Here’s the Thursday evening recap:

Jelinek wins PLO 8, Hellmuth finishes 7th

The only bracelet awarded in the overnight hours was won by Steve Jelinek in the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha 8 or Better tournament, defeating John Gottleib in heads-up play. Jelinek earns $245,871 in victory and becomes the fifth player from the United Kingdom with a bracelet this year. Phil Hellmuth fell short of his 12th bracelet, finishing in 7th place for $30,633. Full results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report at wsop.com.

Do doing work at 10k HORSE

Day 3 of the $10,000 HORSE World Championship resumes at 3pm today with Cuong Do leading the field with 720,000 in chips with 23 players remaining. The money bubble burst at the end of play on day 2 as Cyndi Violette and Tommy Hang were eliminated during hand-for-hand play, each earning $10,998. Other notables returning include: Brian Townsend (616,000), Carlos Mortensen (503,000), Richard Ashby (441,000), Nick Schulman (402,000), Scott Fischman (347,000), Todd Brunson (247,000), Matt Glantz (200,000) and Allen Kessler (104,000). Updates and a full list of chip counts online at PokerNews.

Schaaf looking to ship $1,500 NL

Day 3 of the $1,500 No-Limit Holdem resumes at 2:30pm with 25 players remaining as James Schaaf (1,258,000) holding the chip lead. Other notables: Dean Hamrick (858,000), Humberto Brenes (764,000), Aaron Gustavson (554,000), Mike Sowers (327,000), UFC fighter Mike “Quick” Swick (213,000) and Bernard Lee (48,000). Chips and updates at PokerNews.

Elezra leads Mixed Holdem

Day 2 of the $2,500 Mixed Holdem event resumes at 2:30pm with 69 players remaining, and Eli Elezra holding the chip lead with 165,400. The money will be reached with 54 players remaining, with the winner earning a bracelet along with $268,238. Other notables: Dwyte Pilgrim (109,500), Eric Froehlich (97,600), Roberto Romanello (80,700), Matt Matros (59,400), Jeff Shulman (56,800) and Gavin Smith (50,900). The full list of chip counts is now online at PokerNews.

Friday’s Tournaments

Two more WSOP bracelet events today, starting at noon with the sixth $1,500 No-Limit Holdem tournament, last year’s edition of this tournament was won by Carsten Joh for $664,426 in a field of 2,781. The 5pm tournament is the $5,000 Pot-Limit Omaha 8 or Better, with Roland de Wolfe topping the field of 198 entries.

Recapping the Saturday afternoon action:

Cantu v Watkinson Heads-Up

Brandon Cantu and Lee Watkinson are the last two standing in the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha 8 or Better event, each going for their second career bracelet. At the moment, Watkinson holds a 2-1 chip lead over Cantu.

Habib Handling HORSE Headline

Hasan Habib remains the chip leader (453,000) with 77 players remaining in the $50,000 HORSE event as they return from a dinner break with three more levels remaining in today’s play. David Bach (426,000) and John Kabbaj (340,000) are the top 3 in chips at the moment. Among the eliminations today, Justin Bonomo, John Juanda, Eli Elezra and Jennifer Harman. More updates can be found over at www.wsop.com

Limit Holdem Shootout

The field of 64 that started round 2 of the $1,500 Limit Holdem Shootout on Saturday is down to 38 players spread over eight tables. Among the remaining players, David Williams, Tom Schneider, Humberto Brenes, Marc Naalden, and Jean-Robert Bellande.

More Donkament Carnage

A sold-out field of 2781 in the next to last $1,500 NL Holdem event is down to about 975 players as they return from dinner break. The unofficial chip leader is Thomas “titantom32” Braband at 78,000 with another 4 levels before play ends for the day.

More updates available at www.wsop.com and Pokerati for other stuff during the evening.

Recapping the rest of Friday night’s WSOP, and paying respect to the passing of Lee Munzer (1943-2009).

Habib Holds High HORSE Hierarchy

Day 1 of the $50,000 HORSE has 91 of the 95 original entrants remaining, with Hasan Habib holding the chip lead. The list of notables with chips is too many to mention, but you can see who else is remaining by checking out this link. Day 2 will begin around 2pm4pm with another sixfive levels of play scheduled.

