CK Hua is the threatening name at near the top of the stack-count, Max Pescatori is hanging on in the relegation zone, and in the middle with Pat, @TheMouthMatusow is alive and growing stronger — and he’s twittering that he’s on a mission to win it … so that threat’s out there.

Click here to follow along.

Lisandro Wins Bracelet #3, Wins Stud Triple Crown

Jeff Lisandro becomes the first player to win three bracelets in one WSOP after Chris Moneymaker initiated the poker boom in 2003, takes down the $2,500 Razz event, good for $188,370. Lisandro has won all three of his bracelets in stud events in each of the three disciplines of stud (Stud high, Stud Hi/Lo and Razz). Lisandro held the chip lead at the beginning of the day and was never seriously threatened. Michael Craig finished in 2nd, good for $116,405. Other notable finishes: Kenna James (6th), Al “Sugar Bear” Barbieri (10th), Ville Wahlbeck (12th) and Nikolay Evdakov (13th).

Seniors Six-Pack

Half a dozen players remain in the $1,000 Seniors NL Holdem World Championship, led by Scott Buller with over 2 million in chips. Michael Morusty, Charles Simon, Dan DeLatorre, Michael Davis and Barry Bounds make up the remaining players.

Thang Flung From Omaha-8

The $2,500 Omaha Hi-Lo 8 or Better has 70 players remaining, only 45 get paid. The unofficial chip leader is Frankie O’Dell (109,000), followed by day 1 chip leader Josh Schlien (85,000), Pat Poels (71,500), Marsha Waggoner (54,000), Mike Matusow (38,000), and Max Pescatori (28,000) among the familiar faces. Thang Luu unfortunately was eliminated before the dinner break earlier today.

Brummelhuis Bringing It in Pot-Limit

The $10,000 Pot-Limit Holdem World Championship is down to 35 players, only 27 get to cash with day 1 chip leader Michiel Brummelhuis remaining chip leader (570,000). Isaac Haxton (450,000), Eric Baldwin (430,000), Darryll Fish (310,000), Vanessa Rousso (280,000), Sam Simon (173,000), and Eugene Todd (165,000) are among the remaining.

Mixed Holdem Brings Mixed Blessings

The $2,500 Mixed Holdem event drew a field of 527 players, of which just 184 remain. The unofficial chip leader is David Baker (unknown if that’s the one from Michigan or Texas) at 73,000. Eli Elezra (51,000), Marc Naalden (46,000) and Jean-Robert Bellande (42,000) are some well known folks with chips.

More updates during the evening over at www.wsop.com and Pokerati for more Lisandro stuff and other commentary about all things WSOP.

Let’s start with the two final tables that are known at this time. The $1,000 NL Holdem final table decided to come back at 2pm today to get some exposure on ESPN360 (wsop.pkr.com for the non-US/non-ESPN360 viewer). Here’s how that final table will be seated with players who have earned at least $1,000,000 in tournament earnings occupying the first three seats (as always, tournament stats come courtesy of the Hendon Mob Tournament Database:

Seat 1: Dan Heimiller – 4,155,000
Seat 2: Jeff Oakes – 1,680,000
Seat 3: Nathan Mullen – 1,210,000
Seat 4: Phong Huynh – 1,310,000
Seat 5: James Matz III – 1,885,000
Seat 6: Steve Sung – 3,395,000
Seat 7: Panayote ‘Pete’ Vilandos – 1,940,000
Seat 8: Larry Sidebotham – 1,500,000
Seat 9: Danny Fuhs – 965,000

The other final table that is already known is the $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha final table, which also starts at 2pm today, will be made up of:

Seat 1 – An Tran (did not report)
Seat 2 – Jason Mercier (384,400)
Seat 3 – Chris Biondino (182,000)
Seat 4 – Matt Giannetti (311,000)
Seat 5 – Kevin Iacofano (770,000)
Seat 6 – Jonathan Tare (639,000)
Seat 7 – Dario Alioto (315,000)
Seat 8 – Vic Park (341,000)
Seat 9 – Steven Burkholder (263,000)

Day 3 of the $10,000 7 Card Stud World Championship returns for their final day today with 11 players remaining at 3am today. Poker veteran Eric Drache is the current chip leader (755,000), with Hasan Habib (593,000), Freddie Ellis (580,000), Jeff Lisandro (524,000) and Ville Wahlbeck (472,000) rounding out the top 5. Tim Phan, Daniel Negreanu, Max Pescatori and Greg “FBT” Mueller help round out the field that will return at 1pm today for the third bracelet that will be awarded today, which will create an extended bracelet ceremony on Thursday afternoon with all the jewelry being passed out.

