Move over Carlos Mortenson … Ana Marquez is now the top Spanish player in the world. Playing for almost three years now, the 26-year-old PokerStars pro is the 227th-ranked player on the planet … with some $355k in live tournament winnings … good enough to make her #1 in Spain, and #2 for the 2012 Spanish Player of the Year. Makes for an interesting poker follow and potentially interesting end-of-year race … and she’s cute to boot (not that it should matter, but hey).

Like many of us, she cut her teeth in the American poker underground … and totally quirky, current WSOP Main Event champ Greg Merson who provided her first real-money online stake. Read her story here. And see below how new names emerge as notables on the poker landscape.

LADIES GPI TOP 5

RANK			PLAYER	SCORE
1.	—		Vanessa Selbst	2390.65
2.	—		Melanie Weisner	1546.48
3.	—		Liv Boeree	1371.28
4.	—		Ana Laura Marquez Esteban	1179.05
5.	—		Maria Ho	1129.37

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SPAIN GPI TOP 5

RANK		PLAYER	SCORE
1.	—	Ana Laura Marquez Esteban	1179.05
2.	—	Tomeu Gomila	1104.68
3.	—	Carlos Mortensen	943.84
4.	—	Juan Garcia Cid	941.67
5.	—	Cesar Garcia	925.70

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Catching up on the goings on from a busy Saturday night:

Ivey Going for Bracelet #7…

Four players remain in the $2,500 Omaha 8/Stud 8 event, with Phil Ivey the current chip leader with over 1.1 million in chips. Ming Le, Carlos Mortensen, and Dutch Boyd round out the remaining players.

and #8?

Remarkably, Ivey is still in the field in the $5,000 PLO 8 or Better event with 23 players remaining, 18 make the money. He’s played very few hands in this event, but the ones he has played have given him a medium sized stack. The current chip leader is Anthony Lellouche with 357,000 in chips. Other notables include: Brett Richey (250,000), Scott Clements (155,000), Jeff Lisandro (124,000), and Ivey (92,000).

McCaffrey One to Beat in $1,500 NL

The final table of the $1,500 NL Holdem event now has six players remaining with Glenn McCaffrey the current chip leader with 2.64m in chips. Michael Greco battled back from a short stack to take second with 2m in chips, followed by Andy “BKiCe” Seth, “Pete the Greek” Vilandos, Dean Hamrick and Alan Jaffray, and round out the field.

Check-Raise FTW

The $1,500 Limit Holdem event is now down to 44 players with Glenn Englebert the leader with 144,000. Notables remaining include Rep Porter, Paul Darden, Noah Boeken, Justin Bonomo and Phil Tom.

Donking Around

The $1,500 NL Holdem donkament field has returned from their dinner break with 846 players remaining from a field of 2,641. Jason Potter is the unofficial chip leader at 28,000 and a cast of hundreds following behind him. Four more levels of play remain, unless they’re near the money and extend play for a few extra minutes.

Tete a Tete on the Felt

The $10,000 Heads-Up NL Holdem World Championship has concluded round 1, with the 2nd round starting at 10pm PT. Notables returning at that time include David Benefield, Dustin “Neverwin” Woolf, Tom Dwan, Greg Raymer, Brock Parker, and Chris Ferguson. Phil Hellmuth, Nam Le, Gus Hansen, Erick Lindgren, Vivek Rajkumar and Howard Lederer weren’t as lucky, as they were early eliminations.

A few more hours remain on Saturday, so check out www.wsop.com and Pokerati for more stuff.

Carris Outduels Somerville in Shootout

Jeffrey Carris was the last one standing in the $1,500 NL Holdem Shootout besting Jason Somerville in a brief heads-up battle as noted by Dan in the post below me. Carris collects over $300,000, while Somerville settles for nearly $200,000 in tournament winnings.

