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…

Remember back in the poker-boom day when an $85,000 difference in payout seemed to mean so little? Me neither. Anyhow, we’re nearing 5 hours into heads-up, and the average stack is now about 50 big blinds. There’ve been many lead shifts, and for awhile it looked like Lee was getting delirious and about to bite it. But he just doubled up and, by his own report, is “back in the game!”

NOTE: I was gonna make a compare-and-contrast joke about heads-up blind structures with the WPT Championship going on tonight/yesterday … but apparently they had quite the heads-up battle there, too … with Yevgeniy Timoshenko requiring 79 hands to dispose of Ran Azor for the World Championship. (Seriously, is that a record for WPT heads-up battles?)

UPDATE: It’s over. Baldwin wins.

Watch the vid below to see why Pokerati is clearly no ESPN:

I still don’t know who won the WPT World Championship over at the Bellagio OK, now I do … I’m too caught up in the main event of the Venetian Deep Stacks … where it really is kinda interesting seeing seasoned pro Doug Lee (wow, remember when a WSOP Circuit event used to pay more than half a million? Me neither!) duking it out with relatively unknown tournament pro Eric Baldwin (“Basebaldy” online). They’ve been playing heads-up for nearly two four hours, with their stacks relatively even and each having more than 70 60 big blinds. Very real poker being played here … with an extra sigh of WSOP buy-in relief going to the winner. ($198k for 1st, $115k for second.)

Such a big game going on in the back corner of the Venetian poker room, and yet so few people seem to have a clue about the action taking place. (Floor staff gave up on calling the hand-for-hand action a couple hours ago.) Meanwhile, the nightly $120 (where Pokerati fave Adam Schacter is still alive with 6 remaining) has more railbirds.

A few interesting tidbits about the Deep Stacks main event:

— The underdog, Baldwin, has a bigger crowd watching, with 4 to 5 viewers, compared to Lee’s 0 to 1.

— Michael Skomac, the winner of February’s Venetian Deep Stacks main event, finished 4th.

— “Known” pros in the money today included Sam Grizzle (23rd) and Michael Mizrachi (16th).

— The (plenty drinky) crew sweating Baldwin includes Cody Slaubaugh (on a tear of late), Adam Geyer from Austin, Justin Young (who finished 8th in the WPT World Championship this weekend), and Shannon Shorr (who finished 5th in the WPT Championship today). Needless to say, these guys are all having a good weekend and month … with nearly $1 million in winnings amongst them … probably more if you include their online tournament results.

It’s always fun running into people unexpectedly … happens regularly here in Vegas and today I noticed Lodge player Jerry Dolan (left) playing in the nightly $120 tourney at the Venetian … and when I went to snap a picture, lo and behold the player seated to his left was Adam Schacter (right), another occasional Lodge player and a final tableist in the 2005 Pokerati Invitational. They didn’t know each other … but would get to know each other in the end, as Schacter busted Dolan in this 129-player event.

Too funny! Small (poker) world. And good luck to Adam, as he’s currently chip leader with 19 players remaining.

Pro Poker, Too

So lots of big action going on in Vegas tonight. We’ve got the WPT World Championship final table at Bellagio (word around here is that somebody won — about $2 million), the Venetian Deep Stacks main event is down to heads-up (Doug Lee vs Vegas local Eric Baldwin — for about $200k), and over on the kiddie tables outside the Venetian poker room we’ve got a Lodge/Pokerati alum fighting to see if he’s got what it takes to take one the whole way (for about $2k). Good night in V-town.