After slowly losing chips throughout the day, Brandon Cantu took a bit hit with the following hand, as reported by PokerNews:

Dean Hamrick Doubles Through Brandon Cantu

Kelly Kim opened for 275,000, Brandon Cantu reraised to 950,000, and Dean Hamrick moved all in. The crowd let out an “Ooooooooooh!” and got on their feet as the action came back to Kim. Kim let his hand go and it was Cantu’s turn to tank. Cantu thought for well over five minutes (Tim Loecke getting knocked out in the meantime) before saying “I call.”

Cantu {10-Spades} {5-Clubs}

Hamrick {A-Hearts} {A-Clubs}

There was mass disbelief and gasps from the crowd as Cantu rolled over his hand.

The flop was {8-Spades} {7-Clubs} {5-Hearts} and Cantu flopped a pair of fives. The turn was the {8-Diamonds}, a bad card for Cantu as Hamrick made aces up. Cantu paced in back of the table looking resigned to his fate as his entourage called for a five. The river, though was the {10-Diamonds} and Cantu made two pair, but it was no matter– Hamrick’s aces and eights were best and he raked in the massive pot.

Cantu was down to 2.4 million after the hand while Hamrick was up to 5.5 million. Cantu is now the tournament’s shortest stack.

After the 10-5 fiasco, Brandon ended up all-in pre-flop with pocket 9′s against Peter Eastgate’s A-Q. Peter ended up with a flush, and Brandon was out in 20th place with a little $257,334 for his spending pleasure.

The last of Pokerati’s top tier of players in the main event is Tiffany Michelle, who would be a lot more adorable right now if she wasn’t wearing UltimateBet gear!

Well, with 1,500 chips remaining — 1 yellow, 1 blue — he survived the bubble and made the money.

And though I’ll need to check with Oliver on this, I think he might have been the guy that just signed a contingency deal with Full Tilt. Very confusing — but now we know how many chips you need, essentially, to survive Day 3 without playing.

UPDATE: 17 players away … now 15.

Damn, maybe I’m wrong, but I really expect this thin to come to a screeching halt. They’ll be going hand-for-hand once they get down to 9 players before the bubble — the hope being that three or so will drop out right there upon announcing the hand-for-hand grind. Think about it … going h4h with nearly 75 tables, with lots of major decisions on the line.

The players I’m paying attention to:

Team Pokerati

Pat Poels — about 210k

Whit Blanton — looks a little more nervous, though really he’s fine, with about 140k

Friends of Pokerati

Raj Kattamuri is scooping pots every time I check on him. He seemed to be up over 400k last I saw, though fyi, my margin of error on his stacks could be + or -100k, because he’s just got so damn many. Phil Hellmuth is at his table, btw.

Danny Fuhs — not sure of his status. Sorry, unofficial media shut out at this point, and official media has no mention of him. But about a half-hour before bubbletime, he had 100k or more.

Pokerati Also-Rans

Iggy is up to 112k in chips.

Tiffany Michelle is short stacked in the 50ishk area, and is doing what she has to do — not afraid to push all-in, which she did with AK, only to get a call from a big-stack
Kido Pham — Dallas guy who started out strong, is now clinging to life, and accused me of being “not nice” by taking a picture of his tiny stack. “I have lots of readers in Dallas, though,” I told him, “They want to know how you’re doing.”

“But I told my friends in Dallas I already busted!” he answered, “so they stop texting me.”

Jeremiah Smith — He’s supposedly running good, and different media members are already starting to talk about his destiny. Raising all-in with 6-9, getting called by queens and a flop of 7-8-10 is pretty much the definition of “running good.” But most curious to me about this former employee of PokerWire is that he’s wearing a Hard Rock Poker Room shirt. The Hard Rock Poker Room, of course, doesn’t exist yet. But it will in August. Wondering what’s his gig there.

UPDATE: We are at H4H — 674 players remain

Other Pros et al.

These players also have caught my attention for some reason or another:

UPDATE: We are 3 away from the money, going H4H.

Victor Ramdin — 511,000
Sean Sheikhan — 510,000
Gert Jans — 530,000 — some amazing PokerStars Swedish bad-ass, who has been at Iggy’s table most of the day
Jon Friedberg — 448,000
Matt Matros — 448,000
Hoyt Corkins — 355,000
Chip Jett — 340,000
Brandon Cantu — 330,000
Alex Outhred — 320,000
Phil Hellmuth — 310,000
Gus Hanson — 310,000
Evelyn Ng — 305,000
Hasan Habib — 300,000
Mike Matusow — 295,000
Larry Wright (Texan) — 290,000
Robert Mizrachi — 290,000
Steve Billrakis
Allen Cunningham
Nenad Medic
Ray Henson (remember him from last year)
Jean Robert Bellande — 213,000
Johnny Chan — 194,600
Van Nguyen — 190,000
Hevad Khan — 178,

Bubble is bursting … sorry, gotta presh publish.

