Scott “SCTrojans” Freeman recently picked up a pot worth 10K to pull himself near the top of the leaderboard with 40K chips in the $2.5K NLHE event. With the blinds at 150/300, Freeman (pictured right) raised to 825 in middle position and the small blind called. The flop ran out T54 and Freeman bet 1325. The small blind check-raised all in for 2900 more and Freeman called without any hesitation with JT. He had his opponent’s 66 in deep trouble and the turn 5 and river 7 earned Freeman the pot.

Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson and Matt “mattster24″ Sterling are also hovering near 40K as Level 5 ends. Marco picked up an enormous pot earlier in the day with quad threes and has been bullying his table around since — not an easy task considering Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi is seated two spots to his left (Mizzi has just 6K, however).

Danny “THE_D_RY” Ryan (left) was just eliminated after shoving his last 2.8K into the pot with KQ and running up against AQ. The flop revealed 822, but the K made it interesting, giving Ryan top pair and his opponent a flush draw. Unfortunately the 7 peeled off on the river and Ryan was sent packing.

Cody “thugmoneymkr” Slaughbaugh was also just hit hard, losing a 33K pot when his QQ ran into AA with all of the chips going in preflop. The board ran out 886T5 and Slaughbaugh was left with 5K.

A slew of online stars are still staying strong in the event. With 550 players remaining and the average stack at 12.5K, here’s a look at the chip counts of some notable P5ers:

Phil “USCPhildo” Collins - 14K
Matt “AllInAt420″ Stout - 14K
Andy “BKiCE” Seth - 13K
Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby - 12.5K
Bryan Micon - 12K
Court Harrington - 11K
Craig “MrCasino” Gray - 10K
Steve “gboro780″ Gross - 9K
Stu “thedonator” Patterson - 9K
Chad “lilholdem954″ Batista - 8K
Ryan “daut44″ Daut - 7K
Anna “VietCutie” Wroblewski - 7K

• June 16, 2008 -- Greenstein Wins Third Bracelet
• June 8, 2008 -- Bubble Bursts in $2.5K NLHE Event
• June 8, 2008 -- Babes in Pokerland
• June 30, 2008 -- No Double Dipping