Day 2 started with 63 players as Eugene Katchalov, Ben Lamb and Brian Rast held the top three spots. Only Katchalov survived the day with chips as the early action was dominated with several eliminations as Vanessa Selbst, Dwyte Pilgrim, and Phil Laak were among the familiar faces hitting the felt.

Some players complained about the fast structure; leading Commissioner Annie Duke and Tournament Director Matt Savage agreeing to review the structure, among other aspects of the EPL, before their second tournament in September.

The remaining 29 players reached the dinner break with an average stack of about 80 big blinds, with the objective of finishing the day after bursting the money bubble. Antonio Esfandiari, Brandon Cantu, Nam Le, Tom Marchese and Frank Kassela all fell short of earning their first EPL cash when 19 players remained, one from the money. A prolonged bubble period gave Trickett the opportunity to add to his stack, becoming the first EPL player to hold over 1,000,000 in chips.

Two hours into hand-for-hand play, Matt Graham added his name to the long list of EPL firsts as his pocket jacks were cracked by Chino Rheem when he turned a flush to become the EPL’s first bubble boy.

The remaining 18 players return Thursday at 12pm to play down to the final table of six. The field consists of 20 WSOP bracelets, 3 WPT titles and almost $80,000,000 in tournament winnings. Two players who qualified through the Pro/Am over the weekend, Brandon Meyers and Dan Fleyshman, become EPL-eligible for the rest of the season if either player wins the tournament on Friday. Here’s how the Day 3 field will be seated with play resuming with blinds at 2,500/5,000 with a 500 ante (the average stack having ~76 big blinds):

Table 1:

Seat 1: Adam Levy – 587,000
Seat 2: Dan Fleyshman – 82,500
Seat 3: Hafiz Khan – 144,000
Seat 4: Hoyt Corkins – 252,500
Seat 5: Brandon Meyers – 109,500
Seat 6: Isaac Baron – 637,500

Table 2:

Seat 1: Noah Schwartz – 259,500
Seat 2: Matt Glantz – 453,000
Seat 3: Ted Lawson – 210,000
Seat 4: Huck Seed – 93,500
Seat 5: Chino Rheem – 408,000
Seat 6: Gavin Smith – 357,500

Table 3:

Seat 1: Hasan Habib – 646,000
Seat 2: Eugene Katchalov – 418,000
Seat 3: Sam Trickett – 1,032,000
Seat 4: Jason Mercier – 535,500
Seat 5: Justin Bonomo – 42,000
Seat 6: Erik Seidel – 609,000

Live updates and more available at www.epicpoker.com

The first EPL event featured plenty of notable names absent as Daniel Negreanu, most of Team Full Tilt, and Doyle Brunson deciding not to participate. Card-holding members need to enter at least one Main Event, Pro/Am and charity event each season to maintain their card.

In a radio interview last week, Phil Hellmuth wasn’t sure if he’d play in the first event. After making his “announcement” on Twitter Monday, he made his traditional late appearance, but was eliminated shortly after the dinner break.

The EPL will hold tournaments in a variety of no-limit hold’em formats, with the inaugural event played six-handed. Registration closed at the start of level 5, nearly 8 hours after play started. The tournament clock showed 137 players entered to create a $3,085,200 prize pool. The winner at the conclusion of play Friday will earn as the top 18 places make the money. The top 27 EPL money earners return February for the $1,000,000 League Championship freeroll.

Jason Mercier and Sean Getzwiller (a Pro/Am qualifier) are the other bracelet winners from this year’s WSOP among the 63 players returning Wednesday afternoon at 12pm PST to play another six levels.

Top ten chip counts:

Eugene Katchalov – 356,300
Ben Lamb – 287,200
Brian Rast – 260,500
Antonio Esfandiari – 248,100
Noah Schwartz – 220,200
McLean Karr – 191,800
Hoyt Corkins – 187,400
Isaac Baron – 167,700
Dan O’Brien – 163,300
Erik Seidel – 161,200

The full list of chip counts along with live updates, table draws, videos and more can be found at www.epicpoker.com

Pre-M.E. Festivities

Before the Main Event, the EPL kicked off over the weekend with The $1,500 Pro/Am tournament, offering nine Main Event seats, drew a combined field of 190 entrants as the final table was filmed for the Heartland Poker Tour. Steve O’Dwyer was the winner, earning $23,810 plus his EPL Main Event Seat. The only EPL-eligible player to snag a seat on the cheap was Andy Bloch, eventually finishing 3rd. Michael Craig recaps the final table.

