Recapping Wednesday night’s WSOP action, starting with the awarding of two more WSOP bracelets:

Daya Takes down $1,000 NL bracelet

The first $1,000 No-Limit Holdem bracelet of this year’s WSOP was awarded to Canadian Aadam Daya defeating Deepak Bhatti in heads-up play. Daya won the sixth-largest live poker tournament in history, besting a field of 4,345 players to earn $625,872. Bhatti picked up $385,106 for the runner-up finish. The full list of results and Nolan Dalla’s tournament report is available at WSOP.com.

Bansi’s Best for bracelet #2

Praz Bansi picked up his 2nd career WSOP bracelet, winning the $1,500 No-Limit Holdem bracelet, defeating Vincent Jacques heads-up to prevent a Canadian sweep of bracelets on Wednesday. Jacques earned $320,913 for falling just short of a bracelet, the full list of results and Dalla’s report are online here.

Channing, Levi headline Shootout Final Table

The final table of the $5,000 No-Limit Shootout gets underway at 2:30pm this afternoon with these six players, each with the same starting stack of 1,500,000:

Neil Channing
Stuart Rutter
Nicolas Levi
Brent Hanks
Joseph Elpayaa
Joshua Tieman

Triple Draw almost reaches their final table

Play at the $2,500 2-7 Triple Draw Lowball ended earlier this morning with its final table just out of reach, returning at 4pm this afternoon to determine a winner. Among those who made the money: Team Pokerati’s Pat Poels (10th for $12,232), Ted Forrest (12th for $9,972), Jordan Seigel and Allen Kessler (16th and 17th for $7,663 each). The rest of the results can be found here. Here’s the eight players looking for a bracelet:

David Chiu 436,000
Peter Gelencser 400,000
Don Mcnamara 370,000
Raphael Zimmerman 262,000
Tad Jurgens 223,000
Leonard Martin 195,000
Shunjiro Uchida 173,000
Jameson Painter 127,000

Schlein Leads $1,500 NL for Day 2

Josh Schlein leads the remaining 270 players returning at 2:30pm for day 2 of the $1,500 No-Limit Holdem with 127,300 in chips. Other notables on the leaderboard: Jean-Robert Bellande (89,200), Phil Hellmuth (84,700), and Amnon Filippi (55,800). The full list of chip counts can be found at PokerNews.

Thursday’s Tournaments

The $1,500 Pot-Limit Holdem event starts at 12pm today, won last year by John Paul Kelly for over $190,000 in besting a field of 633. A compact field is expected at 5pm today for the $10,000 Seven-Card Stud World Championship won by Freddie Ellis last year, winning over $370,000 as the last man standing in a field of 142.

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.

Recapping the Tuesday night action, with two events finishing earlier this morning:

Grinder chews up competition in 50k

Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi overcame a 3-1 chip deficit during heads-up to defeat Vladimir Schemelev and win his first WSOP bracelet along with $1,500,000 in the $50,000 Players’ Championship . Schemelev collects over $960,000 with his runner-up finish. David Oppenheim, who was chip leader when the remaining five players took their dinner break, finished third for $603,348. John Juanda ($436,865) and Robert Mizrachi ($341,429) finished fourth and fifth respectively. You can read Nolan Dalla’s tournament report here.

Chow Main Man in Omaha 8

The other bracelet awarded this morning was the $1,500 Omaha 8 or Better event, won by Michael Chow, defeating long-time pro Dan Heimiller in heads-up action. Chow picks up $237,140 for the win, while Heimiller adds $146,505 to his long list of cashes. Full results for this event along with Nolan’s tournament report can be found over at wsop.com.

Final table set in $1,000 NL

The $1,000 No-Limit Holdem is down to a final table, resuming at 2:30pm after plans to play to a finish this morning were scuttled. The final table almost had the first father and son to play the same final table, but Irving Rice’s elimination in 10th place meant his son Richard would take up the charge to win a bracelet. Here’s how the final table will be seated, you can follow the live updates this afternoon at PokerNews.com:

Seat 1: Dash Dudley — 1,355,000
Seat 2: Bart Davis — 1,355,000
Seat 3: Nicholas Mitchell — 1,280,000
Seat 4: Deepak Bhatti — 400,000
Seat 5: Gabe Costner — 1,830,000
Seat 6: Richard Rice — 700,000
Seat 7: Aadam Daya — 2,855,000
Seat 8: Isaac Settle — 970,000
Seat 9: Cory Brown — 2,315,000

$1,500 NL down to 23 for Day 3

The $1,500 No-Limit Holdem event has 23 players remaining when play resumes at 2:30pm this afternoon, playing down to a winner. The chip leader is Vincent Jacques with 1,498,000. Notables remaining include Praz Bansi (616,000), online stars David Sands (628,000) and Yuval Bronshtein (498,000), along with three-time WSOP Circuit ring winner Dwyte Pilgrim (209,000). The full list of remaining players is available at wsop.com.

