The $5K PLO event has quickly turned into the Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy Show. Josephy vaulted into the chip lead during Level 7 after eliminating a player and taking a good portion of Nam Le’s stack. With one player all in before the flop, three other players saw a flop 765. Josephy checked, Le bet 16K, the other player folded and Josephy check-raised to 80K, essentially putting Le all in. Nam thought for a few minutes before finally laying his down and the hands were revealed:

Josephy: 8764
Opponent: 10-9-9-6

“Bink,” Cliff playfully exclaimed when the 3 hit the turn, giving him his straight. The 3 on the river changed nothing and Josephy increased his stack to 145K. He has since improved it to 160K.

Jamie “thecronic420″ Rosen has also been on a tear since the dinner break. Rosen first eliminated Howard Lederer when the Full Tilt pro moved all in for his last 13K on a 775 board. Rosen, not enthused about the spot he’d been put in, made the call. Lederer showed AKT7 for trip sevens while Rosen had AKK6. The 8 on the turn sparked an “Uh oh” from Lederer as it gave Rosen a flush draw, and the 2 on the river sent Howard to the rail. Rosen knocked out Eric “Rizen” Lynch moments later but we were unable to catch the hand.

Jeff “yellowsub” Williams, Adam Junglen, Shaun Deeb, Kyle “kwob20″ Bowker and Annie Duke have also been eliminated since our last report. Williams was involved in a 75k pot after all of his chips went in on J7×4 flop. He held the lead with J-J-Q-T for top set while the other player had QT-8x-7x. A diamond peeled off on the turn and Williams couldn’t fill up on the river, sending him home.

There are 99 players still alive in Event #35. With the average stack at 55K here’s a look at the P5ers still going strong:

Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy – 160K
Jamie “thecronic420″ Rosen – 88K
Scott “BigRiskky” Clements – 49K
Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi – 30K
Mike “SirWatts” Watson – 29K
Cole “cts” South – 26K
Clayton “clayton_27″ Newman – 21K

WSOP 2009 Event #34: $1.5K NLHE

Cody “thugmoneymkr” Slaubaugh continued to assault and pillage his table last level. With the blinds at 2K/4K ante 500 a player opened to around 11K in middle position and Cody raised 22.5K on top. It folded back around to his other player, who then put in a 4-bet for an additional 35K. Slaubaugh hardly hesitated before counting out a large stack of orange 5K and yellow 1K chips, placing them in the middle, and announcing all-in. The other player stared at the raise and considered his options. he had around 55K behind and, after a couple of minutes of thought, decided to fold. Cody took down the pot and increased his stack up over the 400K mark.

The other big stack in the room, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, picked up a nice pot this level when he raised to 9K from under the gun plus one and it folded around to Jonathan “therookieqq9″ Plens in the big blind. Plens called and the two both checked the Q43 flop. Plens fired 13K when the 2 peeled on the turn and Grospellier called. The river was the T and Plens checked to Grospellier, who bet out 22.2K, enough to convince Plens to fold. Grospellier appears to still hold the slight chiplead with 450K compared to Slaubaugh’s 425K.

Andrew “luckychewy” Lichtenberger may not have as many chips as those two, but he did get a much needed double up when he open-shipped his last 32K and got called by Luke “bdbeatslayer” Vrabel. Andrew flipped up 8T, which was live against Luke’s AK. Lichtenberger paired his ten on the T64 flop and it held as the turn and river came 2 then 9. Lichtenberger doubled up to 70K or so while Vrabel dropped to 140K.

Players have gone on what will likely be a 30 minute break while the 100 chips are colored up. Here are the chip counts we spotted as Level 16 drew to a close:

Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier - 450K
Cody “thugmoneymkr” Slaubaugh - 425K
Luke “bdbeatslayer” Vrabel - 140K
Jonathan “therookieqq9″ Plens - 125K
Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby - 119.7K
James “mig.com” Mackey - 115K
Zachary “CrazyZachary” Clark - 100K
Andrew “tufat23″ Teng - 95K
Scott “mindwise” Pendergrast - 90K
Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin - 85K
Andrew “luckychewy” Lichtenberger - 70K
Adam “csimmsux” Geyer - 45K
Jeremiah “Believer82″ Vinsant - 35K

• June 18, 2009 -- Thug Making Less Money
• June 19, 2009 -- A Bracelet for Baldwin
• June 19, 2009 -- No, Eric…He Probably Won’t
• June 19, 2009 -- The Table of Death