Other tournament stuff on the next page:

The $1,500 NL Holdem event finished play today with about 340 players remaining, stopping just short of the money. Canadian Victor Greeley is the day 1 chip leader (195,300) with notables Jacobo Fernandez, Sorel Mizzi, Brandon Cantu, Grant Hinkle, and Alex Jacob returning at 2pm to play to their final table.

The $2,500 NL 2-7 Lowball Single Draw event finished play last night with 35 players remaining, of which 21 will make the money. Layne Flack (75,125) is the chip leader, with Phil Ivey, Phil Hellmuth, Mike Matusow, Tony G among the several well-known names remaining in the field. They also return to the tables at 2pm to play down to the final table of 7.

On to events that actually get started today:

The two bracelet events that get underway today are events popular with the Internet community. The 12 noon tournament will be $1,500 NL 6-max, which was won last year by Washington state pro Ralph “Rep” Porter besting a field of 1,236 to take down $372,843. The 5pm tournament will be $2,500 Pot Limit Holdem/Pot Limit Omaha known better as “HA”, as the games will switch every 9 hands. Last year, Max Pescatori, “The Italian Pirate” took down his first bracelet in a field of 457 for almost $250,000.

As for today’s projections, the $1,500 NL 6-max is projected at 1,360 (I expect the over, with a field of close to 1,500), while the $2,500 HA is listed at 503 (also going with over, with about 530 who’ll be having a chuckle). More updates during the day here at Pokerati and www.worldseriesofpoker.com.

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.

Maximillian Pescatori, il pirata italiano, ha 37 anni e grandina da Milano. Ha vinto il suo secondo braccialetto di WSOP questo anno. Ha vinto lo stesso giorno quello primo di 2006 mentre l’Italia ha vinto la tazza di mondo.

Dario Minieri è 23 anni e vite a Roma. Ha vinto il suo primo braccialetto di WSOP questo anno. È stato conosciuto per la conquista della Porsche su PokerStars ma è inoltre un riuscito giocatore in tensione.

Congratulazioni a massimo ed a Dario! Gli italiani intorno al mondo sono fieri di voi!

The $10,000 Limit Holdem World Championship is closing in on the money with about 45 left. Current chip leader is two-time bracelet winner Eric Froehlich. Others near the top include Hoyt Corkins, Michael Mizrachi, and JC Tran. The $3,000 NL event is currently on dinner break with 30 left. Alex Zaslavsky is chip leader, with new father David Singer in 2nd.

The only tournament to start today was the $2,500 NL 6-handed event, which started with a field of 1,012 already down to 190 at the dinner break. Notables in the top 10 include “Devilfish” Ulliot, Max Pescatori, Kenna James and Dario Minieri.

More from me tomorrow with final results, and the Tuesday preview.

The semifinals of the $10,000 Headsup World Championship have now been set, even if it appeared Lyle Berman didn’t want that to happen. His round of 16 match with David Williams would eventually take over 5 hours, before Berman eventually took it down. That match went so long that the tournament staff decided to start the quarterfinal matches unaffected by the outcome. Those winners were Vanessa Selbst, Jonathan Jaffe, and Kenny Tran. Lyle would face Alec Torelli in their quarterfinal match, and true to form, this match would take over 4 hours with Torelli triumphant in the end. So here’s the semifinals that meet the ESPN360 cameras:

Vanessa Selbst v Alec Torelli
Kenny Tran v Jonathan Jaffe

Other action from yesterday at the jump:

The other final table that was still in action at the WSOP last night concluded with yet another Full Tilt Pro taking home a bracelet. Max Pescatori took down his 2nd career bracelet as winner of the $2,500 Pot Limit Holdem/Pot Limit Omaha event, beating Kyle Kloeckner heads-up.