Shootout Day 2

36 players, each guaranteed $16,607, remain in the $5,000 No-Limit Holdem Shootout when play resumes at 2:30 today. The remaining players will be seated at six six-handed tables. Those winners return Thursday for the final table, with the winner earning $441,692. Among the notables who won their table yesterday: Chris Ferguson, John Duthie, Chad Brown, Tom Dwan, Christian Harder, Blair Hinkle and Justin “Boosted J” Smith. The list of survivors can be found here.

Hanna Leads Lowball Enthusiasts

The $2,500 2-7 Triple Draw drew a field of 291 entrants for a 5pm start. After ten levels thet field was reduced to 87, with Salim Hanna the chip leader with 65,400 when play resumes Wednesday at 3pm. Plenty of big names remain including Hoyt Corkins, Allen Kessler, Jeff Lisandro, Scott Seiver, Ted Forrest, Barry Greenstein, and Archie Karas. For Team Pokerati followers, Tom Schneider finished 12th with 43,200 in chips, Pat Poels was 46th with 21,000, while Julie Schneider was eliminated on day 1. A full list of chip counts will be available soon at wsop.com.

More No-Limit On Tap

Wednesday has just one event starting today, the second $1,500 No-Limit Holdem event of the WSOP, with a 12pm start. The second $1,500 of the 2009 WSOP was won by Pete “The Greek” Vilandos, winning over $600,000 in a field of 2,506. PokerNews will have constant updates available throughout the day as the field plays ten one-hour levels.

A few recaps while several tournaments are on their dinner breaks:

The 40th Annual $40,000 NL Holdem final table has 4 players remaining. Greg Raymer, Vitaly Lunkin, Isaac Haxton and Dani Stern make up the final four to take home nearly $2m and the first open gold bracelet of the WSOP. Ted Forrest, Noah Schwartz, Lex Veldhius, Alec Torelli and Justin Bonomo were eliminated earlier today from the final table.

Speaking of Raymer, the WSOP Champions Invitational got underway earlier this afternoon. 20 of the 25 surviving champions accepted their RSVPs to be filmed under the bright lights of the ESPN cameras. Within the first orbit, 2006 winner Jamie Gold was the first player eliminated, while 2003 winner Chris Moneymaker watched his 10,000 chip stack dwindle erode before he finally busted. Raymer was able to get a couple of hands in before returning to the $40k final table. Six more one-hour levels or until the final table of nine return Monday afternoon.

More recaps on the next page:
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The first major final table of the 2009 WSOP takes place at 2pm today for the 40th Annual $40,000 NL Holdem. ESPN will be filming today, the only bracelet event besides the Main Event to bring out their cameras. Fortunately, they’ve made a wise choice as they have a final table with a World Champion, several bracelet winners and some of today’s best Internet players battling out for nearly $1.9 million for first and a gold WSOP bracelet. Here’s how the players will be seated when play resumes:

Seat 1 – Ted Forrest (560,000)
Seat 2 – Noah Schwartz (660,000)
Seat 3 – Alec Torelli (2,340,000)
Seat 4 – Isaac Haxton (5,955,000)
Seat 5 – Greg Raymer (3,345,000)
Seat 6 – Justin Bonomo (1,685,000)
Seat 7 – Lex Veldhuis (3,805,000)
Seat 8 – Dani Stern (1,300,000)
Seat 9 – Vitaly Lunkin (4,565,000)

The unfortunate (for both ESPN and himself) final table bubble boy was Tony G, outflopped by Lunkin on the final hand of play yesterday, but he should be able to console himself with the $172,000 he earned for the 10th place finish.