Cantu Leads PLO 8 Final Table

The final table of the $1,500 Pot-Limit Omaha 8 or Better has been established and Brandon Cantu has maintained his lead, with the final table seated as follows when play resumes at 2pm:

Seat 1: Lee Watkinson – 412000
Seat 2: Steve Jelinek – 260000
Seat 3: William McMahan – 168000
Seat 4: Brandon Cantu – 1025000
Seat 5: Ted Weinstock – 250000
Seat 6: Aaron Sias – 353000
Seat 7: Jacqmin Mathieu – 552000
Seat 8: Ronnie Hofman – 76000
Seat 9: Tommy Vedes – 334000

Day 2 of Limit Holdem Shootout

64 players remain from the starting field of 571 in the $1,500 Limit Holdem Shootout. Among the first round winners: Jean-Robert Bellande, Nick Binger, Humberto Brenes, Dan Heimiller, Juha Helppi, Greg Mueller, Marc Naalden, Brock Parker, Tom Schneider, David Williams and Todd Witteles. Eight eight-handed tables will play down to a winner starting around 2pm Saturday, with the eight winners returning Sunday.

Saturday’s Donkament

The only tournament starting today is the penultimate $1,500 NL Donkament, starting at noon today with a projected field size of 2,800 taking the felt, which will surely delay the other three tournaments that are scheduled to start later this afternoon. Last year’s version of this event was won by David Daneshgar in a field of 2,693, taking down over $625,000.

Phil Hellmuth celebrates his first-round draft pick by Team Pokerati.

The draft just ended … (complete rosters forthcoming) …

1. Phill Hellmuth
2. Robert Mizrachi
3. Men the Master
4. Humberto Brenes
5. Matt Glantz
6. Nikolay Evdakov
7. Dwyte Pilgrim
8. Isaac Baron

All the above players should come find me before any of their events start so I can properly patch them up. (Those are the rules, right?)

UPDATE: Click below to see everyone else’s picks in draft position order — from Gavin Smith (via blackberry), Daniel Negreanu, Gary Wise, Bernard Lee, yours truly, Howard Lederer, Andrew Feldman, Mark Seif, Lance Bradley, Chops, and Joe McGowan (for Dennis Phillips):

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What’s happening tonight at the WSOP (besides the HORSE event):

The $1,000 Seniors NL Holdem World Championship final table is already over, as Dan Lacourse a retired firefighter from Dayton, OH took down the bracelet along with almost $370,000. Dale Eberle, a retired police officer from Akron, Ohio finished 2nd, for just over $235,000.

The $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha Eight or Better event is down to the final 16, as they make their way to a final table. Among the notable names: Erik Seidel, Casey Kastle, and WSOP runner-up Tom Chambers. Updates for this event can be found here.

The $1,000 NL Holdem w/rebuys event started with a field of 879 and 2,508 addons and rebuys. Only 320 are left at the present time, the notable names at the top of the leaderboard include Mark Seif, Brandon Cantu, JC Tran, Humberto Brenes, and Scott Clements. Follow their progress at the WSOP.com website here.

Dan and Jen will surely provide numerous posts about the HORSE event, but you can get further updates on the action here.

More throughout the evening…

Happenings tonight at the WSOP.

The $1,500 NL Holdem final table is now heads-up between Jesper Hougaard and Cody Slaubaugh. Jesper had been dominating the final table and started heads-up with $6,500,000 in chips to about 800,000 for Slaubaugh. Just 6 hands later, Slaubaugh had a nearly 2-1 chip lead as Hougaard decided it was now an opportune time to take the dinner break. They’ll return at about 9:30 PT to finish, the way it’s going it won’t take long either way. Follow along on the World Series of Poker’s update site here.

The other final table on Page 2.

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What’s happening this evening while watching Tiger Woods decide to wait until Monday to win his next major:

The $10,000 Heads-Up World Championship is down to the final 2, as Kenny Tran is taking on Eric Torelli in a best of 3 match for the bracelet. Vanessa Selbst would finish tied for 3rd in this event for the second straight year, but does move into 2nd place in the ESPN POY standings for the time being.

More at the jump:

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Tom’s continues to be on a tournament tear — having cashed for his 5th time in 2008 this weekend by finishing in 10th place in the $1,500 Razz event to bring him close to even for the WSOP so far! (He got busted by Archie Karas, holding the nuts.)

