Adam “Roothlus” Levy’s (pictured left) resurrection from a short stack last night to 230k at the start of Day 3 of the Main Event has continued escalate. Levy scooped a 280k in the last level in a cutoff vs blind battle when Levy raised in late position and got reraised by his opponent out of the blind. Levy put in another raise, resulting in the massive all-in pot with his AK trailing his opponents pocket jacks. Levy clipped a pair and currently sits with 400k.

Matthew “Burton1080″ Jensen has also been on an enormous tear today, starting with the second hand of the day.  A player opened for 4K and Jensen raised to 14K out of the big blind with A-K with the king of clubs.  The flop came out {ac]72 and Matt led for 20K.  The other player raised to 55K and Jensen moved all-in.  The other player then folded and Matt picked up a nice sized pot. 

Leo “SuperfluousMan” Wolpert has been treading water all day but has managed to keep his 160k starting stack intact. Increasing that stack will be much more difficult after Wolpert drew an extremely tough table with Owen “ocrowe” Crowe (300k) and “Bodog” Ari Engel (130k).

Aaron “NDGrinder59″ Steury continues to ride the roller coaster he boarded last night as his stack continues to fluctuate in six-figure swings. Steury started the Day 3 with 121k after getting up to 250k late in Day 2. Steury ran his starting stack up to 250k again but got back down to 185k after losing a big pot post-flop with pocket jacks.

Senovio “DorsalFin” Ramirez continues to build a big stack and recently just busted a player in an all-in preflop confrontation. Ramirez re-raised a 10k open to 25k out of the blind with blinds at 1k-2k-300. Ramirez’s opponent went all-in for an additional 40k and Ramirez called with his AK way ahead of his opponents A-10. The board ran true for Ramirez, who has 225k.

Mohsin “chicagocards1″ Charania was fighting the deck most of the day and eventually hit the exit when his kings ran into pocket aces on a ten high flop. Charania started the day with 65k and was able to get up to 125k before his bustout.  Others eliminated recently include Bobby “gettindeep” Hodson, Mike “RunScreamin” Herder, Kevin “kice32″ Iacofano, Mark “sideshowgil” Gilbert, and Darren Elias.

• July 10, 2008 -- Strasser vs. Nguyen
• July 11, 2008 -- Crowe Pecking Away
• July 10, 2008 -- Crowe’s Chips Riding a Roller Coaster
• July 11, 2008 -- Double Double (or Toil and Trouble)

After battling through sickness to get through Day 1 of the Main Event, Garrett “GBecks” Beckman (pictured left) is feeling way better on Day 2b
Beckman’s change of mood isn’t necessarily because the remnants of what he suspected was food poisoning is gone, although that definitely helps, but that his stack has gone from 54k to start the day to over 220k by the dinner break.

Beckman won a 160k pot earlier in the day when he opened for 2k and got re-raised to 7k. Beckman re-raised to 27k and his opponent called. First to act, Beckman checked a 10-10-7 flop and his opponent checked. Beckman checked when another 7 peeled on the turn and his opponent went all-in for 60k. Beckman called with queens and his opponents’ AK didn’t improve.
“It was pretty hard to check twice,” Beckman said.

Mohsin “chicagocards1″ Charania was pleased to make the dinner break after going through what he described as maybe the worst level of his life. Charania started with 108k and went down to 12k only to rebound to 63k by the break. Playing alongside Charania was Aditya “intervention” Agarwal, who hit the break with 150k. Despite having a healthy stack, Agarwal is still remembering the 85k pot he lost when his pocket sevens connected to the 8-7-2 board and his opponents pocket nines turned a set to trump Agarwal’s set of sevens in a hand where his opponent was all-in on the flop.

Aaron “NDGrinder59″ Steury has been steadily building his stack all day long, but he made a huge jump up the chip counts before the break when he got it all-in in a blind versus blind confrontation holding pocket queens to his opponent’s A-K. Steury managed to win the classic race situation when the board came ten high and Aaron increased his chip stack to 250K.

Tony “Bond18″ Dunst remained on life-support before the dinner break, which he planned to spend at the Rio’s Indian restaurant. PocketFives caught up with Tony in the big blind, checking on a flop of AK9. When the small blind raised to 5.5K, Tony folded and called the table a “total fiasco” - he was barely treading water as Jean-Robert Bellande a few seats to his left kept chipping up. He couldn’t manage to catch any action on his small blind either; he completed and folded to a late raise. However, on the button, he shoved all in for his remaining 8.5K and the table folded to him. Bellande joked, “You’re the survivor here, kid. You’re the survivor.” He chipped up to a whopping 10.5K before dinner break.

