The last hour has been a harrowing run for the bubble in Event #48, the $2K No-Limit Hold’em tournament. After finishing standard tournament play after Level 10, players were nearly on the bubble and took a 15-minute break before resuming to burst the bubble. Most players were anxiously hovering over other tables to watch action occur; one PocketFiver in particular took the opportunity to double up at the hesitation of his table.

Tristan “Cre8ive” Wade found himself incredibly short-stacked with 11K after a huge 80K lost pot to another player. He was visibly tilted by the loss, but when action folded to him in the cutoff, he shoved the rest of his stack into the middle. The player in the big blind (to whom he’d lost his chips earlier), thought awhile before calling and flipped over his KT to Tristan’s 7-8. Tristan was in big trouble when the flop spiked a ten, but a miracle 7 and 8 on the turn and river bought him an extra life in the tournament.

Our bubble boy for the evening was Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin (pictured at right), who raised from early position to 4.4K, hoping for a walk. His opponent re-raised him preflop to 16.4K, Baldwin shoved all in, and met an instant call. Baldwin was caught bluffing and whiffed 74 to his opponent’s pocket aces.

The 198 remaining players are guaranteed $3,795 for their run and will return at 2pm PST tomorrow afternoon to commence Day 2. PocketFivers still in the running for the $770,540 and WSOP bracelet include chip leader Eric “jakz101″ Crain with 253,500 chips, Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson, Adam “Roothlus” Levy, Daniel “voff” Deveau, Adam “akat11″ Katz, David “ComptonMasta” Barter, Gary “GB2005″ Bogdanski, Dan “wretchy” Martin, and Matt “plattsburgh” Vengrin.

Play has slowed substantially in the $5K No-Limit Hold’em 6-max event following the elimination of Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier in 16th place. While we last reported that Grospellier had picked up a healthy pot off Jason Gray, he ran into a series of hands that resulted in substantial hits to his chip count. The final blow came when Bertrand bet every street on a jack high board, moving all-in on the river with his A-J only to be called by the pocket aces of his opponent.

Gray has had a rollercoaster ride of a level himself. With the blinds at 6K/12K and an ante of 1K, Tom Luntz raised to 30K in early position and Jason reraised to 120K. Luntz then moved all-in and Gray made the call with A-Q. Luntz showed pocket jacks, but a queen on the turn shipped the 530K pot in Gray’s direction.

Just a few hands later, Luntz and Gray got it all-in preflop again and Tommy held pocket jacks a second time. Jason was in much worse shape this time around with his pocket tens and when the board came out AK53K Jason doubled Luntz up and was left with 225K. Play is scheduled to continue down to the final 6-handed table this evening.

Day 3 of the $50K HORSE event has come to a close and 24 players remain in contention for the much coveted bracelet. Barry Greenstein continues to stay towards the top of the leaderboard along with Daniel Negreanu. James “mig.com” Mackey will also be returning tomorrow to play down to the final eight players.

• June 28, 2008 -- The HORSE Race Continues
• June 28, 2008 -- The Katz Came Back
• June 27, 2008 -- A Player Makes a “FatalError”
• June 27, 2008 -- Feelin’ Good