While the Pro/Am final table was in action, 81 players put up $240 (plus a ton of $100 rebuys and add-ons) to raise over $50,000 for Operation USA, with the money earmarked for the victims of tornadoes in Joplin, Missouri. Plenty of goodies were given to all players with Zappos contributing $2,500 to the winner. Reigning World Poker Tour Player of the Year Andy Frankenberger won the title, donating the winnings to the charity.

The guys over at DonkDown are known for their pursuit in getting to the bottom of things in the UB Poker scandal. This weeks show gets off to an unexpected start when Travis Makar calls into the show. For those not familiar with Travis he was linked to the scandal in the report put together by our friends over at Wicked Chops. Travis makes mention of the missing hand histories and recordings that are being used in a federal case. For those that are interested in just the UB part of the show should skip ahead to the 30:30 mark and enjoy the ride for around the next hour. You can listen to the show at the DonkDown site or subscribe and download it via iTunes.

Two Plus Two Pokercast:

This week the guys have one of the new team PokerStars members, Andrew Brokos, on the show but the main feature of the show is Eugene Katchalov. Eugene comes on and discusses his move to the US and some day trading before getting into the SuperStar Showdown that did not got his way. Eugene talks about how he prepared for the match by playing against Daniel Negreanu and then how the match actually went. Finally he discusses his Super High Roller win from the PCA. Listen to the show at the Two Plus Two Pokercast site or download it on iTunes.

PocketFives Podcast:

After giving you guys two podcast that have run times of over two hour each here is one that just eclipses the thirty minute mark. The guys over at PocketFives are joined by Lauren Kling this week to discuss her recent success, along with how she got started playing poker. Lauren also discusses how trying to make it in the poker world as a female can be difficult due to guys not wanting to give her the credit. Overall it is a good and short interview full of information from Lauren, check out the PocketFives Podcast on their site or via iTunes.

Dutch doubles up on bracelets

Russ “Dutch” Boyd wins his second career WSOP bracelet, defeating Brian Meinders heads-up to win the $2,500 Limit Holdem 6-max event, collecting $234,065. Meinders earns $144,650 for the runner-up finish. A full list of results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report is online at wsop.com.

Chow leads 10k Omaha 8

Day three of the $10,000 Omaha Hi/Lo 8 or Better World Championship will resume at 3pm with Michael Chow, winner of a Omaha 8 bracelet earlier in the WSOP, leading with 600,000 in chips with 23 players remaining. Among the returning players: Sammy Farha (512,000), Eugene Katchalov (463,000 after being down to a single 1,000 chip), Jean-Robert Bellande (314,000), David “Bakes” Baker (283,000) and “Miami John” Cernuto (269,000). The full list of chip counts is online at PokerNews.

Wilkerson leads 1k NL day 1b field

Day 1b of the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem tournament concluded with 222 players returning this afternoon at 2:30pm to join the 290 day 1a survivors, with 342 players making the money. The reported chip leader from last night is David Wilkerson with 66,400. Other notables: Eric Froehlich (47,325), Tom Dwan (36,250) and Chad Batista (34,000). A full list of chip counts is at PokerNews.

Monday’s Tournaments

It’s another doubleheader today, with the 12pm tournament the $2,500 No-Limit Holdem 6-max event, last year won by Brock Parker in a field of 1,068 for $552,745. The 5pm tournament is the $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi/Lo 8 or Better event, won last year by David Halpern for $159,048 in a field of 466.

Ashby chuffed to win Stud bracelet

Richard “Chufty” Ashby wins the third WSOP bracelet for the UK this year, taking down the $1,500 Seven Card title, denying Christine Pietsch in heads-up play. Ashby earns $140,467 for the win, with Pietsch pocketing $86,756. Full results and the Nolan Dalla tournament report are online at wsop.com.

Barch tops in Pot-Limit Omaha

John “Tex” Barch makes his third final table the charm, winning his first WSOP bracelet in the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha event, defeating Klinghammer Thibaut heads-up. Barch adds $256,919 to his tournament winnings, with Thibault earning $158,698. Results and Dalla’s tournament report is online over at wsop.com.

Ladies Championship Final Table

The final table of the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem Ladies’ Championship gets underway at 3pm with this lineup, featuring Team Pokerati’s newest member, La Sengphet:

Seat 1: Vanessa Hellebuyck – 277,000
Seat 2: Holly Hodge – 279,000
Seat 3: Allison Whalen – 344,000
Seat 4: Kami Chisholm – 529,000
Seat 5: Sidsel Boesen – 789,000
Seat 6: Bonnie Overfield – 226,000
Seat 7: Loren Watterworth – 75,000
Seat 8: Timmi Derosa – 437,000
Seat 9: La Sengphet – 206,000

“Sugar Bear” looking sweet for day 3 of Limit Holdem

Also starting at 3pm is the final day of the $2,500 Limit Holdem 6-max event, with Al “Sugar Bear” Barbieri holding the chip lead with 12 remaining. Here’s the full list of players and their chip counts:

Al Barbieri – 415,000
Albert Minnullin – 367,000
Christopher Vitch – 352,000
Russ “Dutch” Boyd – 349,000
Brian Meinders – 300,000
Anh Le - 289,000
Julian Parmann – 202,000
JJ Liu – 182,000
Dana Kellstrom – 151,000
Domenico Denotaristefani – 110,000
Jeff Norman – 102,000
Eduardo Miranda – 63,000

Tolbert leads Day 1a 1k NL field

The third $1,000 No-Limit Holdem event concluded about halfway through level 9 with 290 players remaining who return Monday afternoon. John Tolbert leads the day 1a field with 73,900 in chips. The full list of chip counts is now available over at PokerNews.

Katchalov catches cards to lead 10k Omaha 8

Day 2 of the $10,000 Omaha Hi/Lo 8 or Better World Championship gets underway at 3pm with Eugene Katchalov leading the remaining 144 players with 123,200 in chips. Other notables also coming back this afternoon: David Benyamine (102,500), Sammy Farha (98,500), Vladimir Shchemelev (88,300), Phil Hellmuth (84,300), Barry Shulman (76,200), Barry Greenstein (49,800), and Team Pokerati’s Tom Schneider (11,700).

Sunday’s Tournament

Only one tournament this afternoon, day 1b of the $1,000 No-Limit Holdem starting at 12pm. Don’t be surprised of today’s field is a great deal smaller than Saturday’s, as it has been in the first two $1,000 events. Follow all the action over at PokerNews and www.wsop.com.

Notable eliminations: Joe Hachem, David Benyamine, J.C. Tran, Theo Tran, Bertrand Grospellier, Blair Hinkle and Joe Serock.

The Dream Team Poker event is down to Kenna James versus Judy Tejwani for the individual title. Congrats again goes to the Tao of Pokerati team for clinching the team title a few hours ago. Live updates now available for the Main Event at www.wsop.com and more stuff from the rest of the writing team during the evening.

Sunday brought another three-level day to the WSOP, with just 185 players remaining when play resumes Monday afternoon at 12pm. The current unofficial leader is Warren Zackey, who’s listed from Honeydew, South Africa with 4,977,000 in chips. The most notable name at the top of the leaderboard is 2007 WSOP POY and member of Team Pokerati Tom Schneider at 3,168,000, good for 4th place. More notables, with their unofficial chip counts: Noah Boeken (2,4000,000), Eugene Katchalov (2,1000,000), Ludovic Lacay (1,685,000), Fabrice Soulier (1,450,000), Bertrand Grospellier (1,400,000), Blair Hinkle (1,100,000), Joe Sebok (1,100,000), Joe Hachem (1,000,000), Peter Eastgate (927,000), Blair Rodman (890,000), Joe Serock and Prahlad Friedman (760,000) and Kenny Tran (700,000).

Notable eliminations: Kevin O’Donnell, Mickey Mills, Cornel Cimpan, Kara Scott, Dan Shak, Nick Binger, Bobby Baldwin, Kevin Saul, William Robertie and Can Kim Hua.

Hopefully the official chip counts will be coming shortly, and Pokerati will be the 5th place to find them. Follow Pokerati also for Dream Team Poker updates, when they return from dinner break.

Van Alstyne Back in the Saddle with HORSE Triumph

James Van Alstyne, who finished second in the $3,000 HORSE event last week after holding the chip lead, came back in the $1,500 HORSE event to take down his first WSOP bracelet along with the $247,003 winnings. Tad Jurgens was runnerup, Mitch Schock finished third, and Bryan Micon, named one of poker’s “true anarchists” in Nolan Dalla’s final table report, finished fourth.

