable stack was diminished to 1.5 big blinds. After a minimal double up, moorten found KcQd and when left with enough to fill an orbit, one could do worse with two picture cards. But, Shantaram was more then happy to assist with moorten’s exit while holding pocket rockets. Nothing significant trickling down the flop, turn, river and moorten was $30,061.50 richer while heading out in seventh place.

My_emolument played a fairly quiet final table, having to face the frequent raises of SAM66 and rubenrtv. Needing cards to turn the tide never came as my_emolument snagged a few small double ups with his short stack but eventually had to face the music with any two cards that will be hidden until the replays are shown tomorrow. Rubenrtv’s Js9h finding a pair of nines on the board of 9d Tc 3d 6h Kh with SAM66 checking it down as well, was good enough to hand my_emolument $42,945.00 and sixth place.

The spicy pepperdiablo never caught true fire with the final five but managed to get his final three million in chips towards the middle with the best of it. Calling SAM66’s 23,675th button raise with Ad3d, pepperdiablo found himself ahead of SAM66’s KdQd. A flush would lock things up, as the cards peeled off towards the river pepperdiablo was safe until the King gave SAM66 ownership of the chips in the middle and the hot one left us with $60,123.00 in fifth place.

With the chips getting smaller and smaller with the rising blinds any pair takes on a newer meaning. Sixes were Rubenrtv’s choice of weapon against the mighty chip wall of SAM66, but instead of slaying the dragon, the brave knight was holding nothing more then a nerf sword when SAM66’s pocket Aces found another Ace on the flop of Ad 3s 8d. A six hit the river but did not change anything; rubenrtv took $77,301.00 back to Amsterdam to spend however he pleases.

SAM66 turned the chip vacuum dial from 9 to 59 as he sucked up chips so quickly I couldn’t even keep up with the bust outs. In the biggest pot of the tournament up to this point MrMuck1976 was facing a decision for his remaining 18 million chips on a Qd 5h 2h board while holding middle pair with Ad 5c. The aggressiveness of the chip leader surely was on his mind, but once again SAM66 held the goods as MrMuck1976 made the call and SAM66 calmly flipped over KhQh for top pair decent kicker and a flush draw to boot which cut into MrMuck1976’s potential outs. The flush did not materialize, but neither did trips or two pair for MrMuck as his yellow button “Muck” showed poker’s white flag of surrender but a tidy sum of $95,337.90 for third place made the eleven hours of poker worth the time spent.

For the first time while covering these tournaments, I saw no deal was ever whispered as SAM66 entered heads-up play versus Shantaram with a 5:1 chip lead. Shantaram battled mightily against the very aggressive SAM66, and while all-in and holding identical A2s hands and a flop showing a four-flush for Shantaram, there was a little light that the tide would turn. No flush came for Shantaram, nor did a badly needed double up through out the heads-up duel with SAM66.

Ts9c was Shantaram’s final stand as SAM66’s Ad6h made a race of things while SAM66 increased his lead to nearly 7:1 at this point. 5h 3d 3s helped no one, 6d on the turn might as well been a blank, and with a Jh on the river, Shantaram helped himself to a six-figure score with $141,718.50 for second place. SAM66 played his chip lead to the max and was rewarded the right to call himself this week’s Sunday Million champion!

Here’s the payouts for the final table, congratulations to all who cashed in this massive field:

PokerStars Sunday Million Final Table Result:

1. SAM66 $209,571.60
2. Shantaram $141,718.50
3. MrMuck1976 $95,337.90
4. rubenrtv $77,301.00
5. pepperdiablo $60,123.00
6. my_emolument $42,945.00
7. moorten $30,061.50
8. Axinar $19,754.70
9. Cjh1224 $13,398.84

It's Week 4 for the PokerStars 2X promotion and PokerStars has cooked up a list of fun stuff that will make you forget about the past 20 days.

Double the pot was fun for a week, but now it's time for something new. Ready for it?

It's a double reload bonus in celebration of the PokerStars World Championship of Online Poker. Players who reload their PokerStars account between July 21-31 will get a 40% bonus, up to $240--double the standard bonus. All you have to do us use the code ‘2X’ when making your deposit. Oh, and get this...when you reload your account with that code, you'll you'll get a ticket to one of four special WCOOP satellites on August 2nd and August 9th. So, you have that going for you, which is nice.

Let's not forget...

PokerStars has been running all of these 2X Chance tournaments that give players the opportunity to buy back in once if they bust out within the first hour. Well, now is a good time to start practicing on those, because this coming Sunday, the PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up will be a 2X Chance tournament and have a $1 million guarantee.

But, that's not all....

PokerStars will continue to award extra VIP Player Points for regular Heads-Up Sit & Go tournaments. You will get 1.5X the amount of VPPs and Frequent Player Points that you would normally awarded.

AND FINALLY…

Don't forget, if you make your first deposit with the code FIRST2X, you will get into to the 2X First Depositor Freerolls. There are two $2,222 freerolls running every day, from July 8-30, at 13:00 ET & 20:00 ET. If you cash in any of the freerolls, you'll win a seat in the $22,222 finals on July 31.

For full information, visit the PokerStars 2X page.

It only cost him $80.

Darus Suharto qualified on PokerStars for the World Series Main Event. His $80 win got him into a bigger qualifier and there he won his prize package to Las Vegas.

Now, Suharto is one of the November Nine, the final table players of the 2008 World Series Main Event.

Here's what he had to say in the moments after he made the final table.

Watch WSOP 08: Darus Suharto Finalist on PokerStars.tv

See the other interviews with The PokerStars Six:

Dennis Phillips interview
Ylon Schwartz interview
Peter Eastgate interview
David Chino Rheem interview
Ivan Demidov interview

Dennis Phillips told us ini the last few days of the World Series that the ESPN crews were calling him "red hat." His autographed St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap was not hard to spot in the crowd. Otherwise, the accountant from Missouri is humble enough to blend into any poker tournament.

That all changed this week when Phillips emerged as the chip leader in the 2008 World Series. Now, plans to go back to work for four months and plan for what will be one of the biggest days of his life.

Here's what he told our video blog team as he got ready to go home.

Watch WSOP 08: Dennis Philips WSOP Finalist on PokerStars.tv

See the other interviews with The PokerStars Six:

Darus Suharto interview
Ylon Schwartz interview
Peter Eastgate interview
David Chino Rheem interview
Ivan Demidov interview

Perhaps better known online as TenthPlanet, Ylon Schwartz is no stranger to live poker. A regular on the East Coast live scene, Schwartz has been around long enough to have paid his dues. Now the chess expert, lover of all games, and PokerStars is looking to get away for a while.

In his own words, he was "bugging out" when he finally made the final table. He took a few minutes to talk to us before escaping to places unknown in preparation for the November final table.

Here's what he had to say.

Watch WSOP 08: Ylon Schwartz on PokerStars.tv

See other interviews with the PokerStars Six

Darus Suharto interview
Dennis Phillips interview
Peter Eastgate interview
David Chino Rheem interview
Ivan Demidov interview

It's one thing to be one of the top five cash game players from your home country. It's another thing to be at the final table of the 2008 World Series of Poker. PokerStars player Peter Eastgate happens to be both of those things.

In the blur that followed the minutes after making the final table, a stunned Eastgate talked to our video blog team. Here's what he had to say.

Watch WSOP 08: Peter Eastgate WSOP Finalist on PokerStars.tv

Darus Suharto interview
Dennis Phillips interview
Ylon Schwartz
David Chino Rheem interview
Ivan Demidov interview

David "Chino" Rheem is a young up-and-comer in the poker world. The PokerStars player had a big contingent of famous players on the rail cheering him on as he made the final table of the 2008 World Series.

The player from California talked to the PokerStars video blog team as he stepped away from the World Series for a 117-day break. Here's what he had to say.

Watch WSOP 08: David Rheem Finalist on PokerStars.tv

See more interviews with the PokerStars Six

Darus Suharto interview
Dennis Phillips interview
Ylon Schwartz interview
Peter Eastgate interview
Ivan Demidov interview

In minutes that followed PokerStars player Ivan Demodov's making it to the 2008 World Series final table, he was still in shock. After coming all the way from Moscow to compete in his first major live tournament, Demidov could barely find the words to explain what had just happened to him.

Now, Demidov is set to become a superstar in Russia and around the poker world. Here is what he had to say in the moments after making the final table.

Watch WSOP 08: Ivan Demidov Finalist on PokerStars.tv

See more interviews with the PokerStars Six

Darus Suharto interview
Dennis Phillips interview
Ylon Schwartz interview
Peter Eastgate interview
David Chino Rheem interview

It’s one thing to take the chip lead at the final table of the PokerStars Sunday Million. It’s another thing to take a commanding chip lead at the final table of the largest Sunday Million in PokerStars history. And it’s something else entirely to take the chip lead at the Sunday Million final table when you’ve never deposited a penny into your online account! That’s exactly what happened to xanja when he knocked out sjoko in 7th place in last week’s Sunday Million tournament.

Thanks to the PokerStars 2X promotion running all July, last week’s Sunday Million was really the Sunday Two Million, with a total prize pool of $2,836,200. Xanja took over the chip lead with six players to go, and rode his big stack all the way to a favorable chip-count chop and a $235,000 payday! We caught up with xanja as he was still trying to process everything about his fantastic run.

Mostly a $5 & $10 SNG player, xanja took a shot at the Sunday Million because of the 2x promotion doubling the prize pool. It also more than doubled the field, as over 14,000 players registered. Xanja got lucky early to survive, saying “I went all-in with pocket sevens after being raised. My opponent held pocket jacks. At that moment I thought the tournament was over for me, but the third seven appeared on the turn and I won the hand. Otherwise I had played really carefully and only played the best hands.”

One of the biggest hands of the tournament came when play was four-handed, and before any deal had been made. After a preflop raise from PokerMurphy1, kpax22 moved all in over the top with Js-10c. Xanja re-raised to isolate with Ah-Kh, and PokerMurphy1 folded. Kpax22 picked up a straight on the turn when the board read 5c-9h-Ks-Qh, but the 2h on the river gave xanja the flush and sent kpax22 to the rail. That hand left xanja a huge chip leader, and the remaining three players cut a deal to give $235,000 to xanja and leave $30,000 to play for. Xanja fell short of the final prize when TimDawg888 caught a couple of big hands to double through him and eventually take down the Sunday Million.

Xanja’s poker career started two years ago in freerolls, and he eventually built up his bankroll without ever making a deposit, winning a few pennies here and there from freerolls and then moving into sit n’ gos and MTTs. Keeping to his bankroll-building strategy, he won a satellite to get into the Sunday Million, making his return on investment even more staggering!

Fortunately for xanja, he has the summer off from his studies until September, so he didn’t have to get up and go to work after playing until the wee hours of the morning Sunday night. His future poker plans include keeping a nest egg on PokerStars from this big score while investing the rest, and eventually playing the WSOP Main Event. We can definitely see big things ahead for this young star!

In the Rio Amazon Room, there is no Monday. There is no July. Time and date are irrelevant. There is no news from around the world, lamentations about the economy, or even the usual banal discussion of the weather. It took rain in the desert to get anyone to notice the sky. In the thunderdome that is the World Series of Poker, all that matters is life and death at the World Series of Poker table. Once the fallen are carried out and given their due seconds of respect, all that remains is hope for the living.

This has been the case during the days that are defined by number instead of name. Through four day ones, two day twos, and the subsequent days three, four, five and six, even numerologists were stymied. Here, the calendar read Day 7 and that meant only 27 people remained with their life-blood chips. Everyone knew that two-thirds of that number would walk away with at least a quarter million bucks, but a lifetime of what-ifs about what could've been. Nobody could predict or control who would be here at the end of the night. All we knew is that nine people would be able to walk out of this room tonight with their chins up and their eyes set on a $9 million prize.

From here on out, they will be known as the November Nine--the final nine of 6,844 runners who started the 2008 World Series Main Event and emerged tonight with the right to come back in four months and fight for the championship bracelet. Among those players are the PokerStars Six, a tough combination of PokerStars players and qualifiers who will be part of history in November.

In all, PokerStars players have already cashed for more than $9 million combined in the Main Event. The PokerStars Six will have their chance at a total of another $32.6 million that's up for grabs in November.

Here is a look at the PokerStars players who will return to compete for poker's biggest prize.

Dennis Phillips (26,295,000)--Dennis Phillips is an accountant from St. Louis, Missouri who has done his home town proud. His has not yet been seen without an autographed St. Louis Cardinals cap and speaks fondly of his Show-Me State roots. Phillips is a regular at Harrahs St. Louis and plays live there as often as he can. It cost him $200 to get into this Main Event. He plans to leave Vegas and go back to his job for the four months between now and the final table in November. That, and he said, "play a lot of poker." Not a bad plan for the World Series chip leader.

Ivan Demidov (24,400,000) -- Ivan Demidov is from Moscow Russia. "We're having a good year," he says of himself and his countrymen. This year, he placed 11th in the $1,000 rebuy event. Both a tournament and cash game player, Demidov is a 27-year-old online semi-pro. A friend and backer helped him raise the $10,000 to get into the event. The 2008 World Series is his first major live tournament. Demidov has a degree in math and is looking to bring home the big numbers for mother Russia.

Peter Eastgate -- (18,375,000) -- Peter Eastgate is a 22-year-old PokerStars player. He is known as a fearless but volatile player, among the top five online pros in Denmark. He mainly plays high-stakes cash games - $200-400 short-handed or heads-up. Jacob Rasmussen, who came 5th at EPT4 Dortmund, was asked if Peter Eastgate was the next Gus Hansen. He said, "Not really. It's more like Gus Hansen is the first Peter Eastgate." Eastgate has said all along he won't think about the final table until he makes it. Now, he has.

Ylon Schwartz -- (12,525,000) -- A native New Yorker -- born in Manhattan and now living in Brooklyn -- Ylon Schwartz is a chess whizz and a poker player with 11 previous cashes in World Series events dating back to 2005. He's equally at home playing chess in the super-competitive games in New York's Washington Square Park, idling the time in Golden Nugget low limit ring games or tearing up the major poker tournaments in the east coast casinos of Atlantic City and Foxwoods. You can find him playing as TenthPlanet on PokerStars.

Darus Suharto -- (12,520,000) -- Darus Suharto is from Toronto, Canada. He is an accountant who loves his job so much, he would find it hard to quit, even if he won the World Series Main Event. He would like to find more time to play poker, but because he spends so much time working, most of his tournament poker experience comes from playing online. He qualified for his seat on PokerStars and has already forgotten about his modest cash from the World Series in 2006.

David “Chino” Rheem -- (10,230,000)-- David “Chino” Rheem has had a great year, taking 5th place in the $5k NL tournament in June for $93,624. The 28-year-old from Miami, Florida has enjoyed a string of tournament successes recently including five WSOP cashes in the last three years. This includes $327,981 in the 2006 $1,000 NLHE event. In the main event David was among the chip leaders each day, and rallied superbly when a series of bad hands almost eliminated him in the latter stages but bounced back to make the November Nine.

More than a thousand PokerStars qualifiers competed in this year's 39th World Series Main Event, including 45 who had paid nothing at all to get to Vegas after winning their seats in PokerStars Frequent Player Point (FPP) tournaments. The highest FPP finisher was American Doug Ashmore who turned his 4,000 FPPs into $41,816 with a 124th place finish. Other notable qualifiers included Tim Loecke, from Illinois, who made it to 24th place for $257,334. He won his seat in a $63 satellite and was playing in his first-ever live poker tournament. Online pros Chris "SLOPPYKLOD" Klodnicki came 12th for $591,869 and Owen "ocrowe" Crowe, made it to 15th place and a $463,201 payout. Both spent just $215 to win their WSOP seats via PokerStars satellite tournaments.

Team PokerStars Pros were also out in force at this year's WSOP, including former world champions Chris Moneymaker, Greg Raymer and Joe Hachem, as well as poker legends Daniel Negreanu and Barry Greenstein. Team PokerStars Pro Victor Ramdin lasted longest with a 64th place finish for $96,500. Three other Team PokerStars Pros also cashed - Hevad Khan (240th) for $35,383; Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier (370th) for $28,950 and Vanessa Rousso (625th) for $21,230.

Kara Scott, presenter of the PokerStars.com European Poker Tour, was sponsored into the main event by PokerStars and was thrilled - in her first ever WSOP - to make 104th place for $41,816. Kirill Gerasimov from Russia and Jan Heitmann from Germany, also both backed by PokerStars, both cashed in 439th and 585th place respectively. PokerStars also sponsored celebrities such as Jason Alexander from "Seinfeld", Simpsons co-creator Sam Simon, "ER" actor Mekhi Phifer, MMA fighter Chuck Liddell, MLB greats David Wells and Orel Hershiser and Indy stock car racer Gualter Salles.

As well as their $10,000 buy-in to the main event, spending money and luxury hotel accommodation at the Palms hotel, PokerStars qualifiers also enjoyed the spectacular PokerStars WSOP party at Rain nightclub, featuring scores of celebrities, star poker players and the burlesque artist Dita Von Teese.

This feels at the same time a conclusion and delayed satisfaction. We will all leave this giant convention center tonight with a feeling that we are finished. Yet, we all know that in four short months the real contest will begin with the biggest money and fame on the line.

To close out our coverage, here's the final wrap, for now, from the PokerStars video blog team...

Watch WSOP 08: JULY 14th Update on PokerStars.tv

So, at this hour we cannnot say goodbye. We can only say goodnight and see you later. It's been yet another astounding World Series for PokerStars and the PokerStars Blog. Over the course of the next several months you can expect to see a lot more on the PokerStars Six. Until then, thanks for reading and congratulations to all the PokerStars players for their performance here at the 2008 World Series.

Chip counts for the World Series final table can be found on our 2008 World Series Chip Counts page.

Be sure to check out all of our video blogs from Day 7 and before on PokerStars.tv.

If you would like to see PokerStars Blog World Series news in another language, be sure you take a look at all the other coverage on our German, Swedish, and Brazilian blogs.

Here's a look back at all the coverage from Day 7.

Sleep when you're dead
TV time at table Table 3
Flying the PokerStars flag
Slowdown delays showdown
The four minute frenzy
The Denmark Syndicate
At the feature table or not...
The Last Supper
Klodnikci just misses final table
Dreams Die
You wait a while and then

For coverage from all the previous days, we've posted summaries below.

Day 1A
Day 1B
Day 1C
Day 1D
Day 2A
Day 2B
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6

Those of us here at the PokerStars Blog--Brad Willis, Howard Swains, and Stephen Bartley--would like to take this last chance to publicly thank everyone who put in countless hours of work on covering the PokerStars players here at the World Series. We couldn't have done any of it without the help of Mad Harper, our statistician and all-around utility writer/researcher; Joe Giron and the entire team at Image Masters; Hass, Rury, and Jamie, the video blog team; Klaus, Robin and Alex from the PokerStars German Blog; Lina from the PokerStars Swedish Blog; Maria from the PokerStars Brazilian Blog; and Nolan Dalla from the World Series of Poker. Thanks to all of you for your dedication to the job and your efforts to champion the players from the world's number one online poker site.

Long stretches of boredom with moments of sheer terror. It’s an expression that’s been used so many times to describe all sorts of scenarios, but if the long stretches between the action in this main event have been the ‘boredom’, the last half an hour has provided the terror – at least for some of the players involved.

First PokerStars player Darus Suharto doubled up with kings over Joe Bishop’s ace-queen. It was a make or break shuffle for Darus who leapt from being the short stack to the relative safety of the main pack. Joe Bishop was then involved again, with Kelly Kim this time who held pocket eights to Joe’s 7-8. Another bad hand for Joe, culminating with a hand against PokerStars player David Rheem, which would seal Bishop’s demise.

Darus Suharto

Bishop had moved all-in with Ac3h for 2.4m which Chino called with pocket deuces. The flop was rose tinted for Bishop, making two pairs on the Ah3c5s flop. But also lurking was the straight draw for Rheem which his vocal supporters knew all too well. The Qc on the turn made Bishop walk away unable to look. He had good reason or the incredible was about to happen, a 4h on the river, making Rheem his straight and busting Bishop in 11th place.

David 'Chino' Rheem

The hand was followed by cheering and a general scrum for places on the main feature table stage where right now the remaining ten players prepare to play on into the night until one more of them is eliminated.

No more ‘boredom’, a touch of terror for sure, but mainly excitement here as the main event closes in on its finale.

There are numerous ways to measure the progression of a poker tournament, from the basic count of players eliminated, to the angle of the slouch of the average reporter on media row. The blue screens displaying time, level, blinds and payouts have kept us updated with the key stats throughout the past couple of weeks, and for the last level (level 31), the players have been ante-ing 20,000 chips.

That, in case you forgot, is the equivalent of one player's starting stack.

Yes, each compulsory ante being posted by these 11 players before every single hand is even dealt has previously represented $10,000 in cold hard cash or, in another currency, one player's broken dreams. A couple of orbits of the table without winning a pot equates to nothing short of a massacre of idealism, and yet here it barely registers a wince.

The day is now getting long and the stakes, tension and anticipation are ratcheting up by the minute. Level 32, which we have just entered, now means blinds of 80,000-160,000 and an ante of one-and-a-half splintered fantasies.

Chip leader Dennis Phillips

Six PokerStars players are keeping their dreams alive. Their names and chip counts are:

Dennis Phillips -- USA -- PokerStars player -- 23,100,000
David Rheem -- USA -- PokerStars player -- 13,800,000
Peter Eastgate -- Denmark -- PokerStars player -- 13,540,000
Ylon Schwartz -- USA -- PokerStars player -- 13,160,000
Ivan Demidov -- Russia -- PokerStars player -- 9,800,000
Darus Suharto -- Canada -- Qualifier -- 8,700,000

The pressure compounds by the day at the World Series. There's no questioning that immutable fact.

But it's different this year. Of course, making the final table in years past has meant something special, but for the most part, second through ninth places are rarely recognized with even a fraction of the spotlight as the winner. While the money has always been good, the historical significance is usually reduced into the also-ran category.

This year, it's different. The four-month final table delay virtually guarantees the final nine players celebrity like few other poker players have enjoyed. One hundred sixteen days of TV coverage, newspaper articles, and marketing will turn these guys into some of the biggest stars of the year.

Chris Klodnicki nearly got there. The poker pro and PokerStars qualifier from Vorhees, NJ has just busted out in 12th place.

Klodnicki and a wild group of friends spent the day planning for the good life. It looked as if he might enjoy it. Instead, over the course of the last several hours, his stack deteriorated to the point that he had little choice but to get his money in. It happened when he held JdTd on a AdQdQx flop. His opponent held QJ and filled up on the turn. By the turn he was drawing to one out for the gutshot Royal Flush, missed, and now is out of the 2008 World Series just a couple spots short of the final table.

Congratulations, Chris, on your $591,869 finish.

Earlier today, Klodnicki and his crew spoke to the PokerStars video blog team...

Watch WSOP: Chris Klodnicki Goes Deep on PokerStars.tv

The dinner break was the last for all 14 players in this main event before they are either nearly a million dollars richer, or in the clutch of players forever referred to as nearly men. It's a cruel fate, but for five of those dining this evening, they won't necessarily be able to focus on their near half-million dollar parachute payment. Elimination now will feel as though someone has taken their soul out of their body and kicked it around the Amazon Room like soccer ball.

On the page (or screen) this is just a simile, but for PokerStars player Gert Anderson, it has recently become a reality. The players had barely been reacquainted with their chip stacks for ten minutes before all of his were heading towards fellow PokerStars player Ylon Schwartz.

Gert Anderson, pre-elimination It was a classic raise, all-in, call tango between Schwartz and the short-stacked Dane, and Schwartz was dominant with A-K versus A-J. There were no miracles and Schwarz took another vault up the leaderboard as Anderson spiralled into the abyss.

When he crawls out, he should hold his head up high. The PokerStars player from Herning, Denmark, has done his country proud, alongside his compatriot and fellow PokerStars player Peter Eastgate. Anderson takes $463,201 for his 14th place, with Eastgate looking at that, at least, and probably much, much more.

***
PokerStars player Jason Riesenberg also knows how it feels to go deep and yet just miss the final table. Before he knew his fate -- $334,534 for 18th place -- he talked to our video bloggers about his fine run.

Watch WSOP 08: Jason Reisenberg Goes deep into day 6 on PokerStars.tv

As each break approaches spectators are asked to leave the Amazon Room for a 20 minute spell waiting outside in the corridors before players return to their seats and they’re allowed back in. This process has got wilder over the last day or so. Security release the door latches and through them race dozens of keen, and often very fast supporters dashing for seats on the feature table. Security calls out for calm for now running and an orderly procession, but this largely falls on deaf ears.

If you’re stuck without a seat, or more likely a good standing position at either of the two tables, you’re left wandering around the back of the set listening to the announcer call the hands. It’s not much different to listening to baseball on the radio. It’s not bad but you miss the sound of wood on leather (cards on felt), the smell of hotdogs (the free peanuts at the feature table bar) and the sheer wonder of a home run (an all-in called).

But you get a good idea even if you can’t see for yourself and if the worst comes to the worst you could always get your running shoes on and start a line outside ahead of the next break.

David 'Chino' Rheem

If you’d been quicker through the door and had a perched overlooking either of the tables you would have seen PokerStars player David ‘Chino’ Rheem doubling up in spectacular crowd pleasing fashion, catching a king on the river with his K9 to beat the pocket sixes of Joe Bishop to continue an incredible run that has seen him drop down to 3.8 million before returning now to 12.4 million.

Ylon Schwartz

And over on the main table, PokerStars player Ylon Schwartz just paid out to Nicholas Sliwinski when his AJ hit an ace on the turn to crush Ylon’s pocket tens.

***

In the waning moments before the dinner break, PokerStars qualifier Owen "ocrowe" Crowe looked for a key double up. He went in with 99 against AQ. The flop, JJT, didn't kill him, but it opened up a lot of outs that could put him out. A queen fell on the turn and Crowe did not catch up on the river. He finished in 15th place for more than $463,000.

***

Still in the main event is PokerStars player Gert Andersen, who spoke to the PokerStars video blog team earlier today about his progress...

Watch WSOP 08: Gert Andersen Goes Deep on PokerStars.tv

Sixteen players remain in the 2008 World Series. Those players represent four countries: The United States, Canada, Russia, and Denmark. Of the final players, two are Danes, and both are flying the PokerStars banner.

Gert Andersen of Herning, Denmark is a finance controller and seeing the the big money of a major tournament.

"It's very exciting," he said. "It's the first time I've gone this deep in such a big event. Many people are following me now. It's reallly funny."

Andersen is of the opinion that poker has plateued in his home country, but he thinks there's a good chance all of that could change.

"If we get a huge finish, it will boom again," he said during a break today.

You'll notice Andersen used the word "we." That's because just feet away from him sits Peter Eastgate, the other remaining Dane in the Series.

Eastgate has been playing poker for about three years. In his first year, he broke even.

"Then I went on a heater," he said. Since then, he has been playing as a pro cash game player.

Eastgate doesn't doubt poker's potential at home, saying, "Poker is huge in Denmark."

He is not ready, however, to talk about what a win might mean for him or the game in his country.

"I'm pretty calm about it," he said. "I'm not thinking of the final table until I make it."

He now has a better chance. A few minutes ago, Eastgate knocked out Tiffany Michelle, his set of aces besting her top-pair jack-kicker. He sits third in chips in the final level before the dinner break.

***
PokerStars player Jason Riesenberg was eliminated in 18th place, flopping three queens with his queen-eight, but finding himself trapped in the hand when Dean Hamrick turned a full house with his pocket nines. "I was trying to mix it up a little bit," Riesenberg explained, referring to his speculative pre-flop raise. "I flopped two queens and I didn't know what he had but still thought he was behind. The turn was a nine and he had pocket nines."

Hamrick shoved on the river, by which point Riesenberg was pot committed. "I'll replay it over tonight, but I'm pretty sure I had to call," Riesenberg said.

As a poker professional for just more than a year, Riesenberg intends to add his $333,534 to his bankroll and carry on playing, adding: "If there's anything my family needs, I'll take care of them."

And he admitted that although he's disappointed to be out, he'll look back fondly on his main event run. "I'm happy. Truthfully, I'll never get this far again in the main event. You have to take the opportunities when you get them."

In other news, moments ago PokerStars player David "Chino" Rheem got all-in with AQ versus Chris Klodnicki's pocket sixes. Rheem flopped his queen to double up.

Then suddenly it all kicked off. Three eliminations in the space of four minutes and now just two tables remain.

One of those players was PokerStars player Paul Snead, who busted in 21st place for $257,334.
Among the animated players here this week, Snead was up and about at his table, clearly enjoying his moment in the limelight when the faces around him were often riddled with pressure. But his day ended when he was crippled by a two-outer, a hand that cost him a return here in November.

Paul Snead

“I got two-outered again!”