The $2,500 Pot Limit Holdem/Pot Limit Omaha final table was known shortly after 5:00am today. They get to be under the glare of the ESPN360 cameras today at 3pm with this set of 9:

Seat 1: Max Pescatori 212,000
Seat 2: Jonathan Depa 185,000
Seat 3: Kyle Hegeman 198,000
Seat 4: Kyle Kloeckner 494,000
Seat 5: John Paul Kelly 79,000
Seat 6: Greg Hurst 197,000
Seat 7: Lennart Holtkamp 253,000
Seat 8: Minh Ly 174,000
Seat 9: Allen Cunningham 484,000

The other final table, plus other tournament action after the jump:

Starting around 2pm today, the $2,000 NL Holdem final table will consist of the following:

Seat 1: Andrew Jeffreys 1,051,000
Seat 2: Blair Hinkle 1,030,000 (Trying to join his brother Grant as a bracelet winner this year)
Seat 3: Dominik Kulicki 241,000
Seat 4: Daniel O’Brien 456,000
Seat 5: Mark Brockington 552,000
Seat 6: Chris Bjorin 247,000
Seat 7: Dustin Dirksen 867,000
Seat 8: David Steicke 611,000
Seat 9: Stephane Tayar 323,000

Final table conclusions from yesterday:

Scott Seiver took down the $5,000 NL event leading wire-to-wire at the final table before eliminating Dave Seidman. The $3,000 HORSE event was won by FTP Pro Jens Voertmann, Doug Ganger finished 2nd and Marcel Luske rounded out the top 3.

Tournaments started yesterday:
The $10,000 NL Heads-Up World Championship has gone from its original 256 down to their final 32, here’s the matchups for that round:

Jason Rosenkrantz vs. Brandon Adams
Emil Patel vs. Michael Banducci
Roman Paradiso vs. Sam Farha
Kenny Tran vs. Erick Lindgren
Thomas Lutz vs. John Patgorski
Gavin Griffin vs. Alexander Kostritsyn
Andy Black vs. Michael McNeil
Alex Jacob vs. Jonathan Jaffe
Brian Roberts vs. Alec Torelli
Scott Montgomery vs. Isaac Haxton
Daniel “Ansky” Stern vs. David Williams
Lyle Berman vs. David Podgurski
Jean-Claude Moussa vs. Robert Mizrachi
Jonas Entin vs. Evan Sofer
Cliff Cantor vs. Vanessa Selbst
Matt Giannetti vs. Michael Mizrachi

The $1,500 Razz event drew a field of 453, which leaves 104 to come back to day 2 at 3pm. Barry Greenstein is the day 1 leader, with David Levi, Vanessa Rousso, Mike Wattel and Sam Grizzle notables in the top 10.

Tournaments starting today:

Saturday brings the return of the amateur’s favorite tournament: the $1,500 NL Holdem donkament. Expect a sold-out field for this event . Last year’s winner in this edition of the event was Phil Hellmuth in a field of over 2,600. At 5pm, the professionals in the crowd get another chance in their attempt to buy a bracelet with the $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha w/rebuys event. Last year, Burt Boutin took down the title in a field of just 145, with 450 rebuys.

More good stuff from Dan and Jen during the day today. Something from me this afternoon…

What’s going on at the WSOP today while reading Gary Wise’s new blog and Mean Gene’s latest post makes me wonder if I can claim to be a poker pro because I cashed in a $2.20 180-runner SNG on Stars.

Action is underway in the first of two bracelet events that begin today, the $1,500 PL Holdem event. 714 started play today, and just 5 hours in, less than 300 remain. (Payouts can be found after the jump). Play has also just begun in the $5,000 Mixed Holdem event, while day 2 of the $1,500 NL event has reached the money, with eliminations coming fast and furious now that the bubble burst.

Payouts for event #3:

1 $ 214,131
2 $ 136,643
3 $ 82,725
4 $ 67,640
5 $ 55,474
6 $ 43,796
7 $ 34,063
8 $ 26,764
9 $ 19,464
10-12 $ 12,165
13-15 $ 9,732
16-18 $ 7,299
19-27 $ 5,547
28-36 $ 4,574
37-45 $ 3,601
46-54 $ 3,309
55-63 $ 3,017
64-72 $ 2,725

Elsewhere, Australian David Saab won the first stop on this year’s Asian Poker Tour in Malina, Phillippines. More payouts can be found on their website .

Rumors this weekend said that Party Gaming may reach a settlement with the US Department of Justice to pay for past discretions. Rumor has it that it could be as much as $1 billion.

More coming soon…

• January 5, Bahamas: Where better for a tournament than a place called Paradise Island? The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) starts and ends with the main event, the final table of which will take place on the 10th. This is an 18-and-over tournament, so look out for the kiddies young, skilled online pros to turn out in force. Otis will be blogging from the event.

• January 5, Australia: A quick 14-hour flight or so away will be the Aussie Millions Poker Championship in Melbourne. This is a series that starts on the 5th with a $1,100 buy-in no-limit hold’em event, continues with a wide range of games and buy-ins (including the $100,000 no-limit event), and wraps up with the main event that begins on the 14th and runs for seven days. A plethora of reporters, including Dr. Pauly and Change100, will be covering it all for PokerNews.

• January 3, Tunica: The World Poker Open has already begun with its preliminary events at the Gold Strike Casino in Tunica, Mississippi. By the 20th, the main event will be underway and hosted by the World Poker Tour. Aaron Hendrix is there and will be providing daily coverage of all of the events for PokerWorks, and the WPT will be live blogging for the main event with BJ Nemeth at the helm.

• January 15, Atlantic City: The Borgata Winter Poker Open starts its preliminary events on the 15th, and the WPT main event (Borgata Poker Classic) begins on the 27th with a final table on the 31st. It doesn’t seem that any media outlet is covering the prelim events, but surely PokerListings will be there for the main event along with the WPT live bloggers.

I also want to wish everyone a Happy New Year – much happiness, health, success, and all-around poker goodness in 2008!

As for Cali Jen’s New Year’s resolutions, let’s just say they include playing more poker, writing more about poker, learning to walk away from prop bets, and actually reading the 30-some-odd poker books that currently collect dust on my bookshelves. In my non-existent non-poker life, there are things on my resolution list like exercising, learning Italian for an upcoming trip, and studying world history. I know… Yawn.

Happy 2008, Everyone!