Day 1a of the $1,000 NL Holdem Stimulus Special is now in the books, with 2,998 entries for day 1a, and only 375 surviving the donkey slaughter to return on Monday afternoon to join the remnants of Sunday’s field of nearly 3,000 who start play at 12 noon. The day 1a chip leader is Jeremiah DeGreef with 132,200 in chips, the only other player who broke the 100k mark was Jonathan Tamayo (107,500). The average stack for the remaining day 1a players will be about 24 BBs (24,000). A more detailed recap of today’s events from me can be found on PokerNews. Today at 12 noon, another field of nearly 3,000 will be taking their seats for day 1b, playing ten levels of poker and then coming back on short rest tomorrow to first make the money, then the final table.

The ESPN cameras will also be focused on the Champions Invitational which will start at 4pm PT today. Somewhere between 20 and 25 players anticipate on being part of the lineup, although Greg Raymer could certainly be excused if he shows up a little later than the others. Russ Hamilton and Bobby Baldwin, as noted earlier, will not be in action today. Chris Ferguson surely has RSVP’d by now, but the remaining champions (Mansour Matloubi, Hamid Dastmalchi, and Noel Furlong) may not bother coming back to Vegas just to play for the Binion Cup trophy and 1970 Corvette that goes to the winner.

The $1,500 Omaha 8 or Better event will also come to a conclusion today starting at 2pm, as 19 players remain at the end of play on day 2. Ed Smith is the current chip leader at 433,000 in chips, defending champion Thang Luu is in 2nd (410,000). Other notables remaining: Robert Price, Jim Geary, Freddy Deeb, Sebastian Ruthenberg, Richard Toth, Ming Reslock, and Jordan Rich. Follow all the action over at www.worldseriesofpoker.com and throughout the day here on Pokerati.

The $1,000 NL Hold’em Stimulus Special looks to be a huge success, as day 1a appears to be sold out with at least 2,800 entered. There’s still some room for tomorrow’s day 1b, but it looks like that field will also be maxed out before play gets underway at 12 noon today. The WSOP Staff Guide projected 5,305 entrants and that has already been exceeded, so I’ll take the cheap win and take the over with a field of 5700 who will eventually play this weekend as the WSOP staff finds a few additional tables to put on the floor to accommodate the field.

The 40th Annual $40,000 NL Hold’em event returns for day 3 action today at 2pm with 23 players playing down to Sunday’s ESPN final table. Justin Bonomo will start action as the chip leader with 2,678,000 in chips, Ted Forrest in 2nd with 2,586,000, and David “WhoooKidd” Baker in 3rd with 2,367,000. Greg Raymer is the last remaining World Champion in the field, in 4th place with 2,287,000. Other notable names include Alec Torelli, Dani Stern, Matt Glantz, Isaac Haxton, David Chiu, Neil Channing, Andy Black, and Andrew Robl.

The $1,500 Omaha Eight or Better also comes back at 2pm today with 197 players remaining from their record field of 918. 2008 winner Thang Luu appears to have returned to his winning form, as he’ll start play today as the chip leader with 73,600 in chips. Other notable names remaining in the field include Phil Hellmuth, Annie Duke, Todd Brunson, and Brandon Cantu. Their final table is also scheduled for Sunday, although with much less exposure than what will be a mix of live and online stars of the 40k event or the WSOP Champions Invitational event, which also starts on Sunday. More to come today, with an update soon (?) if the Stimulus Special has sold out.

8am Update: Under 80 seats left for Sunday.
10:30am Update: 5,839 registered from Da Commish’s Twitter

There’s a lot of interesting action going on tonight. The $40k NLH seems to have quite the storylines developing … Chris Moneymaker (@cmoneymaker) is still alive and strong, but the chip leader is now his new-poker-era successor, Greg Raymer. Justin Bonomo (@JustinBonomo) is still proving to be a big threat … all these boomtime champions, yet plenty of old dogs there, too — Steven Zolotow, David Chiu, Ted Forrest, e.g. — representin’ those pre-boom big-time days.

There are currently 38 players remaining, with 27 making the money. Click here to follow the official chip counts — and Dr. Pauly is all over this one, too.

UPDATE: Moneymaker just took a huge hit, losing 2/3 of his stack.

RE-UPDATE: Pauly is ahead of the official counters — Moneymaker is out. So is Zolotow.

There’s also some potential excitement brewing in the ESPN Fantasy Pool, with Matt Glantz (@MattGlantz, one of my guys) way up near the top of the chip counts; and Mathers has Neil Channing hanging on for his team of fantasy scabs.