Boyes Buoyed by Chip Lead

The $2,000 NL Holdem event starts day 3 with 19 players remaining as they play down to a bracelet winner with Jason Boyes the current chip leader at 976,000. Finland’s Mika Paasonen is in 2nd place to try to be the 2nd Finn with a WSOP bracelet this year. Angel Guillen (496,000) and Peter “Nordberg” Feldma (486,000), and Daniel Makowsky (177,000) appear to be the most notable players remaining.

Limit Holdem Left with a Not So Dirty Dozen

The $10,000 Limit Holdem World Championship has twelve players remaining as they resume at 1pm today to reach the final table for a scheduled 2pm broadcast on ESPN360 and wsop.pkr.com. Here’s how the remaining players are seated with plenty of familiar names for the poker viewer:

Seat 1: Maria Ho – 228000
Seat 3: Greg ‘FBT’ Mueller – 485000
Seat 4: Pat Pezzin – 300000
Seat 5: Kenny Hsiung – 831000
Seat 6: Soheil Shamseddin – 385000
Seat 9: Jennifer Harman – 126000

Seat 1: Matt Glantz – 483000
Seat 4: Chad Brown – 545000
Seat 5: Matt Hawrilenko – 601000
Seat 7: Michiel Brummelhuis – 687000
Seat 8: Mark Klecan – 603000
Seat 9: Daniel Alaei – 330000

Unfortunately, Ville Wahlbeck finished outside the money, but maintains his WSOP Player of the Year lead.

The Pros Strike Back Against the Donks

The $1,500 NL Holdem event returns at 2pm with 240 players remaining, only 216 get paid. James Taylor, unfortunately not this James Taylor has the chip lead with 174,400. More notable names are near the top of the leaderboard include: Eugene Katchalov (90,600), Roberto Romanello (89,400), Phil Hellmuth (88,100), Pat Poels (84,500), Quinn Do (80,600), Roland de Wolfe (61,300), and Allen Cunningham (60,200).

Wednesday’s Tournament

Only one event again on the calendar today, with the debut of the $5,000 Pot Limit Omaha event. This event usually is played with rebuys, but their elimination this year makes this a new event. As usual, players will start with 5,000 in chips followed by two “free rebuy” chips to add to their stacks at any time in the first three levels. The WSOP Staff Guide projects a field of 250, but expect closer to 400 when play starts at noon this afternoon. Follow along with the action at www.wsop.com and return to Pokerati during the day for other stuff.

Zac Attac!

Zac Fellows took down the $3,000 HORSE event in a marathon final table just a couple hours ago, outlasting James Van Alstyne to take a bracelet home to Canada along with $311,899. With five players left, Van Alstyne had over half the chips in play, while Fellows was extremely short stacked. Eventually he worked his way to heads-up with Van Alstyne, the stacks nearly even. After nearly two hours of heads-up action, Fellows would finally finish off Van Alstyne, leaving him drawing dead in the holdem round to finish 2nd, good for nearly $200,000 and take him over the $3m mark in career tournament earnings.

Shootout at the Rio, Day 3

The final table is now set in the $1,500 NL Holdem Shootout with these 10 players left for a bracelet returning at 2pm to air on ESPN360 (wsop.pkr.com for those outside the US, and as always links courtesy of The Hendon Mob database:

Seat 1: Jason Somerville – 450000
Seat 2: Christopher Moore – 450000
Seat 3: Joseph Cutler – 450000
Seat 4: Jeffrey Carris – 450000
Seat 5: Michael McNeil – 450000
Seat 6: Joshua Tieman – 450000
Seat 7: Eugene Katchalov – 450000
Seat 8: Ralph Shannon – 450000
Seat 9: Andrew Margolis – 450000
Seat 10: Brandon Wong – 450000

2-7 NL Draw-ing to an End

The final table of the $10,000 NL 2-7 Single Draw World Championship finished with 10 players remaining when play ended earlier this morning. Here’s how these players are currently situated:

Seat 1: Justin ‘BoostedJ’ Smith – 122500
Seat 2: Steve Sung – 212500
Seat 3: Nick Schulman – 300000
Seat 5: Archie Karas – 264500
Seat 6: Vince Musso – 765500
Seat 7: David Benyamine – 139000

(Table 151)
Seat 2: Michael Binger – 108000
Seat 3: Ville Wahlbeck – 481000
Seat 5: Roland de Wolfe – 102000
Seat 6: John Juanda – 387000

Ville Wahlbeck continues his impressive run in World Championship events this WSOP, cashing in his fourth $10k buyin event. Steve Sung started play on Thursday 57th out of 57 players with just 6,100 in chips.