Snead had raised from the button and was re-raised by Scott Montgomery on the big blind. Snead called to see a jack high flop. A bet followed and then Snead raised which saw his opponent shove all-in. Snead tank called with Jh7h for top pair and a backdoor flush draw which looked good when the 8h came on the turn. Holding A4 Montgomery now had just two outs but one of them, the Ad, hit the river, sending Snead to the rail.

But Snead was upbeat enough.

Paul Snead talking to Ylon Schwartz as he was eliminated

“I really enjoyed the support I got. It was great to feel that. I really thought I’d be back in November. Actually, I coach football, seventh graders, and November 10 is right around our playoffs. I would have had to miss that”

PokerStars player Albert Kim

Busting in 20th place was PokerStars player Brandon Cantu. He had nines against Peter Eastgate’s AQ off suit, a hand that with four diamonds on the board made an unlikely flush. Cantu was followed two minutes later by PokerStars player Albert Kim, completing a tumultuous few minutes before the break, when his AK ran into pocket nines. Both Cantu and Kim take $257,334 for 20th and 19th place.

***

PokerStars player Albert Kim may be out, but he spoke the the PokerStars video blog team earlier today about his World Series experience...

Watch WSOP 08: Albert Kim Goes Very Deep on PokerStars.tv

Every session since the end of the tightly scheduled day ones, someone in media row has said, "It's got to slow down today." This was usually prompted by a discussion of the previous day's breakneck pace of eliminations, carnage that has resulted at least twice in a relatively early night for the players and press pack alike.

But today is different. Today those backing a long day -- lasting, quite probably, until tomorrow morning -- are finally seeing their bets come good. Five players have departed today but most were in possession of the overnight short stacks, and recently there was more than 80 minutes between departures. They're here for the long haul.

One player surging up the leaderboard, taking advantage of a couple of decent hands and a general reluctance to get involved without the goods, is Ylon Schwartz, PokerStars player from Brooklyn, New York. Schwartz is on the secondary feature table, in the very same seat he occupied for long periods of yesterday evening, and similarly the chips in that spot are growing. Starting with 3,655,000, he doubled up in a yo-yo hand with Scott Montgomery, where his A-K was ahead of Montgomery's A-J pre-flop, outdrawn on the K-J-J flop, but back ahead on the K turn. There it stayed, and Schwartz was in contention.

PokerStars player Ylon Schwartz

With chips, Schwartz has become a far more dangerous opponent than during the previous few levels, where he had to sit out a dry spell with characteristic patience. An hour or so after his double up, Schwartz flat-called a Craig Marquis early position raise, only to see Tiffany Michelle slide in a tower of green chips -- about 900,000 -- from the button. Marquis got out of the way, but Schwartz tanked and called.

The flop was all clubs, queen high, and Schwartz announced that he was all in. Michelle didn't want to dance and ducked out.

No more than about an orbit after that, Schwartz became the man to end Tim Loecke's participation in the main event. Three players -- Loecke, Montgomery and Schwartz -- saw a flop with Loecke's final 525,000 in the middle. He must have feared the worst when Schwarz bet into a dry side pot on the 3h turn, and he'd have been right. Schwartz's pocket threes had improved to a set and Loecke was gone.

PokerStars qualifier Tim Loecke

Stephen Bartley caught up with Loecke after his elimination, but found him to be far from downbeat.

“It was phenomenal," he said of his World Series. Loecke had managed to turn a meagre satellite entry fee into a $257,000 payday. Short-stacked overnight, he only had one real game plan today and put it into action.

"Finally I had to do it," he said. "Pocket sixes. I saw a raise ahead of me and as soon as I saw the ace on the flop I knew I’d lost. But then when he hit the set..." Then Loecke tailed off, the realisation of what he had achieved gradually sinking in.

Well played, Tim.

It is now impossible to watch the World Series of Poker without thinking of PokerStars.

Out of the 23 remaining players in the 2008 Main Event, 14 are flying the PokerStars flag.

Among those players is Staten Island, New York's Albert Kim. After graduating from law school, Kim moved to Los Angeles and dove into the big no-limit cash games.

"I don't play poker just for the money," Kim said a few minutes ago. "I love the game."

Last night, he didn't feel as well.

"It was a total debacle for me. I just got too excited," he said. "I felt like I got knocked out last night."

This morning, however, he had a good breakfast and feasted on the encouragement of his friends.

"I've been getting text messages and calls. I'm feeling a lot better than last night," he said

Kim knows all about coming back. A few days ago, as the World Series reached the money bubble, Kim was down to 60,000, barely anything at that time.

Now, he is back up around 5 million. It will not be enough to get him through the night without some work, but it's a good start on the day.

Three tables and several hundred of poker’s hardcore fan base, all watching 27 players. That will be the landscape here for the foreseeable future.

But what does it take to run one of the last three tables in the World Series main event? Well, table three needs the following...

A deck of cards, 49,740,000 chips, nine players, three television cameras, three microphone booms, six guys to hold all of those, someone with a clipboard, seven pairs of headphones, eight baseball caps, a photographer, several packs of chewing gum, a few tournament officials, a cocktail waiter, someone to write all this down and all the patience in the world you can muster.

Table three in action

This will be the slowest of days - not in the same way a school maths exam passes slowly or the delay you might get waiting for a flight, but in the high pressure scenario of elite competition where mistakes are punished and there are no second chances.

Table three features faces now familiar in the PokerStars sense. Several PokerStars players are in the line up; Dennis Phillips is here, along with Chris Klodnicki, David Rheem, Albert Kim, Jason Reisenberg (who was forced to limbo beneath a boom to get back into his seat) and Darus Suharto who I’ve never seen this week without an enormous smile on his face.

The table description above will stay unchanged for most of the day. Players may switch seats or bust out, but the backdrop will be one of furious effort to record every moment for posterity and of course the all important coverage between now and the final table in November.

In that crowd, looking for their first glimpse, were a couple decked out in cowboy hats and stars and stripes, taking in what can look like a confusing scene.

“They look like babies!” said one man, watching with his wife as three microphone booms hung over the table, like puppeteers orchestrating the action below.

That was the view of the new railbird, but one spectator getting used to the daily grind was ‘Bash’, one of the Rio security guards. Bash paces the rail ensuring the press area is kept clear of trespassers, walking from one end to the other before turning and walking back the opposite way. I said it was going to be a long day. He checked his watch...

“Only about another two and a half hours...”

I thought for a second this was courageous optimism, but then I realised his shift tomorrow might start before this day ends.

As unlikely as it seemed more than two weeks ago, we are getting very close to the end. This morning was the final walk for us reporters from the Palms Hotel, where the PokerStars qualifiers and players have stayed for the past weeks, through the neighbouring Gold Coast casino and into the Rio, where all the action has been going down.

It's fair to assume that the 27 players still in the World Series main event travelled in taxis, at least, maybe limousines or helicopters. But when the curtain comes down at the end of play today, all but nine will have returned to their homes for good.

Don't hold your breath. Like a child refusing to go to sleep on their birthday, clinging on to every last minute as the centre of attention, these players are going to try all they can to earn a spot on November's final table. There's not going to be a single chip surrendered without the mother of all battles. Whole stacks are going to need armies to wrestle out of players' grasps.

The chip leader, PokerStars player Dennis Phillips, has close to 12 million in his stack. We'll be starting today with 90 minutes of level 28 still to play, where the blinds are 40,000-80,000 (10,000 ante). So there is still an awful lot of action in this one. A finish time of about 5am has been touted already on media row, and no one is taking the under.

PokerStars player Dennis Phillips

Among those closing in on either the joy of massive success, or the temporary crippling misery of elimination, are PokerStars players Peter Eastgate (9,325,000), David Rheem (8,280,000), Brandon Cantu (4,740,000), Albert Kim (3,675,000), Ylon Schwartz (3,655,000) and Phi Nguyen (1,020,000) as well as PokerStars qualifiers Chris Klodnicki (6,245,000), Darus Suharto (4,510,000), Owen Crowe (3,800,000) and Tim Loeke (2,280,000).

That misery will only be temporary because these players are all already massively successful. There were 6,844 players at the start, so their achievement is spectacular. The next player out gets $257,334 and it increases dramatically as they get fewer and fewer. The three players finishing in 12th-10th will have $591,869 as consolation for missing out on the final table.

Tournament Director Jack Effel has instructed the cards hit the air. They're playing, we're watching, we hope and trust you will remain reading until this is done. Give yourself a nice 17-hour break.

***
The latest chip counts on PokerStars players will appear HERE as we have them. PokerStars winners to date can be found HERE. It's likely to tick into the tens of millions today.

***
Last night was another late one, and we can't expect everyone to have stayed up until the very end, especially on a Sunday. But why not take a look back at the day six action courtesy of our video blog team.

Watch WSOP 08: Day 6 Update on PokerStars.tv

More video blogs will be appearing on PokerStars.tv today, and you'll also find an archive of previous action, along with details of a daily freeroll tournament celebrating the launch of the new video platform.

As all of our players know, every Sunday is huge at PokerStars. But this Sunday... well, it was something to tell the children about. Thanks to our 2X promotion - running throughout July - last week saw all of our tournament guarantees DOUBLED. The action came to a climax yesterday, with the Sunday Warm-Up and the Sunday Million also having their guarantees doubled, meaning players were battling it out over the virtual felt for prize pools of at least $1 MILLION and $2 MILLION respectively..

TimDawg888 took down the Sunday Million, for a huge first prize of more than $235,350, after a three way chop with runner-up xanja and third place winner PokerMurphy1, who won $235,000 and $167,788 respectively. Meanwhile, Parnish claimed this week's Sunday Warm-Up crown, winning more than $137,670.

To read how TimDawg888 beat out a field of 14,180 other players and took home nearly a quarter of a million dollars in the biggest Sunday Million ever, check out the 13-7-08 Sunday Million final table report.

Congratulations to all our winners on this amazing week at PokerStars, and don't forget to keep checking out the PokerStars 2X promotion page to see what else we have in store for you throughout July.

PokerStars Sunday Million Final Table Results

1. TimDawg888 (United States) $235,356.31
2. xanja ( Germany) $235,000.00
3. PokerMurphy1 (Canada) $167,788.70
4. kpax22 (Finland) $113,448.00
5. KAG1 (United States) $85,086.00
6. Roundhauskik (Germany) $63,814.50
7. sjoko (Norway) $45,379.20
8. Bumper111 (Australia) $29,496.48
9. funplay800 (United States) $21,271.50

PokerStars Sunday Warm-Up Final Table Results

1. Parnish (United States) $137,674.90
2. Benjaphon (Switzerland) $94,926.04
3. Tgonz (Philippines) $62,676.90
4. markkx (Canada) $51,962.90
5. scossett (Canada) $41,248.90
6. ggiillaadd (Israel) $30,534.90
7. flyingdonk (Italy) $21,428.00
8. mrudy68 (United States) $13,392.50
9. Thaiti (Spain) $8,785.48

PokerStars Sunday Hundred Grand Final Table Results

1. Metsfan512 (United States) $25,000.00
2. scouseman101 (United Kingdom) $17,500.00
3. Grezi (Germany) $12,500.00
4. marat1969 (United States) $10,000.00
5. bounyack (Australia) $7,500.00
6. logan66 (United States) $5,000.00
7. Sokygi (Netherlands) $3,750.00
8. YaniG (United States) $2,500.00
9. LV_Robot (United States) $1,875.00

PokerStars $215 Weekly PL Omaha Final Table Results

1. MrSantor (Finland) $5,244.00
2. Elliestar (United Kingdom) $3,648.00
3. Miffed22001 (United Kingdom) $2,770.20
4. docholiday38 (United States) $2,052.00
5. SpadeSkillz (United States) $1,368.00
6. Norm427 (Canada) $1,140.00
7. Laph (Sweden) $912.00
8. PPfinest (Canada) $684.00
9. Grande Joe (Italy) $570.00

PokerStars $215 PL Omaha Hi/Lo Final Table Results

1. Eternauta (Spain) $9,477.50
2. Sighthound1 (United States) $6,913.00
3. lakefront (United States) $5,240.50
4. phita45 (United States) $4,014.00
5. kingduey (United States) $2,676.00
6. redeye3030 (United States) $2,230.00
7. divanych1 (Russia) $1,784.00
8. JC198823 (United States) $1,338.00
9. amuth (United States) $892.00

PokerStars $215 FL Omaha Hi/Lo Final Table Results

1. cantseefade (United States) $10,881.00
2. MattyDaCobra (United States) $8,230.50
3. badbeatninja (United States) $6,138.00
4. layitdwnbaby (United States) $4,687.20
5. jashawk (United Kingdom) $3,208.50
6. KillerBunny (United States) $2,511.00
7. gamble24/7 (United States) $1,953.00
8. tmt326 (United States) $1,395.00
9. Lucky Joe (United States) $976.50

PokerStars $215 Weekly FL Hold'em Final Table Results

1. ChrisQB8 (Austria) $6,480.00
2. stuermer39 (Germany) $4,320.00
3. jakz101 (United States) $2,570.40
4. daxfut (Austria) $1,728.00
5. PapaPapsilon (Germany) $1,404.00
6. Daffer (Denmark) $1,080.00
7. PokerSkiBum (United States) $756.00
8. maggie32198 (United Kingdom) $561.60
9. newhizzle (United States) $367.20

PokerStars $215 Weekly Stud Hi/Lo Final Table Results

1. graybone (United States) $4,920.00
2. The Omaholic (United States) $3,280.00
3. freshfruits (Finland) $2,296.00
4. MrCasino (United States) $1,640.00
5. Dunross (United States) $1,312.00
6. julucas (France) $1,148.00
7. pokerhahntas (United States) $984.00
8. yoda777 (United Kingdom) $820.00

PokerStars $215 Weekly HORSE Final Table Results
Based on finishing order and two-way deal

1. johnny1430 (United States) $15,639.80
2. coglione (Italy) $13,500
3. SNG Grind_15 (Norway) $7,890.50
4. ez monney (Canada) $5,321.50
5. crdhstlr (United States) $4,147.10
6. bad Dave (United States) $3,303.00
7. MrWolfAA (United States) $2,495.60
8. kev19 (Canada) $1,724.90

PokerStars Sunday Second Chance Final Table Results

1. donnysack (United States) $73,617.96
2. hookembaby83 (United States) $52,946.00
3. CPT CRUX (United States) $38,213.20
4. Alex_Moscow (Egypt) $25,782.40
5. WINTERS25 (United States) $21,178.40
6. Fold Ü Phish (United States) $16,574.40
7. bonzo9876 (United States) $11,970.40
8. ozenc (Netherlands) $8,287.20
9. nsd4eva (United States) $5,064.40

PokerStars Sunday $5,200 Freezeout Results

1. Bucovinas (Norway) $50,000.00

PokerStars $215+R NLHE Final Table Results

1. grunter321 (Australia) $75,594.00
2. PFC_Jablohme (United States) $52,740.00
3. mlagoo (United States) $34,456.80
4. richie7777 (United States) $27,424.80
5. curzdog (United States) $21,096.00
6. justakid71 (United States) $15,822.00
7. URmyRailbird (United States) $12,306.00
8. Axis101 (Ireland) $8,790.00
9. ra1se (United States) $5,274.00

The PokerStars 2x promotion carried over into the Sunday Million this week, doubling the guaranteed prize pool to $2 Million and drawing the largest field in Sunday Million history. 14,181 players signed up for the biggest weekly guarantee in poker, building a prize pool of $2,836,200! By the time the final table bubble burst after 2:30 AM Eastern Time, the final nine players were still competing for a prize pool worth almost a million dollars! Nearly two hours later, TimDawg888 overcame the big stack of xanja to take down first place and over $235,000 in prize money!

After sending grapedrink07 to the rail in 10th place, Bumper111 took a big chip lead into the final table. Roundhauskik took over the chip lead in a coin flip with AK against Bumper111’s pocket Queens. A King on the flop, and an Ace on the river, and Roundhauskik was the new chip leader. Roundhauskik put that big stack to good use not long afterwards, taking out funplay800 in 9th place ($21,271.50). All the money went in preflop, with funplay800 As-Qd dominating Roundhauskik’s Qh-Jc. The flop was heartbreaking for funplay800 as it came down Js-Jd-9s. The turn and river came down 2h-2d to give Roundhauskik a full house and send funplay800 to the rail.

Bumper111 was the next to fall, as the one-time chip leader finished the tournament in 8th place for $29,496.48. KAG1 moved all in preflop with 4s-5s, and Bumper111 called with Js-3h. The flop of 4h-Td-8c was bad for Bumper111, and the 5h on the turn sealed the deal. The river was a superfluous 3d, and Bumper111 was eliminated.

Xanja took over the table chip lead by knocking out sjoko with Ah-Kh. Sjoko put in a stiff re-raise preflop with Ac-2c, and made the call when xanja moved all in over the top. The flop of Qc-4d-3d gave sjoko additional outs, but no help appeared on the turn or river. Sjoko earned $45,379.20 for 7th place.

On a flop of 3c-4c-7s, PokerMurphy1 led out with an all-in shove. Roundhauskik went into the tank for a moment before making the call with 6c-6d for second pair and an inside straight draw. PokerMurphy1 tabled 8c-8d for the overpair and faded the outs to bust Roundhauskik in 6th place. The final board read 3c-4c-7s-Qd-Ac, and Roundhauskik picked up $63,814.50 for 6th place.

Xanja’s chip lead grew even more after a big hand with KAG1 narrowed the field to four. KAG1 moved all in preflop over the top of xanja’s raise with Kc-Jd. Xanja quickly called with Ac-9s, and when the board ran out Ad-7d-Qd-As-3s, KAG1 was done in 5th place ($85,086.00) and xanja held a commanding chip lead over the rest of the field.

After a brief discussion of a deal, the remaining four players decided to play it out for the biggest prize pool ever in a Sunday Million. Play continued back and forth, with xanja building an ever-bigger chip lead, until the remaining players paused once more to discuss a deal. Deal discussions broke down once again, and play resumed. Just a few hands later, kpax22 went to the rail in 4th place in an exciting hand with xanja. PokerMurphy1 raised preflop, and kpax22 went all in over the top. Xanja three-bet, and PokerMurphy1 got out of the way.

Xanja revealed Ah-Kh to kpax22’s Js-10c, but the flop brought outs in the form of 5c-9h-Ks, giving kpax22 an inside straight draw. The Qh on the turn filled the straight, but the 2h on the river swung the pendulum back to xanja, as the nut flush busted kpax22 in 4th place, good for $113,448.00. After kpax22’s elimination, a deal was reached between the final three players, paying out $167,788.00 to PokerMurphy1, $205,356 for TimDawg888 and $235,000 to xanja, with $30,000 left in the middle for the winner.

Three-handed play lasted only a few hands before TimDawg888 picked off a re-steal attempt by PokerMurphy1 that set up the heads-up match. TimDawg888 raised preflop, and PokerMurphy1 moved all in over the top with Ks-4d. TimDawg888 made the call with Ad-7c, and picked up a paid of sevens on the board of Jd-8c-Qs-7s-6c to send PokerMurphy1 home in 3rd pace with $167,788.00. That hand brought TimDawg888 within striking distance of xanja’s big stack and the extra $30,000 left for the winner.

Xanja took the first few hands of heads-up, increasing the chip lead to more than 2:1 before TimDawg888 doubled through on a key hand with top pair, top kicker on a board of Jd-3h-9s-Kh-4h. Xanja made a move with 9d-6d for second pair, but ran into TimDawg888’s Ah-Jc, and the chip positions were suddenly reversed.

It all ended a few hands later as TimDawg888 took down the biggest Sunday Million ever, and $235,356.00 for first place. In the final hand, TimDawg888 raised preflop with As-8s. Xanja re-raised all in with Js-Jd, and TimDawg888 made the call. The flop was cruel for the former chip leader, as the Ac in the middle put TimDawg888 firmly in the lead. The final board ran out 5d-Ac-2c-9d-Qs, and TimDawg888 had overcome the once-dominating chip lead of xanja to take down the richest weekly guarantee in poker.

The final table payouts (as a result of a three-way deal) looked like this –
1st – TimDawg888 - $235,356.00
2nd – xanja - $235,000.00
3rd – PokerMurphy1 - $167,788.00
4th – kpax22 - $113,448.00
5th – KAG1 - $85,086.00
6th – Roundhauskik - $63,814.50
7th – sjoko - $45,379.20
8th – Bumper111 - $29,496.48
9th – funplay800 - $21,271.50

Congrats to all TimDawg888, all our final table players, and all 2,142 players who cashed in this week’s Sunday Million!

It had to happen and now it has. We have reached three tables in the World Series main event.

Three tables, 27 players, one more day until we reach the final nine. Along the way, there were all the twists and turns we expect as we reach the business end of these monster tournaments. We had vast crowds, mountains of chips, huge checks being written and countless stories. We even had a rainstorm.

But when the clouds cleared we were left with a sharper picture of where this thing is headed -- and as ever, PokerStars players feature heavily in any reportage.

What started as a 79-strong field of players at noon ended with three tables in less than twelve hours. Among the remaining 27 are eight PokerStars players. Here they are with their approximate chip counts.

David “Chino” Rheem -- (8,280,000)-- David “Chino” Rheem is having a great time since he arrived in Vegas. Not only did he take 5th place in the $5k NL tournament in June for $93,624, he also won a super satellite back in April for a $25,700 seat in the WPT Five Star World Poker Classic. Generally, the 28-year-old from Miami, Florida has enjoyed a string of tournament successes recently including five WSOP cashes in the last three years. This includes $327,981 in the 2006 $1,000 NLHE event.



Chris Klodnicki -- (6,245,000)--Chris Klodnicki is a 23-year-old professional poker player from New Jersey. He started playing six years ago after getting some instruction from his brother. After running over home games and the poker scene in Atlantic City, Klodnicki turned pro. After a couple of unsuccessful World Series tries, Klodnicki returned this year to play. After coming runner-up to Team PokerStars Pro Barry Greenstein in the Razz event, Klodnicki has made a massive run through the Main Event field.



Brandon Cantu--(4,740,000)--PokerStars player Brandon Cantu is both a World Poker Tour and World Series of Poker winner. The latter of these he won back in June 2006 as a 25-year-old, taking $757,839 for first place in what was then the largest non-main event field in WSOP history, a $1,000 buy-in hold 'em tournament. More recently, his WPT crown at the Bay 101 Shooting Stars in March of this year swelled his bankroll to the tune of $1 million. Now, he’s looking at the possibility of a $9 million payday in the World Series Main Event.



Darus Suharto -- (4,510,000) -- Darus Suharto is from Toronto, Canada. He is an accountant who loves his job so much, he would find it hard to quit, even if he won the World Series Main Event. He would like to find more time to play poker, but because he spends so much time working, most of his tournament poker experience comes from playing online. He qualified for his seat on PokerStars and is looking to improve on his modest in-the-money finish from last year.



Owen Crowe -- (3,800,000) -- Known as “ocrowe” to just about everyone in the online poker world, Owen Crowe is a 26-year-old professional poker player. Famed for a monster year on PokerStars in 2006, including a Sunday Million win, it’s been a good World Series for the Canadian who took over $81,000 last month in a $1,500 no limit hold’em event for his eighth place finish. Now he’s already better than that in the Main Event and guaranteed $257,334 as he goes into the final day of play before the final table break.



Ylon Schwartz -- (3,655,000) -- A native New Yorker -- born in Manhattan and now living in Brooklyn -- Ylon Schwartz is a chess whizz and a poker player with 11 previous cashes in World Series events dating back to 2005. He's equally at home playing chess in the super-competitive games in New York's Washington Square Park, idling the time in Golden Nugget low limit ring games or tearing up the major poker tournaments in the east coast casinos of Atlantic City and Foxwoods.



Tim Loecke -- (2,280,000) -- Tim Loecke qualified for the Main Event on PokerStars, spending only $63 for his $10,000 seat. Now he is guaranteed more than a quarter-million bucks and has a shot at millions. From Highland Park, Illinois, Loecke is a 37-year-old who still maintains his Iowa farm boy roots. He once said, “I used to milk 70 cows a day as a kid.” Now he is a director of sales who dreams of winning big enough money that he can use it for such things as restoring the little league baseball program in his hometown, Greeley, Iowa.



Phi Nguyen -- (1,020,000) --Phi Nguyen is no stranger to the World Series and as a double bracelet winner, winning the $2,500 no limit hold’em event in 2003 and the $1,500 hold’em shootout a year later, the Californian would be one of the favourites were it not for a short stack. He has impressive form this year having narrowly missed out on the final table in the $1,000 no limit hold’em, finishing tenth for $36,176. He also has numerous World Series and WPT cashes to his name and career winnings of $1.3 million.



Today was not only a day to build for tomorrow. It was also a day to say goodbye to some good contenders. Most notably, we lost Team PokerStars Pro Victor Ramdin. Ramdin had a rough start to the tournament series, but finished strong with a final table in the $1,500 HORSE event and a deep run in the Main. Here's a look at all the PokerStars players who finished today.

For the full list of PokerStars results visit our WSOP Results page.

29	Cristian Dragomir	Romania	Qualifier	$193,000
31	Garrett Beckman	USA	Qualifier	$193,000
34	Greg Byard	USA	Qualifier	$193,000
35	Andrew Brokos	USA	Qualifier	$193,000
38	Felix Osterlund	Germany	Qualifier	$154,400
42	Jonathan Plens	USA	PokerStars player	$154,400
43	Jason Glass	USA	Qualifier	$154,400
48	Adam Levy	USA	Qualifier	$135,100
52	Mark Ketteringham	USA	PokerStars player	$135,100
54	Alex Outhred	USA	PokerStars player	$135,100
62	Geert Jans	Holland	Qualifier	$115,800
63	Brian Tatum	USA	Qualifier	$115,800
64	Victor Ramdin	USA	Team PokerStars Pro	$96,500
65	Larry Wright	USA	Qualifier	$96,500
72	Daniel Buzgon	USA	Qualifier	$96,500
75	Keith Hawkins	UK	PokerStars player	$77,200

Be sure to check out all of our video blogs from Day 6 and before on PokerStars.tv. Don't miss the latest videos to get the password for the PokerStars.tv freeroll.

Selected chip counts from Day 6 can be found on our 2008 World Series Chip Counts page. When we have an official list from the WSOP tournament staff, we will post it on the same page.

If you would like to see PokerStars Blog World Series news in another language, be sure you take a look at all the other coverage on our German, Swedish, and Brazilian blogs.

Here's a look back at all the coverage from Day 6.

The turn card
The view from table three
The morgue
From the heartland to the big time
Still in the fray
At the eye of the storm
Third year's a charm
Four for the feature table
Cantu can still do

For coverage from all the previous days, we've posted summaries below.

Day 1A
Day 1B
Day 1C
Day 1D
Day 2A
Day 2B
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5

Twenty-nine players remain in the main event as they return from the latest break for blinds of 40,000/80,000 with a 10,000 ante. It makes the short stacks shorter and forces a few more players to look anxiously over their shoulders as the big stacks closing in.

Recent eliminations after a long day at the tables include Andrew Brokos (35th), Greg Byard (34th), Jamal Kunbuz (33rd) and Garrett Beckman (31st), all of whom receive $193,000 for their efforts.

Greg Byard

One player experiencing life as one of those short stacks is double bracelet winner Phi Nguyen, a PokerStars player from Santa Ana, California, who spoke the PokerStars video blog team earlier today.

Watch WSOP 08: Phi Nguyen Interview Day 6 on PokerStars.tv

The cream of the crop in poker tournaments has a tendency of rising to the top, sinking, rising, curdling, rising and sinking again, in no particular order. With so many exceptionally skillful players in every major tournament (especially towards the business end) it takes a spectacular talent to stick around near the summit of a leaderboard for any length of time.

Lucky then that PokerStars player Brandon Cantu is a spectacular talent. All the day end chip leaders have now departed from the main event -- Mark Garner (Day 1A); Ben Sarnoff (1B); Henning Granstad (1C); Steve Austin (1D); Brian Schaedlich (2A); Peter Biebel (2B); Jeremy Joseph (3&4) and Mark Ketteringham (5) -- but Cantu, who has been there or there abouts throughout these past two days, battles on. He was one of the first players past 10 million in chips earlier this afternoon, and now he has the right side of 11 million. That, folks, is the chip lead.

Chip leader Brandon Cantu

Cantu has been on and off the secondary feature table during his hours of dominance, and is presently ruling that particular area of the Amazon Room. His table also includes the PokerStars players David Rheem, Jamal Kunbuz and Ylon Schwartz, as well as a guy who calls himself The Mouth, but Cantu is uncowed by anything that has come his way, including the chip lead that seems to have been the kiss of death on other players.

Hardly surprising. Cantu has previously earned a World Series bracelet and a WPT title so is wholly accustomed to this kind of atmosphere. It may be the "secondary" feature table, but it's really where all the best work is going on.

***
Also still well chipped up as the field thins to 34 is PokerStars qualifier Darus Suharto, our accountant friend from Toronto, Canada. He spoke to our video blog team earlier on day six, when he was looking forward to the monster payday that is now just round the corner.

