Recapping Monday night’s tournament action:

Final Table Set in 50k HORSE

The final table of the $50,000 HORSE was established early Tuesday morning, with Gus Hansen the unfortunate final table bubble boy. Here’s how the final table will be seated, with streaming coverage starting around 2pm PT at www.espn360.com and wsop.pkr.com:

Seat 1: Ville Wahlbeck – 645000
Seat 2: Erik Sagstrom – 3675000
Seat 3: John Hanson – 1700000
Seat 4: Huck Seed – 1380000
Seat 5: Vitaly Lunkin – 2490000
Seat 6: David Bach – 2345000
Seat 7: Erik Seidel – 965000
Seat 8: Chau Giang – 1075000

While Lunkin and Wahlbeck will be trying to win their 2nd WSOP bracelet this year, Wahlbeck will lead the WSOP Player of the Year race with just two tournaments remaining if he finishes first.

Carsten Joh Wins One for Germany

Carsten Joh took down the next to last $1,500 NL Holdemtournament picking up a WSOP bracelet and $664,426, besting Andrew Chen in heads-up play.

DeWitt DeLeader in Triple Chance

Jason Dewitt (1,599,000) leads the remaining field of 16 in the $3,000 Triple Chance as they play down to a winner starting at 1pm this afternoon. Among those trailing behind Dewitt: Alex Millar (1,006,000), Karga Holt (715,000), Jason Somerville (320,000), Max Greenwood (294,000), Eric “rizen” Lynch (230,000) and An Tran (216,000).

Swinford Stud Leader

Brian Swinford leads (292,000) the day 3 field of 14 in the $1,500 Stud Hi/Lo 8 or Better when play resumes at 1pm this afternoon. Notables remaining: Chad Brown (284,000), Max Stern (216,000), Allie Prescott (202,000), Richie Sklar (134,000), Matt Savage (106,000) and Vince Burgio (40,000).

Christensen Leads Final $1500 NL Event

Jon Christensen of Oslo, Norway leads the field when day 2 of the $1,500 NL Holdem returns Tuesday afternoon with 160,800 in chips with action resuming at 2pm. Among the notables among the 397 returning players: Alexandre Gomes (76,000), Raymond Rahme (51,800), Dean Hamrick (39,500), Richard Lee (and his San Antonio sweatshirt – 34,300) and Vivek Rajkumar (31,800). 297 players will get paid over the next two days as they get close to the final table by the 3am deadline.

2-7 Triple Draw

Adam Ewenstein (71,800) leads the returning 73 players for Day 2 of the $2,500 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball, with only 24 players making the money when play resumes at 2pm. Notables returning: Rick Fuller (55,200), Blair Rodman (46,500), Tuan Le (42,000), Justin “Boosted J” Smith (33,700), Shawn Sheikhan (31,100), Julie Schneider (25,700), David Sklansky (22,600), and Jimmy “Gobbo” Fricke (18,700).

Tuesday’s Tournament

The final preliminary tournament of this year’s WSOP starts at 12 noon with the $5,000 NL Holdem 6-max event, won last year by Joe Commisso in a field of 805 for over $900,000. The WSOP Staff Guide projects a field of 865 today, which could delay the start of Day 2 in the $1,500 NL and $2,500 Triple Draw Lowball events.

Live updates of the last day of six tournaments begins around noon at www.wsop.com and Pokerati will surely have all sorts of stuff during the other parts of Tuesday.

Justin Shronk is also disappointed in Tiffany Michelle’s decision to sign with UB, and he made no bones about his feelings in an open, thoughtful letter to her on the PokerRoad website. In his Pokerazzi column dated today, he notes that he wants the best for his friend but believes this sponsorship deal is not it, and he hopes she goes the way of Eric “Rizen” Lynch and detaches herself from the UB brand.

Shronk’s letter in full is reprinted here:

BACKGROUND: I worked with Tiffany Michelle as Multimedia Manager for PokerNews from February to October of ’07. Tiffany was our first on-camera hostess at the LAPC in February ’07 and we worked together everyday at the ’07 WSOP. I still consider her a good friend and respected colleague.

Tiff,

As is everyone that knows you, I’m really proud of what you did in the recent WSOP Main Event – and not just for placing 17th, someone does that every year. I took genuine joy in watching the poise with which you handled yourself every single day of the tournament. Maybe it was the lack of testosterone, or maybe it was your experience in front of cameras and crowds, but it’s not often you see a first-timer displaying more class than a lot of the players who’ve been there before.

That being said, as proud and happy as I’ve been for you, I’ve been equally disappointed with some of your choices – namely your association with Ultimate Bet. At this point, no one needs the details of the cheating scandal spelled out, and you probably know more about it than I do. This letter isn’t meant as an indictment of Ultimate Bet as a company – for that you can read the news releases or forums. Ultimate Bet is presumably now as clean as any other site, but it’s the past behavior of their owners that makes your decision such a terrible one. The current owners of Ultimate Bet are accused of dishonest and borderline criminal activity – and by representing the site you’re helping these same people make money.

More…

Eric “Rizen” Lynch announced yesterday on his blog that he is no longer associated with the UltimateBet brand.

He chose not to release any details:

After a lot of reflection and thought, I have decided to separate myself from the Ultimate Bet brand. I hope that everyone will respect my privacy, as I wish to not go into the decision in any great detail at this time. At this point in time I just believe that the things I’m trying to accomplish in my career are not in sync with the Ultimate Bet brand.

There are many interesting levels to this. Eric chose to sign on with UB as the online poker site just barely came clean about its superuser cheating scandal, and it came just after Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy signed a deal with UB. Evidently, Eric took a lot of crap from the forums for his decision, and whether that had anything to do with his withdrawal from the sponsorship remains to be told. But whatever made him end the deal must have been of a significant nature because he did it even before the main event of the WSOP.

Oh, and for those who thought the UB statement concluded the superuser scandal, it is by no means concluded. UB was careful to send out their statement of resolution the day before the WSOP began this summer, but what was not widely reported was another statement posted on the website less than a week later. It quietly notes that their oh-so-thorough investigation that took many months was not so thorough and numerous accounts involved in the scandal may have been missed.

Click below for the hush-hush sweep-it-under-the-rug release:

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Happenings at the WSOP while Ultimate Bet has signed another known online player:

Update: Tom Schneider interview with Gary Wise at roundersradio.com sometime between 5 and 7pm PT

Things got underway at noon in event #7, $2,000 NL holdem, 1,593 put up the money in their chase for a bracelet. The $10k Mixed Event World Championship will get underway at 5pm. There’s been talk about how this will all turn out. Some have expressed their concerns about the structure. The WSOP structure sheet says that 8 hands of each game will be played. However, there’s no way they can get 64 hands dealt in an hour, so how will the rotation be dealt with the next increase in blind/ante level. With triple draw 2-7, will there be two players out of action in a hand while cards are dealt to the other 6? Imagine what David Singer would think of that!

Speaking of Singer, he’s currently at the $1,500 PL holdem final table, which is getting the cold shoulder from ESPN while they cover the more attractive to TV final table. The action at that table will start shortly.

The $1,000 NL/rebuys tournament is underway and in a shocking development, day 1 chip leader Phil Ivey is out before the money. Play is currently at hand-for hand, so expect a long 10-minute period of not-so agonizing bubble play. Also on their day 2 is the $1,500 Omaha 8 or better tournament, both tournaments should reach their respective final tables sometime early Thursday morning.

More later this evening…