BKiCe BKiCe Baby, Too Cold

19 players return to the Rio at 1pm today in the $1,500 NL Holdem event, with Anirudh Seth or Seth Anirudh, listed in the chip counts as Andy Seth, better known as BKiCe online is the current chip leader with 1,407,000. Notables remaining include: Alan Jaffray (1,193,000), November Nine bubble boy Dean Hamrick (629,000), British actor Michael Greco (546,000) , and a triumvirate of Houstonians (Pete Vilandos – 325,000, Roberto Correa – 309,000 and Ali Davoudi – 254,000).
This final table of this event of this event is scheduled to appear at Bluff or wsop.pkr.com for international viewers, but that could change if the other final table for today gets there first.

Omaha 8/Stud 8 a real page “Turner”

Jon Turner will lead the 14 players back to complete the $2,500 Omaha 8/Stud 8 event, also resume at 1pm today. Turner will start with 465,000 in chips followed by notables Carlos Mortensen (328,000), Blair Rodman (290,000), Steve Wong (226,000), Phil Ivey (161,000) and Chad Brown (23,000).

Von Halle of Fame for Jon?

$1,500 Limit Holdem resumes at 2pm today with 124 players vying for the final nine seats, with Jon Von Halle the current chip leader at 68,300. Some of the notables looking to make some money back on their investment include: Bill Chen (60,600), Justin Bonomo (44,800), Richard Brodie (41,500), Nikki Harris (39,400), and Bryan Devonshire (34,100).

PLO 8 is Great for Newitt

Jason Newitt (185,900) is the chip leader at the end of Day 1 in the $5,000 PLO 8 or Better event. He’ll join 58 others at 2pm to play down to the final table with notables such as Andy Black (97,000), Jeff Lisandro (92,000), Daniel Negreanu (78,300), Barry Shulman (49,800), Phil Ivey (40,800) still in contention.

Return of the Donkament and Heads-Up!

Saturday brings two more events to the tournament roster starting with yet another version of the $1,500 NL Holdem event as another 2,500+ being put through the grinder to see which donks survive today. Last year’s version of this particular donkament was won by Jesper Hougaard in a field of 2,447. Hougaard also won a bracelet last year at the WSOP Europe, so could another double be in the offing for this year’s winner? The WSOP Staff Guide projected a field of 2,534, but expect closer to 2800 to enter when play starts at 12pm today.

The $10,000 NL Holdem Heads-Up World Championship also starts today with a capacity field of 256 expected when play starts at 5pm. Kenny Tran is the defending champion in this event, winning over $530,000 last year. Winners of the 5pm matches will return at 10pm for round 2.

More updates during the day at Pokerati, and for other live update coverage, check out www.wsop.com starting at 12pm PT.

Two WSOP bracelets were awarded early in the morning on Monday, but the recipients were not new to earning some hardware. First, Vitaly Lunkin took down the 40th Annual $40,000 NL Holdem event, outlasting Isaac Haxton after a three-hour heads-up battle that will surely be boiled down to a few hands on ESPN when it airs in July. After Haxton had knocked out Greg Raymer in 3rd place (the former World Champion earning $774,927), he held a dominating chip lead over the Russian, who won a bracelet last year in a $1,500 NL event. A few hands later Lunkin would take the lead, only for Haxton to take control again. Eventually though, Lunkin’s AA would crush Haxton’s bottom pair on the final hand to earn $1,891,012. Haxton was also able to walk away with a 7-figure payday, earning $1,168,566.

As Dan mentioned in the post below, Thang Luu defended his title in the $1,500 Omaha 8 or Better event for $263,135. Ed Smith, the chip leader at the end of play on day 2, finished in 2nd for just over $162,000. Ming Reslock finished 3rd ($106,373).

More stuff on the next page:
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They’re into the money in the $25k WPT World Championship Event. Every remaining player is guaranteed $39,570 (a $14.5k payday) while they compete for the $3.4 million first prize.

As of this moment, there are 85 players left — Anna Wroblewski just went out … she was looking strong all tourney long. Our best friend Tom Schneider is still alive with a slightly above average stack. (Notice he’s our best friend as opposed to just a friend or Pokerati contributor now that he’s secured the money. If he can make the final table, he’ll be our super-best-very-best friend … and I’m sure that’s what’s motivating him.)