Watch WSOP 08: Darus Suharto Qualifier Goes Deep on PokerStars.tv

***
PokerStars qualifier and Supernova Greg Byard went out shortly after the dinner break, pushing his final 470,000 all in pre-flop from the button but finding his J-6 dominated by K-J. He takes $193,000 for 34th place, another huge PokerStars winner.

Whilst the backdrop of the Amazon Room and its surrounding halls and corridors has changed day by day as the field reduced in size one thing has remained constant – the feature table stage.

There’s a bar at the back of this is spectator monolith. It’s raised up to overlook the players and is sponsored by a major beer retailer. It also has a bar. Not surprisingly this is the place to be if you’re a spectator in the Amazon room. In fact, when the doors open and the railbirds flock back into the arena it’s not unusual to see people running for position like the first day of a shop sale. They’re made up of a potent mix of tourists, poker geeks and the friends of those playing under the lights. Cowboy hats, sandals, suntan and sunburn all over the place.

But the main table isn’t the only attraction to be seen from up here. Along with a few drinks, leaning over the back edge gives a superb view of the rest of the tournament area, the second feature table in particular.

This is where four PokerStars players sit, line abreast in seats three to four - Felix Osterlund, David ‘Chino’ Rheem, Jamal Kunbuz and Ylon Schwartz.

Left to right: Felix Osterlund, David Rheem, Jamal Kunbuz, Ylon Schwartz

The presence of Ylon on this table raises a question we were trying to figure out ourselves before conceding it was more Team PokerStars Pro Bill Chen’s department. And that’s this... ‘What are the odds of a player not featuring on any feature tables – main or secondary – for the entire first five and a half days of the main event?’ because Ylon is finally making his first appearance there, with Mike Matusow on his immediate left.

This table is a quieter beast with few of the growls that emanate from the other side of the wall. But the PokerStars foursome wouldn’t remain that way for long. Shortly before the dinner break Felix Osterlund busted, the German taking the field down to size 37. By the dinner break that figure was down to 35, and that’s how many level 25 will start with.

Chris "SLOPPYKLOD" Klodnicki may just be a good poker player.

At only 23 years old, he is already a pro. Six years ago, his brother taught him the game, introduced him to home games, and watched him step into Atlantic City’s Taj Mahal—still underage—and start beating the game.

But, hey, what poker player worth his salt hasn’t done that, right? Sure.

Yep. Chris Klodnicki may just be a good poker player. Why? Well, this is Klodnicki’s third World Series.

“My first year I only played a few events and had no cashes,” he said. “Last year I played about ten with only one small cash. I had a very big stack in the main event after Day 1 but lost aces to kings to bust on Day 2.”

That sounds like a lot of players’ stories, eh?

Well, this year everything changed, and that’s why we’re pretty sure Chris Klodnicki may just be a good poker player.

Klodnicki played the $1,500 Razz event here this year and nearly won a bracelet. The only thing that stopped him was Team PokerStars Pro Barry Greenstein. Still, runner up to one of the best in the world isn’t too shabby.

Klodnicki is not content to rest on that accomplishment however. The Lehigh University finance graduate is deep in Day 6 of the World Series Main Event and looks good to make Day 7.

While he’s not counting his chickens yet, he can see himself making the final table and winning some big money.

“I would invest most of it in real estate and definitely buy a new car,” he said. “I’'d get something nice for my family, too.”

***

As we head to dinner break tonight, there are 35 players remaining. For a complete list of PokerStars results, click HERE. For the most recent chip counts, see our World Series Chip Counts page.

Hope you had fun with the double guarantees (and how about 14,000 people in the Sunday MIllion, huh?).

The PokerStars 2X promotion continues this week with some brand new 2X fun. How does double the pot sound?

Between July 14-20, PokerStars will double the pot for the winner of every 1,000,000th hand dealt in real money cash games. What's more, all players dealt into the hand will receive 22 big blinds at the limit being played (For Stud, Stud Hi/Lo and Razz, it will be 22x the Small Bet.) Then, PokerStars will multiply that according to the player's current VIP status

SilverStar players will get a 15% bonus. GoldStars will pick up a 30% bonus. It will be 60% for Platinum Stars, 120% for Supernovas, and a massive 200% for Supernova Elites.

But, that's not all....

When you play in any of PokerStars regular Heads-Up Sit & Go tournaments between July 14-27, you will get 1.5X the amount of VPPs and Frequent Player Points that you would normally awarded.

AND FINALLY…

Don't forget, if you make your first deposit with the code FIRST2X, you will get into to the 2X First Depositor Freerolls. There are two $2,222 freerolls running every day, from July 8-30, at 13:00 ET & 20:00 ET. If you cash in any of the freerolls, you'll win a seat in the $22,222 finals on July 31.

An hour or so ago, people returning to the Amazon Room from a rare step into the outside world were reporting something very peculiar. Here in the middle of the Nevada desert, in the heat of the summer and during a drought, there was a rainstorm. And with characteristic Las Vegan excess, it wasn't just any old rainstorm: a ten-yard dash could soak all clothes to transparent and people were diving into the swimming pool for shelter.

Under the sturdy roof of the Rio Convention Center, we were at least dry. But a different downpour that started last week showed no sign of abating, with players being eliminated from the main event of the World Series of Poker at a startling rate. By the second break of the day, at the end of level 24, just 44 players remained of the 79 that started the day. It didn't matter if you began with five chips or five million, the walk to the rail was equally brisk.

Thankfully, PokerStars players are a hardy bunch and have learnt to weather storms even more fierce than this one. Among those still sitting in dry clothes as all else washed away were David "Chino" Rheem, from Florida, Jamal Bunkuz, from Venezuela, and Jonathan Plens, from Canada. Each had at least a million in chips at last count, with Rheem in particular sitting pretty. He had 3,250,000.

David 'Chino' Rheem

Rheem has been having a ball since arriving in Vegas. Not only did he take fifth place in a $5,000 hold 'em tournament in June for $93,624, but now he’s lying in 13th place in the main event. This is in addition to winning a super satellite in April for a $ 25,700 seat in the WPT Five Star World Poker Classic. The 28-year-old from Miami has enjoyed a string of tournament successes including five WSOP cashes in the past three years, most notably $327,981 for second place in a 2006 hold 'em event where he only succumbed after a five-hour heads-up battle with Allen Cunningham.

Jamal Kunbuz

Jamal Bunkuz has been to Vegas many times but this is the first time he’s ever played in the World Series or, for that matter, any major poker tournament. Back home in Valencia, an industrial city in Venezuela, Jamal imports electronic goods for a living – and plays poker for fun in a local casino. He’s won a few tournaments there but those pay-outs have been around the $200 mark, not the $154,400 or more that he’s guaranteed here.

“I’m really enjoying it”, Bunkuz said. “And I’m also learning a lot too – particularly discipline, making the right decision at the right time.”

The 50-year-old father-of-three has also made plenty of friends here in Vegas, including Team PokerStars Pro Humberto Brenes. He now plans to renew that friendship in Punta del Este in Uruguay in August, where he’ll be playing in the Latin American Poker Tournament.

Jonathan Plens

Canadian Jonathan Plens is best known online as “therookieqq9” and has had a string of good results in recent online tournaments including £24,640 - his biggest win to date – in a PokerStars $100 rebuy in April. He started playing five years ago and, until now, his greatest live success was second place for $95,118 in the Spring Poker Festival E-WSOP Trial in Vienna in 2006.

The 29-year-old former dealer from Toronto is good friends with Sorel Mizzi and Russell “rdcrsn” Carson who are both backing him in the WSOP. Mizzi said: “Jonathan is one of the most underrated players that there is online but he’s been crushing it for a while now and is starting to get the recognition he deserves. I’d say he’s certainly one of the top five players left in the field here at the World Series."

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.

A staple of the countless entertainment channels the world round is the "Before They Were Famous" show -- clips of famous sportsmen turning out for their elementary school team; a senator in a college debate; Britney and Justin on the Disney Channel, that kind of thing.

Before the World Series began, we sent out a player survey to the 2008 PokerStars qualifiers who had won their seat to the main event in a PokerStars satellite. We asked a few basic biographical questions, asked them to detail their qualification process and a few speculative questions about what they would do with a huge win in Vegas. For those players now going way, way deep (as we knew some would) these surveys provide us with our very own "Before They Were Famous" and give us charming lines such as: "I won a $33 rebuy with one add on. $63! Hope to make it into a whole lot more!"

That innocent hopeful was PokerStars qualifier Tim Loecke, from Highland Park, Illinois. Loecke is still seated in the Amazon Room at the Rio Hotel and Casino among only 55 others still surviving in the main event. That $63 is indeed already a "whole lot more!" Even if he loses all of the million-odd chips he currently has on the very next hand, he will win $154,100. And there's no reason to think he can't earn a "whole lot more!" than that.

PokerStars qualifier Tim Loecke

Loecke's player survey was actually one of the best we received this year, and one of the most engaging "Before They Were Famous" clips. "I used to milk 70 cows a day as a kid on our family of seven kids farm," Loecke wrote. "I grew up on a farm in smalltown Iowa, Greeley, town of 300. Still consider it home."

The 37-year-old has since travelled through 10 other towns or cities before settling just outside of Chicago, where he has now upgraded from milking cows to being a director of sales. Poker has been a constant through all these transistions. Having learned to play as a child, Loeke first logged onto PokerStars about five years ago and has been milking the profits ever since.

But home is still very much where the heart is, and Loeke has big plans for Greeley should he really make a huge score here. Asked what he'd do with the money, he was the picture of generous humility: " I don't think I would want to change my life much. I would give some away and buy some land in Iowa. I might restore Greeley, Iowa a little, it could use some work. Maybe restore the little league baseball program in Greeley."

And who would be the first person he called once he took it down?

"My mother."

Of course.

There is an interesting phenomenon that happens around this time at the World Series. The air conditioning meant for 3,000 people starts to override the central nervous systems of the few hundred now in the room. It begins to feel a bit like...well, we'll just say it. It feels like a morgue.

It's not very difficult to carry the simile foward. In just the first level of play today, we've seen 22 people eliminated form the 2008 World Series. The pace is frightening and the body-cooler-like qualities of the Amazon Room cannot be ignored.

Day 6 began with 79 runners, among them more than 20 PokerStars players. At the end of the first level of play, only 57 remain. While it could be worse for the PokerStars, but it certainly could be better as well. Here are the five PokerStars players who are on the rail today.

62.Geert Jans -- $115,800
63. Brian Tatum -- $115,800
64. Victor Ramdin -- $96,500
65. Larry Wright -- $95,500
72. Daniel Buzgon -- $95,500

Daniel Buzgon reacts to his opponent's rivered straight

For the bulk of this World Series, Victor Ramdin has looked like there was no way he could lose this event. Today, circumtances proved otherwise. A sad downward spiral that began last night continuned today and Ramdin exited in 64th place for $96,500.

After learning so much about Brian Tatum last night from our special correspondent in this report, it was sad to see him go today. Good run, Brian.

We are now entering Level 25 with 57 players. Play will continue tonight until 27 players remain.

Two vinyl rails are all that separate several hundred poker-loving spectators and the 79 surviving players on Day 6 of the World Series main event. Beyond the circular tournament area and those watching is nothing but the vast carpeted no-mans land of the Amazon Room, transformed from the wall-to-wall tables of a few days ago into a vast space between the Rio and the outside world, and the even more insular environment of the last nine tables.

One of those tables is green three, tucked in between a small stage used by staff to get a better view of the battlefield, and a giant trash can. The scenery may not be as glitzy as the feature table, what with its lights and crowd packed bleachers, but none of that is required to make a big score. The only view that matters today is the one on the green felt in front of you.

That may well be the perspective of the four PokerStars players starting with varying degrees of chip stacks, as around them the spark of fortune bounces from player to player. Greg Byard sits in seat one with close to 1.2 million, next to Jonathan Plens on 1.87 million, whilst sitting opposite is qualifier Cristian Dragomir on just over 2.3 million.

Jonathan Plens

Cristian won the first pot of the day, an unraised start that eased them into the next level with blinds now 15,000/30,000 with a 4,000 ante. It was one of four hands played before play was de-railed by something you don’t often see, particularly after a few hands – a different coloured card. It seems the ace of spades was in the deck but whilst the rest of the cards were backed with red, this one was backed in blue, which pained the player dealt it on the confessional hand.

Greg Byard

The next hand sees Greg Byard in seat one move his chips into the middle. He slides his almost 800K sized stack into the pot but gets no takers, part of a pattern taking shape today as the progression of players to the cashier dries up.

All this is played out the soundtrack of the occasional “all-in and a call” but the more likely cry of emphatic celebration by those who have hit the unlikely or avoided the probable. One player jumps out of his seat, walks, then runs to a buxom lady on the rail, conceivably a relative, or jumps up and down with him. As the cameras retreat order is restored.

A few early fallers have landscaped the Amazon Room a little but it’s early days.

If the World Series of Poker could be described in the terms of just one poker hand, today they are dealing the turn card.

After some feisty pre-flop action that lasted for four day ones and a couple of day twos, we finally saw the flop and associated betting during days three, four and five, with thousands of players either missing their draws or having their big pairs busted. At the other end of the spectrum, there are 79 players hoping to go all the way to showdown, and their hands will be better defined by the the action today.

It still won't be over, but we are going to thin the field from 79 players down to 27, by which point we should have a much better idea of who is going to be betting big once the river has been dealt. Showdown won't be until November, but this thing is well and truly taking shape.

Team PokerStars Pro Victor Ramdin has come all this way and isn't the kind of guy to fold at this stage. His seemingly unstoppable charge to the final table took a stumble late yesterday, but he is returning this afternoon with 795,000 in chips and as good a chance as any to continue a fine run. Chip leader overnight was PokerStars player Mark Kettingham, from whom we'll be hearing much more today.

PokerStars player Mark Ketteringham

Likewise Andrew Brokos, a PokerStars qualifier from Boston, who we met before the tournament had even started and who is starting day six with more than four million in chips. Brokos runs a non-profit debate league for school kids in Massachussetts, but there's no arguing that this has been one profitable trip to Vegas. After qualifying on PokerStars, Brokos is now on for at least $77,200.

PokerStars qualifier Andrew Brokos

We will also be keeping close tabs on all the other PokerStars qualifiers and players that have become well known to us all over the previous week. They include David Rheem, Chris Klodnicki, Cristian Dragomir, Brandon Cantu, Jonathan Plens, Garrett Beckman, Geert Jans, Phi Nguyen, Larry Wright, Ylon Schwart and Brian Tatum. Follow their progress with us.

Play starts today in level 24, with blinds at 15,000-30,000 (4,000 ante). Tournament director Jack Effel has issued the familiar instructions to shuffle up and deal, and they have done just that.

Welcome to day six.

The latest chip counts on PokerStars players will appear HERE as we have them. PokerStars winners to date can be found HERE. They have already won close to a million bucks, but the totaliser is ticking ever upward.

Remember, you can check out the fine work of our video blog team here in Las Vegas over at PokerStars.tv. There's also details of a daily freeroll tournament in celebration of the official launch of that video platform. Yesterday, the video blog team met Cristian Dragomir, from Romania, who chatted about his spectacular tournament to date and how it is help fuelling a poker boom back home.

Watch WSOP 08: Christian Dragomir Day 5 on PokerStars.tv

Also please e-mail us at blog@pokerstars.com if you know any of the qualifiers still in the field and want to give us some stories about them or track their progress. We'll do our best to keep in touch.

The few became fewer today. This beleaguered poker bastion known as the Amazon Room got smaller and smaller and its surviving 79 occupants endured another day of triumph and trauma. The camp was small as players took their seats at high noon and by 11:30pm what remained were just a handful of tables with thousands of wide spectator eyes fixed upon them.

The whole room had taken on a different atmosphere today, with the tables from previous days gone and the area of action reduced table by table towards the main stage. It was quite a day, one of ups and downs for those playing under the PokerStars banner, headed by Team PokerStars Pro Victor Ramdin, with the likes of sponsored player Kara Scott equally popular with the railbirds.

Kara Scott

But on days like these surviving the cut depends on chips, cards, courage and that all important bit of luck. For much of this week Kara had the chips, the courage and didn’t need the cards, but that last bit of luck drained away this evening, her magnificent main event performance ended fittingly in front of the cameras and crowds on the feature table, her KQ running into AT on an AK4 flop to mark the end of an effort worth $41,816 for 104th place.

Joining Kara on the rail was the last of the FPP qualifiers Doug Ashmore from Houston, Texas. Doug paid 4,000 FPPs to enter a satellite, finishing as one of the top three players of 426 to win a seat to the World Series. Today he went even better, effectively turning that buy in into $41,816 with a 124th place finish.

FPP qualifier Doug Ashmore

It was not all about goodbyes. Team PokerStars Pro Victor Ramdin, who already has a final table to his name this year, continued his pursuit of the ultimate second making a powerful start, bouncing his way up into the millions.

Team PokerStars Pro Victor Ramdin

Victor excelled, flying as high as the three million mark before a harsh dose of tournament reality struck, costing him much of his fortune. He ended the day with just under a million, certainly enough for a player of his calibre to return to make his mark on Day 6.

As we find year on year it’s not just the quantity of PokerStars qualifiers that impresses, but also the quality.

Romanian qualifier Cristian Dragomir has enjoyed a somewhat meteoric rise up the chip lists from day one to now. His story is one of the ultimate spin-up, having won $1.87 on a freeroll four years ago which he gradually increased into thousands. In a nice parallel he’s done the same here. At the end of day one he had 55,000, a day later he was up to 193,000. Yesterday that figure was 824,000 and then in the first couple of levels this afternoon he jacked that up to 2.5 million. He returns tomorrow slightly down at 1.8million.

PokerStars qualifier Cristian Dragomir

His story could potentially be a big one, not least in his native Romania.

"It's huge," he said. "I just read on the internet that I'm going to be on the news. All my friends back home are rooting for me. It's massive."

Brian Tatum, a steps qualifier from Illinois, is making the most of his first trip to Vegas. He plays at PokerStars like it's his "morning cup of coffee" according to his girlfriend Joanne, who wrote to us at blog@pokerstars.com, and now he's on the mother of all caffeine rushes.

PokerStars qualifier Brian Tatum

He secured his seat on the final weekend before the main event and is still in with more than a million in chips going into the sixth day. He's being followed closely by all his family back home, and Joanne has also helped us out with some editorial on the site. It's a great story, and we've got a great narrator on board as well.

A mention also for Andrew Brokos who stormed towards the chip lead late today, ending with 4 million to bag and tag. Brandon Cantu, David Rheem, Greg Byard, Larry Wright, Geert Jens, Owen Crowe and Ylon Schwartz are all among those flying the flag for PokerStars heading into Day 6. You can find a complete list of who else is charged that task by clicking HERE.

PokerStars qualifier Andrew Brokos

PokerStars player Brandon Cantu

PokerStars qualifier Owen Crowe

PokerStars player Ylon Schwartz

But where there is joy there is also loss. There’s something ingrained onto the DNA of poker players that sees success as nothing short of total victory. Whilst a top 100 finish right now seem an incredible feat, years down the line a poker player will look on it more as a missed opportunity. The very best players operate in different circles to the rest of us mere mortals.

An honourable mention today goes to all PokerStars qualifiers and players who today took home a combined $981,077.

A total of 79 players survived today's onslaught, the trials and tribulations of a day that was more intense than yesterday but will come nowhere near the pressures of tomorrow when the perimeter will move even closer as we arrive at the last 27.

All that will start at noon in Las Vegas but for all the coverage from the day we broke the 100 barrier, check out the links below:

And now, day five
Under the lights
War of words
Party on, Garth
Keeping ones feet on (Romanian) ground
4,000 FPPs = $40,000 at WSOP
About the break
Nice gals finish 104th
This from our Brian Tatum correspondent
Cantu can do

Throughout the day, the PokerStars video blog team has been posting video blogs from the World Series on the brand new PokerStars.tv. Be sure to check out the latest videos to get the password for the PokerStars.tv freeroll.

Selected chip counts from Day 5 can be found on our 2008 World Series Chip Counts page. When the tourney staff sends out the final list for Day 6, we'll post it on the same page.

We don't limit our coverage here to the English-reading world. Be sure you take a look at all the other coverage on our German, Swedish, and Brazilian blogs.

For coverage from all the previous days, we've posted summaries below.

Day 1A
Day 1B
Day 1C
Day 1D
Day 2A
Day 2B
Day 3
Day 4

Photos (c) 2008 by Joe Giron/IMPDI

As these vast tournament fields thin to the elite few dozen, fewer and fewer players remain unknown. We've been in the same room with all these folk for the best part of two weeks and putting names to faces becomes easier by the day.

Some faces, however, have always been recognisable. They belong to the handful of bone fide poker stars still in contention. Team PokerStars Pro Victor Ramdin, for example, needs no introduction. As a winner on the WPT in 2006, Ramdin has had his fair share of television time.

PokerStars player Brandon Cantu is also in the WPT title winners' club. And he also has a World Series bracelet for good measure. The latter of these he won back in June 2006 as a 25-year-old, taking $757,839 for first place in what was then the largest non main event field in WSOP history, a $1,000 buy-in hold 'em tournament. More recently, his WPT crown at the Bay 101 Shooting Stars in March of this year swelled his bankroll to the tune of $1 million.

Brandon Cantu

Cantu's poker resume shows four other World Series cashes, and another couple on the WPT, for the player from Vancouver, Washington. Nice going. No more introductions necessary.

As day five wound to a close, Cantu was sitting with more than three million in chips and in the top five players on the official leaderboard. As we will continue to repeat, there's still a long way to go, but Cantu has both the chips and the class to outlast a great many more of the 85 players still in this thing.

The tournament staff have announced that we'll again be finishing a level early tonight. Players continued to fall at an alarming rate and we got below the target of 90 players just 45 minutes into level 23. Tomorrow the target is to play down to 27, however long it takes, and then on Monday we'll get it down to nine.

Cantu can do it, can't he?

***
PokerStars player Alex Outhred spare five minutes of his valuable break time to talk to our video bloggers. Outhred is still in contention late in day five.

Watch WSOP 08: Alex Outhred Day 5 on PokerStars.tv

Sometime during the level of play before the dinner break, we received an e-mail to blog@pokerstars.com from Joanne Cordier, the girlfriend of PokerStars qualifier Brian Tatum who is going way deep into the money at the World Series today.

Joanne was anxiously following Tatum's progress from their home in Illinois, receiving phone calls from him during every break, and after every major pot. Joanne wanted us to touch base with Tatum, take a photo and tell him of all his supporters back home. And we were only too happy to oblige: Tatum started day five with 224,500 and Joanne's most recent conversation with him revealed that he'd just taken down another huge pot and was up to 1,220,000 in chips.

Brian Tatum, freerolling

Joanne also filled us in on all the biographical details on Brian, to make sure he got all the coverage he deserves on the blog. We can allow her to take up the story, and offer sincere thanks. She's better at this than any of us:

"Let's see, Brian is 48, and he's from Indiana. He is the General Manager of Buffalo Wild Wings in Bradley, Illinois. I'm not sure what satellite tournament he won*; all I know is that he yelled very loud when he finally did it.

"He had been trying for at least a month and got in only a few days before the tournament started. I know that he was so sure that he was going to get in, he told his work that he would need two weeks off to play in the World Series before he had even won. Talk about the power of positive thinking! He plays poker online about everyday. It's his morning cup of coffee and probably couldn't get through the day without it. He has played on a few small tournaments online where the prizes were about $200 but this is his first big tournament.

"He has never been to Vegas in his whole life, even though I'm from there! He has had such a great time the last two weeks. Unfortunately he's there by himself. I suck at poker and have no chance of ever winning a trip. Plus he says I would be a distraction. It must be strange male thinking because he's on the phone with me every break. But whatever we have going on so far it seems to be working: 100 more people to go and I'll know for sure it's working. His parents live in Indiana and helped him with getting to Vegas on such short notice.

"He also has two children, Carrie and Brian, who are grown and moved out but cheering dad on. Then there's my son Logan and I (that he has helped raise for the last 7 years). We have just been watching and cheering and waiting for him to come home.

"As far as what he would do with the money? Probably pay off the bills and hopefully take his woman on one hell of a vacation!"

You'd definitely deserve it, Joanne. Thanks for all your help and congratulations to Brian. Reserve a spot at Buffalo Wild Wings for us. We'll swing by for the celebratory dinner.

*Tatum earned his seat at the World Series via the PokerStars "steps" route.

This poker blogging job, much like poker itself, is not one where we can let things get too personal. Alliances, friendships, and any matters of the heart can quickly turn to disappointment, frustration, and downright depression. All of that said, all of us here at the blog were rather rooting for EPT presenter Kara Scott.

Scott and the writers here travel in the same circles--the EPT, the PCA, poker tournaments around the world. More often than not, we're colleagues. At the Main Event of the WSOP, Scott left her role covering the action and became part of the battle herself as a PokerStars-sponsored player. No surprise, she became a frequent subject of ESPN attention, not to mention a force at the table.

Over the past week or so, Scott has impressed people with both her play and her compassion. Every time she stacked the chips, she gave her opponent a look that said, "I'm really, really sorry I had to do that. Would it be okay if I finished this tournament and then cooked you dinner?"

It's nearly impossible to find friendly, genuine people in poker. Scott just happens to be one. So, it is our sad duty to report that after five days of poker, our friend and colleague has been eliminated from the 2008 World Series.

Scott had been trying to build on a short stack for most of the day. Her seat at the feature table seemed permanent over the past two days, so it hurt no less to see her go out in 104th place. She will be comforted to some degree to cash the $41,816 prize she won for her finish.

As for us, we have nothing in which to revel except the continued success of the few dozen PokerStars players, including Team PokerStars Pro Victor Ramdin, who remain in the field tonight (CHIP COUNTS).

As the players head to the dinner break tonight, we have fewer than 100 players left in the field. Two more levels are on the schedule for the night, but the tournament directors tell us, if after the fourth level of the day we have between 63 and 81 players remaining, we could break for the night.

While we're out for a buffet, here's PokerStars player Phi Nguyen talking about his grudge match with Mike Matusow and how Kara Scott brightens his day.

Watch WSOP 08: Phi Nguyen Interview Day 5 on PokerStars.tv

The PokerStars 2X promotion continues today with even more amazing double guarantees for our major tournaments.

What's more, PokerStars has announced that this week's Sunday Million will also have its guaranteed prize pool doubled. That's a HUGE $2 million guarantee for the Sunday Million this week, 13 July, 16:30 ET. Satellites are running all week with buy-ins from as little as $2.20 or 400 FPP credits, so play now and take your shot at taking down one of the biggest prizes Sundays have ever seen!

And remember, from July 7-13, PokerStars is doubling the guarantees on each of its regular guaranteed tournaments. That includes all the regular tournaments, the Daily Fifteen Grand, Daily Fifty Grand and the Nightly Hundred Grand!

Below is a list of PokerStars guaranteed tournaments for Sunday July 13. The doubled guarantee is listed after each event. All times ET.

00:00:00 -- $77 NL Hold'em [6-max - $10,000 guaranteed] -- $20,000.00
01:00:00 -- $109 NL Hold'em [$30,000 guaranteed] -- $60,000.00
02:00:00 -- $33 NL Hold'em [$5,000 guaranteed] -- $10,000.00
05:00:00 -- $33 NL Hold'em [$10,000 guaranteed] -- $20,000.00
08:00:00 -- $11+R NL Hold'em [$10,000 guaranteed] -- $20,000.00
10:00:00 -- $8.80+R NL Hold'em [$20,000 guaranteed] -- $40,000.00
10:30:00 -- $11+R PL Omaha [$3,500 guaranteed] -- $7,000.00
12:00:00 -- $22 NL Hold'em [$20,000 guaranteed] -- $40,000.00
12:45:00 -- Sunday Warm-Up -- $1,000,000.00
13:00:00 -- $109 NL Hold'em [$15,000 guaranteed] -- $30,000.00
13:00:00 -- $5.50 NL Hold'em [$5,000 guaranteed] -- $10,000.00
14:00:00 -- Daily Fifteen Grand -- $30,000.00
14:15:00 -- $3.30+R NL Hold'em [$25,000 guaranteed] -- $50,000.00
15:00:00 -- Daily Fifty Grand -- $100,000.00
15:30:00 -- Sunday Hundred Grand -- $200,000.00
16:00:00 -- $11+R NL Hold'em [$45,000 guaranteed] -- $90,000.00
16:30:00 -- Sunday Million -- $2,000,000.00
17:00:00 -- $55 NL Hold'em [$25,000 guaranteed] -- $50,000.00
18:00:00 -- $5.50+R NL Hold'em [$35,000 guaranteed] -- $70,000.00
18:30:00 -- Sunday Second Chance [$400,000 guaranteed] -- $400,000.00
19:00:00 -- $109 NL Hold'em [$25,000 guaranteed] -- $50,000.00
19:00:00 -- $11 NL Hold'em [$20,000 guaranteed] -- $40,000.00
19:30:00 -- $22 PL Omaha H/L [$5,000 guaranteed] -- $10,000.00
19:45:00 -- $11 Razz [$1,000 guaranteed] -- $2,000.00
19:45:00 -- $215 HORSE [$50,000 guaranteed] -- $50,000.00
20:00:00 -- $3.30+R NL Hold'em [$30,000 guaranteed] -- $60,000.00
20:00:00 -- $27.50 NL Hold'em [$25,000 guaranteed] -- $50,000.00
20:30:00 -- $215 FL Omaha H/L [$40,000 guaranteed] -- $40,000.00
21:00:00 -- $4.40 FL Hold'em [$1,000 guaranteed] -- $2,000.00
21:00:00 -- $215+R NL Hold'em [$300,000 guaranteed] -- $300,000.00
21:30:00 -- Nightly Fifty Grand -- $100,000.00
22:00:00 -- $11+R NL Hold'em [$55,000 guaranteed] -- $110,000.00
23:00:00 -- $109 NL Hold'em [$20,000 guaranteed] -- $40,000.00

AND FINALLY…

Don't forget, if you make your first deposit with the code FIRST2X, you will get into to the 2X First Depositor Freerolls. There are two $2,222 freerolls running every day, from July 8-30, at 13:00 ET & 20:00 ET. If you cash in any of the freerolls, you'll win a seat in the $22,222 finals on July 31.