Donks Down!

The $1,500 NL Holdemevent finished exactly on the money as 270 players remain when play resumes at 2pm this afternoon. Glenn McCaffreywill start the day as chip leader at 187,800. Some of the notables who will also return on Friday: Dean Hamrick (134,700), Anthony Yeh (111,400), Kara Scott (81,700), Nam Le (57,000), and Thayer Rasmussen (50,200).

Half and Half

Day 2 of the $2,500 Omaha 8/Stud 8 resumes at 2pm with 153 players returning, 40 of which make the money. Veteran pro Can Kim Hua starts the day chip leader at 51,800. Notables trying to surpass him include: Jon Turner (43,300), Shirley Rosario (36,200), Phil Ivey (33,600), Chad Brown (31,200), and Shawn Sheikhan (29,500).

Friday’s Tournaments/Projections

The 12pm tournament will be the $1,500 Limit Holdem event, which was won last year by Jimmy Schultz for over $250,000 in a field of 883. The 5pm event makes its debut, $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha 8 or Better. The WSOP Staff Guide projects the $1,500 Limit Holdem event field as 880 (taking the under, 804 is my guess), while the $5,000 PLO 8 event has a projected field of 150 (take the over, 168 being my estimate).

More news during the day here at Pokerati, so come back several times during the day.

Vivek was surrounded by his group of internet young-gunnish friends like Gobboboy and Devo, and the support probably didn’t hurt as he came to the table as the chip leader and went into heads-up play with a massive 16.8 million to 3.9 million lead over Sang Kim. That HU part of the event took only one hand, and Vivek was the latest to win a WPT title. Oh, and he won $1,424,500 to get a good haircut go along with the bracelet and the victory.

The final table results were as follows:

6th place: Andrew Knee ($237,500)
5th place: Mark Seif ($287,500)
4th place: Jason Strochak ($337,500)
3rd place: Dan Heimiller ($387,500)
2nd place: Sang Kim ($750,000)
1st place: Vivek Rajkumar ($1,424,500)

Photo courtesy of World Poker Tour, where WPT Live Updates detailed all of the final table action.

As noted below, Scotty Nguyen takes down the $50,000 HORSE event, taking down almost $2,000,000, his 5th bracelet, and the first to have won the WSOP Main Event and the $50k HORSE event. Erick Lindgren’s 3rd place moves him into first in the Milwaukee’s Best WSOP Player of the Year race with just 2 tournaments left.

The $1,500 NL Holdem final table has been set, scheduled to start at 3pm. The two most notable names are two WPT winners, JC Tran and Joe Pelton, here’s how the rest of the table will look like:

Seat 1: Christoph Kohnen 293,000
Seat 2: Joe Pelton 1,093,000
Seat 3: Jesper Hoog 320,000
Seat 4: John Conroy 501,000
Seat 5: Robert Kalb 456,000
Seat 6: J.C. Tran 1,438,000 (his 3rd final table of the Series)
Seat 7: Chad Siu 185,000
Seat 8: Peter Nguyen 870,000
Seat 9: Rasmus Nielsen 2,998,000

Other tournament stuff on the next page:

The $10,000 Pot Limit Omaha World Championship returns at 2pm with 86 combatants playing down to a final table. Josh Arieh is the current chip leader with over 340,000 in chips. Notable names remaining: Michael Mizrachi, David Singer, Nenad Medic, Scott Clements, Billy “The Croc” Agyros and Shawn Buchanan.

The $1,500 HORSE event returns with 179 attempting to play dow to their final table at 3pm, with Phil Hellmuth the chip leader. Notable names that Phil will try to dodge bullets from: Joe Hachem, Chad Brown, Michael Craig, Eugene Katchalov and John Juanda.

The last of the $1,500 NL Holdem donkaments gets underway at noon today,

In the $1,500 NL holdem event, Jesper Hougaard returned from the dinner break seemingly in better spirits, as he was able to recover from giving up a 6.5-1 chip lead to Cody Slaubaugh to get back to having a very slight chip lead. A single $25,000 chip separated the two when the final hand was played out as Jesper’s QQ (with a 3rd Q on the flop) crushed Cody’s A-10. Hougaard takes home the bracelet and $610,000, while Cody has the consolation of winning $389,128 for finishing 2nd.

