Or the Johnsons.  Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson (left) and Bryan “badbeatninja” Devonshire are seated at adjacent tables and are passing the chip lead back and forth as the two keep one upping each other as they climb up the chip counts.  Most recently Devo was able to eliminate a player when he flopped a set of aces against a player who flopped a set of nines.  On the AQ9 flop it was checked to Bryan who put in a bet of around 1,250.  He was raised to 3,500 and after taking a look at the other players stacks Devo tossed out a raise, leaving the other player with 5,750 more to call.  He did call and with the 7 turn Devo announced all in, having the other player covered.  The other player thought for a while before calling off his 20k+ chips only to see Bryan quickly expose his AA for top set.  The all in player showed his pocket nines for a smaller set and needed the case 9 on the river to outrun Devo.  The K was not the 1 outer he needed and Devo was able to rake in a large pot, eliminate a player, and build his stack to a tournament best 92k.

Marco’s stack is also plenty healthy in the 85k range.  Johnson and Devonshire are joined by Adam Geyer as the first few players to get over 85k and at the rate they are going it won’t be long before one of them reaches the 100k mark.

Steve “MrTimCaum” O’Dwyer was able to win a big pot when he got paid off with quads.  Jean Prince Gaspard gave a chunk of chips to O’Dwyer and was eliminated soon after when his pocket deuces ran into pocket sevens all in preflop.  O’Dwyer has 46k after the quads hand.

Al “alsmooth” Zeidenfeld was up to 55k after making the nuts and getting paid off, but he has since dropped back to around 44k.

Among those not doing so well Joe Sebok and Eric “Basebaldy” Baldwin have been eliminated from the tournement.  Sebok was all in with top pair against a jack high flush draw.  The flush go there and Seebs was left to do a few interviews on the sidelines before making his exit from the tournament area.  Adam “A_Junglen” Junglen and Mohsin “ChicagoCards1″ Charania have both been down, but are far from out.  Charania has recovered to 35k while Junglen has more than doubled and now has nearly 20k.

With the smaller numbers the decision has just been made to play only 5 levels today.  Tournament directors acted upon the input of players and made the call that the smaller starting field would allow them to easily finish the tournament on time while shortening the day today.

Chip Counts

Bryan “badbeatninja” Devonshire - 92k
Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson - 88k
David “Bakes” Baker - 60k
Adam “Roothlus” Levy - 56k
Carter “ckingusc” King - 52k
Randal “RandALLin” Flowers - 46k (right)
Steve “MrTimCaum” O’Dwyer - 46k
James “mig.com” Mackey - 42k
Jonathan “FieryJustice” Little - 38k
Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar - 38k
David “DocSands” Sands - 35k
Mohsin “ChicagoCards1″ Charania - 33k
Brian “sn8wman” Hawkins - 29k
Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul - 28k
Matt “mcmatto” Affleck - 27k
Barry “Barryg1″ Greenstein - 26k
Shannon Shorr - 25k
Jason “JAKOON1985″ Koon - 20k
Adam “A_Junglen” Junglen - 18k
Matt “All In At 420″ Stout - 18k

• August 24, 2009 -- Take 15
• August 23, 2009 -- Into the Night
• August 22, 2009 -- Counting on the Stache
• August 23, 2009 -- End of Day 1 Counts