Sitting two seats along from Kara Scott on the feature table is PokerStars player Owen Crowe. The 26-year-old is one of those bigger stacks at the table, starting at close to 900K. Famed for a monster year on PokerStars in 2006, including a Sunday Million win, it’s been a good World Series for the Canadian who took over $81,000 last month in a $1,500 no limit hold’em event for his eighth place finish. Now, going into the break, he’s on a comfortable 1.3 million.

Owen Crowe

The break in any event that’s edging closer to the business end can be a mixture of worry and pent up excitement. Some players walking out of the Amazon Room are dialling a buddy or a loved one as they stride for the door. That then turns into either yelling (which echoes all the way back up to the casino floor) or pleas for reassurance, the promise that something good is bound to happen, from a distance voice of sympathy.

Then there are those busy doing interviews, those seeking sanctuary among a couple of railbird buddies, and those looking for a tranquil place to refocus on the task at hand.

Talking of the latter I’d place PokerStars player Ylon Schwartz well and truly within that category. Ylon, who we talked about yesterday as part of our Day 4 coverage, is the quiet type, preferring some peace and quiet between levels as he contemplates what lies ahead. It could be a profitable future. At last count he had 1.1million.

PokerStars player Ylon Schwartz

“It’s still early. You really need to get to the last two tables to make a lot of money.”

It’s a good point. For most a ‘double-your-money’ scenario (the first to bust out in the cash made $21,230) would sit nicely in a bank account. But the field has thinned and is made up of the kind of players that are thinking bigger, daring to picture a greater prize. Ylon is right, there’s still a lot of poker to play.

Tell that to Kara Scott, who came bounding up to me in one break after yet another interview with a TV outlet from somewhere. The contrast couldn’t have been more different.

“This is so much fun!” she said, clapping her hands together and then punching the air – all the calm exterior she shows at the table temporarily going up in smoke. “It hasn't sunk in yet. I'm up to 374,000. I’m having a great time.”

Kara Scott

After confessing that I’d expected her to be out by now (based on the colossal chip monsters surrounding her on the feature table) she hurried off in good spirits to take her seat back on stage. Soon after she was up to over 700K.

Stop press: Ylon just took a big hit going into the break, an ironic smile on his face as he left the Amazon Room, now down to less than 300K.

If you're a frequent PokerStars player, you already know that a Frequent Player Point has a certain value to it. People have cashed them in for books, hats, cars, and even houses. Today, one player has cashed his in for more than $40,000 and a really good story.

Doug Ashmore, 41, from Houston, Texas has been playing poker for the past 15 years. The one-time University of Texas basketball player was the last remaining PokerStars player in the field who qualified using nothing but his Frequent Player Points.

In early May, Ashmore played a 426-player 4,000-FPP qualifier. The top three seats paid for a full package to the World Series. Ashmore was among those top three players and today finished in the top 2% of the 6,844 players who started the WSOP Main Event--his first-ever major poker tournament.

Ashmore's 124th place finished earned him $41,816.

While fewer than 120 players remaining tonight, PokerStars still has a big contingent of players. See the most updated chip counts on our WSOP Chip Counts page.

PokerStars qualifier Cristian Dragomir's rise to the top of the World Series main event leaderboard has been nothing if not steady, as he explained during the most recent break. At the end of day one, he had 55,000, at the end of day two, he had 193,000, and at the end of yesterday, he had 824,000. He made it to 2,500,000 in the opening couple of levels today.

Cristian Dragomir

But going even further back, Dragomir is accustomed to seeing acorns grow into mighty oaks. About four years ago, he started playing poker with a few online freerolls and made his first ever $1.87 in a freeroll tournament. He steadily turned that into $15 and then entered a $5 tournament with rebuys, in which he placed second for $200. That became $500, then $1,000, etc., etc., etc. Let's just repeat: now he is sitting with the chip lead in the World Series. The first prize is nearly $10 million.

And yet...

"It's not to do with the money," Dragomir said. "I can't say that I am missing two or three million dollars from my life. It is about representing Romania in a big sporting event. I am just happy to be here and I'm hoping for a big result and to write history for Romania in poker."

The strangest thing about this comment is that it is clearly the absolute truth. Since Dragomir took up poker, he has made some of the best friends of his life, including Cristian Mihai, who he describes as the best heads-up player in the world, and who is one of about 20 friends who have come to Las Vegas from Bucharest to follow the event. Dragomir couldn't quite remember the details of his qualification for the main event until Mihai reminded him of his Wednesday night $320 satellite success. "There was one seat. I can't remember how many runners, but I won it," Dragomir said.

The two players were members of the Romania team at last year's PokerStars World Cup of Poker that finished second to Greg Raymer's American team.

"That was the proudest moment of our lives," said Dragomir, to the nodded agreement of Mihai. Mihai was the star of that particular show, and beat Team PokerStars Pro Daniel Negreanu heads-up to get Romania through to the final round. Poker in Romania is now booming, according to Dragomir, and his success here seems set to make him a national celebrity.

"It's huge," he said. "I just read on the internet that I'm going to be on the news. All my friends back home are rooting for me. It's massive."

It is indeed massive. It's 2,500,000 in chips massive. But if ever there was a player to keep it all in perspective, it's Cristian Dragomir.

Garth Paul, a 28-year-old man from Ohio has never played a World Series event, and he's not afraid to admit that. His midwestern upbringing suggests a certain pride void of arrogance.

"I am a humble person that treats people as they should be treated," he said.

Paul is one of those players who is among the best local players in his hometown. The first time he ever played a tournament, he took 3rd out of 187 players. He liked the game so much, he started hosting weekly tourneys at his house. In Vegas, he's won a non-WSOP tournament at the Rio and final tabled a tournament at Binion's. Still, he isn't cocky. He simply has a lot of tournament experience outside of this, the biggest poker realm in the world.

Today, Paul has reason to be proud.

After five long days of play, Paul can now say he has played in the WSOP and placed 153rd out of 6,844 players.

While it's not a tournament win, it almost certainly is his biggest cash to date at $41,816.

***

In other news, Team PokerStars Pro Victor Ramdin has moved his stack up to 2.5 million.

"One big hand," he said.

Ramdin came in for a raise with KT from the cutoff and got four callers. The flop came T72. By the time the action was to him, Ramdin called a 60,000 bet. On the turn, a three (and now with two spades), the price was up to 225,000. Ramdin, sitting with only top pair-king kicker, had a decision to make.

"This is something people aren't going to understand," he said. "But I picked up a huge tell on the guy."

In went Ramdin's 225,000.

The river was a six.

"I had him on AQ of spades or KQ of spades," Ramdin said. Now the bet was 360,000.

"You know what he had?" Ramdin said with a smile. "KQ of spades."

Ramdin called.

Now, he's eating an orange and headed back to level 21 with a huge stack.

PokerStars player Phi Nguyen is today renewing an old acquaintance. Seated on the feature table, behind 1,500,000 at day's start, Nguyen has Mike Matusow to contend with, but knows that currently all the bragging rights between mild-mannered Californian and the self-styled "Mouth" are his.

At the final table of the $2,500 no limit hold 'em tournament at the 2003 World Series, Nguyen was the unknown face among such luminaries as TJ Cloutier, David Singer, Steve Zolotow, Kenna James and, yes, Matusow. And as all of those notables bit the dust, it came down to a final three featuring Nguyen and Matusow, as well as Jim Miller.

"This bracelet, I got it from him," said Nguyen today during a break in the main event action, pointing at the wrap of gold around his left wrist. Nguyen won through that day, earnt himself that chunk of gold (plus $222,800), and found his name on Matusow's lengthy hit-list. Today they're doing battle again.

Phi Nguyen

The early exchanges have ended with honours event, but Matusow with the chips. The Mouth button raised Nguyen's big blind and, recalling the hand, Nguyen said: "I knew he didn't have to have much. I had nines and I knew I was ahead. So I called him."

The Mouth had ace-queen but ended up turning a queen to stay alive in the tournament. Good read from Nguyen, but a costly one. The Mouth remains in the game.

However, should Matusow decided to give up on poker, Nguyen has an incentive for him. "I'll cut this bracelet in half and mail half to him," said Nguyen. "But only if he retires from poker." That, folks, is fighting talk.

But these are not punches above Nguyen's weight. Phi has made a habit of going deep at the World Series, and has 14 cashes, most recently 10th in a $1,000 event last month, including five final tables. He's already improved on his best main event showing, which was 164th in 2006, and is now in the final 160. It's enough to make any opponent retire.

By day five a seat on the feature table might represent your last chance for one last waltz under the television lights, a last chance to engrain the memory of your World Series week on the minds of the viewing public, a permanent record somewhere in the annals of TV.

That is if you’re one of the many short stacks today, and at the time of writing that applies to seat four player, PokerStars sponsored player Kara Scott.

Kara Scott

Kara is certainly no stranger to working in front of cameras, what with her role as presenter of the European Poker Tour and even regular appearances on the PokerStars video blog. But with a canny director opting for Mike Matusow to fill his video tape today, Kara Scott is unnoticed despite putting in one of the great performances of the series.

Unnoticed perhaps because on the feature table the 'characters' tend to grow large.

As Matusow talks constantly, often without need of a conversational partner, another player stands as he plays, leaning over the table and making sweeping movements with his arms, like a commander explaining his desired troop movements on a giant map to eight other generals. But with his cap on backwards.

But lost in this is some great play from Kara, something she's done each day she's come to work in the Amazon Room. But as she knows all too well, this is a war of attrition and with just 180 players left the stakes just keep getting higher, and starting with just 247,000, it's getting to be a big ask.

But if this is to be her last hurrah then it won’t fade out without a fight. This week her game plan has been about re-raising. Being ‘aggressive’ is almost a cliché in poker circles these days but Kara has been visial proof of what this actually looks like. as I was watching she took another pot in the same way, providing a vital adrenaline shot to compete with the monster stacks surrounding her.

Mike Matusow may get the attention of the poker crowd, who rowdily cheer his every play, they’re missing the seat four player who might have a chance yet. A lot of people will be glad to see her back for day six.

Good afternoon once again from the Rio Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas. First the stats and the plans before we list the many inponderables and intangibles about today's play.

This is day five of the $10,000 championship event of the World Series of Poker. It's the eighth day of competition, but the official "day five" of a scheduled nine. Today, we reconvened at noon, with 38 minutes left in level 19, where the blinds are at $5,000-$10,000 ($1,000 ante). Once that's done, we're supposed to be back on track and will play five two-hour levels. With a 90 minute dinner break, plus a couple of mid-level pauses, we're expecting to be here until about 1am.

But all of that could change. The tournament officials have announced the intention to "reassess" the progress of the tournament throughout the day, meaning we could have a much later night, or a much earlier one. No one knows how the cards will fall and, for once, our immediate futures are also in the hand of the poker gods. We can only promise to keep you updated with what we know when we know it.

But we do know this. The field today comprises the 189 players remaining from an original list of 6,844 hopefuls. Any player returning today is already guaranteed a pay day of at least $38,600. There's a fairly steep incline in the prize structure until we get towards the dizzy millions of the final table.

Of the 27 Team PokerStars Pros that entered, Victor Ramdin remains the big hope. The New Yorker returns to action today behind 1,322,000 in chips and one of the most confident demeanours in the room.

Rightly so. Ramdin has been in devastating form, and has every potential to continue this adventure for another few days at least.

PokerStars sponsored player Kara Scott is also returning, with 247,000 in chips. PokerStars player Sarkis Akopyan, from Russia, has unbagged 442,000, Ylon Schwartz has 870,000 and Alex Outhred with 1,377,000.

Among the usual clutch of PokerStars qualifiers high on the leaderboard are some names that are becoming more familiar as the days go by: we have Felix Osterland, from Germany, with 1,491,000; Robert Ford (1,200,000) from the United States; Owen Crowe (110,000), from Canada, and the British duo of Andrew Teng and Bill Purle, who each have a million and change.

Approximately 41 of the 189 remaining players are in some way related to PokerStars. This dominance of the main event is becoming commonplace.

The players are now seated around those few final tables and a chorus of "All in and a call!" has begun to ring out. Fasten your seatbelts, and welcome to day five.

The latest chip counts on PokerStars players will appear HERE as we have them. PokerStars winners to date can be found HERE.

Remember, you can check out the fine work of our video blog team here in Las Vegas over at PokerStars.tv. There's also details of a daily freeroll tournament in celebration of the official launch of that video platform.

Also please e-mail us at blog@pokerstars.com if you know any of the qualifiers still in the field and want to give us some stories about them or track their progress. We'll do our best to keep in touch.

Wow. Seriously, wow.

We may have already used that word to start a previous post from today, but it becomes no less applicable in the duplicate. Wow. Seriously, wow.

Day four started an hour late after yesterday's extended bubble shenanigans, but we ended up unplugging our laptops a full level early tonight after the carnage of one of the fastest moving days in recent World Series memory. There were 474 players returning to the Amazon Room at the outset, with the idea of playing deep into the money. With 38 minutes still remaining in level 19, the tournament staff carried out a mercy killing on the day of slaughter. There were only 189 players remaining. It had been brutal.

Immovable and irresistible in that clutch of survivors is Team PokerStars Pro Victor Ramdin. Ramdin is the man in form and has cashed in the past four tournaments in which he has played, including a final table in the $1,500 HORSE event last week. He is now well chipped up going into day five of the biggest tournament of the year.

Team PokerStars Pro Victor Ramdin (1,325,000)

Much of Ramdin's day took place under the studio lights of the ESPN feature table, and it'll be worth tuning in to the broadcast. Ramdin ended with 1,325,000 in chips and a reputation even further enhanced. It's going to be a pleasure to follow his progress tomorrow, and probably much further.

For the final hour of the night, Ramdin was joined on the television table by the PokerStars sponsored player Kara Scott, who continued her fairytale World Series.

Kara Scott (247,000), right, with Victor Ramdin, left

Scott, from Brighton, England, is no stranger to the television cameras, and regularly wows poker audiences as the host of the television production of the PokerStars European Poker Tour. Now she's wowing American poker audiences for her play rather than her presenting skills and finished with 247,000 and the guaranteed largest payday of her career.

Expecting similar huge cheques to hit their bank accounts in the coming week are the regular list of PokerStars qualifiers and players that have owned this main event. As ever. PokerStars qualifier Darus Suharto, from Toronto, Canada, cashed for a small amount in the main event in 2006, but is now staring at a much larger payday, provided he can translate his 1,428,000 chips into a similar amount of real money come Monday (or November).

Darus Suharto

Felix Osterland (1,470,000), another PokerStars qualifier, this time from Germany, is neck and neck with Suharto's, alongside PokerStars players Alex Outhred (1,377,000) and Ylon Schwartz (820,000).

We'll have a better estimation of the number of PokerStars players still remaining when the official counts are made public sometime in the early hours.

Of course, such is the nature of the game that one player's progression often means another's departure, and among those ending their World Series assaults today were the duo of Team PokerStars Pros with the most recognisable user-names in the business: ElkY and RaiNKhan. Bertrand and Hevad, as they are known to the Grospellier and Khan families, respectively, both perished today, but did not go home empty handed.

ElkY took $28,950 for his 370th place, but suffered a couple of coolers -- set versus straight, among them -- to end his charge.

ElkY's day is done

A few hours later, RaiNKhan's deep drive halted when he ran pocket nines into Tiffany Michelle's K-Q, a queen flopping.

Those two were joined in the cashiers' line by a whole host of PokerStars qualifiers, who have already made very good indeed on their meagre satellite entry fees. A full list of PokerStars prize winners to date can be found HERE.

For all the coverage from the Day of Carnage, see the links below.

Seconds out, day four
FPP qualifier alive in Day 4
Hi honey, I'm home!
The Khan plan for poker domination
Ramdin's genie
The pride of Uncle Stan
The Wright stuff
International man of mystery

Throughout the day, the PokerStars video blog team has been posting video blogs from the World Series on the brand new PokerStars.tv. Be sure to check out the latest videos to get the password for the PokerStars.tv freeroll.

Selected chip counts from Day 4 can be found on our 2008 World Series Chip Counts page. When the tourney staff sends out the final list for Day 5, we'll post it on the same page.

You can also catch a wrap up of the from the PokerStars video blog team...

Watch WSOP 08: Update July 11th Day 4 on PokerStars.tv

We don't limit our coverage here to the English-reading world. Be sure you take a look at all the other coverage on our German , Swedish, and Brazilian blogs.

For coverage from all the previous days, we've posted summaries below.

Day 1A
Day 1B
Day 1C
Day 1D
Day 2A
Day 2B
Day 3

Photos (c) 2008 by Joe Giron/IMPDI

The post dinner break sprint to the end of Level 19 sees us with just fewer than 200 players remaining in the 2008 World Series Main Event.

PokerStars players can still be found all over the Amazon Room. None are shining brighter at this moment the following four people.

Darus Suharto (PokerStars qualifier)

Few players reach the top of the chip lists in the main event without spending a spell on the sidelines, comfortably shrouded by anonymity before their star begins to shine. PokerStars qualifier Darus Suharto would be one of those guys.

PokerStars qualifier Darus Suharto

He’s a small guy and his colossal stack of chips reaches past the half way point to his chin, 1.5 million strong. He took down another pot as I stopped by and was still stacking chips as the two next hands were dealt.

Suharto qualified on PokerStars for his main event seat this year and is already doing better than his finish from 206 when he placed 448th for a little more than $26,000. Now, he's guaranteed more than $30,000 and is among the chip leaders in this year's main event

The associate director of York University in Toronto Canada has more than one million chips.

The PokerStars video blog team spoke to him this morning on his way in.

Watch WSOP 08: Darus Suharto Online Qualifier on PokerStars.tv

Felix Osterland

It’s a similar situation for 22-year-old student and PokerStars qualifier Felix Osterland from Germany. Felix sits on the second feature table tonight, his chips stacked in ever ascending racks for a kind of half-coliseum effect, like some psychedelic ruin dug up by archaeologists, complete with slightly demolished edges.

PokerStars qualifier Felix Osterland

His head of curly hair rests on his hand. It may not be that late but it feels that way to some, even with just a level to go. His stack now measures 1.3million, good enough to yawn a few times and not worry about having to pay attention. He cashes her two years ago and will better that here.

Victor Ramdin and Kara Scott

Victor Ramdin has been the subject of much ESPN attention today and has spent a great deal of time at the feature table. He passed the time there doubling his stack to more than one million chips.

He's recently been joined by the always radiant Kara Scott, her sparlkly new necklace shining even brighter under the lights. She has around 400,000 and could very well be playing in Day 5.

Victor Ramdin and Kara Scott at the feature table

In other news...further down the room Bill Purle was unlucky not to double up, moving in and getting called.

“All-in and a call” yelled the dealer, as instructed, but when both players turned over aces a, “nevermind!” followed.

Bill was just seen sprinting to the door for a well earned smoke, closely followed by his wife Alice who has spent much of the day waiting patiently for him on the rail. He has 780,000.

One hour to go before the end of the night.

He was impossible to trace at the PCA and here has proven no easier. A player sits on table two complete with hood to cover his face and dark sunglasses to shield his eyes. Occasionally a nose peeks out but little more. He's been like this all week. Someone is behind that mask, an international man of mystery.

PokerStars qualifier Petteri Pirinen

Well, we’ve cracked the code folks and ironically all it took was for us to ask his name, so perhaps there's no mystery after all. He is PokerStars qualifier Petteri Pirinen from Espoo, the second largest city in Finland, a place of agriculture, the FC Honka soccer team and the Helsinki University of Technology – now one of its 235,019 locals is going deep in the main event.

Why the disguise?

“I don’t want to be seen” said Petteri, before he went on to express how annoyed he was at his play today, and the play of those who beat him. But he sits with a couple of hundred grand. Not bad for his first World Series. And now we have a name to go with the face, or at least the nose.

In most poker circles, you can't really throw out the name Larry Wright and expect a ready look of recognition. In fact, when looking at the chip counts of the 2008 World Series of Poker, you might be forgiven if you can't immediately place the name to a face.

It's only after you search your memory banks and remember the APPT Grand Final in Sydney that Larry Wright's poker resume will come to mind.

Wright is a contractor from Montgomery, Alabama who isn't at all ashamed to say that, up until several months ago, he'd never played a big buy-in tournament.

"I've won a few tournaments on PokerStars," he said while he racked up more than one million in WSOP chips and headed to a new table.

Larry Wright

He may be being a bit modest, because if you look back to that event in Sydney, you'll find Wright's name on the list of final table players. He finished ninth there before going back to his real life in the Deep South.

Between then and now, though, he qualified for the WSOP on PokerStars. As is habit for most modest southern men, Wright was quiet as he recounted his trip to Sydney, only saying of the suckout that sent him out in ninth place, "It was frustrating."

As we head to the dinner break tonight, Wright is among the chip leaders and the biggest PokerStars stacks in the room. He said quietly, "I plan on winning."

Wright is joined near the top by Owen "ocrowe" Crowe and Robert Ford. Both names should be familiar. Crowe is a big time online player and one-time winner of the PokerStars Sunday Million. Ford made the final table of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure in 2006 and has more than $600,000 in live tournament winnings.

Robert Ford

With a little more than 200 players remaining, we're getting the impression the players will take a dinner break and then return to play only one more level, instead of the two on the schedule. The field is thinning faster than expected, and with three more days of play after this one (and then only to get to a final table), some shorter days may be in order.

In the meantime, it's off for some BBQ.

The PokerStars 2X promotion continues today with even more amazing double guarantees for our major tournaments.

What's more, PokerStars has announced that this week's Sunday Million will also have its guaranteed prize pool doubled. That's a HUGE $2 million guarantee for the Sunday Million this week, 13 July, 16:30 ET. Satellites are running all week with buy-ins from as little as $2.20 or 400 FPP credits, so play now and take your shot at taking down one of the biggest prizes Sundays have ever seen!

And remember, from July 7-13, PokerStars is doubling the guarantees on each of its regular guaranteed tournaments. That includes all the regular tournaments, the Daily Fifteen Grand, Daily Fifty Grand and the Nightly Hundred Grand!

Below is a list of PokerStars guaranteed tournaments for Saturday July 12. The doubled guarantee is listed after each event. All times ET.

00:00 -- $77 NL Hold'em [6-max - $10,000 guaranteed] -- $20,000.00
01:00 -- $109 NL Hold'em [$30,000 guaranteed] -- $60,000.00
02:00 -- $33 NL Hold'em [$5,000 guaranteed] -- $10,000.00
05:00 -- $33 NL Hold'em [$10,000 guaranteed] -- $20,000.00
08:00 -- $11+R NL Hold'em [$10,000 guaranteed] -- $20,000.00
10:00 -- $8.80+R NL Hold'em [$20,000 guaranteed] -- $40,000.00
10:30 -- $11+R PL Omaha [$3,500 guaranteed] -- $7,000.00
12:00 -- $22 NL Hold'em [$20,000 guaranteed] -- $40,000.00
13:00 -- $109 NL Hold'em [$15,000 guaranteed] -- $30,000.00
13:00 -- $5.50 NL Hold'em [$5,000 guaranteed] -- $10,000.00
14:00 -- Daily Fifteen Grand -- $30,000.00
14:15 -- $3.30+R NL Hold'em [$25,000 guaranteed] -- $50,000.00
15:00 -- Daily Fifty Grand -- $100,000.00
16:00 -- $11+R NL Hold'em [$45,000 guaranteed] -- $90,000.00
17:00 -- $55 NL Hold'em [$25,000 guaranteed] -- $50,000.00
18:00 -- $5.50+R NL Hold'em [$35,000 guaranteed] -- $70,000.00
19:00 -- $109 NL Hold'em [$25,000 guaranteed] -- $50,000.00
19:00 -- $11 NL Hold'em [$20,000 guaranteed] -- $40,000.00
19:30 -- $22 PL Omaha H/L [$5,000 guaranteed] -- $10,000.00
19:45 -- $11 Razz [$1,000 guaranteed] -- $2,000.00
20:00 -- $3.30+R NL Hold'em [$30,000 guaranteed] -- $60,000.00
20:00 -- $27.50 NL Hold'em [$25,000 guaranteed] -- $50,000.00
21:00 -- The Nightly Hundred Grand -- $200,000.00
21:00 -- $4.40 FL Hold'em [$1,000 guaranteed] -- $2,000.00
21:30 -- $50,000.00 -- Nightly Fifty Grand -- $100,000.00
22:00 -- $55,000.00 -- $11+R NL Hold'em [$55,000 guaranteed] -- $110,000.00
23:00 -- $20,000.00 -- $109 NL Hold'em [$20,000 guaranteed] -- $40,000.00

AND FINALLY…

Don't forget, if you make your first deposit with the code FIRST2X, you will get into to the 2X First Depositor Freerolls. There are two $2,222 freerolls running every day, from July 8-30, at 13:00 ET & 20:00 ET. If you cash in any of the freerolls, you'll win a seat in the $22,222 finals on July 31.

It was a quiet day at the World Series of Poker, between the end of the $50,000 HORSE tournament and the start of the long main event day one. Two poker writers took a trip to Downtown Las Vegas, visited the Gamblers Bookshop, picked up a steak dinner in the Golden Nugget, then settled down for some gentle $3-$6 limit hold 'em. Nothing too stressful, nothing too taxing and nothing too costly.

As expected, the $3-$6 game had some of the characters familiar to any low-limit ring game: there were a couple of silent, aging rocks playing aces and sometimes kings (provided no one had already raised); there were the calling stations prepared to see a flop with any two cards and joyfully suck out with their jack-deuce; and there was an engaging couple of bickering Floridians resembling none so much as Morty and Helen Seinfeld from the show bearing their son's name.

There was also Ylon Schwartz.

"I'm sorry, this guy reminds me of Eric," said Morty Seinfeld to his wife. "I'm going to call you Eric," he told Schwarz, sitting silently but behind huge mountains of chips in the four seat.
"You can call me Eric," Schwarz said.
"And you can call me Uncle Stan."

With this established, the conversation began to flow. "Does Eric have the crazy hair?" Schwartz asked, referring to what indeed was "crazy hair". Tied in a pony tail, it still frizzed a good six inches from his head. You probably wouldn't want to see it first thing in the morning. Actually, you probably wouldn't be able to see anything but it.

Morty, or Uncle Stan, chuckled his assent. He then described his 19-year-old nephew Eric as something of a drifter, not ready to settle down, directionless but amiable; the kind of nephew that every uncle says should get a job and settle down, but secretly envies and adores. The kind of nephew that every aunt cooks huge dinners for until he can't eat no more. Schwartz may have looked the part, but he's slightly older and the guy had some focus. He was running that $3-$6 table.

"We might have to leave this game," whispered one poker writer to the other. "That guy's got a lot of chips. And he's pretty good. This is going to be tough." On the opening hand, Schwarz had re-raised pre-flop, got a bit feisty through the expensive turn and river street betting, then showed down jack-high. Obviously one of the writers had gone all the way as well, mostly because writing about poker doesn't necessarily mean you can play poker. They chopped it.

And the writers didn't leave for several hours because the conversation was good and the game was fun. They got to known Morty and Helen and Ylon over the coming couple of hours, even as they traded chips. It was fairly obvious right then and there that Schwartz was a proper poker player, slumming it for want of anything better to do amid the writers, the rocks and the Seinfeld parents. But just how good didn't really become apparent until yesterday, when, dressed in the familiar PokerStars colours of all the best players, his name appeared on the main event leaderboard.

"That was a tough game at the Nugget," he joked to the same poker writers. "It schooled me for this."

In truth, this is nothing new to Schwartz. He has 11 cashes in World Series events, dating back to 2005. He's also been on final tables in many of the sizeable events in the east coast casinos -- Foxwoods, the Borgata, etc., which are closer to his Brooklyn, NY home. Presently, he has more than a million chips with fewer than 250 players remaining in the biggest game in town.

