It is that time of night where players are trying to double up or get out in the $1.5K NLHE event. Aditya “intervention” Agarwal was sitting at nearly twice the average stack, but the following hand helped shoot him up to 57K and put him in great shape to keep moving forward in the tournament:

With the blinds at 300/600 ante 75 a player raised to 1,450 from under the gun and Agarwal called from under the gun plus one. Everyone else folded, leaving only the two of them to see the 833 flop. The initial raiser led for 2.5K and Aditya called. His opponent bet out 6K on the turn after the 8 double paired the board and Agarwal again called. The river was the J and the other player mulled over his options before moving all-in for 17K or so. Aditya thought for maybe 30 seconds and didn’t even need to ask for a count before he called and tabled 36 for the bottom end of the full house. The other player showed AJ for jacks and eights and genuinely complimented Aditya’s play as he headed for the door.

Jeff “YoungSupremacy” Hakim is also making moves in the right direction.  We watched as he raised to 1.5K from under the gun and the player on his immediate left called behind him.  It folded around to the big blind who then moved all-in for 2.7K more.  Hakim put in another raise of 4.5K more to isolate his opponent and the flat caller reluctantly gave up his hand.  Jeff showed 88 which was racing with the other player’s AQ and the board ran out J763K to give Hakim the pot and push his stack up to 30K.

Michael “benvo123″ Benvenuti tried to mount a comeback with his remaining 2,225 chips by moving all-in from early position.  The player in the big blind called with pocket sevens, which were leading Michael’s {ad]5.  The flop gave Benvenuti some outs when it came down KQJ but a 9 on the turn and the 9 on the river failed to improve his hand and he was eliminated.

A short-stacked Erica Schoenberg also tried to up her chip counts when she moved all-in for her last 2.5K or so and Tracey “xtrACEy” Nguyen called from the big blind.  Tracey’s 67 trailed Erica’s Q-J slightly but Tracey flopped a flush to leave Erica drawing dead and heading out.  Nguyen now sits with 21K.

Here are a few of the chip stacks we spotted around the room from midway through Level 8:

Darryll “DFish” Fish - 65K
Randy “Randers” Haddox - 63K
Eric “p3achy keen” Liu - 55K
Scott “r_a_y” Montgomery - 50K
Corey “comandr_cool” - 37K
Jimmy “gobboboy” Fricke (pictured right)-35K
Ryan “gutshtallin” Welch - 33K
Pat “bigred0000″ Stemper - 30K
Craig “MrCasino” Gray - 26K
Garrett “GBecks” Beckman - 25K
Jon Wein - 25K
Andy “BKiCe” Seth - 23K
Anna “VietCutie” Wroblewski - 23K
David “The Maven” Chicotsky - 22K
Jack “doctor_fun” Powell - 19K
Devin “tranquilchaos” Porter - 19K
Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar - 17.5K
Maria “Maridu” Mayrinck - 16K
Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson - 11K 
Thayer Rasmussen - 9K
Joe Sebok - 7.5K

The remaining 500 players will play two more levels before calling it a night.

WSOP 2009 Event #22: $1.5K NLHE Shootout

Four P5ers are playing for three seats to tomorrow’s $1.5K NLHE Shootout final table. Jason “JCarver” Somerville and Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki (pictured left) are still fighting for one of the seats at Table 67 while Mike “shipitthisway” McNeil is three-handed with the chip lead at Table 59 and Kyle “dumpingkgb” Brossia is heads up at Table 62.

The chips have been moving in a triangular wave at Table 67. First we saw Somerville and the third and final player at their table play a pot that helped increase Somerville’s stack to 175K. Somerville raised to 9K from the small blind and his opponent called in the big blind. The two players saw a flop of T64 and Somerville bet 13.5K. The other player called. The turn was the Q and Jason fired again, this time for 22K. His opponent, who had 41.5K left in his stack, drank almost half of his bottle of Pepsi before deciding to fold.

On the very next hand the same player moved all in for his 41.5K from the small blind and Klodnicki called:

Klodnicki:QJ
Opponent: AJ

The board ran out T7226 and Klodnicki doubled him up. Chris is still the chip leader at the table with 195K.

The chip counts are obviously changing by the minute but when we last visited Brossia he was moving closer to even with his adversary. Brossia raised to 7.8K on the button and the other player reraised to 18.5K. Brossia called and saw a flop of 952. Faced with a bet of 25K, Kyle moved all in. His opponent folded and Kyle’s stack increased to 173K compared to the 277 of the other player.

McNeil had exactly half the chips at his table when we checked on him last. The other two players were hovering around 110K each.

WSOP 2009 Event #25: $2.5K Omaha/Seven Card

Payouts have been announced for the $2.5K Omaha/Seven Card Hi/Lo event. Of the 376 participants the top 40 will make money with the winner receiving $220,538. The action has been slow thus far as 352 players are still alive so we’ll have key hands and eliminations for you once they actually happen.

• June 12, 2009 -- An Intervention for Fish?
• June 13, 2009 -- Seth Calls Clock On Himself
• June 12, 2009 -- Carving His Competition
• June 11, 2009 -- Somerville vs. Klodnicki