The $10,000 Omaha 8 or Better World Championship led to another name being removed from the list of best players to never win a bracelet as David Benyamine won $535,687 and the coveted WSOP bracelet. Greg Jamison finished in 2nd, Mike Matusow finished in 5th, Eugene Katchalov was 6th, while David Chiu ended up in 8th. Benyamine’s win places him only 2 points behind Jacobo Hernandez in the ESPN WSOP Player of the Year race. The announcement that the $50,000 HORSE event later this week will count towards the standings means that plenty of big names are still in the hunt to take down that title.

The final table for today, and other stuff on page 2…

The $2,000 Pot Limit Holdem final table at 2pm today brings an interesting mix of players, here’s that lineup:

Seat 1: David Kitai 274,000
Seat 2: Ben Roberts 82,000 (6th at the 1998 WSOP Main Event)
Seat 3: Ayaz Mahmood 314,000
Seat 4: Michael Greco 120,000 (Actor whose most famous role was on the popular British soap opera, Eastenders)
Seat 5: Chris Bell 260,000
Seat 6: Jan Von Halle 485,000 (Infamous for checking behind a royal flush earlier in the Series)
Seat 7: Robert Cheung 352,000 (Bracelet winner of a $1,500 NL Holdem event at last year’s Series)
Seat 8: Keith Greer 238,000
Seat 9: Lee Watkinson 357,000 (8th at last year’s Main Event of the WSOP)

The $1,500 NL Holdem event made the money last night, and 218 get to return today to play down to the final 9 starting at 2pm. Among the notable names towards the top: Barry Greenstein, Humberto Brenes, Kenna James and Hasan Habib.

Today’s doubleheader of tournaments starts at noon today with the $2,500 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball (Limit) event. Last year, when it was a $1,000 NL event with rebuys, Rafi Amit won his second bracelet in a field of 209 with over 500 rebuys.

The 5pm tournament today is the $1,500 Mixed Holdem (No-Limit/Limit) event, won last year by Fred Goldberg; who emerged from the field of 620 to take down the bracelet.

More good stuff to come throughout the day…

The $1,500 NL Holdem final table is now heads-up between Jesper Hougaard and Cody Slaubaugh. Jesper had been dominating the final table and started heads-up with $6,500,000 in chips to about 800,000 for Slaubaugh. Just 6 hands later, Slaubaugh had a nearly 2-1 chip lead as Hougaard decided it was now an opportune time to take the dinner break. They’ll return at about 9:30 PT to finish, the way it’s going it won’t take long either way. Follow along on the World Series of Poker’s update site here.

The other final table on Page 2.

The $10,000 Omaha Eight or Better World Championship will be returning from their dinner break shortly. They made their final table and will restart with several big names remaining as the octet is ready for more Omaha. Here’s the approximate chip counts:

Toto Leonidas 900,000
David Benyamine 765,000
Jason Gray 680,000
Ram Vaswani 670,000
Mike Matusow 600,000
Greg Jamison 375,000
David Chiu 350,000
Eugene Katchalov 270,000

Follow the split-pot action here.

The $2,000 Pot Limit Holdem event is down to 14 as they make their way to a final table. The notable names remaining include Chris Bell, bracelet winner Robert Cheung, Michael Binger, Lee Watkinson and Keith Lehr. See who makes the last nine here.

The $1,500 NL Holdem event drew a maximum field of 2,720 and about 500 are remaining at this time. Notable names at the top of the leaderboard: Barry Greenstein, Scott Clements, Humberto Brenes, and Bill Gazes. Track your favorite players here.

More to come tomorrow…

The $1,500 7 Card Stud winner turned out to be Mike Rocco, who endured the barbs of Al Barbieri to take down his first bracelet and about $135,000.