Uncle Stan is filling with pride.

***
Update: Team PokerStars Pro Hevad Khan is out. He three bet pre-flop with pocket nines against Tiffany Michelle. Michelle went with him to the flop, and then called Khan's all-in shove on a queen high board. Michelle tabled queen-king and it was good. Khan headed to the cashiers cage and his World Series is over.

***
The employers of PokerStars qualifier Damien Creurer might want to watch our latest video blog very closely. As he explains, they might never be seeing him again, if he wins this one.

Watch WSOP 08: Damien Creurer Online Qualifier on PokerStars.tv

See more resignation letters in video form at PokerStars.tv

Victor Ramdin has a genie, but he looks nothing the lovely Jeannie from your TV set (or, for that matter, a semi-popular slot machine here in town).

“It’s my lucky genie,” he told his table. “I’m very superstitious.”

How lucky? Midway through the first level of the day he saw a raise and an all-in re-raise before he looked down at two black kings in his small blind.

“Call,” he said, his genie hanging just over his shoulder.

The first raiser smelled something funny and mucked his hand, leaving the re-stealing all-in player to sheepishly turn up Js7s. He was drawing dead by the turn.

“Sure, people just hand you their chips,” said a brash player a couple of seats to Ramdin’s left.

Ramdin pointed to his genie. “It’s the massage,” he said.

Ramdin is more focused than I’ve seen him in recent years. He’s alternately grinding and playing huge pots. What’s more, he’s kept the same massage therapist-- a big, muscular man--near his back at nearly all times. The therapist is not quite Tiger Woods’ caddy, but at times it seems like it.

Even when the genie is away, Ramdin is winning. On a board of 4d5hAh-Qc-Qd, Ramdin checked and watched his opponent throw out 65,000 in chips. Ramdin tanked while the ever-present ESPN cameras swarmed. He finally threw in his call and watched his opponent muck without showing. Forced to show his own hand, Ramdin turned up A2.

He stacked his chips without a word--laser focus that only makes way for some fun table chit-chat between hands. ESPN seems to love him. The producers have made Ramdin their feature table player twice, and had cameras at the ready any time he is in a hand.

Last night, as he sat on the side feature table, he leaned back to shake my hand. In just a few short minutes, without really trying, he cemented my impression of him.

“My son starts school tomorrow,” he said.

Not even August yet, I wondered why. Ramdin explained his son has some exceptional talent in a wide variety of disciplines, including boxing and chess. Ramdin found a summer program for gifted kids, and in went his son. While Ramdin toils in Las Vegas, he’s making sure his family is well taken care of.

That’s Ramdin. He’s a strategist, he’s a provider, he’s a fighter.

“Why don’t you have a woman masseuse?” someone wondered aloud.

Ramdin said the females are fine, but they sometimes don’t have the strength to get to the deep tissue.

“You’re a fruitcake,” said the mouthy player from before.

Ramdin’s lips drew into a line, but he didn’t say a word. Instead, his genie spoke for him.

“Have you seen his wife?”

Later, Ramdin remembered the guy in not-too-fond terms.

“The guy called me a fruit,” he said.

From nowhere appeared the genie. “That guy was uneducated,” he said.

“Wish he’d said it to be outside,” Ramdin mused. Then he looked to his therapist-caddy-genie and said, “We’re going to have a session at the dinner break.”

***

Ramdin looks to go into that break with more than 600,000 in chips.

Here’s a video blog recorded earlier today when Ramdin was having a rougher time of it.

Watch WSOP 08: Victor Ramdin Day 4 Catch Up on PokerStars.tv

Editor's note: After publishing this article, we were made aware Ramdin actually has two genies in the field. Rob Marriott is the one featured in the article. Morgan Hildreth is the other. Both seem to be good luck for Ramdin and are a credit to the growing number of male therapists in the room.

There’s a lot of stuff going on in the Amazon Room, between the remaining tables. The most notable is a player wandering around, getting well known around the room as the player who went on break with chips and came back to find his table broken and his chips gone. He literally can’t find his chips anymore, causing him obvious stress, and some mild amusement to the players.

On a table in the green zone a player is out of his chair, whooping and celebrating a survival hand. Team PokerStars Pro Hevad Khan looks over at the guy with a knowing smile. It’s easy for him to remember a time not so long ago.

This time last year it was Hevad’s parade - a high profile contender for poker’s biggest prize. He ran his incredible performance into sixth place and $956,243; a vocally charged whirlwind that had the TV cameras swooning and several cans of nicely packaged and memorable footage for the highlight reels.

Team PokerStars Pro Hevad Khan

Twelve months later and midway through the first level of the day Hevad Khan was at 380K. This is a pretty sizeable stack for most but he didn’t seem prepared to wait and had soon spun it up to nearly 500K.

It seems one good run is not enough for the Poughkeepsie man. Call it his already natural playing style, temperament or just the fact that his eyebrows add a certain menace to his face, Hevad has turned it up a gear, is controlling his table, and has plans to make it two in a row. As he said himself after my colleague Maria Mayrinck asked him if he intended to do it all again... “Yeah, just watch.”

I’ve seen it before but Hevad goes into a kind of trance when busy in a hand, playing in slow motion period like an old 78 speed LP. His World Series priors mean the cameras are never far away. He managed to ignore the foot long microphone hanging above his head and mucked his hand. He had a set but his opponent was betting big, a factor that took Hevad five minutes of questions before letting the matter go.

Tiffany Michelle is also at this table, another cause for the cameras to stop by. With the mike hanging over her head this time like a scythe she asked Hevad if he had any advice, since he’d been this far before.

“Sit out...” he replied, pausing for effect before letting on that he was kidding.

Hevad’s table presence is unmistakable. He’s a big man; big hands, big arms, and those eyebrows. He’s also a friendly guy, but when he plays a hand, and you’re up against that slow motion trance, you can almost predict what carnage will come. It’s like the slow movements are to save as much energy as possible. He doesn’t waste it at all.

A raise and a call. Both the raiser and Hevad checked the nine high flop to see a jack on the turn. A 30K raise to Hevad who asked for a count just to be sure. He rested his hands on the table and waited. When he was ready he slowly picked up some of the green 25K’s and re-raised, 80K total. His opponent, who now had to stop his massage, counted his stack. He has only yellow chips but calls with Hevad watching him. The river card is a six. It’s checked to Hevad who bets big once more, too big to keep up with, and good for another big pot.

His course is true, his actions strong. Hevad Khan is looking for a repeat, up to 600K.

***

The PokerStars video blog team caught up with a few players this morning, including PokerStars sponsored player Kara Scott, who talked about her chances after a few set backs late last night...

Watch WSOP 08: Kara Scott Day 4 Pre Play Chat on PokerStars.tv

Wow. There was a chance that the action might have slowed today as dollar signs replaced pupils in the eyes of the remaining players. But it couldn't be further from the truth: we had torn through a quarter of the day's starting field by the time the first break came along. That's 483 down to 350 in two hours. And counting.

One of those to slide to the rail was Team PokerStars Pro Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, who got his last chips into the middle pre-flop behind pocket kings. They were no good against ace-queen when the bullet flopped.

Most of the damage to ElkY had actually been done earlier, when a middle set was no good against a rivered straight. Ho hum, such is poker. ElkY's World Series main event is done.

Faring better, much better, are Team PokerStars Pros Victor Ramdin and Hevad Khan, as well as sponsored player Kara Scott. Ramdin admits that he's not exactly in love with his table today and is finding it significantly tougher than those on which he prospered in days one and two. But that's fine. "I have a decent stack," Ramdin said. "Once again, my plan is just to get through the day. I'm taking it one day at a time. It's not a dream table, but I will adjust accordingly."

Hevad Khan, meanwhile, is quietly going about his business, and his business is winning a lot of pots and accumulating a lot of chips.

For three days now, Khan has been like a machine: shift right hand over to chip stack, pick up chips, bet, scoop chips. Repeat. The same process has now earned him more than half a million. That'll work.

PokerStars sponsored player Kara Scott lost a couple of huge pots late last night and was annoyed. But it's a measure of how well she's been playing here that bagging up 170,000 at the end of day three felt like a disappointment.

But Scott is back on the upward surge today and doubled up early in a kings versus jacks all-in pre-flop coup that pushed her over 300,000. This wonderful story continues.

Also hugely prosperous today is PokerStars player Sarkis Akopyan, from Moscow, Russia. He's in seat one on the feature table and has about 1,200,000 in chips. Yep, that's one-point-two-million. You read it correctly. Asked how he got those, he said simply: "It's a long story." No doubt we'll hear it one day.

Akopyan, who owns a soft drinks wholesale company back home, is here simply for fun and is reckons his casual approach to the game is the main reason he's been doing so well. "I don't focus on the money," Akopyan said. "I'm just enjoying myself. That's how come I've come so far."

Fair enough, Sarkis. But please excuse us if we continue to focus on that massive stack and the vast amount of money it might soon be earning.

As we have mentioned, players here are busting at an amazing rate. Unfortunately one of them was PokerStars qualifier Kory Mitchell, whose friend Meg e-mailed to tell us to keep tabs on him. According to Meg, she gave Mitchell a card protector before he came to Vegas that is keeping him from too many bad beats. He was almost the bubble boy last night before a miracle river gave him a full house, but he lived to fight on.

While I'm sorry to report that Mitchell's great run came to an end in 414th place today, good for $28,950, there is some good news for Meg. Our video blog team caught up with him this morning, so here he is in moving pictures:

Watch WSOP 08: Cory Mitchell Qualifier on PokerStars.tv

You can e-mail us at blog@pokerstars.com if you know any of the PokerStars qualifiers still in the field. We'll do our best to keep up with them. We're fast runners.

It's fascinating how fortunes can diverge from a single point of origin.

Take yourself back to the day in 2004 when an impetuous (some might say imbalanced) Britney Spears went to a little chapel in Las Vegas and married a childhood friend. Since then, Spears has gone off the reservation, come back, gone off again, and now spends a lot of time, inexplicably, with Mel Gibson.

Six hours before that Vegas hitchin' that sent Spears down a road to near-ruin, a man named Mike Ortlieb married his sweetheart in the very same Vegas chapel. Four years later, the now-32 year-old materials handler from the Kohler Company is still married, still employed, not going crazy, and has just recently welcomed a beautiful daughter into the world. In short, he's doing a lot better than the head-shaving pop diva in just about every way.

One other major difference is that Ortlieb managed to qualify for the World Series of Poker using only his PokerStars Frequent Player Points. Not only that, he's still alive on Day 4 and stands to make near $30,000.

Twenty years ago, Ortlieb spent more on his summer poker games than he spent on his World Series seat.

"A friend would come over during summer break and we would play poker for pennies about four or five hours a day," he said.

Now, he's already doubled up once in Day 4. He's been on a televised table. He stands a decent chance of going even deeper.

We reminded him of 2005, the year Bernard Lee took his PokerStars FPP seat and ran it up to a 13th place finish and $400,000.

Ortlieb shrugged, as if he had barely considered the idea.

"This is a dream come true for me," he said. "I'm gonna go out there and give it everything I've got. Even though I'm an amateur, I've got a lot of confidence in myself."

Between that and his not being a crazy L.A. singer, Ortlieb is having a pretty good day.

***

Having a much worse day is Team PokerStars Pro ElkY who just exited the room after taking a tough beat in the first level and spiralling down from there. Better off is Team PokerStars Pro Victor Ramdin who just benefitted from a raise and all-in before it got to him in the small blind where he sat with two black kings. The all-in player was making a move with Js7s and was drawing dead by the turn.

PokerStars-sponsored player Kara Scott is recovering from her rough night's end last night. Just before the break, she doubled up with KK vs JJ.

Deep into the money as we are, the chance to be on television increases hour on hour. The cameras really are everywhere, taping every all-in, every big hand that could potentially make one of the memorable moments of the TV coverage. We see all sorts of hijinks aimed at getting the cameras to head your way – from yelling and standing on chairs, to wearing something so outlandish you can’t help get noticed.

PokerStars player Alan Jaffray does neither of these, at least not today, not yet. But Alan is no stranger to grabbing the headlines for unlikely reasons – like wearing women’s clothing, and hats. Earlier this Series, he put on a summer dress, hat and accessories, and tried to enter the World Series Ladies event. He bought in fine the day before but when he turned up to play was politely asked not to take his seat. (He did get his money back.)

PokerStars player Alan Jaffray

Then there’s another branch of Alan extroversion, a trademark he applies when playing in front of the cameras like Humberto Brenes’ sharks or Greg Raymer’s glasses. Jaffrey wears a ladies hat. It’s a nice one, I’ll say that, a black number with a red flower to the side. It dates back a number of years having perched on the head of a previous Tournament of Champions winner. Rumour has it that it’s also made the cover of Card Player magazine. And with seven cashes in the past two years, two of them at final tables, the hat has made a few appearances.

And all this despite looking like the most unassuming guy in the room. A PokerStars t-shirt, rimless glasses, a save-time-in-the-morning goatee and the smile of a man chipped up to the tune of 908,500. He has his hat with him.

"This is another hat" he says, pointing to a slightly shabby looking thing under his chair. "It's not as nice as my other one but this one fits. I might buy a flower for it in the break."

Today is not time to be short stacked as some bright coloured monsters begin to take shape. The once powerful yellow chips having long since conceded their power to the 5K oranges. And now an even more formidable foe – the dark greens are here worth 25K a pop – sitting atop model Manhattans, nine to a table, ready to be destroyed by a Godzilla hand.

With close to a million himself, Alan’s hat may yet make another appearance.

***

The latest news coming from the floor is that PokerStars sponsored player Kirill Gerasimov is now out. A kings verses ace-king scenario with no help for the Russian. Team PokerStars Pro ElkY has also taken a bit hit, having his set rivered by a straight.

Hello one and all and welcome once again to the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas, Nevada. We're now getting very used to this -- this is the official day four of the tournament, but the eighth day in all -- and many things are similar, but many have changed.

For starters, all of the 474 players unbagging chips in front of me have already cashed in this event. The money bubble burst late last night, leaving PokerStars qualifier Steve Chung a long and lonely trip back to Hong Kong with just a buy in for next year's event for company. Even as he boarded the plane, the whooping was still resounding in the Amazon Room of those who have at least doubled their money.

Some players bust in the final level, taking something in the region of $25,000. You can find their names by clicking HERE.

Among those seeking an even more substantial payday are Team PokerStars Pros Victor Ramdin (471,000), Hevad Khan (338,500) and Bertrand "ElkY" Grosspellier (181,500).

All have been in sparkling form in the past year and have continued their hot streak here. As we have all year, we will track their progress all the way.

PokerStars sponsored plays Kara Scott (171,000) and Kirill Gerasimov (146,500) are also well in the hunt. They too will find us breathing down their neck today and cheering them towards the millions.

Last, and never least at the World Series main event, are the PokerStars qualifiers. Alan Jaffray (908,500), Owen Crowe (900,000), Peter Traply (828,000) and Geert Jans (728,500) are leading that formidable charge, but there are a total of 77 players representing PokerStars in one way or another today. That's 77 from 474, which is a spectacular percentage.

The cards are now in the air. We're scheduled to play five levels today, which will probably go some way towards halving the field. Nothing is ever entirely predictable, so you, like us, will just have to wait and see. The latest chip counts on PokerStars players will appear HERE as we have them.

Remember, you can check out the fine work of our video blog team here in Las Vegas over at PokerStars.tv. There's also details of a daily freeroll tournament in celebration of the official launch of that video platform.

Also please e-mail us at blog@pokerstars.com if you know any of the qualifiers still in the field and want to give us some stories about them or track their progress. We'll do our best to keep in touch.

In the meantime, sit back and watch with us. It's going to be another frantic and fascinating day.

No matter how many poker tournaments we cover, no matter how many hands we watch, no matter how many bad beat stories we hear, there is no denying the pure energy on the bubble of a tournament. Fueled by a week of anxiety and hope, the 667-player mark of the 2008 World Series main event had enough mainline adrenaline to wake the dead several times over. While some people may have a zombie's eyes tonight, one thing is clear: 666 people (a dubious money line if there ever was one) are at least $21,230 richer tonight.

The PokerStars family, a varied and intense mix of Team PokerStars Pros and qualifiers, numbered around 200 of the 1,300 players who started the day. Some prospered, some fell, but few got the recognition of PokerStars Macau qualifer Steve Chung.

As the ESPN cameras flocked and still-living players crushed, Steve Chung got pocket eights in against pocket kings, falling victim to both the odds and the title of Bubble Boy.

Chung qualified recently at the PokerStars Macau cardroom, a random and spontaneous flier encouraged by a friend. Though he looked good for the money earlier, he finished tonight in the only spot that wouldn't guarantee him a big payout. He will not walk away empty-handed, though. As has become a recent tradition, he will be given a $10,000 seat for next year.

Though today was largely focused on the people who would not walk away with money, there are still four more days to play before we seat the final table. That means it's time to look ahead to the PokerStars players who remain in the field.

The biggest name looking best to go deep at this hour is Team PokerStars Pro Victor Ramdin. With nearly half a million chips at our last count, he is the deepest-stacked Team Pro member still alive. He is not the only one still in, however. Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, and Hevad Khan all made it into the money and will be playing on Day 4. Vanessa Rousso made it to the money, but then made it to the rail a half hour into the next level.

In similar shape to the Pros and still doing their PokerStars-sponsorship proud are EPT presenter Kara Scott and Russian Pro Kirill Gerasimov (146,000). Kara spent the day impressing both us and the collected media and is leaving the day in good position to go much deeper. Both Kara and Kirill are coming back tomorrow at 1pm (a late start due to tonight's late hour).

Kara Scott (180,000)

The biggest movers of the day, by far, were the array of PokerStars players and qualifiers in the field. Though we won't have the exact number until we see the official list tomorrow, it looks like we will see around 100 PokerStars players in the day four field. Among them are some of the people you will see at the top of the chip leaderboard.

Alberto Font

A young PokerStars player from Madrid, Spain. We met Font late yesterday when he wise-cracked: "If you're talking to me, then it must be going well, right?" It was. He was well chipped up. And now he has even more, so we'll soon be talking to him again.

Sigurd Eskeland

A huge, hugely friendly Norwegian player who has had a chip stack to match his stature all day and tore up the feature table late on. There will be plenty more to hear from Eskeland.

Andrew Brokos -- One of the first players to be captured by our video blog team, HERE were Brokos's thoughts before this whole thing began. Now he's chipped up and surely in line for another interview.

For all the coverage from Bubble Day, see the links below.

Keeping everyone in sight
Moneymaker grinding after hours, no more today
Some things change, some things stay the same
From zero to hero?
The big, the little and the doubler
Giants
Math, money and then back to school
The Departed
Bed, web and beyond
Level 14 update
Main Event goes hand-for-hand
Pop!

Throughout the day PokerStars Video Blog team has been posting video blogs from the World Series on the brand new PokerStars.tv. Be sure to check out the latest videos to get the password for the PokerStars.tvfreeroll.

Here is the update from Day 3.

Watch WSOP 08: Update July 10th on PokerStars.tv

Selected chip counts from Day 3 can be found on our 2008 World Series Chip Counts page. When the tourney staff sends out the final list for Day 4, we'll post it on the same page.

We don't limit our coverage here to the English-reading world. Be sure you take a look at all the other coverage on our German , Swedish , and Brazilian blogs.

For coverage from all the previous days, we've posted summaries below.

Day 1A
Day 1B
Day 1C
Day 1D
Day 2A
Day 2B

Photos (c) 2008 by Joe Giron & Stephen Beyer/IMPDI

Just before we went hand-for-hand, PokerStars qualifier Bill Purle wanted a cigarette. "I can't," he said. "I'm on the big blind next."

Such was the anxiety before the this excruciating period that even someone seemingly cruising to the money, as was Purle with comfortably the right side of 300,000 in chips, was keen not to let any hand pass by. But he really need not have worried. As hand-for-hand ground agonisingly past the hour mark, Bill could have taken a cigarette break between each hand. They got through only about six hands in the entire period before the requisite nine players departed. Really no hurry at all.

Bubble craziness

"Happy New Year," said my colleague Stephen Bartley, when the roar went up signalling the end of the teeth-pulling. And it certainly felt like that: a big bubble of anticipation burst and fireworks flying, hands-shaking, one or two high fives. Even the bubble boy himself was brought on stage to meet his public. Temporarily he was the most popular man in poker because his misfortune was everyone else's gain. It was even surreptitious Schadenfreude either. They were whooping it up.

It's my sorry duty to report that that bubble boy was Steve Chung, the PokerStars Macau satellite qualifier, whose journey to Vegas we detailed HERE. He was given a buy-in to next year's World Series as a consolation prize, which he did his best to seem happy about.

Bubble boy Steve Chung takes it well

Still, Chung's loss was not as bad as the player who went out in 667th. That guy got nothing, and no one even knows who he is.

So, we're in the money. And the field still includes four Team PokerStars Pros: ElkY, Hevad Khan, Vanessa Rousso and Victor Ramdin. PokerStars sponsored players Kirill Gerasimov and Kara Scott also went into the cash, and Scott has plenty of chips to hang around much longer. Gerasimov is slightly lower in chips, but has the much-documented stamina to still be here days from now.

Countless PokerStars qualifiers also made it through and we'l do our best to keep track of all of them as they go deeper into the money.

PokerStars qualifiers Morten Antonsen, Norway, left and Jose Gomez Martin, Spain, right, celebrate making the money

Check out our chip count page for the latest progress.

At the moment, let's just share a thought for Mr Chung, who'll be going back to Hong Kong with that nearly-man label hanging round his neck, and a ticket to next year's event tucked in his pocket. Will he go further in 2009? I guess we'll find out one day, but from now until next Monday it's no longer about "if" it's about "how much."

Remember, payouts are HERE and everyone left is in for a slice of it.

Photos (c) 2008 by Joe Giron & Stephen Beyer/IMPDI

It’s finally here. We’re hand-for-hand in the main event. 673 players remain with eight to go home empty handed before anyone sees a cent. Tournament officials are working the room, clearing the aisles with the pressure tenfold.

First there are the press. Everyone, regardless of affiliation, has been shuffled off to the side of the room. For the most part they realise the extent of the mess and are happy to oblige. The infractions mean longer delays.

Secondly there are the players themselves. It’s a natural instinct to nosey at the next table once your hand has been played, especially if an all-in is taking place. When two, then five, then ten, then twenty players want to take a look though all hell breaks loose. The cameras (who right now are in charge of each hand) want to move into position they can’t see for bodies. The result is more delay.

A typical all-in

Hand-for-hand began at 10.20pm Vegas time after a ten minute briefing from tournament directors about the procedures for each hand and then for busting out. As I write that was fifteen minutes ago and we’ve only played three hands.

Still, it’s perhaps the second most exciting part of any main event and from the vantage point of media row we can see several hundred people enjoying the spectacle. We’re in for a long night, that’s for sure. What else is certain is that there will be one hell of a loud cheer when the burble finally bursts.

***

In the meantime the PokerStars video blog team are still in action. Earlier today they spoke to PokerStars player Brian Schaedlich.

Watch WSOP 08: Brian Schaedlich PokerStars Player on PokerStars.tv

With 733 players remaining in the 2008 World Series Main Event, we are less than 100 players from the money. Below is a recap of the previous hour.

The tournament director told us just before the break that play will go hand-for-hand with nine players remaining. So, when 675 players are left in the field, play will slow down to a near stand-still as every one of the tables plays one hand and waits for everybody else to finish. The process could take hours.

The words we had all been expecting left the tournament director's mouth at around 8pm Las Vegas time, somewhere in the middle of level 13. To paraphrase: no media can be stationary in the tournament area; sweating individual players is out of the question; be at the sides or on the move. There are few complaints -- these players are closing in either on doubling their $10,000 or going home with nothing -- and no one likes the press pack breathing down their neck.

What it means is that our view of the tournament is not too dissimilar to yours. We're cast to the sides and can see a sea of baseball caps, headphones and crazy hairstyles, beneath which people are doing something with cards and chips. To use our favourite descriptive headline: "Poker players are playing poker". Much else is a matter for the imagination.

From one end of the tournament area, I could just about spot the very top of a pink baseball cap with distinctive headphones stretched over it. I could recognise that hat at a 100 yards, which is just as well, because that's how far away Team PokerStars Pro's Vanessa Rousso was sitting when I noticed her.

Vanessa Rousso

Dashing past her -- "on the move" of course -- I counted 1 stack of yellow chips (1,000 each), 1x light blue (100), 1x dark blue (500) and only about 1/4 of orange (worth 5,000). That counts up to about 80,000 total.

At the other end of the spectrum, PokerStars player Alberto Font, from Madrid, Spain, is sitting pretty.

Alberto Font

This one took several walk-bys to count, but it looked to me like 2 1/2 towers of orange, 16 yellows, 14 1/2 dark blue and 11 light blue (100). That adds up to a whole lot, somewhere more than 700,000 and the probable chip lead. He's cruising into the money; Vanessa is hoping to squeak in.

Looking good to make the money is PokerStars Macau qualifier Steve Chung. He entered the satellite in Macau on the urging of a friend. Having never played live poker before, it was a long bet that he would make the money here. With half of Level 14 left and fewer the 700 players, Chung is about to have one heckuva story to tell.

PokerStars-sponsored played Jon Friedberg doubled up and is has nearly 500,000 chips.

It’s a different room now, with early frivolity long gone to be replaced by a quieter din, the din of people under pressure. In the middle of it all sits PokerStars qualifier Chris Dyer who, as we reported earlier, was the short stack going into the day. Remarkably, three full levels and a dinner break later he’s still here, albeit with 20K. But with still another 50 souls to go before we reach the hand-for-hand stage it would always be the tallest of orders for the Tennessee man.

He moved in a half hour after the dinner break, looking over at me for one last salute of the kind brothers in arms might give ahead of a cavalry charge towards certain death.

It had certainly been heroic stand but at last Chris’s time had come. One last all-in, only delayed by two big stacks further along trying to decide who would isolate whom, before the end of an entertaining footnote to this whole affair. Ace-king for Chris, a fighting chance, king-queen for his opponent Alexander Borteh, who would drain Chris luck by catching a queen on the turn and a king on the river. But hey, Chris had got his chips in ahead.

He seemed fairly pragmatic, no dramatics, no top of the voice cry for “one time”, oft heard in these parts by the desperate. Instead, just a gracious handshake for his opponent before heading back to the hotel for some well earned rest.

“I got 25 text messages in about five minutes when my friends saw the blog. Thanks.”

It was our pleasure.

PokerStars sponsored player Kara Scott has had a different kind of day. Earlier I watched as she raised, was then re-raised, before shoving all-in to take an opponent off his hand, good to move her up the chip list by about 100,000.

Kara Scott

Now, sitting barefoot, with her legs crossed on the chair, she pushes another player off his hand on a flop of 4s2sJh, another re-raise good for a pot worth 50K. Another one followed, a re-raise only this time there was no action. A shame because this time she had aces. Still good though for a stack of 350,000 for Kara.

With more on Kara Scott, here's an interview from our video blog team.

Watch WSOP 08: Kara Scott Top of Day 3 on PokerStars.tv

Early in 2008, Dutch student Yde van Deuterkom came up with a brilliant idea. Since his No 1 interest in life is sleeping, why not try to make some money out of it?

Yde, 22, who lives with his mum and is "sort of" studying engineering then built a website, set up a web-cam, put on his pyjamas and got into bed. The plan was to get sponsors to back him by advertising on his website – and so far it’s proved successful to the tune of $18,000. In return, he pledged to spend only 30 minutes up and about, with the rest of the time spent living the student dream: napping, snoozing, resting, slumbering, call it what you will.

Yde van Deuterkom

However, the sleeping part of Yde’s plan has taken a bit of a knock because he became so busy managing the flood of media interest and chatting to fans that he has actually been awake more hours than normal. He was also – for the most part - too busy to play poker, another interest of his for the past four years. But on April 24, Yde logged onto PokerStars and entered a $33 re-buy satellite to the World Series main event. Four hours and three minutes later and he’d won a seat – with no rebuys.

Eventually, after around two months in bed, Yde got up and started a new project where he just web-cams himself everywhere he goes. That too has been popular, he says, although the project is temporarily shelved while he fights his way through the field in Vegas.

Today, on day 3, Yde is proving that staying awake has its advantages. In the last level, he managed to double up through Team PokerStars Pro Victor Ramdin when his Kings survived Victor’s flush and gutshot potential.

At the start of his bed project, Yde claimed that sleeping was the only thing he was good at. Clearly this is not strictly true. Yde is now on 420,000 in chips as we go into level 14 and nearly 600,000 people have visited his website www.sleepingrich.com.

***
Our video blog team described Shen Jing, a PokerStars qualifier, as "LA tourny player, computer engineer all round swell guy". Click below to see if that's right.

Watch WSOP 08: Shen Jing A PokerStars Player on PokerStars.tv

Other video blogs, as well as details of a daily freeroll, can be found at PokerStars.tv.

