Some people you may recognize not playing in the main event, much to their own surprise after showing up in some cases a good 15 minutes before cards went in the air! (mostly from Feldman at ESPN.com):

Tom Franklin (head of WPA)
TJ Cloutier (legendary+PAC member+craps)
Mickey Appleman (breaking 30-year streak of main events)
Minh Ly (Doyle pal)
Brandon Adams (Full Tilt Red Pro)
Melissa Hayden
Random Australian guy screaming about desire to sue

(Let me know if there are others to add to the list.)

Two final tables are underway, with the $1,500 NL Holdem 6-max event down to their final 3 players. Ken “Teach” Aldridge is the current chip leader in a big hand that went down just after the dinner break. You can follow the streaming final table coverage on the Bluff Magazine website or at wsop.pkr.com. The $2,500 PLH/PLO event is down to their final 6 players. Cornel Cimpan, WPT LA Poker Classic winner in February, is the current chip leader, with Ben Grundy and Paul Parker the other notables left at the table.

The $2,000 NL Holdem event is now in the money with about 100 players remaining. Phil Hellmuth added to his WSOP record with his 70th cash, and is still going strong as the players return to their dinner break soon. Jason Mercier, T.J. Cloutier, Tom McEvoy and Tom Franklin are some of the bracelet winners who are still in the field. When the players return, they’ll be playing beat the clock to get to a final table before the 3am deadline.

The $10,000 Mixed Event World Championship is down to about 55 players remaining, with Soheil Shamseddin the leader, with Robert Mizrachi, Steve Sung, Huck Seed and Hasan Habib remaining as they’ll also attempt to get to the final table of eight by the 3am deadline.

The 12pm tournament today, $2,500 NL holdem drew a smaller than expected field of 1,088, some possibly took the day off before the $5,000 NL Holdem event tomorrow at noon. The usual rapid decimation of the field still took place, as less than 450 players returning when the 90-minute dinner break began. Alan Goehring appears to be the chip leader, with the winner taking just over $500,000 and 116 others pick up some cash.

The 5pm tournament, $2,500 Limit Holdem 6-max, looks to have drawn a field of about 360. No clear leaders have been established, but check out www.worldseriesofpoker.com for updates from all six events this evening. Please.

A little more than two weeks ago, World Poker Association (WPA) founder Jesse Jones sent an e-mail to the organization’s members asking for those with an interest to join the Board of Directors. Though Jones plans to continue as a board member, his declining health prevents him from performing as its leader.

Asked and sorta received. Tom Franklin and John Leontakianakos stepped up and claimed positions on the board. Both players have been in the game for a number of years and have experience in poker as well as business. Their bios are on the WPA website.

While Leontakianakos, nicknamed “The Greek,” claims to have been playing high-stakes poker for more than 31 years, he is a relative unknown in the tournament poker community. But that might be a plus as compared to Franklin (“Captain” Tom, that is), who has a proven track record at the poker tables through the years but also gained quite the reputation, deserved or not, through the trials and tribulations of the late Brandi Hawbaker. The much-discussed story was that there was a penis-on-the-back (POB) incident between Franklin and Hawbaker (I think you can put the pieces of that puzzle together), and his reputation has been somewhat scarred in the past two years with POB references.

For the sake of the WPA, Franklin will rise above reminder posts like this those references and do some good for the organization. And who knows…..maybe a few others will step up and fill in the rest of the vacancies on that board.

OK, this funny-fun vid has little to do with poker — though anyone who understands the meaning of the phrase “Captain Tommed” might see it as a pretty good metaphor for what’s happening to the economy: