After having what he admitted was his worst year in poker last year, Phil Hellmuth decided some changes were in order. In his blog from February, Hellmuth hired mindset coach Sam Chauhan and had a battery of tests among other changes to get his poker game back to the when he was considered by more than himself as the best player in the world. It appears to be paying off this week, as Hellmuth has made the final table of the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Stars Main Event Friday afternoon. Here’s how the rest of the final table will be seated when play resumes around 4pm PT (results come from the Hendon Mob Database):

Seat 1: Hasan Habib – 455,000
Seat 2: Phil Hellmuth – 1,433,000
Seat 3: Andy “BKiCe” Seth – 2,164,000
Seat 4: Matt Keikoan – 371,000
Seat 5: Mclean Karr – 1,112,000
Seat 6: Dan O’Brien – 1,129,000

Other big names who missed the final table: Scotty Nguyen (8th), “Miami John” Cernuto (11th), Nick Schulman (13th), Chau Giang (14th), and current WPT Player of the Year leader Faraz Jaka (18th). Live updates will be available from BJ Nemeth and the other good people over at the WorldPokerTour.com site.

In other news related to Hellmuth, Ultimate Bet has decided to cancel the 2010 Aruba Classic as they decided to expand their offerings online, including having a second Ultimate Bet Online Championship series each year.

A WSOP record 7 bracelet events were underway on Wednesday afternoon, three of them eventually reaching their conclusions. As noted in my report last night, Jason Mercier got some success in the US, taking home a bracelet in the $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha event, my report is up on PokerNews now. The $1,000 NL Holdem Stimulus Special was won by Steve Sung, taking home over $770,000 and his first WSOP bracelet. The very occasional PokerRoad blogger was under 1m in chips when play was 7-handed but went on a rush to take the chip lead in just under a blind level. Final table chip leader and occasional web page designer Dan Heimiller would finish in 6th place, one of many to succumb to Sung’s success. “Pete the Greek” Valindos was the final victim denied a chance at this 2nd WSOP bracelet, when his pocket eights weren’t good enough for Sung’s pocket kings, but Vilandos does have over $470,000 to cushion that blow. More details on how that final table went down will be up on PokerNews later today.

The $10,000 7 Card Stud World Championship was a battle of the ages, literally. In what appears to be a record for a non-senior event, Freddie Ellis (74) bested Eric Drache (66) to take down the title as Ellis becomes the sixth African-American (Phil Ivey, David Williams, Walter Smiley and Carolyn Gardener being the other five) to win a WSOP bracelet. As Nolan Dalla noted in his tournament report, the distinction all six players have is that they each have won a bracelet in seven card stud. Here’s a bonus piece by Benjo on Eric Drache, from the Tao of Poker site.

The $1,500 NL Holdem event wasn’t able to reach their final table, as 33 players were left at 3am. They get to return at 1pm today to play down to a final table. This final table was scheduled to be streamed later this afternoon at bluffmagazine.com, but that’s definitely not happening at the scheduled 2pm start time. Follow them on Twitter for the latest updates on that situation. Notable names remaining: Michael Martin, Francois Safieddine, and Jeremy Joseph.

One final table that is known is the $2,500 NL 2-7 Lowball Single Draw event. When play began Tuesday afternoon, there were several big names among the 35 remaining. Those players all fell by the wayside, except for Phil Ivey, here’s how the final table will look when they come back at 2pm today.

Seat 1: Raphael Zimmerman – 238,000
Seat 2: Eric Kesselman – 119,400
Seat 3: John Monnette – 259,000
Seat 4: Rodeen Talebi – 94,500
Seat 5: Yan Chen – 159,000
Seat 6: Elia Ahmadian – 136,900
Seat 7: Phil Ivey – 106,300

Today’s other events on the next page:
More…

Yeah, it’s about as exciting as the title of this post.

Some kidding aside, maybe a tournament with only 373 players is a bit of a downer from the massive tournaments at the WSOP this summer. And it should be noted that last year’s attendance at the WPT Legends main event was 485, which makes for a pretty significant drop-off in just one year. Sure, there were a few players who are on their way to Macau for the APT and APPT but not enough to make up the difference. Maybe people are just flat-ass broke from the WSOP.

The vibe at the Bicycle Casino was a positive one, though, as the big names rolled in and seemed genuinely happy to see each other. As Bryan Devonshire said, “It’s like a class reunion!” Most players seemed in good spirits, but more due to the juicy cash games going on at Commerce and possibly Hustler casinos. Freddy Deeb told me that the games were so good at Commerce that he’s been in L.A. for three weeks playing them and hesitated to even come over to the Bike for Legends. (He busted on Day 2 and was excited to get back to his deuce-to-seven single draw game.)

Going into Day 3 today, Adam Weinraub leads the pack of 79 players, after also leading after Day 1A. The name might sound familiar, as he took down the WPT Invitational two years ago at Commerce. He owns a company here in Orange County so doesn’t play on the circuit regularly, but he does like to get in a tournament in L.A. or Vegas when he can. And, I must say, that he is a fantastically friendly and humble guy. Go Adam!

Other big names in the top ten today include Matt Keikoan, Max Pescatori, Mark Seif, and Marco Johnson. Players will hit the money today – top 36 players get paid – and they should be down to 27 by the end of the night.