The PokerStars 2X promotion continues today with even more amazing double guarantees for our major tournaments.

What's more, PokerStars has announced that this week's Sunday Million will also have its guaranteed prize pool doubled. That's a HUGE $2 million guarantee for the Sunday Million this week, 13 July, 16:30 ET. Satellites are running all week with buy-ins from as little as $2.20 or 400 FPP credits, so play now and take your shot at taking down one of the biggest prizes Sundays have ever seen!

And remember, from July 7-13, PokerStars is doubling the guarantees on each of its regular guaranteed tournaments. That includes all the regular tournaments, the Daily Fifteen Grand, Daily Fifty Grand and the Nightly Hundred Grand!

Below is a list of PokerStars guaranteed tournaments for Friday July 11. The doubled guarantee is listed after each event. All times ET.

00:00 -- $77 NL Hold'em [6-max - $10,000 guaranteed] -- $20,000.00
01:00 -- $109 NL Hold'em [$30,000 guaranteed] -- $60,000.00
02:00 -- $33 NL Hold'em [$5,000 guaranteed] -- $10,000.00
05:00 -- $33 NL Hold'em [$10,000 guaranteed] -- $20,000.00
08:00 -- $11+R NL Hold'em [$10,000 guaranteed] -- $20,000.00
10:00 -- $8.80+R NL Hold'em [$20,000 guaranteed] -- $40,000.00
10:30 -- $11+R PL Omaha [$3,500 guaranteed] -- $7,000.00
12:00 -- $22 NL Hold'em [$20,000 guaranteed] -- $40,000.00
13:00 -- $109 NL Hold'em [$15,000 guaranteed] -- $30,000.00
13:00 -- $5.50 NL Hold'em [$5,000 guaranteed] -- $10,000.00
14:00 -- Daily Fifteen Grand -- $30,000.00
14:15 -- $3.30+R NL Hold'em [$25,000 guaranteed] -- $50,000.00
15:00 -- Daily Fifty Grand -- $100,000.00
16:00 -- $11+R NL Hold'em [$45,000 guaranteed] -- $90,000.00
17:00 -- $55 NL Hold'em [$25,000 guaranteed] -- $50,000.00
18:00 -- $5.50+R NL Hold'em [$35,000 guaranteed] -- $70,000.00
19:00 -- $109 NL Hold'em [$25,000 guaranteed] -- $50,000.00
19:00 -- $11 NL Hold'em [$20,000 guaranteed] -- $40,000.00
19:30 -- $22 PL Omaha H/L [$5,000 guaranteed] -- $10,000.00
19:45 -- $11 Razz [$1,000 guaranteed] -- $2,000.00
20:00 -- $3.30+R NL Hold'em [$30,000 guaranteed] -- $60,000.00
20:00 -- $27.50 NL Hold'em [$25,000 guaranteed] -- $50,000.00
21:00 -- The Nightly Hundred Grand -- $200,000.00
21:00 -- $4.40 FL Hold'em [$1,000 guaranteed] -- $2,000.00
21:30 -- $50,000.00 -- Nightly Fifty Grand -- $100,000.00
22:00 -- $55,000.00 -- $11+R NL Hold'em [$55,000 guaranteed] -- $110,000.00
23:00 -- $20,000.00 -- $109 NL Hold'em [$20,000 guaranteed] -- $40,000.00

AND FINALLY…

Don't forget, if you make your first deposit with the code FIRST2X, you will get into to the 2X First Depositor Freerolls. There are two $2,222 freerolls running every day, from July 8-30, at 13:00 ET & 20:00 ET. If you cash in any of the freerolls, you'll win a seat in the $22,222 finals on July 31.

Fresh water is always the first thing to go.

It’s easy to predict the downfall of a society, no matter if it’s a perfect Democracy or ragtag anarchy like the World Series. When the water goes, so goes convention, and with convention goes all good sense and reason.

This morning, upon trying to buy my 32-ounce bottle of Aquafina, I found the entire cooler missing from the poker lounge. Where once was enough water to keep a small army hydrated for several days, now sat an empty and rather moldy carpet. Whether relocated or merely looted, it was a signal to me that this society in the Amazon Room is about to fail. Where once there was an orderly progression of Day 1s and 2s, we now sit firmly in Day 3, where today we no longer consider player’s chip power, but rather whether he or she is still alive in a seat.

Looking across a landscape of badly-trod carpet, it’s clear now that more from today will have died than lived. Among death’s number are one-time EPT winner and PokerStars qualifier Brandon Schaefer. At the day’s beginning, he looked like a strong candidate for a deep finish. Three river suckouts later and he was struggling to find a way to avoid telling a bad beat story. He chose the bar, his dazed face no comfort for those of us who have seen too many die already. Now, our friend is gone.

The man who helped make Schaefer, a sort benevolent Dr. Frankenstein, has followed his creation toward the door. EPT creator John Duthie, also a Team PokerStars Player, came in planning for several double ups and turned out to be one of the people who were carted out before the money bubble.

So, too goes longtime serial qualifier and a man playing like half his age, Jim Hamburger. Buoyed by the birth of his sixth grandchild and a pair of new sneakers, Hamburger became yet another casualty and reason for us to believe that nothing good can come of the bubble.

In the far corner of the room, we found hope. Swedish qualifier Ronnie Gustafsson stood above his cards with tears in his eyes. It was joy, pure and unadulterated. His big slick had just help up, giving him 20,000 chips (barely three trips around the table) to fondle as he eyed the bubble. He exhaled, wiped his eyes, and sat back down. For the rest of the table, his death seemed imminent, like the infirm in the time of plague. In Ronnie’s eyes, though, we saw hope mixed with the tears.

Hope springs eternal in the hearts of men with queens, and well it should’ve for Ronnie as he picked up two ladies to fight AQ, all-in pre-flop. He didn’t see the ace coming. He didn’t even see it once it happened. Like the still-open eyes of war casualty, Ronnie stared at the board with a slight smile. Then, light a bright light at the end of a long tunnel, he saw it.

“Oh, God,” he said quietly. His eyes welled, and he disappeared.

These are our departed in the final hours of this crumbling society. Only a few more will die before this practice in masochism is a matter of history.

We pin our dreams now on the new culture that will rise from the ruin. Everyone who survives the pending money bubble (appropriate scheduled for player 666) will have $22,000 in their pocket and a reason to look toward a new life. Everyone else, those lot and forgotten souls, will be forgotten. A cheer will rise, the weak will fall, and everyone will look for their new leader.

For now, though, we can only picture Ronnie Gustafsson as he stood from the table. He opened his mouth in a silent death scream, and poured the remainder of his water bottle into his mouth.

When the water’s gone, so go we.

For a lot of players in the Amazon room right now this is all about the big win, the big pay off that will catapult them into the big time and life on the poker circuit. For others meanwhile this is just a great way to spend the summer and prove to themselves that they belong here and can compete with the best. So it goes for PokerStars players Brian Schaedlich and Shen Jing.

Brian started the day as chip leader, finishing last night with a colossal 800,000. But in the first levels of day three the 22-year-old hit some bad hands and the road this far has been an unstable one.

Brian Schaedlich

“Most people probably know I started off with about 800,000. I got it up to 900,000 and had aces run into queens on the flop, and lost another big pot. I’ve been taking big hits today but I still have 400,000.”

Coming in to the day so far ahead presents certain pressure on a player, but is also an enviable position to be in.

“I was nervous, definitely. My friend called me and told me the table I was at and it was great, no one had above 150,000 and I took two people out in the first few hands. Then I got moved to a pretty powerful table and I hit that bad run of cards. I’m still feeling the pressure, a little more now than at the beginning of the day.”

But whilst to a lot of people the World Series is their main focus in life for Brian it’s merely a way to pass the time before he returns to the job he loves as an elementary school teacher in West Virginia, and one he intends to return to whether he wins the main event or not.

“Kids mean so much to me. I can’t leave them to play poker for the rest of my life. I grew up wanting to be a teacher and I finally made it to that point. I can’t let anyone tournament change my life completely. But if I won I’d still go back to work.”

Keeping it real in a world that can sometimes get a little crazy.

“I love teaching kids things and seeing them grow and knowing I was a part of changing their lives for the better. That’s a great feeling. It’s much better than any feeling you get at a poker table.”

***

In contrast to Brian is Shen Jing, a computer engineers from California who plays up to five live tournaments a week, excelling at the mathematics of the game. He currently has 100,000 and is a regular of the LA poker scene.

“I learned by reading a lot of books about the mathematics of poker and it improved my game. I played a lot
on PokerStars, starting about three years ago playing the $5 and $10 re-buy tournaments.”

The leapt from $5 to $10,000 is certainly a big one but not something that has phased the Californian.

“I’m not really nervous. If I have thirty big blinds I feel comfortable, and if I have seventy big blinds I play differently. So I feel quite comfortable.

Shen Jing

“Actually I think I’m an aggressive player. I do play a lot of online tournaments and basically I’ve found a lot of online skills. I understand live players but I also understand how the online players play. My style is loose and aggressive but I play my hands strong.”

“I think for me it’s just another tournament but bating the field of 6800 people is a real achievement in poker and I would be proud of myself.”

***

PokerStars player Alex Outhred talked to the video blog team earlier today about his progress in the main event...

Watch WSOP 08: Alex Outhred Qualifier on PokerStars.tv

"There are some HUUUUGE stacks out there."

So came the latest observation from a reporter returning to media row from a jaunt across the tournament floor. He was right. After the early day carnage of the typical "double-up-or-bust-out" period, those players that profited from the pandemonium are now sitting pretty. The blinds in level 13, which we just entered, are $1,200 - $2,400 with a $300 ante, meaning the $100 chips can't yet be taken out of circulation. Many players need long arms to reach around towers spread wide and stacked tall just to retrieve their cards.

If Sigurd Eskeland, PokerStars player from Oslo, Norway, was any shorter than about seven foot tall, he would probably be in something of a fix. Eskeland has risen all the way to the top of the leaderboard with a monstrous stack of more than 620,000.

Sigurd Eskeland

Eskeland has a chip stack to match his personal physique, as well as what seems to be a jolly giant persona as he chatted to members of the Scandinavian media, else discussed tennis or poker with table-mates.

The precise amount contained in his towers is unknown, even to Eskeland himself, and he was displaying some characteristic European humility when I ambled towards his table during the last level.

"What's your name?" asked a player in seat five.
"Sigurd Eskeland," said Sigurd Eskeland. So far, so truthful.
"You've got the chip lead," said seat five.
"No, I don't have the chip lead," said Eskeland.
"You do. You're number one," insisted his opponent, and pointed to one of the screens dangling from the ceiling of the Amazon Room on which Eskeland's name was displayed at the very top, next to a count of 640,000.
"That chip count is wrong," Eskeland said. "I only have about 620."

That, of course, would have been enough to keep him in No 1 spot as well, but no one was interested in continuing the argument. That's a wise policy when faced with someone close to seven foot tall, chipped up to the top of the board.

Among the other notable players in the field today, the Team PokerStars Pros have been staying focused and playing their games. Noah Boeken and Chris Moneymaker may have departed early, but ElkY, Vanessa Rousso, John Duthie and, in particular, Victor Ramdin, are here for the long haul.

Victor Ramdin

Victor might have gambled for his whole stack at the mid-point of the last level when a pre-flop raising war ended with a player all in for about 245,000. Victor eventually passed and was shown A-J. Big move. Still, Ramdin is still the right side of 300,000 and probably closer to 400,000. ElkY is similarly strong. He had been right down to approximately nothing yesterday, but has continued a long rally and is up to 255,000 and going deep.

Hevad Khan and John Duthie continue to fight with a decent increase on their overnight totals. Khan doubled up to about 180,000 and is still around that level; Duthie is on approximately 100,000. Vanessa Rousso is still in, but only just. At latest break she had about 30,000. It's not much surrounded by those big stacks, but it's not a walk to the door just yet.

PokerStars sponsored players also remain firmly at the races. Kara Scott has more than 225,000 after taking down a sizeable pot late in the last level. She never showed her cards, but a wink to the rail suggested either a hero play or a monster hand. The railbirds just enjoyed the wink. The Russian duo of Kirill Gerasimov and Alexander Kravchenko battle on. Gerasimov has 140,000; Kravchenko about half that.

We've been here a long time, we've still got many hours left and many stories to tell.

In the first two levels today, the stories of the 150 or so PokerStars players left in the field have run the gamut, from wild success, to desperate clinging, to key double ups.

A New Yorker by birth, resident of L.A. by choice, Alex Outhred has been around poker much longer than he has been big name in it.

When the poker boom hit, Outhred found himself working in production at the World Poker Tour. Behind the scenes, he logged countless hours of poker viewing, watching some of the top pros in the world play tournaments.

“As a byproduct of that job, I learned a lot about playing poker,” he said.

He did more than learn a lot. He turned what he learned into a six-figure payday. A fourth place finish at the WPT event at Mandalay Bay cemented his spot on the poker radar.

For the past two years, Outhred has been teaching people how to play the World Series as an instructor for the WSOP academy.

Now, Outhred is putting on a clinic of his own.

“Overall, it’s been absolutely fantastic,” he said.

He came into Day 3 as one of the chip leaders, and despite a few ups and downs today, looks good to go deep.

“It’s like a nice pat on the back for all the work from Day 2.”

Known as “bigbadlex” on PokerStars, Outhred jokes he probably holds the world record for number of Sit&Go bubbles. As we creep toward the money here today, there seems little chance of an Outhred bubble.

“You’ve got to be proud, but not cocky,” he said. ““There’s a lot of poker left. I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

***

Across the room, however, sits PokerStars Player Florian Schramm from Germany. With only 50,000 in chips (and sitting under the hot TV lights) Schramm stands a very good chance at bubbling if he doesn’t find a double-up very soon.

Schramm walked in today to find a note telling him to go to the ESPN feature stage.

“Terrible,” he said. Minutes later, he found himself sitting with Johnny Chan.

He’s not had it easy in the first two days. “My tournament has been tough so far. Now’s let’s go for the cash."

***

In other news, Team PokerStars Pro Hevad Khan has found a key double-up in the early going, getting A7 all in against 22 on a 446 board. The river paired the six and Hevad is still in the running with 900 players remaining.

Chris Dyer started in good spirits. It was reasonable to think he’d be in a foul mood this morning considering he had just 2,600. Yes, the PokerStars qualifier returned today as the short stack, the man at the back of 1308 names, who everyone expected to stick around for about two and half minutes, before disappearing forever, or for a year at least. Chris knew this too and didn’t even take his coat off or remove the bag he had slung over his shoulder. He was also wearing running shoes.

The situation looked bleak but as with others who find themselves in this position, Chris had adopted a basic plan of enjoying himself and having a go at spinning his loose change into something big. Or, go out in an heroic blaze of glory. He’d seen me lurking, like the angel of death, and was ready to play.

PokerStars qualifier Chris Dyer

“You’re going to be here a while...” he joked. “I’m just going to blind it all off!”

With blinds at 800/1,600 and a 200 ante, and with the button two to his left, that gave Chris about five hands to do something. He let the first one go by as the dealer on a table alongside announced ‘all-in call’. If Chris had wanted to move in first someone had beaten him to it.

“Hey, you’re not the first all-in!” joked one player, but on the second hand Chris made his move.
He showed Q7 against the player with T3 trying his luck.

“I had a ten!” yelled the six seat player helpfully as the board paired the queen on the flop and made Chris set on the turn.

“Who’s the greatest?” asked Chris, with a shovel full of irony, being no stranger to pushing this week. “That’s all in number ten.”

“What you got now... 6,000?” asked John D’Agostino.

“It’s so much it’s hard to keep track.” replied Chris. Now everyone was starting to enjoy this.

Two hands later, another all-in. This must be the end of the adventure. No, wait. It gets back to him uncontested, good for blinds and antes.

“You’ve tripled up in like five minutes!” said D’Agostino.

“What can I tell you, it’s all skill.”

All in again two hands later. Nine-seven this time for the new hero of the hour, up against K-Q. Not so fast. A nine on the flop was enough. Another double-up.

“It’s already stopped being funny...”

Twenty-three minutes into the level and Chris was no longer the short stack. That honour rested with the seat six player Lee Morgan who lost a coin flip to slip down the rankings. It brought to light whether it’s easier mentally to play the short stack having started with very little, or play it when you’ve just lost the towers your previously tower of chips.

The question was soon answered, with Morgan busting out a few minutes later as Chris found himself in the unusual position of having enough chips to limp. But only once. On the next hand he was all-in again with no takers, good for more blinds and antes.

“Uh oh... Things have gotten serious.” Chris was now less of a novelty, more a threat.

Serious enough for me to leave him to it. A pat on the back and a ‘see you later’.

“No stay!

“I was card dead yesterday, I had no cards for two hours” said Chris, who lives in Tennessee and sells insurance for a living in Nashville. “I had two of the chip leaders to my left so I couldn’t make any moves. I didn’t see an ace for three hours. It’s funny though, when I won my seat on PokerStars I was the short stack at the table. I came back from that and won my seat.

“Actually, I started playing online after Chris Moneymaker won in 2003. That year I lived about a mile from where he lived.”

I left Chris to it as the first break approached. It had been one hour 45 minutes before he took his bag off. He’d seen me leave and come back to check up on him.

“You can leave if you want to” he said in a scene reminiscent of visiting someone in hospital who’s been on the critical list and is now showing signs of recovery. He didn’t want to be a burden. This was no problem, I explained. If he went on to win the whole thing from here I’d miss the story of the century.

“I’d like that story very much...”

When two fellow news reporters began chatting to one another during level one about David Murray and back-to-back pocket kings, I knew I knew the name from somewhere. I'd definitely seen "David Murray" on the chip counts, rising through the ranks of PokerStars qualifiers towards the top, but I also knew I knew him from somewhere else. A quick scan of the PokerStars blog World Series archives confirmed my suspicions. I'd written about him back in 2006 when, again as a PokerStars qualifier, he'd finished in 44th place, flopping a set of deuces against Jamie Gold, but ending up as just one more bug on that juggernault's windshield: Gold has flopped a set of tens.

But Murray is back. And he's back towards the top of the leaderboard. As mentioned by those two other news reporters, Murray had pocket kings in consecutive hands in the first level of the day, busting Jason Lester for a pot of about 150,000 with the first cowboys; being outdrawn by ace-king with the second. Such is poker, and as a former dealer in Dublin, Ireland, it's nothing Murray wouldn't have seen on countless occasions before. When we met back in 2006, he was quiet, reserved and focused. When I railed him today in 2008, not much of that had changed.

What had changed, however, was everything else. Sometimes you just have to give up on words, especially when you've got a couple of photographs to do all the descriptive stuff for you. Here's David Murray from two years ago. Below, is the David Murray of today. Two years is a long time in poker.

David Murray 2008

David Murray 2006

PokerStars qualifier Jeffrey Anderson entered my cross-hairs at about the midpoint of level 11 today, having also appeared in the lofty regions of the overnight chip count. I was waiting to pounce to get a brief interview, find out about his tournament to date and how he'd got himself to the elevated position. As I arrived to table 48, the turn had already been dealt on a hand featuring Anderson and one other player, and Anderson had bet 12,000. The player in seat five called, and they saw a river, completing a board of Qc-9h-5h | Qd | Kd. Now they both checked, Anderson rolled over pocket jacks and took down the pot of around about 60,000.

Jeffrey Anderson

I dived in at this point to get some quick biographical info. Anderson is a professional player, aged 27, from Mount Vernon, Washington. Then they started dealing again, and I retreated to watch the action. This time, Anderson raised again pre-flop. He's the table big stack, so why not. The small stack on the button re-raised, everyone else got out the way, and Anderson had the decision to make. Well, it wasn't much of a decision: he clamped a hand around a huge stack of orange chips, worth 5,000 and still the bully's weapon of choice at this stage, and shoved them in. The small stack had a decision for his tournament life.

He huffed and puffed, squirmed and squealed and then made a reluctant call, surely based on pot odds and the money already invested. He flipped A-9 diamonds, to Anderson's A-K clubs. The flop brought something for everyone: a nine, but also two clubs, and when a third club turned, that was that. Anderson added another bunch to his stack to take him over 300,000. The story was written. No further need for quotes.

Also challenging the leaders at this stage is PokerStars qualifier Andrew Teng, 23, from London, England. Shortly before I arrived at his table, he'd knocked out another player also, moving to "at least 400,000."

Andrew Teng

Teng was fully game-faced up, headphones and shades on, destroying all on his table. We'll keep an eye and prise out a few words as he continues to go in this one.

Our spies in the Palms poker room sent over this story this morning...

Day 2 of the World Series is always a tough day. Regardless of age, nationality or gender, most people find it pretty gruelling to sit at a poker table, for ten hours at a stretch, with more than $9 million at stake - and stay focused and on the ball.

Day 2B of the World Series main event - which, with nearly 2,500 starters, had a much larger field here than Day 2A - was particularly arduous. You grind away and every time you look at the screen, there are STILL hundreds of players left in.

So you would think that once the day finally ends most survivors would be heading straight to their rooms to get some well-earned shut-eye before doing it all over again on Day 3.

Most people, yes. But not Team PokerStars Pro Chris Moneymaker. At the end of Day 2B, Chris bagged and tagged his $40,000, then headed straight to the No Limit room at the Palms where he handed over $500 and plonked himself down in Seat 1 at the $1-$3 table.

The rest of the table - almost exclusively players who had already bust out of the main event - were gob-smacked. Is the guy nuts? Or simply a poker phenomenon? Chris seemed totally unphased by the attention. He chatted for a bit, posed for photographs, signed some autographs, won three hands in a row - and then moved over to the $2-$5 table where a seat had just come up.

Chris finally left the room at around 3am, with what looked a load more chips than he'd started with.

So you would think that might be the end of his poker until he got back to the Rio today. But no. At 11am this morning, Chris was at the tables yet again, spinning it up in a $15-$30 cash game on PokerStars.

***

By noon today Chris was in the Amazon Room of the Rio, where he both hoped and expected to spend at least 13 hours playing cards. Alas, it is not to be.

Miuntes into the start of play today, Chris Moneymaker had his chance to double up, gtting AJ in against 9T pre-flop. Does it matter if it was a nine or a ten on the flop? Well, it was a ten, and Chris Moneymaker is done at the World Series for another year.

In other Team PokerStars Pro news, Vanessa Rousso managed to double up her short-stack at the start of play, while Noah Boeken has already found the door, his top trips falling to a full house.

That leaves us with John Duthie, Vanessa Rousso, ElkY, Hevad Khan, and Victor Ramdin. Ramdin is running hot at the moment and looks good to make a deep run today.

As the players filed into the Amazon Room this morning, we realised that this was another landmark day in the 2008 World Series main event. For the first time, the entire field is visible before our very eyes -- no more days divided into multiple flights, no more rooms spread across the entire Rio Casino and Hotel complex. Just 1,307 players in a single aircraft hangar playing another ten hours, at least, of poker.

Among them are Team PokerStars Pros Victor Ramdin (307,600), Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier (151,800), Hevad Khan (113,200), Noah Boeken (61,100), John Duthie (58,800), Chris Moneymaker (40,300) and Vanessa Rousso (30,900).

Team PokerStars Pro Victor Ramdin interests the ESPN interview team

Joining them are PokerStars sponsored players Leo Fernandez (214,000), Kirill Gerasimov (159,600), Jan Heitmann (105,300), Kara Scott (90,100), Alex Kravchenko (49,500) and Antonio Arce (23,700).

Of course, no World Series story is complete without the PokerStars qualifiers. Indeed, they are usually the heading, main plot and sub-plot of any main event tale. So it is here, with the two Hunters from 2A still way ahead of the pack. Hunter Frey, from Houston, TX, has 397,000 in chips and Kellen Hunter, from Minot, North Dakota, has 354,100. Also popping up towards the top of the field today are Canadian Ronald Adams (333,550), Eric Crain (315,000) and Andrew Teng (314,200).

Media row has been abuzz in recent days with side bets on when the money will be reached, the moment that the 667th player is touched on the shoulder and told to retire from the big dance. Certainly most commentators seem to think that it will come sometime towards the end of today, meaning players will bag up for day four knowing that they have at least doubled their money. The tournament director has announced this morning that if we're playing hand-for-hand at the end of the scheduled five hours, then we will continue until the bubble bursts. It's surely far too cruel to ask the players to go to bed and return tomorrow knowing that one of them will be out, penniless.

Some contention to the prevailing comes from high places, however. At least a couple of seasoned veterans of these events reckons that we'll still have considerably more than 666 players when the whistle is blown this evening. That would postpone bubble time until tomorrow.

Either way, this is a huge day. Plenty will blaze a trail right into contention; many more will crash and burn. Hold tight.

***
As ever, you can contact us at blog@pokerstars.com with your messages of support or queries about PokerStars qualifiers playing today. We always do our best to locate them, take a photo and feature them on the blog. Sometimes they can get lost in the crowd, but do please continue to e-mail.

You can also check out PokerStars.tv for the latest video action from the World Series, where plenty of qualifiers and Team PokerStars Pros have been grilled by the video blog team. More of the same will appear today.

There will be no more days like these, at least not this year. No more days of a mathematical fog hanging over the main event as you try to calculate numbers and chip averages, or consecutive days of new faces whose enthusiams knows nothing of the repetition that preceded them, a retread of the same path. Tomorrow things will be clearer and what we see will be what we get.

Day 2A finished with 466 players. The final numbers from Day 2B are not yet official, but the field looked to be a little more than 800 strong at day's end. That will leave us with still more than 1,000 players going into Day 3, including more than 100 PokerStars qualifiers and Team PokerStars Pros.

Among those Pros still in the field is Victor Ramdin, a one-time World Poker Tour winner looking for his first bracelet. Since arriving half an hour late for his day one appearance the man from the Bronx hasn't looked back and instead has set a path towards the chip lead which shows now sign of slowing. At the midway point today Victor hovered around the 250,000 mark. At the close of play that figure was more like 305,000.

Victor Ramdin

Here is a profile of Victor Ramdin from PokerStars.tv.

Watch Team PokerStars Pro Victor Ramdin on PokerStars.tv

ElkY made a big move from 5,400 to 121,000 in one level tonight, something that no one could believe until they saw for their own eyes a stack swollen in numbers and colour. Few ever discount the Frenchman but down so close to the felt it was hard not to write him off. Such a stunning comeback bodes well for the Team PokerStars Pro going into day 3.

ElkY

Also coming back tomorrow to represent Team PokerStars Pro will be Chris Moneymaker, Hevad Khan, John Duthie, Vanessa Rousso and Noah Boeken, each of whom made it through their respective second days with enough in their armoury to have a chance, although with the field beginning to narrow, time and opportunity will grow short.

Sponsored players Kara Scott and Kirill Gerasimov also deserve a mention, having made their way through the treacherous swings of today's five levels. EPT presenter Kara started on 111,000 and swung up and down throughout the day (despite a case of food poisoning) to finish on 66,000. Kirill on the other hand continues to play the World Series of his career, amassing chips in his typically understated style, and will return tomorrow with 160,000. In the dying moments of the day Hevad Khan registered an almost Balboa-like comeback hitting quad threes to spin up his meagre looking stack to 88,000 - more of a fighting weight.

That's the story of the Team PokerStars Pros and sponsored players, but it also proved a big day for a number of the PokerStars qualifiers remaining in the field.

Steve Chung nearly didn't make it to Vegas because he nearly didn't make it to Macau, where the satellite tournament that he won was being contested, in PokerStars' brand new live card-room. But against the odds, he got there, played the game, won his seat and was close to 300,000 chips for much of the day, good for a sniff of the tournament chip lead.

Steve Chung

PokerStars player Alberto Fontrytzner, from Madrid, Spain, got his chance under the ESPN studio lights today, but played badly there (in his own estimation) and will probably only make the final edit running kings into aces. Thankfully, his table was moved and he began to prosper, so much so that he appeared as a blip on our radar set to detect big stacks and sat behind nearly 250,000 for the late hours.

Andrew Brokos, from Baltimore, has taken it calm and steady to reach close to 200,000, while Bill Purle, from Berkshire, England, first consolidated and then improved on his overnight stack. Purle knocked a player out during the evening session, to take him past the 240,000 mark and keep him well in contention. Brandon Schaefer, meanwhile, is always smiling no matter what, and 220,000-odd is as good a reason as any. Finally Bryan Tiffin, our man out to make a score, ended the day still in it on 45,000.

Brandon Schaefer

If you're just now logging on, here's a look back at all the coverage from Day 2B

Numbers, numbers everywhere
From one extreme to another
PokerStars homegame in the Green Zone
The current adventures of Team Moneymaker
Moneymaker back on TV
The Washington Globetrotter
The quarter of a million mark
Qualifier looking for a big score
Swimming ahead of the shoal
The all new Hevad Khan

The PokerStars Video Blog team has been working hard all day long and posting video blogs from the World Series on the brand new PokerStars.tv. Be sure to check out the videos to get the password for the PokerStars.tv freeroll.

Here is the update from Day 2B.