The $10,000 Omaha Hi/Lo 8 or Better World Championship stopped play with 18 left, they get to return at 3pm to determine their winner. The final two tables have plenty of notable names remaining, which consist of:

Table 14

1 Danny Dang 257,000
2 Stuart Paterson 96,000
3 Eugene Katchalov 252,000
4 Chau Giang 384,000
5 Shun Uchida 134,000
6 Pat Pezzin 65,000
7 David Benyamine 378,000
8 Ram Vaswani 569,000
9 Toto Leonidas 269,000

Table 15

1 Brent Carter 114,000
2 Jason Gray 347,000
3 Berry Johnston 338,000
4 Mike Matusow 396,000
5 David Chiu 372,000
6 Greg Jamison 208,000
7 Hieu “Tony” Ma 319,000
8 Ray Dehkharghani 149,000
9 William McMahan 76,000

The ESPN360 final table for today on the next page…

Yet another $1,500 NL Holdem event has their final table at 2pm that gets to be seen on ESPN360. Their final table consists of (chip counts and seat assignments to be added later):

Cody Slaubaugh 1,419,000
Jesper Hougaard 1,582,000
Danny Wong 1,105,000
Owen Crowe 674,000
Justin Wald 873,000
Rick Solis 900,000
Doug Middleton 356,000
John Shipley 269,000
Aaron Kanter 165,000

Shipley and Kanter have both made the WSOP Main Event final table: (Shipley 7th in 2002, Kanter 4th in 2005).

The only tournament on today’s calendar is yet another $1,500 NL Holdem donkament. This particular version last year drew a field of 2,778 with Robert Cheung getting a bracelet of his very own.

Instead of making a 2nd post, might as well do the leaders after Week 3 (counting Friday’s tournaments):

Number of entrants: 32,208
Number of bracelets awarded:35
Most cashes: Nikolay Evdakov – 7
Most final tables: Jacobo Fernandez – 3
ESPN POY: Fernandez – 187 points
Leading money earner: Phil Galfond – $832,219

Week 3 winners:

Scott Seiver – $5k NL Holdem
Jens Voertman – $3k HORSE
Blair Hinkle – $2k NL Holdem
Max Pescatori – $2.5k PL Holdem/PLO
Kenny Tran – $10k NL Holdem Heads-Up
Barry Greenstein – $1.5k Razz
Vitaly Lunkin – $1.5k NL Holdem
Phil Galfond – $5k PLO w/rebuys
John Phan – $3k NL Holdem
Rob Hollink – $10k Limit Holdem
Dario Minieri – $2.5k NL Holdem 6-handed
Luis Velador – $1.5k NL Holdem
Sebastian Ruthenberg – $5k Stud 8 or Better
Layne Flack – $1.5k PLO w/rebuys
Mike Rocco – $1.5k Seven Card Stud

More stuff later today…

• Event #3 – $2,500 NLHE – 247 entrants, Dutch Boyd won $237,685
• Event #6 – $1,500 NLHE – 508 entrants, Chris McCormack won $239,590
• Event #7 – $2,000 NLHE – 362 entrants, Roy Winston won $230,365
• Event #8 – $2,500 NLHE – 319 entrants, David Pham won $279,845
• Event #12 – $5,000 NLHE – 307 entrants, JC Tran won $523,075

It should be noted that Tom Schneider came in fourth place in Event #3, and Courtney Harrington of PocketFives and PokerRoad made two final tables. Sully Erna, lead singer of Godsmack, came in second to JC in Event #12. Other notables who made final tables included Theo Tran, Kevin Saul, Jared Hamby, Nick Binger, Amnon Filippi, Dan Alspach, Marco Johnson, Shannon Shorr, and David Williams.

David Pham also sealed his status as the CardPlayer Player of the Year.

Next up was the $15,000 WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic main event. The total number of players was 664, and the prize pool was $9,661,200 – the biggest prize pool ever outside of the WSOP main event and WPT World Championship.

Hopes were high that several big names would make the final table, but many of them just couldn’t get there. Phil Ivey was the Day 1 and Day 2 chip leader but imploded on Day 3 to be eliminated. Gus Hansen was doing well for days until he busted in 22nd place, and Daniel Negreanu took a chip lead into Day 5 but was sent home in 14th. Other bustouts included Erick Lindgren in 10th, Jimmy Tran in 8th, and Raymond Davis in 7th.

Five Diamond Final Table – Courtesy of the World Poker Tour

The best known player at the final table was David “Devilfish” Ulliott, Ryan Daut is a young player who won a WPT title in January, and Jordan Rich and Eugene Katchalov are young pro players. Ken Rosen is a virtual unknown, and Ted Kearly is a 75-year old former college football coach.

In the fastest WPT final table on record, Eugene Katchalov took his final table chip lead to victory for a $2,482,605 payday. All of the action was summed up here.