The $1,500 Razz final table was established earlier this morning. Unfortunately, Tom Schneider won’t be a part of it but he did finish in 12th for just over $10,000. The final table does have its share of unknowns and veteran gamblers however, as shown below:

Seat 1: Chris Viox 359,500
Seat 2: Joseph Michael 155,000
Seat 3: Archie ‘The Greek’ Karas 113,000
Seat 4: Brandon Leeds 206,500
Seat 5: Chris Klodnicki 105,000
Seat 6: Mike Wattel 74,000
Seat 7: Mark Tenner 108,500
Seat 8: Barry Greenstein 243,000

Archie Karas’ story is definitely the most interesting of the group, turning $50 in $40,000,000 and then back to $0 in one of the greatest runs in gambling history. Tom Sexton did a 10-part article with Karas for Pokernews, and the articles can also be found at Sexton’s site, starting here.

In Saturday Day 1 action:

The $1,500 NL event finished in the money with 224 left (270 got paid. The end of day 1 chip leader was, ESPN.com writer and radio show host Bernard Lee. Other notable names at the top include Joe Awada, Court Harrington, Jean-Robert Bellande, Mark Seif and Humberto Brenes.

The $5,000 PLO w/rebuys event drew a field of 152, with a whopping 483 rebuys to create a prize pool of over $3,000,000. Of the remaining 56, only 18 will get paid. Emmanuel Sebag is the current chip leader, but several big names are looming including Phil Hellmuth, David Benyamine, Erick Lindgren, Eli Elezra, Daniel Negreanu, and Mike Sexton. They get back into the game around 3pm today.

Sunday brings us past the halfway point of the Series with two more tournaments. Noon starts the $3,000 NL event, which drew a field of 827 with Shankar Pillai winning the bracelet. The 5pm tournament is another $10,000 World Championship debut, this time it’s Limit Holdem. As usual, a smaller field is expected of the elite (and those that think they’re elite) to win a bracelet of their very own.

More updating from me later today…

In what is certainly a first (at least I think so), two brothers have won a bracelet in the same World Series of Poker. Blair Hinkle, whose brother Grant won the $1,500 NL event last week, took down his own bracelet in the $2,000 NL event, knocking out Canadian Mark Brockington.

More after the jump:

The other final table in action, the $2,500 PL Holdem/PLO final table just went on dinner break with 3 remaining. Max Pescatori is the chip leader with Kyle Kloeckner in 2nd and Greg Hurst in 3rd. Allen Cunningham was recently eliminated in 4th.

The $10,000 Headsup World Championship has one match remaining in its round of 16 (Lyle Berman v David Williams). The other winners waiting for that match to finish are: Gavin Griffin, Vanessa Selbst, Robert Mizrachi, Brandon Adams, Jonathan Jaffe, Kenny Tran and Alec Torelli. They all will play one more match and finish tomorrow with the semifinals and best of 3 finals.

The $1,500 Razz event has made the money and Tom Schneider has cashed yet again, his 4th of the Series. Mike Wattel is the current chip leader, Barry Greenstein, Archie Karas and David Levi are among the 37 left in the field.

The $1,500 NL event is now under 500, with Joe Awada the current leader. The $5,000 PLO w/rebuys event is almost at the end of the rebuy period. Rumor is that Daniel Negreanu (part of infamous table 15) is in for either 16 or 17 rebuys, which appears to be a record for this event.

More updates from me tomorrow, enjoy the rest of your Saturday evening…

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…

UPDATE: Oops, Dario is out in 96th place — for $67,535. He’ll be back, of course. Hevad “Rain” Kahn (not to be confused with Jeff “Mr. Rain” Banghart) is still alive and well, slightly above the middle of the pack.

LAS VEGAS–Loyal readers have heard me yammer on and on for the better part of 2007 about how this is going to be the Year of the Europeans. So far I’ve been kinda right … while they haven’t dominated this WSOP, they have been a ubiquitous presence deep in just about every event. But the real “Year of” players this year have been the internet kids. Not internet people like Chris Moneymaker … but internet kids. Think about it. The poker boom exploded in 2003. And thus, in 2007, a lot of guys who got their start right around then have just turned 21 — making quite the impression on players at the tables and poker insiders off.

Throughout this World Series, friends and colleagues have been coming up to me saying things like, “You mean you don’t know who RamSquad64 is? Dude.” Or, “JohnnyVoltron, man, JohnnyVoltron!” OK, he sounds familiar. What has he done? But otherwise, sorry, I haven’t really been following the shenanigans on PocketFives. But it seems like soon we might have to. One of the most fascinating stories — Pokerati’s correspondent-on-loan Chris Hanel is all over this one — is a guy named Hevad “Rain” Kahn. This upstate New Yorker was supposedly banned from PokerStars because they thought he was a bot, playing up to 40 sit-n-gos at a time. Kahn then shot a YouTube video to show him playing 26 tables at a time and had his account re-opened. Wow, no? (For some reason I can’t find the vid on YouTube. If anyone else can, please post a link!)