Watch Main Event Day 2B Update on PokerStars.tv

Selected chip counts for Day 2B can be found on our 2008 World Series Chip Counts page. When the tourney staff sends out the final list for Day 3, we'll post it on the same page.

We don't limit our coverage here to the English-reading world. Be sure you take a look at all the other coverage on our German, Swedish, and Brazilian blogs.

For coverage from all the previous days, we've posted summaries below.

Day 1A
Day 1B
Day 1C
Day 1D
Day 2A

Photography ©2008, Joe Giron/IMPDI

Hevad Khan just raised seven out of ten pots. I’d been told this was the way he plays. Really, I stood and watched them.

For many the Team PokerStars Pro is famous for two things. First, the video clip he sent to PokerStars showing himself playing 28 sit and goes at the same time, proving the speculation that he was in fact a bot, to be undeniably wrong.

Second thing on the list of most memorable Hevad moments is his performance at the World Series last year, where the main event saw a talented and spirited Hevad charge his way to a sixth place finish, good for $956,243 and a place in the general poker consciousness.

The contrast between then and now couldn’t be more different. By his own admission Hevad is a calmer player these days, and at table Blue 34 sits as the quiet one at the table, letting his chips do the talking if you like. Whether he’s suffering from a long day or a long Series is unclear. I suspect it’s neither of those, just that he doesn’t need to play in any other way. Instead his movements are slow and considered - at least during a pot. When he wins he can stack chips on warp speed.

Just recently this has been happening a lot.

First a raise from Hevad, re-raised by Steve Weinstein in the nine seat, who bumps it up to 14,500. Hevad moves in slow motion, like he’s playing out the pinnacle action sequence of a low budget movie. He picks off some chips, actually all of his chips, and move them in the middle.

Hevad Khan

That taught them. Another pot to Hevad.

Next hand, Hevad raising again. Nothing fancy, just a straight forward 2,500. No takers, another pot for Hevad.

He raises the next hand, the same process, the same result – another pot to Hevad.

You get the picture... I’d guess it’s still going on as I write this. Quieter than last year but no less effective; Hevad was on 36K. Now that figure is more like 60K.

It's getting kind of near to the end of day two -- the second day two -- which means the perpetual downward tick of player numbers is dripping us closer to the money, while the ever-increasing blind levels continue to apply pressure to the short stacks and encourage that point-of-no-return all in push.

Such are the truisms of tournament poker, although they are by no means the only ones. It's also around about this time in any tournament featuring a shoal of PokerStars qualifiers that some of them decide it's time to leave the safe anonymity of the pack and appear right at the front, hauling a huge stack of chips with them. No matter how many times we cover a tournament, no matter how diligently we try to make sure we know about everyone, and no matter how any event progresses, this always happens. A few players slip the net.

We are left with no option but to apologise, admit defeat, and try to catch up. This is what we're doing here.

Folks, meet Steve Chung, from Hong Kong, who has a story to tell.

Steve Chung

By his own admission, a friend "dragged" Chung along to the PokerStars live cardroom in Macau. He had never played a live poker tournament before and wasn't too keen, especially when he was turned away from the island after taking the 6am ferry because he didn't have his passport. "All I wanted to do was play golf," Chung said, so he went back to Hong Kong and went to sleep.

But his buddy InSun, who had already qualified to play the WSOP, had other ideas and insisted he came back to the gambling island. Chung relented, returned, and played some cash games until the cardroom manager announced the World Series satellite event had a couple of spare seats. Not to disappoint InSun, Chung anted up the HKD5,000 (approximately $640 US) played the tournament, won his seat, and came to Vegas, where he is now among the day 2B chip-leaders sitting behind 320,000 at last check.

Some commentators are already recalling the story of two friends from the southern hemisphere coming across to play the World Series in Las Vegas, one keen and the other not so. So far, it's the tale of Team PokerStars Pro Joe Hachem, and we know how that one ended. A repeat anyone?

Our video blog team met Andrew Brokos, from Baltimore, Maryland, ahead of his day one earlier this week. You can see what he had to say to them over at PokerStars.tv.

Andrew Brokos

What Brokos had to say to me, when I asked him about ten minutes ago, was "about 180" meaning 180,000, in chips. We've been talking recently about what would constitute a decent stack going into day three, and anything more than 100,000 is more than enough to make a charge deep into the money. Brokos is in with as good a chance as any.

Also right up there is Alberto Fontrytzner, a PokerStars player from Madrid, Spain. I asked him how his tournament was going just heading into the latest break and his answer was perfectly rational: "If you come to talk to me, it's because it's going well, right?"

Alberto Fontrytzner

It is indeed going well. He started the day with 50,000, ran kings into aces on the feature table, but now sits with at least 250,000. That was courtesy of some pocket pairs against some busted flush draws, plus "a few small pots". He also confessed that his new table is far tougher than his previous postings: "They're all the kind of calling stations that, you know, call with a bit of thought behind it." That has put paid to his previous policy of "raising with queen-five suited, that kind of thing."

Still, all three of these guys can afford to tighten up for a couple of hours and probably cruise into day three. There's just one level until this one is wrapped today. Stay tuned for the late night carnage.

Bryan Tiffin sits in the Green Zone, the corner of the Amazon Room reserved for the few tables that surround the ESPN featured table.

In front of him sits 27,500 in chips, only 7,500 more than his starting stack, and only 3,000 less than he had at the beginning of the day. Beside those chips sit a wallet-sized picture of his family, a beautiful wife and three daughters. He is, in a word, tenacious. He is looking for a big score, and certainly more than his $10,000 entry fee.

Over Memorial Day weekend, Tiffin won a satellite on PokerStars. The $12,000 package was no small change the world-traveling 39-year-old construction manager. It wasn’t enough, however, to make things easy around the house.

“The $10,000 entry fee would have helped our financial conditions a little bit, but we really needed a large amount of cash to save our house and be able to stay in our current city,” he said.

And so begins the search for the big score.

Tiffin has been playing for several years on PokerStars, but this is his first World Series. Despite his low stack, he has a long-range plan for the World Series and it ends with him winning the $9 million first prize.

“My first call would be to my real estate agent to find me a house on a local golf course,” he said. “I would pay off all of my debt, set a schedule that lets me spend time at home with my wife and kids, and golf a lot.”

On his trip over on the PokerStars Bus this morning, Tiffin talked to our video blog team.

Watch WSOP 08: Brian Tiffin Qualifier on PokerStars.tv

Update: Just after this post went up, Team PokerStars Pro Joe Hachem left the building, getting his short-stack in with a big draw but coming up short.

This may have been the first time all week I haven’t seen Team PokerStars Pro Victor Ramdin getting a massage. On Victor’s day one, it seems he required a constant pummelling to ease himself back into contention, and before that in the $1,500 HORSE the situation was the same. It must have worked though – Victor made the final of that event, finishing sixth.

But perhaps Victor is not as tense right now, and who can blame him? Sat as he is with 250,000 he owns the table. Besides, the massage therapy wouldn’t have been able to penetrate his leather jacket.
The board reads 8-A-5-5.

Team PokerStars Pro Victor Ramdin

The baby-faced seat two player had been getting busy with some pre-flop raises for the few hands I’d been watching. The two of them danced their way to the river on an ace-high board...

“I got an ace.”

This made Victor pause a second; he did too but didn’t want to show his hand first. Ace-nine against ace-nine - a split pot.

Curiously when Victor is in control it’s as the hands taking place are irrelevant to the actual process of gaining chips. It’s around day two or three that you start to get a better understanding of how things are shaping up, a clearer vantage point from which to judge who’s doing well, who’s trying to do well and who is hanging on as best they can.

It’s no surprise that the leaders on day one, like Kellen Hunter, soon start pulling away, increasing their stacks even more. If you wait for cards you’re doomed, your advantage comes from knowing more than the other guy.

This is where Victor comes in. A quarter of a million in chips, not really playing hands, more just working the table, picking up what he can when he can. Coffee arrives.

Another hand, Victor in the cut off, it’s folded to him and he raises. The blinds fold and Victor picks up a grand or two. He gets his headphones out.

A flop of 8sTdAd, checked by two players, one of them Victor. The fourth street jack sees Victor raise 5,600 which prompts his opponent to take off his shades and re-raise. This time Victor mucks. He does the same after a pre-flop raise on the next hand, forced out by a re-raise.

Betting all the way to the turn on the next hand, an Ad4d7s2d board. The seat seven player made it 7,500 – he’d tangled with Victor before. Victor called and checked the king on the river, then another bet of 12K.

Now Victor pulled his headphones off, like you would if you suspected the table were talking about you, and with a slight shake of his head he reluctantly counted out the call. Holding the chips high and at arm’s length, grimacing all the way, he dropped in the call.

At that moment his opponent mucked. Victor didn’t even have to show his hand. With a sigh to suggest he’d been put through a trauma for no reason he started stacking his chips. Not to worry, Victor up to over 260K.

Meanwhile the PokerStars video blog team caught up with PokerStars qualifier Adam York...

Watch WSOP 08: Adam York on PokerStars.tv

The PokerStars 2X promotion continues today with even more amazing double guarantees for our major tournaments.

What's more, PokerStars has announced that this week's Sunday Million will also have its guaranteed prize pool doubled. That's a HUGE $2 million guarantee for the Sunday Million this week, 13 July, 16:30 ET. Satellites are running all week with buy-ins from as little as $2.20 or 400 FPP credits, so play now and take your shot at taking down one of the biggest prizes Sundays have ever seen!

And remember, from July 7-13, PokerStars is doubling the guarantees on each of its regular guaranteed tournaments. That includes all the regular tournaments, the Daily Fifteen Grand, Daily Fifty Grand and the Nightly Hundred Grand!

Below is a list of PokerStars guaranteed tournaments for Thursday July 10. The doubled guarantee is listed after each event. All times ET.

00:00 -- $77 NL Hold'em [6-max - $10,000 guaranteed] -- $20,000.00
01:00 -- $109 NL Hold'em [$30,000 guaranteed] -- $60,000.00
02:00 -- $33 NL Hold'em [$5,000 guaranteed] -- $10,000.00
05:00 -- $33 NL Hold'em [$10,000 guaranteed] -- $20,000.00
08:00 -- $11+R NL Hold'em [$10,000 guaranteed] -- $20,000.00
10:00 -- $8.80+R NL Hold'em [$20,000 guaranteed] -- $40,000.00
10:30 -- $11+R PL Omaha [$3,500 guaranteed] -- $7,000.00
12:00 -- $22 NL Hold'em [$20,000 guaranteed] -- $40,000.00
13:00 -- $109 NL Hold'em [$15,000 guaranteed] -- $30,000.00
13:00 -- $5.50 NL Hold'em [$5,000 guaranteed] -- $10,000.00
14:00 -- Daily Fifteen Grand -- $30,000.00
14:15 -- $3.30+R NL Hold'em [$25,000 guaranteed] -- $50,000.00
15:00 -- Daily Fifty Grand -- $100,000.00
16:00 -- $11+R NL Hold'em [$45,000 guaranteed] -- $90,000.00
17:00 -- $55 NL Hold'em [$25,000 guaranteed] -- $50,000.00
18:00 -- $5.50+R NL Hold'em [$35,000 guaranteed] -- $70,000.00
19:00 -- $109 NL Hold'em [$25,000 guaranteed] -- $50,000.00
19:00 -- $11 NL Hold'em [$20,000 guaranteed] -- $40,000.00
19:30 -- $22 PL Omaha H/L [$5,000 guaranteed] -- $10,000.00
19:45 -- $11 Razz [$1,000 guaranteed] -- $2,000.00
20:00 -- $3.30+R NL Hold'em [$30,000 guaranteed] -- $60,000.00
20:00 -- $27.50 NL Hold'em [$25,000 guaranteed] -- $50,000.00
21:00 -- The Nightly Hundred Grand -- $200,000.00
21:00 -- $4.40 FL Hold'em [$1,000 guaranteed] -- $2,000.00
21:30 -- $50,000.00 -- Nightly Fifty Grand -- $100,000.00
22:00 -- $55,000.00 -- $11+R NL Hold'em [$55,000 guaranteed] -- $110,000.00
23:00 -- $20,000.00 -- $109 NL Hold'em [$20,000 guaranteed] -- $40,000.00

AND FINALLY…

Don't forget, if you make your first deposit with the code FIRST2X, you will get into to the 2X First Depositor Freerolls. There are two $2,222 freerolls running every day, from July 8-30, at 13:00 ET & 20:00 ET. If you cash in any of the freerolls, you'll win a seat in the $22,222 finals on July 31.

You never quite know when you're going to bump into Brandon Schaefer. You could be in any poker room (or any pub) in any city (or airport) in the world, and you could suddenly be forcefully shaking the hand of a giant, ebullient poker player who will let go only so that he can fill your hand with a glass of beer.

In the past few years, this has happened to the various members of the PokerStars blog team in Deauville, France; Monte Carlo, Monaco; Dortmund, Germany; Barcelona, Spain; Dublin, Ireland; San Remo, Italy; London, England; and Las Vegas, Nevada, each time emerging like Waldo from a huge crowd with a beaming grin and a shot glass. Off the top of his head, when I spoke to Schaefer in the blue section of the Amazon Room a few moments ago, he reeled off Melbourne, Australia; Tokyo, Japan; "Oktoberfest three times", and his native Seattle, Washington as stopping points since last year's World Series.

He paused and furrowed his brow and it seemed as though there were certainly more stamps on his passport than he could recall right there and then.

While it's usually a toss up as to whether Schaefer's hands are carrying booze, riffling chips, or dragging luggage, he applies himself to all pursuits with equal commitment, and has earned the right to do so. On the first season of the European Poker Tour, he won the Deauville event as a PokerStars qualifier, good for $186,582 and a ticket to the Grand Final in Monte Carlo. There, he spun his free pass all the way up to second place and $465,853.

"I got so lucky in those first couple of EPTs that I have the money just to hang out," he explained, when asked about his globetrotting. "I play online just to get a plane ticket."

As a result, Schaefer lives the kind of life that is surely the envy of countless youngsters across the world. He has achieved a manageable level of fame without any of the hassles -- he once got asked for his autograph by a Canadian fan who had seen the EPT broadcasts, but no more. He has a formidable reputation online at PokerStars, and qualifies regularly for the major tournaments, such as this World Series main event. But he is by no means chained to his laptop and has seen more of the world than all but the most experienced travel writers or airline pilots, never staying in his hotel room longer than absolutely necessary.

His talents have also earned him a couple of backers who will contribute buy-ins for tournaments, meaning his lifestyle is comfortably funded and leaving him time to continue the explorations. Of course, the odd result, like 11th place in the pot-limit hold 'em event at the WSOP last month, don't go amiss. But Schaefer is arguably the perfect role model for the modern player -- and the most popular man in the boardrooms of Guinness, Smirnoff and American Airlines.

At the dinner brea, Schaefer had 140,000 chips.

***
As we head into the dinner break, Team PokerStars Pro and the PokerStars sponsored players are still going strong. Among those still in the hunt are:

Victor Ramdin -- 240,000
Kara Scott -- 115,000
Hevad Khan -- 100,000
Chris Moneymaker -- 100,000
Joe Hachem -- 55,000
ElkY -- 30,000

(chip counts are approximate)

***
PokerStars qualifier Chris Miranda might already consider his work in Vegas is done. He qualified for the main event on PokerStars for $300 but has already recouped far more in a $5,000 side event. He explains all to our video blog team.

Watch WSOP 08: Chris Miranda Qualifier on PokerStars.tv

By our count, five former World Series champions remain in the field of the 2008 World Series of Poker. Among these players are Team PokerStars Pros Joe Hachem and Chris Moneymaker. Hachem, as mentioned here, is sitting in a quiet dark corner, quietly plotting to chip up before day’s end. Moneymaker, however, does not have such a quiet place for reflection. His day started and continues to be on the ESPN featured table, in front of the cameras, under the lights, and with everyone at the table gunning for him.

Moneymaker seems to be in a good place this week. He’s dropped some pounds, spent a lot of time with his family, and when playing poker (even just for fun in the Palms poker room), he seems happy. It’s not always as easy under the lights, though. After he limps, it’s a raise, and a re-raise before it gets back to him. His cards get to the muck quickly, and when the next bet is an all-in, Moneymaker literally reaches over his shoulder and pats himself on the back.

His constant sweater, aka his father, sits in the stands watching every move. When Chris turns to find his bottle of water empty, his father stands and brings a fresh one. These guys have been together at the World Series since that fateful night five years ago when Chris turned his $39 PokerStars satellite entry into $2.5 million. Now, Dad sits by while his son tries to create another storybook tale.

The past hour could’ve been better for Moneymaker. After limp-folding in the hand before, Moneymaker once again limped, but this time, after getting raised to 3,200, Moneymaker fired back a raise for 7,500 more. A smooth call came in, followed by a flop of Kd9dTh. Moneymaker put 11,000 in the middle and his opponent pushed all-in for 55,000 more. With not a hint of a smile, Moneymaker folded. He put his sunglasses on top of his head, put his head down on the table, and tried to stare under the bill of his opponent’s cap.

The crowd laughed appreciatively and a railbird called, “Good fold, Chris!”

The next time, it fails to go as well. Moneymaker got AKo all-in pre-flop against aces for a 40,000 pot. He picked up a gutshot draw on the flop, but bricked twice. He walked back over to his dad, talked for a bit, then returned to the table, flipping his 50-chip ante into the pot with a sigh. It wasn’t his best level of the tournament, but he’s still in good shape.

In other news, Hevad Khan, Victor Ramdin, and ElkY are all doing well today and sit with more than 100,000 chips.

Finally, the PokerStars Video Blog team caught up with EPT commentator and PokerStars-sponsored player Kara Scott at the break.

Watch WSOP 08: Kara Scott Day 2b Chat on PokerStars.tv

I first met Serge Grenier at the reception for the Team Moneymaker players. He stood out from the other team members for the fact he spoke to me in French. Putting to use what little French I still had in my head, like taking the covers off an old ‘57 Chevy to take it for a spin, I discovered that Serge was from Quebec and was an engineer. To continue the analogy, it wasn’t a long drive.

Serge Grenier

But quiet as he may have been on day one he quietly put together a stack good enough to survive the day. Back today and it’s a similar story, up to 80K and keeping out of trouble.

Another who has made it this far and is doing his best to keep pace is David Trinh, a pharmacist from Toronto. He did have a shade over 20K before just doubling up. Whilst Darren Keyes, whose wife Michelle is watching closely from the rail, reached the first break of the day with close to 90K.

David Trinh

Along the way we’ve lost a couple of others form the team, including Claude Elam from North Carolina, making his second World Series appearance.

There’s no team work in poker but there is camaraderie between players who have arrived in Las Vegas via the same qualifying route, be it in a freeroll or a special event like the $39 Team Moneymaker competition. This is displayed in none more so than in Mickey Parkinson one of those winners who qualified for $39.

Mickey Parkinson

Earlier I ran into Mickey, a nurse from Alberta in Canada, and probably the most cheerful looking member of the team. Today she started with her short stack on table Orange 25. She called me over with news of her tournament so far but in the space between then and the break she had busted. At one point the dealer asked her if she was okay...

“I’m very quiet... but I’m having a good time!”

Sadly that would all come to an end before I got chance to catch up with her at the break – so long Mickey.

Poker has always been an international game, bearing striking similarities to various ancient card games in numerous countries, with the result that historians are divided on its true origins. There are claims that it started in Germany, France, the Far East and America, among others, with those notorious gamblers in the maritime profession introducing their own variations in ports across the globe during shore leave.

PokerStars just might be the modern equivalent of these sea-faring poker players. The cardroom is accessible in hundreds of countries across the world, and PokerStars qualifiers come from the vast portion of the 118 different nations represented here at the World Series main event. Only yesterday, we had a friendly discussion among ourselves on how to pronounce PokerStars qualifier Mike Adamo's home nation of Turks & Caicos Islands, a British Overseas Territory in the West Indies with a population of around 30,000. Just for the record, there were 54,288 entries into this year's World Series. Make of that what you will.

This global appeal of poker has made players into stars in countless languages and German-speaking supporters now have a team of "PokerStars.de Shooting Stars" to follow through this World Series and into the next season of the EPT, in addition to Team PokerStars Pro Katja Thater. There are five Germans, one Swiss and one Austrian on the Shooting Stars team, hand selected for their proven track-records in the big games both online and off.

Sebastian Ruthenberg is arguably the best known Shooting Star, especially after he beat Chris "Jesus" Ferguson heads up in event 33, the $5,000 stud hi-low event, good for $328,756 and a bracelet. But today in the main event, it is the Swiss star Anton Allemann who has got the flashbulbs popping: Allemann began with 112,500 and one of the most intimidating table images around the Rio.

Anton Allemann

Since time began, the leather jacket, dark shades and icy, chiselled visage has been the look selected by rock stars to project just about the right level of disinterested cool to keep grown men in a loop of perpetual jealousy as hordes of teenage girls screech their approval. Allemann first appeared on the poker radar when he made the final table at the EPT event in Baden, Austria, in October last year, and it seems as though he has changed neither clothes nor expression since then.

Allemann has featured in a fair few photographs since making his appearance at the World Series this year, but not all have been for his image. He was one of only a handful of players past the 100,000 mark on his day one, and he continues to prosper in silent, effortless cool this afternoon. PokerStar, Shooting Star and rock star. Quite a player.

Allemann probably doesn't need a poker nickname -- it could justly be dismissed as passe -- but if he did he could do a lot worse than taking his own two initials "AA" and playing up their similarity to everyone's favourite starting poker hand. He might, however, have to fight it out for the nickname with Antonio Arce, a PokerStars sponsored player from the Phillipines, who is also in the fray today.

Arce also came to our attention for the first time on one of the PokerStars regional tours that have rapidly succeeded in changing the live poker landscape across the world in a similar way to the online entity. Arce is probably the best known Filipino player and he was a regular face on all of the Asia Pacific Poker Tour events in its inaugural season, fresh from cashing in the main event at the World Series last year.

Antonio Arce

Just last weekend, "AA" Arce won event three of the PokerStars Filipinio Poker Tour in Manila, before hot-footing it to Vegas for the big dance. He's also going strong in the same section of the Amazon Room as the other AA, Allemann. Both are well and truly on the radar, and definitely worth watching for days to come.

“I’m trying to find my flashlight,” said Gene Bromberg, the PokerNews writer relegated to the darkest corner of the Amazon Room, the Green Zone. “We had a lamp. It was here for two days, and then it was gone.”

The dimness is a necessity. The ESPN feature table (featuring none other than Chris Moneymaker) is just feet away. The fluorescent lights of the Amazon Room don’t mix well with the TV lights, and thus it stays dark in that corner.

That same section of the tournament area is, for whatever reason, the easiest in which to walk. The tables are widely-spaced and comfortable. It also happens to be the place where we find the equivalent of a PokerStars home game going on.

Table 1 features qualifier Rocco Marchegiani, FPP-qualifier Michael Ortlieb, WPT World Poker Open champion (and PokerStars-sponsored player) Brett Faustman, and Team PokerStars Pro Joe Hachem. At the adjacent table, PokerStars qualifiers Jim Hamburger and Gabriel Chuang are holding down the fort.

On just the second hand of the day, Hachem found his double-up hand. Queens were good against pocket eights, and suddenly the champ was back in contention.

Hachem all in with queens

His future looked brighter than just about anything. Suddenly, the tournament area was even darker.

“See if you can use your pull to get the clocks turned back on,” Hamburger said to me. I looked at the plasma screen on the wall. A tech looked perplexed as he shined a flashlight at the cables in the back. Something was wrong, but it was hard to tell what. The tourney clock was gone.

Hamburger, regardless, is all smiles today. The last time we saw him at a table (several days ago), he looked tired and a little sour. We saw him later and he told us the good news. He was up to 75,000 and feeling like a kid again. Minutes ago, he pointed down at his shoes…brand new Converse All-Stars. “Saw them last night,” he said marveling at his new blue kicks. “I wore them when I was ten!” This, coming from the man who got news of the his sixth grand child's birth eight days ago.

Meanwhile, across the table Chuang got AQ all in against a short-stack’s AJ and send the player to the rail. There is no celebration, just quiet, cool play in a dark corner.

Tony Hachem, brother to the 2005 World Champion and a player with a stack going into Day 3 (he played yesterday), was getting the breath knocked out of him along the wall.

“I’m so tight,” he complained to the massage therapist. The therapist responded by beating Tony to a slack-jawed mess in the chair. He paid her for it and then stood up in time to see his brother come in for a raise to 1,500 under-the-gun.

If we need any evidence that people are always gunning for the World Champ, it came in the next thirty seconds as he got called by the two-seat, three-seat, and big blind. When the flop came down 7cKs8c, Hachem waited for the big blind to check, then calmly bet 4,500. Everyone folded nearly as quickly as they had first called and Hachem stacked the chips.

“Nice one, Joe,” said a newly-loose Tony Hachem.

And that was that. The end of the first level of the second day of the second day, otherwise known as Day 2b of the 2008 World Series of Poker, PokerStars Home Game edition.

The day really started in the orange section of the Amazon Room three hands in. A player busted out, his day two cut short by 12 hours 57 minutes - a fate that won’t be uncommon for several hundred players today arriving with hope, departing with painful memories.

Two particular PokerStars sponsored players sit close geographically but chip wise they could hardly be further apart. I’m talking of course about Kara Scott and Anthony Holden. There’s also another difference, which Tony may or may not seek to punish me for later for suggesting - whilst both are well established in their fields, being on TV makes Kara more recognisable, as the small pool of railbirds go some way to prove.

EPT presenter and PokerStars sponsored player Kara Scott

Kara is the face of the EPT, is featured in magazines as well as presenting the PokerStars video blogs (when she’s not playing). While Anthony is among the premier writers in poker; author of the fabled Big Deal - his account of a year as a professional player - and more recently Bigger Deal, an updated account of a year on the PokerStars EPT, he can sometimes disappear in a field, not appearing on chip counts. But many of those in the know credit him as their own inspiration to take up this great game.

I mention this only because of Tony’s wristband problem. Each day players are given a coloured wristband which is a different colour each day. Today it’s sparkly blue. Very nice. Only they can be uncomfortable if fastened wrong, which brings us back to Tony who, finding this to be a problem, just yanked his off to adjust.

But once these things are on, they’re supposed to stay on. Suddenly realising this Tony gave me a look that said “for crying out loud” and slipped the sparkly tatters into his breast pocket. He may have written one of poker’s greatest books, he may be a life peer among poker’s aristocracy, but if the security guard doesn’t recognise him on his way back from the break there may be trouble.

Author and PokerStars sponsored player Anthony Holden

He cuts a distinguished figure sat as he is in a PokerStars straw hat, another stark contrast to Kara Scott, well tanned and in designer sunglasses. Whilst he puts up a rear guard defence of his remaining 15K, Kara has none of those pressures. Starting today with 111K, she leads the charge at the head of the field, smiling all the way.

The usual sounds of battle go on around them. One Italian player nearby busts out “nah, nah, nah...” he says, walking away dealing with the first wave of shock, “nah, nah, nah...” he continues, coming back only to collect the picture of his kid used as a card protector, then he disappears. Elimination on day one it’s hard, but on day two it can be painful to watch.

But this was all just scenery; I was here to monitor the fate of Great Scott of Brighton and Lord Holden of Poker. I was ready to tell Tony this was no death watch, that instead I was on double-up patrol and that this was only the beginning. But I could see in his eyes he was having none of it, so I tried not to make it obvious.

A hand came along though, a 5cKsQh8sAh board, which Tony bet at, was called and promptly showed his pocket eights. It was as good as a double up for the Englishman, who looked up at me as if he’d just appeared at the top of a well having spent the night in its depths.

Youth may come with glamour, sunglasses and look good with a stack of over 100K, but you have to work at the game when you’re back down in the foothills. Tony knows the situation is critical but there’s fight in the veteran yet. This is no death watch. He’s back up to 24K.

For the past five days, we have been drowning in numbers. There are numbered lists of PokerStars Team Pros, lists of PokerStars qualifiers, lists of sponsored players, and lists featuring the rest of the field. There all have a seat number and, often, a number in their PokerStars screen name. Once play got started, they all had a chip count, which is many cases is a lot of numbers next to one another. Sometime during day 1D, once the final numbers were known, we got a list that represented the prize payouts for the tournament. There were more numbers on that than are painted on the walls of all elementary school classrooms across America.

Between you and me, I don't like numbers very much. But I know when I'm beat and all I can do is make it as easy as possible for all of us. With that in mind, here's the numerical run down of the 2008 World Series of Poker main event. Print it out and keep it. Pin it to your wall. There'll be a load more numbers coming your way over the coming few days, but here we have the basics.