Vanessa Rousso (@VanessaRousso) is also still alive, though barely. Wouldn’t it be something …

Last but definitely not least, Dallas/Shreveport baller Keith Lehr (pictured) is currently 5th in chips.

The 4th of July holiday certainly put a damper on the size of day 1b, as a disappointing 1,158 showed up to play at noon today. Pauly notes that some country music singer did the Star Spangled Banner and some sort of flag ceremony was attempted that didn’t go as planned. The players are currently on their dinner break, with about 850 remaining. Among those whose dream is over: Kenny Tran, Ram Vaswani, Orel Hershiser, Jamie Gold, Greg Raymer, Tuan Le, Ted Forrest, Daniel Negreanu, among many others. The early chip leader appears to be Patrik Antonius, with Robert Mizrachi, Erick Lindgren, Vanessa Rousso, and 2007 ME final tablist Philip Hilm near the top of the leaderboard. Follow the progress when they return on the WSOP.com website here.

More updates as they warrant…

What’s happening at the WSOP tonight:

The $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha w/rebuys event just concluded with a winner, and it’s Layne Flack who put on a dominant performance at the final table, taking an overwhelming chip lead that no one would be able to catch him. Layne wins his 6th WSOP bracelet, putting him in some elite company as one of 10 poker players who have won at least 6 bracelets (Hellmuth, Chan, D. Brunson, Seidel, Cloutier, Moss, Baxter, Heimowitz, M. Nguyen are the others). Daniel Makowsky finished in 2nd, and Ted Forrest will have to try yet again to get his 6th bracelet, as he finished in 5th. Dario Alioto finished in 4th for those following the Italian contingency.

Other action from today after the jump:

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Finishing the recap from last night’s activities with a preview of today’s lone tournament:

The $5,000 Seven Card Stud Eight or Better World Championship concluded shortly after 2am, with German Sebastian Ruthenberg outlasting Chris “Jesus” Ferguson to win his first bracelet, along with just over $328,000 in a grueling 3 hour heads-up battle. Ferguson and Ruthenberg would trade the lead several times, each having a huge chip advantage. While some may say the structure went too fast at the end, I have the feeling he wouldn’t be as vocal if the other player won.

Final tables for today and other action from last night after the leap:

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Happenings for this evening as I found out from Jen I’ve become a member of the WPA all over again:

The $5,000 Stud 8 or Better World Championship is down to the final 3, with Team Full Tilt Pro Chris Ferguson the dominate chip leader. Marcel Luske finished in 4th, Annie Duke finished 5th, you can catch all the action at the WSOP site here.

The other final table for today already has its champion, to find out who it was, click on the jump:

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Happenings at the WSOP while awaiting the inevitable Gary Wise article tomorrow on the Ladies’ final table:

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What’s happening at the WSOP while GSN considers picking up a new show, High Stakes Dice.

Speaking of Ivey, he’s currently in the top 10 at the $5,000 NL 2-7 KC Lowball event. Tom Dwan currently is chip leader at 238,900 with about half of the field remaining. In third is Pokerati’s own Tom Schneider with 153,500. Play resumes at 3pm this afternoon as they’ll play down to their final table of 7.

Final tables and what starts today after the jump:

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Mike Matusow is shrinking.

Due to a $100K weight loss bet with Ted Forrest, he has been dieting and losing weight recently. Mike showed up today at the WSOP as a fraction of his former self. He is thinner for sure, but whether he lost the actual 60 pounds required to win the bet is unknown. As of a few days ago, he was a few pounds short. Hope he made it.

One thing he didn’t lose is his voice and his erratic behavior. Weight loss is evidently not a cure for ADD.

Erik Seidel – Courtesy of World Poker Tour

The marathon that was the WPT Foxwoods Poker Classic started out with Seidel as the chip leader, Ted Forrest second in chips, an online pro, a semi-experienced tournament player, and two relative amateurs.

After nearly 12 hours of play, it was Seidel as the last player standing. He claimed his first WPT title to add to his already impressive resume that includes 8 WSOP bracelets and numerous prestigious accomplishments.

The final payouts were as follows:

1st: Erik Seidel – $992,890
2nd: Robert Richardson – $558,792
3rd: Andrew Barta – $281,011
4th: Frank Cieri – $200,261
5th: Adam Katz – $151,811
6th: Ted Forrest – $103,360

All of the details of the final table action – and hours of inaction – were chronicled by the WPT Live Updates team.