Josh “SDouble” Schlein’s downward slide continued after our last post and with the betting limits moving up to 60K/120K he was left with less than two big bets. He eventually got his remaining 110K in the middle with 5-5-6-7 against Derek Raymond’s Q-10-4-3. The A-Q-6 flop didn’t offer much help for Schlein and the J on the turn and 8 on the river spelt the end for Josh and he was eliminated in 5th place, good enough for $48,028.

WSOP 2009 Event #45: $10K PLHE

With the eliminations of Eugene Todd and Jason Lester in 7th and 6th places respectively, five-handed play got off to a fast start with several key hands involving JC “PrtyPSux” Alvarado (pictured right). First, JC and John Kabbaj got it all-in preflop for Kabbaj’s tournament life with Alvarado holding 66 to Kabbaj’s AT. The A82 flop gave Kabbaj the advantage and when the turn and river ran out Q then 5 JC was left with only 200K while Kabbaj doubled up to nearly 1.5 million.

The very next hand it folded around to Alvarado in the small blind and he moved all-in for 120K over the top of the 80K big blind. Davidi “legrouzin” Kitai called with 64 which was trailing Alvarado’s KQ. The {js]J829 board improved neither players hand and Alvarado doubled up to half a million.

Just a few hands after that Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin tried to knock Alvarado out of the tournament when they got it all-in preflop. Alvarado’s pocket tens were able to withstand Eric’s A-K and bring him to his high point of the day, 1.5 million, while Baldwin drops down to an even million in chips.

WSOP 2009 Event #48: $1.5K PLO H/L

Tables are breaking rapidly in the Blue section of the Amazon Room as we’re already down to 180 players in the $1.5K PLO H/L event. Kevin “bottsky” Bott was eliminated after the dinner break but a short-stacked Chris “SKOAL” Falconer (pictured left) was able to double up his super short stack to stay alive as the night progresses. Chris was down to just 1.7K with 800 of that in the big blind. The player on the button raised the pot and Falconer called without looking at his hand. He had a pretty impressive holding for a blind hand, A356, while his opponent held AAK6. The board ran out 94338 giving Chris trip three and the best low to scoop the pot and double up to 3.8K.

Matt “SamENole” Smith has been moved twice in the past hour most recently joined Brandon Cantu’s table. Cantu is the tournament chip leader with 65K while Smith is up to 30.3K after doubling up through one of his new tablemates.

Here’s a look at the chip counts in Level 8 with the average stack at 20.5K:

Aaron “gotcha55″ Kanter - 38K
Stewart “StuMan23″ Yancik - 32.5K
Craig “MrCasino” Gray - 32K
Trevor “DenYoungGun” Reader - 21.3K
Jesse “JMaster30″ Cohen - 11.5K

• June 25, 2009 -- Fish Fried
• June 26, 2009 -- Ace-Queen Sux For Alvarado
• June 25, 2009 -- Kitai KOs Kopp
• June 26, 2009 -- Baldwin Takes 3rd in $10K PLHE