Year: 2008
Buy-in: $10,000
Number of players: 6,844
Number of PokerStars qualifiers: 2,008
Number of PokerStars qualifiers playing: 1,063
Number of Team PokerStars Pros: 27

Today is day 2B. It breaks down as follows:

Players starting day: 2,378
Player remaining at day end: ?
PokerStars Team Pros: 7 (Bill Chen, Chris Moneymaker, ElkY, Hevad Khan, Joe Hachem, Isabelle Mercier, Victor Ramdin)
PokerStars qualifiers: 316 (at least)

Yesterday was day 2A. It ended as follows:

Players starting day: 1,251
Players remaining at day end: 466
Number of Team PokerStars Pros surviving: 3 (John Duthie, Noah Boeken, Vanessa Rousso)
Number of PokerStars qualifiers surviving: 69 (at least)

Here's what they are all playing for:

Total prize pool: $64,333,600
Places paid: 666

Prize structure

Final table (to be played in November)

1st--$9,119,517
2nd--$5,790,024
3rd--$4,503,352
4th--$3,763,515
5th--$3,088,012
6th--$2,412,510
7th--$1,769,174
8th--$1,286,672
9th--$900,670

Remaining payouts (to be paid by Monday)
10th-12th--$591,869
13th-15th--$463,201
16th-18th--$334,534
19-27--$257,334
28-36--$193,000
37-45 --$154,400
46-54--$135,100
55-63 --$115,800
64-72--$96,500
73-81--$77,200
82-90--$64,333
91-99 --$51,466
100-162--$41,816
163-225--$38,600
226-288 --$35,383
289-351--$32,166
352-414--$28,950
415-477--$27,020
478-540 --$25,090
541-603--$23,160
604-666--$21,230

In the time it took me to type that up (or, more accurately, do some of my best copy-pasting), the cards were tossed in the air and day 2B began. The familiar cries of "All in! Call!" are already filling the air, so the numbers are out of date and will continue to tick downward until we have those final nine, sometime next Monday. As ever, we will be providing all the coverage in text, pictures and video until that day comes.

If you need to refresh your memory on those stats, visit our prize money and statistics page.

If you want us to follow a particular PokerStars qualifier, email us a blog@pokerstars.com. Put "URGENT WSOP Main Event" in the subject line and tell us as much as you can about the player.

Check out vide from the World Series, plus an archive of former PokerStars events, at the pristine PokerStars.tv.

The World Series math is hard to understand for an outsider. This 2008 event had four day ones. It has two day twos. More people competed in the second half of Day 1 than the first, and consequently, the second Day 2 will be more populated than the first Day 2. Follow?

No? No worries. We will get through this together.

Days 1A and 1B came together today to form the 1,252-player Day 2A. By the end of the night, fewer than 500 of those competitors remained in the Amazon Room. The survivors now have one day off while more than 2,000 Day 2B players battle on Wednesday. Then all of the remaining players will come back for Day 3 on Thursday at 12pm.

Five Team PokerStars Pro players started Day 2A. Three survived. Barry Greenstein worked a short stack to near perfection most of the afternoon, but in the end couldn't last the day. His exit was preceded by Victoria Coren's, the lady having her set of threes cracked followed by running jacks into aces. Having better days were Noah Boeken, Vanessa Rousso, and John Duthie all of whom have chips going into Day 3. (See our chip counts page for the most recent information we have).

Noah Boeken -- 65,000 John Duthie -- 67,000 Vannessa Rousso --72,000

Not only is Team PokerStars Pro fighting on to Day 3, but the list of PokerStars qualifiers and sponsored players is getting pretty impressive. EPT Season 2 Grand Final Champion Jeff Williams didn't have a lot of chips to start the day, but ran it up to 100,000 at one point. If not for getting all-in pre-flop with queens against AQ and coming out the loser, Williams would be huge-stacked tonight. Instead, he'll be looking to double up when he returns on Thursday. Sponsored player Alexander Kravchenko will be headed to Day 3, as well.

Jeff Williams -- 39,000

Alexander Kravchenko -- 52,000

Earlier today, Howard Swains found a pair of Hunters and PokerStars qualifiers who remained near the top of the leader board most of the day (read more HERE). Other big PokerStars name toward the top of the leader board are Ronald Adams, Jeffrey Anderson, Jody Garaventa, and Leo Fernandez.

Here's a look at some more PokerStars qualifiers with big stacks going into Day 3.

Kellen Hunter
Garth Paul
Christian Dragomic

All of this managed to take place within hours of the PokerStars Burlesque Party, the most lavish World Series party in recent memory. Headlined by burlesque star Dita Von Teese, the party drew thousands of people and had a line out the door all night long.

Speaking of the party, the PokerStars Video Blog team worked non-stop today to bring you all of the exclusive video from last night's festivities. If you've not yet had a chance to check out the new PokerStars.tv, now is the time.

On tap to play tomorrow for Team PokerStars Pro are Bill Chen, Chris Moneymaker, ElkY, Hevad Khan, Joe Hachem, Isabelle Mercier, and Victor Ramdin.

Selected chip counts for Day 2A can be found on our 2008 World Series Chip Counts page. When the official list comes out in the morning, it will be posted in the same place.

Beyond the coverage you'll find here, we have additional World Series news on our German, Swedish, and Brazilian blogs.

If you missed our coverage from Day 2A, we've posted the links to all of our stories below.

Another storm brewing
Poker's evolution and revolution
The cream of the crop
Team PokerStars Pro back in action
The powers of Jan Heitmann
Night of the Hunters
The situation on Day 2
PokerStars Burlesque Party Exclusive video
A silent master class
Kravchenko in from the cold

If you would like to take a look back at Day 1, feel free to click on any of the summaries below.

Day 1A
Day 1B
Day 1C
Day 1D

Finally, there was a lot more news in the PokerStars world today. For the rest of that, see the following links.

PokerStars 2X double guaranteed tournaments for Wednesday
PokerStars Barcelona Poker Camp

Photography ©2008, Joe Giron/IMPDI

There are few more places in the world as vastly different as the northern Russian city of Arkhangelsk, and the American city built from the desert up, Las Vegas. The first has average winter temperatures hovering around minus 16 degrees and a summer high of around 20, whilst the other has outdoor summer temperatures of 117 degrees, enough to melt the asphalt, and air conditioning units capable of matching that same Russian minus 16.

The differences are big, so is the journey to and from these outback territories, but this is one voyage that PokerStars sponsored player Alex Kravchenko has made profitable for several years, stringing together some now predictable results.

Alex Kravchenko

Alex has made a mark in Las Vegas many times, cashing twice in 2006 in both pot limit hold’em and Omaha, but 2007 marked the year everyone stood up and took notice, asking questions along the lines of ‘who was this guy?’

Seven cashes in total that year, including a bracelet in the Omaha hi/lo split 8 or better. Three of those other cashes were final table finishes, the most memorable being his fourth place finish in the main event - good for $1,852,721 and a near perfect finish to an incredible Series. Kravchenko was unstoppable.

Now based in the Russian capital Moscow, Alex has added two more cashes to his long tournament record, and has in the process overtaken his countrymen and fellow PokerStars sponsored player Kirill Gerasimov as the leading Russian money winner. His bracelet win last year made history, Alex being the first ever Russian bracelet winner in World Series of Poker history.

Flash forward to today and Alex is among that Day 2 mid-income group of players making steady progress, despite an early hit by a typically brutal pair of aces. He has close to 80K, while the tournament clock ticks down to the backdrop of “all-in and a call.”

His jacket draped over his shoulder, black shades, elbows resting on the table, his fingers entwined in front of his face – this is a war face if you ever saw one. Alex makes little noise, a man of few words and not the type to leap up and down and throw chairs around the room in celebration – the type of player tournament directors warn before the start of play. Instead, his expression only changes when he gets involved in a hand – when he removed the headphones from his ears before returning them when he folds.

It’s still early in this World Series main event with several days of unpredictability to go. But if one player has a proven record for World Series predictability it’s Alex Kravchenko.

How do you define a top poker pro? What are the skills you need?

Of course, most commentators will differ on the nitty gritty, happily spending hours discussing the multiple facets of the all-round player, placing their emphasis on the various skills in the multiple variations, adjusting their opinions based on deep-stack play versus turbo tourneys, ring games versus freezeouts. However, no matter the specifics, there are certain universal truths. You need to be able to play all variations of the game; show aggression where necessary, patience at other times; you need to know how to play the big stack and the short stack; you need discipline and focus.

In two words: you need to be Barry Greenstein.

Out on table Green 42, the furthest from media row, sits the Team PokerStars Pro who goes by that name. And as ever, he's giving a masterclass in at least three of those skills mentioned above. Unfortunately for Greenstein, those attributes most on display are the final three: knowing how to play the short stack, discipline and focus. He has never been higher than about 20,000 in chips for the best part of two days. But he's still in there and still fighting. Several thousand other players are not.

Watching Greenstein at the poker table is never going to remind you of a fireworks display or a Scandinavian-only double-flop eight-card Omaha hi-lo sit & go with a bonus prize for the most outrageous all-in move with the least connected cards. But there's so much more to learn from watching his play: apparently impassive and uninterested, it couldn't be further from the truth. He is watching and waiting; he is listening and scheming. If there is a more redundant piece of electrical equipment in the room than the boom mic that the TV crew has hovering over his head, I'm yet to see it. Greenstein says nothing, and is unlikely to even if he doubles up or busts out. It's just not his style.

Instead, he has four towers of chips: two of the dark blue kind, worth 100 each, a half-tower of the yellow 1,000 chips and a quarter stack of the 500s, used primarily for riffling. He's waiting for a moment to push them all in; he'll double them up or he'll bust. If he does the former, he'll probably be here for another couple of days. If he does the latter, he'll sign a copy of his book for his vanquisher, he'll shake their hand and he'll head silently into the night.

Either way, he has nothing to prove. Greenstein won another bracelet this year. He made the final table of the $50,000 HORSE event, his second in succession and third cash in three attempts in the event that supposedly determines the best players in the world. You know, scratch that "supposedly". The fact that Barry Greenstein is the only name on every single cash list from that tournament is enough to prove it beyond doubt.

Look up "Top Poker Pro" in the soon-to-be-published "Poker Dictionary" and you'll see a picture of Barry Greenstein.

Update: There is, of course, something inevitable about this, but before the ink was dry on that last post, Greenstein bust. He did exactly as predicted when the moment came, a signed copy of "Ace on the River" lies beneath seat three, and now its author is off. And yet all that written above still stands. He still has nothing to prove.

As we mentioned last night (or more accurately, very early this morning) the PokerStars Burlesque Party was the biggest thing to hit the World Series party scene in a long time. If you didn't have a chance to read about it earlier, you can do so HERE.

The PokerStars Video Blogging Team had exclusive access inside the party. After sifting through the videos, the team has put together all that's fit for air (and some stuff that gets pretty close to not being so fit).

Check out the video blog below or click any of the links to go to PokerStars.tv, PokerStars' new video platform.

Watch WSOP 08:PokerStars Party on PokerStars.tv

PokerStars Party Red Carpet
PokerStars Party Red Carpet Part 2
Dita Von Teese Interview
Dita Von Teese Interview Part 2
Dita Von Teese Interview Part 3
Dita Von Teese Interview Part 4
Dita Von Teese Interview Part 5

Among the PokerStars qualifiers playing Day 2A a notable few are meeting particular success, as you can see on the chip counts page. For some just getting here was their main achievement while for others nothing short of a cash finish or better will truly satisfy their competitive instincts.

Hearing from the virtual railbirds following online you get a sense of just how much support their is for players who may be overlooked while playing in the shadows of the bigger pros, among them friends of James Washer. He has around 55K now after an earlier scrap with aces against pocket kings that proved fruitful. He made a set on the river putting a bit more life into his day.

The same goes for Franco Cova, a PokerStars qualifier from Italy who, between hands, tends to go for walks to neighbouring tables and back before playing another hand. It’s a tactic that has proved effective so far, sitting as he does with a favourable 131,000.

PokerStars qualifier Franco Cova

We heard also from Tracey in Ottawa, keeping tabs on PokerStars qualifier Wael Kasouf who made it through Day 1 with a stack of 41,175. Whilst Tracey stays at home to look after the dog, Wael is living out his dream of playing in the World Series, but in the mass of humanity within these walls, and the numerous table changes going on, we’ve lost track of him. Wael, if you’re still out there, drop by and say hello.

Steve Wald is another player being closely watched from the other end of the internet, by folks back in St Louis. He survived the carnage of Day 1B with 29,000 and has the full support of his work colleagues back home who by the sounds of it will take care of the celebration party when he gets back to Missouri.

Finally, Cero Zuccarello currently has close to 59,000 as he “works his mojo” according to Erin back home. We wish all our players well – stop by and let us know how things are going.

And for anyone else wanting any update on players they are looking out for, don't forget you can drop the blog team a line by emailing blog@pokerstars.com. We'll do our best to report on their progress.

The PokerStars 2X promotion continues today with even more amazing double guarantees for our major tournaments.

What's more, PokerStars has announced that this week's Sunday Million will also have its guaranteed prize pool doubled. That's a HUGE $2 million guarantee for the Sunday Million this week, 13 July, 16:30 ET. Satellites are running all week with buy-ins from as little as $2.20 or 400 FPP credits, so play now and take your shot at taking down one of the biggest prizes Sundays have ever seen!

And remember, from July 7-13, PokerStars is doubling the guarantees on each of its regular guaranteed tournaments. That includes all the regular tournaments, the Daily Fifteen Grand, Daily Fifty Grand and the Nightly Hundred Grand!

Below is a list of PokerStars guaranteed tournaments for Tuesday July 8. The doubled guarantee is listed after each event. All times ET.

00:00 -- $77 NL Hold'em [6-max - $10,000 guaranteed] -- $20,000.00
01:00 -- $109 NL Hold'em [$30,000 guaranteed] -- $60,000.00
02:00 -- $33 NL Hold'em [$5,000 guaranteed] -- $10,000.00
05:00 -- $33 NL Hold'em [$10,000 guaranteed] -- $20,000.00
08:00 -- $11+R NL Hold'em [$10,000 guaranteed] -- $20,000.00
10:00 -- $8.80+R NL Hold'em [$20,000 guaranteed] -- $40,000.00
10:30 -- $11+R PL Omaha [$3,500 guaranteed] -- $7,000.00
12:00 -- $22 NL Hold'em [$20,000 guaranteed] -- $40,000.00
13:00 -- $109 NL Hold'em [$15,000 guaranteed] -- $30,000.00
13:00 -- $5.50 NL Hold'em [$5,000 guaranteed] -- $10,000.00
14:00 -- Daily Fifteen Grand -- $30,000.00
14:15 -- $3.30+R NL Hold'em [$25,000 guaranteed] -- $50,000.00
15:00 -- Daily Fifty Grand -- $100,000.00
16:00 -- $11+R NL Hold'em [$45,000 guaranteed] -- $90,000.00
17:00 -- $55 NL Hold'em [$25,000 guaranteed] -- $50,000.00
18:00 -- $5.50+R NL Hold'em [$35,000 guaranteed] -- $70,000.00
19:00 -- $109 NL Hold'em [$25,000 guaranteed] -- $50,000.00
19:00 -- $11 NL Hold'em [$20,000 guaranteed] -- $40,000.00
19:30 -- $22 PL Omaha H/L [$5,000 guaranteed] -- $10,000.00
19:45 -- $11 Razz [$1,000 guaranteed] -- $2,000.00
20:00 -- $3.30+R NL Hold'em [$30,000 guaranteed] -- $60,000.00
20:00 -- $27.50 NL Hold'em [$25,000 guaranteed] -- $50,000.00
21:00 -- Wednsday Hundred Fifty Grand -- $300,000.00
21:00 -- $4.40 FL Hold'em [$1,000 guaranteed] -- $2,000.00
21:30 -- $50,000.00 -- Nightly Fifty Grand -- $100,000.00
22:00 -- $55,000.00 -- $11+R NL Hold'em [$55,000 guaranteed] -- $110,000.00
23:00 -- $20,000.00 -- $109 NL Hold'em [$20,000 guaranteed] -- $40,000.00

AND FINALLY…

Don't forget, if you make your first deposit with the code FIRST2X, you will get into to the 2X First Depositor Freerolls, starting TODAY. There are two $2,222 freerolls running every day, from July 8-30, at 13:00 ET & 20:00 ET. If you cash in any of the freerolls, you'll win a seat in the $22,222 finals on July 31.

There are a number of stock phrases one can use to describe the progression of a poker player through a major tournament. "Going deep" works well for a "big stack", "scratching the felt" is suitably evocative to describe a player "on life support". At this stage, however, with at least four days left until the final table is decided, most players would settle for being "in the hunt".

This is one of the more convenient leads I'll ever write to a post about a couple of PokerStars qualifiers. Very much "in the hunt" at this stage -- "leading the charge", some might say -- are Kellen Hunter, from Minot, North Dakota, and Hunter Fray, from Houston, Texas. Sometime towards the end of the first level today, level six overall, an updated chip count came our way that featured the two Hunters at the very top. Hunters in the hunt. Neat.

Hunter Frey

Kellen Hunter

At that stage, they were two of only three players through the 200,000 mark -- 100 times more than they started with, which is not at all bad for a day and a half's work. And when I dropped by Frey's table sometime into level eight, he was in the mid 300,000s, and had the roving ESPN crews buzzing around him. That's the kind of attention usually reserved for the tournament chip leader, a role he currently occupies by some measure.

Kellen Hunter hasn't accelerated at quite this breakneck pace, but at a similar time, he still sat with more than 200,000, which is more than about 760 of the 774 remaining in the field. Considering anyone sitting with more than about 50,000 is still very well placed to make a run at this, Kellen cannot complain at all. And he isn't. In fact, he's sitting comfortably on a new table in the blue section of the Amazon Room, after his original table was broken. He's adjacent to PokerStars sponsored player Alexander Kravchenko, and has a similar silent yet deadly table image.

Shattering either Hunter's concentration during these stages seemed like a churlish thing to do, so we haven't yet managed to get the tournament story in their own words. But we'll continue to monitor them from a safe distance, out of range of arrow, bullet, fangs and claws, or whatever else these hunters use to accumulate all those chips. Maybe we'll rest up in the lodge later, beneath the trophies mounted on the wall, and talk about the newest acquisition: the World Series bracelet.

***
Tournament update: Team PokerStars Pro has lost its first player of the day. Victoria Coren couldn't get things going today, found jacks and moved in, but ran into aces. That was that. Barry Greenstein has also been perilously low at times, but is clinging on thanks to a series of nice double ups. Noah Boeken also vaulted up the leaderboard when he managed to double his 40,000-odd with a hand that the roars around his table might suggest was of the suckout variety. Either way, Boeken is back the healthy side of 90,000.

A senior PokerStars employee once told me... “Jan Heitmann is the only man in the world I’m jealous of.” When you meet Jan you quickly realise why.

Not only is he one of the best poker players to come out of Germany, he’s also an accomplished pianist and magician. During the fourth season of the European Poker Tour he kept women enthralled and enchanted as he played piano in the lobby of a Dortmund hotel, and stunned a mass crowd with his magic skills (for once not ‘The Gathering’ kind), performing reality bending shenanigans that had onlookers screaming in amazement, and at least one high-spirited sceptic accusing him of being a witch.

You can see for yourself as he dumbfounds Team PokerStars Pro Greg Raymer on PokerStars.tv.

Watch Jan Heitmann Does Magic Trick On Greg Raymer on PokerStars.tv

On top of all that he’s racing towards the front on day 2a of the World Series main event.

He wears a grey suit with electric blue shirt in the same way as his friend George Danzer – a sign of respect to the importance of the game, like an officer in uniform. Every now and then he yawns, a sight not uncommon today in a field at least half of whom were crammed into the Rain nightclub last night for the PokerStars Burlesque Party.

Today though it’s back to the real business, that of winning chips, and Jan just won the type of hands that for the most part slipped by unnoticed, but could almost be compared with the elegance of a tango, were it not so one-sided.

A new player had arrived at the table moments before, in heavy contrast to Jan’s suit, wearing a plain T-shirt and comfortable shoes and looking to make an immediate impression on his new table mates. He did just that in a hand against Jan that would be one riddled with pain. Starting with a limp in mid-position.

It got to Jan on the button who raised; a small one of around 2,000 which he toppled over the line before resting both palms on the felt alongside his bet. This was his offering to the poker gods, to summon angels of good fortune to his side, forces that you suspect Jan has instant access to. Keeping perfectly still he waited.

It was folded back to the seat one player who picked now to make his mark. Jan remained still and passive while his opponent first jittered in his chair, and then assembled a threatening power raise of around 35K, pushing it forward. Breaking from his self-imposed trance Jan now began riffling, using his piano playing fingers to mix together his green chips for a while, before restacking them, placing them on top of the rest of his stack, making a tall space rocket shape, and sliding them with beautifully delivered choreography, into the pot.

This got people’s attention. A few reporters arrived, like they’d just heard of an accident (or a potential one) on the police frequency. Jan didn’t move. It was like the seat one player was playing against a waxwork. No movement, just palms on the table, head held up high like the success of this move relied on him not setting off any motion detectors.

“Call”

Jan turned over two red jacks.

“I have pocket eights” said his opponent, in a mood that was already foreseeing his likely departure. He’d only just arrived but the QsKsTc7s6c board sent him away again. Only when Jan was stacking his new chips did his face break into a smile.

“I bet you didn’t want to see an eight!” said one player. It was an obvious thing to say but the table was now in a mood to chat.

“Or a spade” replied Jan. “He had a spade. I did not like the turn.”

The offering to the gods had been received well. Jan started on 41,000, he now has 128,000. He also does magic and plays the piano. I hate to admit it, but I’m also jealous of Jan Heitmann.

At the PokerStars Burlesque Party last night, Joe Hachem greeted the crowd and took some time to recognize the Team PokerStars Pros who made it to Day 2. Hachem's speech was great, but when most people were waiting to watch Dita Von Teese shake what her mama gave her, Team PokerStars Pro's success made for a longer-than-expected talk.

Twelve of the Team PokerStars Pros made it to Day 2. Five of those players are in action at this hour. Barry Greenstein, Noah Boeken, John Duthie, Vicky Coren, and Vanessa Rousso are all competing in Day 2A. Midway through the day, all five remain in contention.

The players are in the middle of a 40-minute color-up break right now, so what better time to check in on how the five are faring today?

John Duthie -- 65,000

Vanessa Rousso -- 48,000

Victoria Coren -- 28,000

Noah Boeken -- 35,000

Barry Greenstein -- 15,000

If that weren't enough, how about an update from Kara Scott. She has more than 100,000 chips but doesn't play until tomorrow. So for her, it's a day at the pool

Watch WSOP 08: Kara Scott Pool Side Chat on PokerStars.tv

The PokerStars cardroom has long been known as the breeding ground for many of the game's top stars, and joining any table there might mean facing off against a Team PokerStars Pro, a few World Series bracelet winners, or leading lights of the EPT -- sometimes all three. PokerStars is widely considered to be the best cardroom available, and so the best players all play there. This is simple common sense.

There's no exception to this rule in the qualification satellite tournaments for the World Series. There's certainly no law that only amateur players can attempt to spin a meagre buy-in on PokerStars into a main event ticket, and although plenty do, and go on to record spectacular successes, there are usually a good few sharks that prosper in the deep waters of the online satellite.

This World Series, our list of PokerStars qualifiers playing on day 2A features the likes of Jeff Williams and John Shipley, both winners on the EPT; Blair Hinkle, who won a bracelet earlier this Series; Iwan Jones, who took down the inaugural $10,000 London Poker Open for $750,000; Thomas Middlethon, who won the prestigious Amsterdam Master Classics and online sensation Shaun Deeb. I could doubtless compose a similar list tomorrow morning for day 2B players.

Taken in order, Williams has perhaps the highest profile both online and off of those six. Brad Willis profiled "yellowsub86" HERE, a player who first came to our attention in Monte Carlo during the season two EPT Grand Final, in which he made himself a teenage millionaire: $1,084,037 for a 19-year-old.

This year, his first World Series, Williams has already cashed three times, including $400,000 for second place in a $1,000 limit hold 'em event.

In 2005, after Iwan Jones won the first $10,000 buy-in event to be hosted in England, some people talked of how surprising it was an unknown player had taken down such a prestigious event, particularly from a field featuring the likes of Doyle Brunson, Gus Hansen, Ram Vaswani and Marcel Luske. But those people were way off the mark.

Iwan Jones

Others, in the know, were surprised only that it had taken so long for Jones to come to the fore. He had been "due one" for many years, and this was it. Since then Jones has cashed three times at the World Series, and once each on the EPT and the WPT. He's back here as a PokerStars qualifier, with all the weapons to go deep.

John Shipley's story starts many years ago in the cardrooms of the Midlands in England, where he played and prospered in some of the country's toughest games. He took his all-round tournament skills to Las Vegas and in 2002 was the chip leader going to the final table of the World Series. His aggressive play and fearless approach, designed solely with the bracelet in mind, ended up costing him a shot at the title; he eventually went out in seventh place. But Shipley returned to Europe and continued to dominate. On the first London event of the then-fledgling European Poker Tour, he took first place. There were few more popular winners. Sapphire1, as he is known on PokerStars, has been a serial qualifier for the major events. He's still going strong here.

Blair Hinkle cheered from the sidelines as his brother Grant took down the second event at this World Series. And then roles were reversed in the $2,000 event a week or so after, where the younger of the two Hinkles from Weatherby Lake, Missouri, completed the entry in the history books when he matched his brother in the bracelet department. Today, he's on the feature table along from the Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Rousso. He's already getting used to the attention, and should be in for a lot more before his career is done.

Thomas Middlethon, from Stavanger, Norway, came to prominence when he won the coveted Masters Classics in Amsterdam back in 2005.

Thomas Middlethon

A relatively unknown player at the time, Middlethon battled visible fatigue to overcome a star studded final that featured the likes of Patrick Bueno, Marcel Luske and Julian Thew to win Holland’s premier title and a cheque for $630,538. He laid low for a couple of years but is now back in the fray and well placed going into day two.

Shaun Deeb is one of those online players who has no fear about using his real name in he online environment. Instead, the online moniker "shaundeeb" is the one to be feared: his imperious online form took him to the top of the PokerStars Tournament Leaderboard (TLB) last year, the same season in which he joined Team PokerStars Pro Greg Raymer and fellow online tournament ace Tyler Netter as a World Cup of Poker winner in Barcelona. Deeb is devastating online, and has everything necessary in this live environment.

Stay tuned for more about them all.

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Most of the PokerStars qualifiers are staying this year in the Palms Hotel, no more than a few blocks from the Rio, but a few blocks in the baking Nevada heat. For this reason, a free PokerStars shuttle bus runs from home to office, and our video bloggers shared the ride with PokerStars qualifier Sven Hoffelner. Here are his thoughts, and a view out the window as they drive.

Watch WSOP 08: Sven Hoffelner Online Qualifier on PokerStars.tv

Remember, a full archive of video blogs, as well as details of a daily freeroll tournament, can be found at PokerStars.tv.

There are many significant steps on poker’s modern evolutionary road. The obvious one to most people is Chris Moneymaker’s rise from Tennessee accountant to poker World Champion thanks to a $39 online satellite. Further back still there was Team PokerStars Pro Tom McEvoy’s main event win 25 years ago, when he became the first Champion to have won his entry in a live satellite.

But in between those are two landmarks involving the same person.

The first came in 2000 when the Poker Million, the first event to award £1million to the winner (that was $1.4 million at the time), was staged on the Isle of Man.

The second occurred in a bath tub a few years later, coming to the same guy as he wallowed away in the tub, the idea striking him for a series of poker events to be staged across Europe, culminating in a glamorous grand final.

Of course that man was Team PokerStars Pro John Duthie.

"It's hard to believe," said John back in season one of the EPT. "It was just a year and a month and ago I sat in the bath and thought, 'that would be a good idea.'"

In fact it was a great idea. John had successfully combined his talents for directing drama on TV to doing the same for poker. After countless meetings, negotiations and the backing of PokerStars, the European Poker Tour was born – perhaps the most popular series of events outside the World Series – including the prestigious EPT Grand Final held with the beautiful backdrop of Monte Carlo.

These moments though could easily have gone the other way. Duthie’s aggressive raises against the likes of Teddy Tuil and Ian Dobson back in 2000 could have been cut down had fate dealt them a different hand. For the sake of a bad river card European Poker could have taken an altogether different path.

The same hypothetical asked of Chris Moneymaker’s adventure five years ago - Sam Farha calling Chris‘s bluff - would pose the question of what would the World Series look like today had Chris not captured the imagination of the internet generation?

Thankfully it all worked out differently and today John sits tearing a path through Day 2A, playing with typical gusto and spirit denied him at the EPT - for whilst he may be the creator, CEO and Executive Producer, those titles bar him from playing, making John the most frustrated spectator walking the rail. Between that and a regular battle to quit smoking it can be a heart breaking sight.

But like I said, John is making up for lost time. He started on 62,000, won a few pots, charged headlong at the table chip leader, and made him give way to Duthie pressure. He’s running good - one of the reasons we’re all here - now up to 82,000.

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Just one of the over 2,000 PokerStars qualifiers here this week is Michael Migdol, who spoke to the PokerStars video blog team about the main event and a little success he's had elsewhere...