Recapping the Wednesday afternoon action at the Rio, with the reminder that you can follow the live updates over at www.PokerNews.com

$1,000 NL Final Table

Four remain at the $1,000 No-limit Holdem final table, with Gabe Costner (4,300,000) holding the chip lead over Deepak Bhatti (3,400,000), Aadam Daya (2,200,000) and Bart Davis (1,800,000) . Nicholas Mitchell ($154,425), Cory Brown ($116,141), Isaac Settle ($88,025), Dash Dudley ($67,221) and Richard Rice ($51,375) were the first five to exit the final table to collect their winnings.

$1,500 NL Final Table

Eight players are currently seated at the final table of the first $1,500 No-limit Holdem of the WSOP, playing down to a winner tonight. David Tuthill will be the chip leader (2,000,000) when the remaining eight players return from dinner break. Tomer Verda is close behind with 1,822,000 while David Sands (636,000) and Praz Bansi (600,000) towards the back of the pack. Dwyte Pilgrim picked up his first career WSOP cash, finishing 21st for $15,222. Others who fell short of the final table include Yuval Bronshtein (12th for $29,795) and John Myung (17th for $18,809).

Sextet of Six-Seated Shootout Stars Settling

The $5,000 No-Limit Holdem Shootout so far has seen Brent Hanks and Neil Channing the first two winners moving on to Thursday’s final table. Blair Hinkle, John Duthie, Chino Rheem, and Heather Sue Mercer are among the remaining 14 players trying to earn one of the final four seats.

Lowball Leaves Field in Lurch

The $2,500 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball field is down to 37, with just 30 making the money this evening. The current chip leader (151,000) is Jordan Siegel, recognizable by most people as the MC for the NBC Heads-Up event at Caesars’ Palace in Las Vegas. Other notables looking to cash: Ted Forrest, Allen Kessler, Greg Mueller, Tony G and Rob Hollink. For Team Pokerati watchers, Pat Poels is hanging in there with 63,000, while Tom Schneider was knocked out in early action.

Another $1,500 Gets Underway

The second $1,500 No-Limit Holdem event drew a field of 2,341 entrants, with less than 800 returning after their 90-minute dinner break to play the final four levels of day 1 tonight. The 243 finishers get paid, and some of the names to watch for when play resumes: Mark Seif, Jean-Robert Bellande, Shaun Deeb, Barry Shulman and Lee Watkinson.

NBC Heads-Up Championship announcer Jordan Siegel, who may or may not have won the gig in a $1,000 Bellagio tourney.

The NBC heads-up announcer whom I was criticizing the other day for not acknowledging runner-runner possibilities and generally lacking a little excitement in his live play-by-play is Jordan Siegel, a semi-accomplished player in his own right, who seems to be runnin’ pretty good recently, too.

We’ll see if we can’t get a photo up here before it’s too late to be relevant so you know who I am talking about. I think he has been on TV once before.

Seriously, I wasn’t trying to pick too hard — a gig is a gig and we all want to do well, especially when the HD cameras are rolling — but this event, for all the excitement around it, is reportedly struggling in the eyes of NBC. And that has me thinkin’-bout soccer, which any real fan can tell you hasn’t quite taken off in America not because the sport isn’t exciting enough, but because the broadcasters and commentators don’t know how to cover it like not-basketball, or in this case not-golf.

ALT HED: I Hope He’s Not Related to Bugsy