Other names of note (to me) that are still live include Carlos Mortenson (defending champ), Rhynie Campbell (met him last night, he seems funny and cool), Mark Seif (who’s been keeping people posted about the condition of his wife’s cervix), Isabelle Mercier and Kristy Gazes (attractive women), Jared Hamby (Go Texas!), Tommy Le (one of my MySpace friends with a really cool name), Steve and Danny Wong (Go 2007 Fantasy Team!), and TJ Cloutier (Go same Dallas flight!)

Ed. Note: This post woulda been much more relevant and timely had it gone up yesterday, when it was written.

Despite slightly lower numbers, the WPT World Championship will still likely end up being one of the five biggest tournaments in the Milky Way this year … and Day 2 has just gotten underway. Pokerati would love to beyotch about not having access to the makeshift WPT TV studio at Bellagio to do our brand of non-chip coverage, but we’ve been invited to a WPT Party tonight with free food and booze, so we’re obviously all good with the status quo.

421 of 545 starting players remain … A few names that I’ll be paying attention to for various reasons, and where they stand in relation to their starting 50k chipstack include Carlos Mortenson (defending champ – 172,075), Tom Schneider (25,400), Clonie Gowen (93,975), Gregg Merkow (40,075), Nenad Medic (12,425), Rodeen Talebi (18,000), Ray Henson (89,550), and David Sklansky (41,050).

Click below to see how the whole pro-studded field shaped up as of noon-Pacific today, and click here to follow the action throughout Day 2.

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As the players on Day 3 of the L.A. Poker Classic approach the money bubble, there are still some very well-known players atop the leader board – Phil Ivey and David Singer. Jennifer Tilly doubled up through Humberto Brenes and is doing well. Alan Goehring, former LAPC champion, is hanging on to make a run at another title.

Sadly, however, Antonio Esfandiari seemed to be on a bad run this evening, then took a hit from Kyle Burnside, and just got eliminated. He’s had a great week with the announcement of his partnership with WPT, but a shot at a second WPT LAPC title would have been icing on the cake. It wasn’t meant to be, but there’s the NBC Heads-Up in a few days, along with the WPT Invitational next weekend. Momentum could take him far if he lets it.

Click below for some semi-gossip-y notes:

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LAS VEGAS–Play is coming to a close for the night, and both Josh Evans and Jerry Randack look like they should make it to Day 3 … where the bubble will get crossed.

Jerry will have his work cut out for him, as he has about 61k chips.

Josh, is still very strong with 306k. He’s got Chip Jett at his table. Previously, his toughest opponent at his table was Carlos Mortenson. “I was scared of him,” Josh says.

The avg. stack is currently 154,000.

Day 2b has begun and the room is quiet with the exception of thousands of chips being shuffled. Players have on the game face to get some serious work done and the excitement of playing in the Main Event has worn off. Today marked yet another twist in poker with Vinnie Vinh showing up to a stack of chips (3200), the irony was that he left the tournament due to elimination. Lance Bradley at The Poker Biz caught up with Vinnie for some great quotes and summary of the summer.

Thor Hansen, who rocked this series, is playing today as well as Amnon Filippi (4th in H.O.R.S.E.), Allen Cunningham, Chad Brown, Carlos Mortenson, Chris Ferguson, Chip Jett, Humberto Brenes, JC Tran, looks mean but really a sweetie pie Eric Buchman has about 80k and George Costanza AKA Jason Alexander will get some main event action.

Recent eliminations include David Plastik, Phil Gordon, Joe Sebok, Evenlyn Ng, Tom Schneider, James Van Alstyne and Vicki Coren. No one seems to know if Jennicide played wearing lingerie, in fact, we’re not sure if she played the Main Event at all.

The Fontana Room Race for the gold continues as the field of 639 players has now been reduced to 27 lucky little devils skilled men.

David Levi ended the first day without increasing his starting stack while Scott Fischman was in worse condition ending with only 17k in chips. Yet, Scott and David stepped up to bat on day two and hit several home runs placing them currently in 8th and 9th.

But they better not slack tomorrow because Phil Hellmuth, Carlos Mortensen, Paul Wasicka, Roland De Wolfe & Paul Lee are apparently wanting to win this little tournament.

Today’s notable eliminations were Lyle Berman (WPT Chairman of the board), Justin Bonomo and Dan’s crush.