This cash ties him with some new Russian guy — sorry, haven’t yet figured out who’s who amongst the New Red Army (“Wolverines!”), but I know it’s not Alex Kravchenko — for most ITM (in the money) finishes … and puts him on pace to threaten the record of eight. From Nolan Dalla’s official updates (sent out before the conclusion of Razz):

Through the conclusion of Event #23, only one player has cashed five times to date – Nikolay Evdakov, from Moscow. Evdakov is in serious contention to challenge the record set for “Most WSOP Cashes in a Single Year,” shared by four players — Michael Binger (2007), Chad Brown (2007), Phil Hellmuth, Jr. (2006), and Humberto Brenes (2006), with eight in-the-money strikes.

That’s kinda fun, no? Because the most overblogged pro of the Series clearly knows his way around different events, he did a quick hallway interview with PokerNews while on break after busting out Doyle Brunson en route to crossing the money bubble in the $3k HORSE event:

Longtime Tom fans — Karridy and Angry Julie especially — will love the ending, and Tom’s face during it.

What’s happening at the WSOP while I wonder if the new boss is as same as the old boss…

The only final table yesterday concluded early Thursday, and we finally got a bracelet winner that had won one previously. The $5,000 NL 2-7 KC Lowball w/rebuys event saw Mike Matusow outlasted Jeff Lisandro and the rest of a talented final table, featuring Tom Schneider. Matusow was down to 405,000 in chips with Lisandro and Barry Greenstein had the other 3,100,000 in chips when the dinner break began. Returning from the break definitely appeared to rejuvenate him, as he was on the attack early and often. Eventually, Lisandro eliminated Greenstein, but headsup was mostly controlled by Matusow, until he eventually won when his Q-8 hand beat Lisandro’s Q-9 and Matusow wins his 3rd WSOP bracelet and the $537,000 that came with it.

Final tables for today and other action after the jump:

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The listeners have spoken, and it’s official:

16 percent of all poker podcast fans prefer Beyond the Table!*

Woot!

Click for the latest episode of the second-best poker podcast ever!

Or download via Door #2 here.

Extra-fun times this week:

• A show about nothing and where Tom puts his fingers.
• Sal the old man loads up his iPod.
• Dan on “What’s Goin’ On?” in the poker world — EPT London, Jose Canseco, and Absolute super-users.
• The BTT gang ventures back to the online felt.
• Monkey noises with Fake Hevad Khan; Fake Humberto Brenes loves Beyond the Table; and Tom goes hip-hop — calls for death in the name of etiquette.
• Karridy calls for more dead presidents on TV, fewer Full Tilt pros.
• No seat for Karridy in a big-little $5/$10 game.
• Bonus monkey noises from Tom.

* Poker podcast poll results

Poker must be the most boring activity in the world. Why else would the industry focus its cameras on the most ridiculous people?

We have spelling bees and Scrabble championships on TV and none of the competitors have little “charks” and make munching sounds then yell their name “HUMBERTO, HUMBERTO”. None of them spell a tough word and start making animal sounds while moving their bodies in hunchback dance moves. Could you imagine Humberto as a little kid competing in a spelling bee and yelling his name every time he spelled a word correctly, then getting out a little Power Ranger and acting like he is going to hit the little girl he is competing against?

We as poker players should want nice people with lots of money to come play with us. Do you think when Bill Gates sees Hevad Kahn doing his monkey noises and strange gyrations he says to himself, “boy I want to play with that guy? Maybe I could get that guy to represent Microsoft.” I’m guessing not; however, I guess that’s exactly what Pokerstars says. He is now a face on Pokerstars. Why would any company want to associate with these embarrassing people? Answer, they get a lot of exposure on TV. Michael Vick is getting a ton of exposure, I hear he likes gambling too, and he’s available for about 5-10 years.

Poker is reaching the lowest common denominator, and it’s a joke. I am really tired of people having to exhibit ridiculous behavior in order to get noticed in poker. There was actually a guy at a featured table at the main event who made balloon animals for the other players at the table. Are people really this desperate to get on TV? The answer is clear. Therefore, I have compiled a list of things that I’m willing to do at a featured table next year.

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LAS VEGAS–Play has ended for the day, and Josh Evans is alive and well with exactly 400,000 chips — a still comfortably above average stack a slightly above average stack (briefly forgot they started with 20,000 this year), but way behind the chip leaders. (Ten players are already above a million.) He was into the 600s for a while, but gave a healthy chunk to the guy on his left. “I hate this table,” he told me. It had on it the aforementioned big stack, Humberto Brenes, Tobey Maguire, and an online phenom/Jackie’s alum I am learning more about named “The Waco Kid.”

Fortunately for Josh, his table was broken as players bagged their chips for the night … so we’ll see where he starts the day tomorrow — 337 players remain.