But the kid everyone is really talking about is Dario Minieri (pictured).

It’s hard not to love hate notice this uber-aggressive Harry Potter lookalike, even though the brash, thinks-he-knows-it-all 21-year-old needs a serious ass-kicking. He’s both internet poker millionaire — best known for buying a Porsche with his PokerStars points — and Euro, hailing from Italy. He’s he had an up-and-down rollercoaster ride — apparently fun, not nerve-wracking — and dabbled with the chip lead. But today, seasoned pros are playing back at him as well they should. So far, both Huck Seed and Scotty Nguyen have re-raised all-in against him (I can almost guarantee you with nothing) to whittle away at his chip stack.

Off the table, there’s been a little mini-battle to brand this poker tyke. Apparently he started off as a PokerStars guy who hadn’t signed the paperwork requiring him to get all logoed up. And then somewhere around the time he looked to be a real force, he defected to Full Tilt. Then he supposedly felt bad and was headed back over to Stars … according to semi-verifiable rumors and reports … and yesterday it was hard to tell who’s team he was on, because he spent most of the day getting a massage with his chest pressed into the back of a chair. I’m tellin’ ya … kids these days … they are so smart.

Shortly before play ended last night, Max Pescatori — the Italian Pirate — came around to handle things and had a lengthy and jovial meeting with the Full Tilt bro who hooks up televisable players with patch deals. (Right outside the media room, under the dome at “the crossroads” that echoes clearly.) By the time Minieri would finish play for the night, a posse of Dario fans would gather, presumably to celebrate how he would be starting day 5:

No doubt about it, he’s a true made-for-TV character at the tables — a prototype for future millionaire professional video-gamers in fact. Pokerati’s prediction: Assuming he can adjust to the wiser-player beatdown he ran into at the start of today and/or get lucky, he’ll finish between 8th place and 21st.

UPDATE: Oops, Dario is out in 96th place — for $67,535. He’ll be back, of course. Hevad “Rain” Kahn (not to be confused with Jeff “Mr. Rain” Banghart) is still alive and well, slightly above the middle of the pack.

“Don’t worry if you lose the first thousand,” he said. “I can keep giving it to you $1,000 at a time.”

Meanwhile, at “the crossroads” right outside the Amazon Room, Max Pescatori was talking to Jason from Full Tilt about a potential endorsement deal for an online phenom named Dario. (He’s the kid who bought a Porsche with his PokerStars points.) And we have new security guards on duty. One of them was advising (in a whisper) some Germans to go to “The Green Door” — a Las Vegas swingers club — and his replacement is talking WWII history to anyone who will listen.

Should be even more different as Day 5 moves on. Speaking of … with 112 players remaining, Josh Evans enters Day 5 with exactly 1,792,000 chips — enough to put him in the top 20. Everyone redrew for tables, and an exact map of who’s sitting where is forthcoming. But I looked at the bagged chips on his table, and while he’s not the chip leader, he should be relatively comfortable, with only three others in his chip vicinity.

We’re all still basically dead money, though, collectively, we have been playing poker and tournament poker for several years, and each of us has made a final table in an event with a buy-in of $500 or more. Also, we’ve all played in the WSOP before, and for some of us, this will be at least our fourth event.

Last year, we had several batfaces in the $2,500 NL event (won by Max Pescatori), and our own Zac “Son of Sue” Ballenger cashed fairly deep, finishing 50th out of 1200 (and he probably would have gone deeper if he hadn’t given most of his chips to Scott Fischman).

This year, though we won’t have our tourney ace Son of S. in tow, I think we have another real good chance to send someone deep. The following are my off-the-top-of-my-head odds on how we’ll do:

Make it through Day 1: Only ten percent of the field will survive Day 1. If I were to average what I think each of our individual chances are to survive Day 1, it’s probably somewhere between 7 and 8 to 1. Mathematically, I think that means we have about a 66% chance of someone from our group surviving Day 1.

Make it to final table: Somewhere around 15 to 1.

Final 3: 40 to 1

Bracelet: 100 to 1.