Senovio “Dorsal Fin” Ramirez doubled up to 58K when he and another player got all of their chips in on a king-high flop — Ramirez with pocket aces and his opponent with ace-king. Here’s a look at some other chip counts as players went into the dinner break:

Tom “titantom32″ Braband - 224K
Brandon Schaefer - 140K
Jon “pokertrip” Friedberg - 110k
David “davidp18″ Peters - 109k
“BodogAri” Engel - 70K
Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin - 50k
Tracey “xtrACEy” Nguyen - 46K
Ryan “Daut44″ Daut - 41k
Adam “Roothlus” Levy - 30k
Devin “TranquilChaos” Porter - 37K

• July 10, 2008 -- Levy’s Ruthless Pursuit of Chips
• July 9, 2008 -- Divine Intervention
• July 12, 2008 -- Double Trouble
• July 6, 2008 -- BadBeatNinja Disappears Into the Night

Several notable online players returned for Day 2 of the $1.5K NLHE event only to make an early exit shortly after play began.  One such player was Phil “USCPhildo” Collins (pictured at right) who found himself in a race situation pre-flop with pocket jacks versus another player’s A-Q.  The A-Q ended up victorious and Phil busted in 131st place.  Here is a list of notable players who were recently eliminated:

Aaron “NDGrinder59″ Steury - 163rd for $3,340
Kevin “ImaLuckSac” Macphee - 140th for $3,340
Phil “USCPhildo” COllins - 131st for $3,340
Daniel “voff” Deveau - 130th for $3,340
Dag Martin “dmikkel” Mikkelson - 128th for $3,340
Justin “jurollo” Rollo - 117th for $4,008
Gary “GB2005″ Bogdanski - 114th for $4,008
Jordan “scarface79″ Smith - 112th for $4,008

While those players are now free to roam the halls, as we saw Annette “Annette_15″ Obrestad doing earlier today, several other players remain in contention for the bracelet and are continuing to build their already large chip stacks.  Owen “ocrowe” Crowe is still the chip leader with 170K, but Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodniki (100K) and Cody “thugmoneymkr” Slaughbaugh (95K) are towards the top of the leaderboard as well.

Over in the Amazon Room, Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul (pictured at left) was among the casualties in Level 3 of today’s $2,000 Pot-Limit Hold’em event.  First, Saul lost the majority of his stack to Dario Minieri.  With the blinds at 75/150, Minieri raised to 700 in a limped pot from middle position and Saul re-raised to 2200 on the button. Action folded around to Minieri, who asked Saul, “You always think I have nothing?,” before moving in for his last 4000.  Saul made the call with JJ, which was way behind the QQ of Dario. The board ran out AK66A and Minieri added “This is the same hand I won my bracelet with” as he raked in a pot worth over 9K.
 
Saul was left with close to 800 chips following the hand and got the rest of it in two hands later. He raised to 450 preflop and got calls from Eli Elezra and another player.  Saul pushed in his last 350 on a flop of 983 and both players called.  By the river, he was holding his cards directly above the muck, waiting for Elezra to turn over his straight, and Saul was eliminated.
 
Others exiting Event #38 during the past level were Jon “FieryJustice” Little, Chris “moorman1″ Moorman and Justin Bonomo.

• June 21, 2008 -- Back from the Break
• June 20, 2008 -- Gary vs. Gray
• June 19, 2008 -- Bowker Goes Busto
• July 10, 2008 -- Levy’s Ruthless Pursuit of Chips

In the $1.5k PLO w/Rebuys tourney only six players have been eliminated in the first hour of play. Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby, Dan “Stainley88″ Adams, and Kyle “kwob20″ Bowker are amongst the early casualties who weren’t able to cash in this event.

Bowker’s elimination came when he got it all preflop with a great drawing hand, the AKQT against his opponents 9877. The flop of 872 gave Bowker a flush draw and his opponent two pair. Unfortunately for Bowker, the 8 came on the turn giving his opponent a full house and left Bowker drawing dead.

Jeff “yellowsub” Williams raised preflop only to have a short stack push all in. Jeff made the call with the AKQ9 which was behind to the all-in’s KK54. The board ran out KJ6Q7 and William’s stack dropped to around 60k.

In the $1.5K No Limit Hold Em event, several P5ers are already running up their stacks.  With the average chip count currently at 4,476, these guys are starting to themselves apart from the large field:

Gary “GB2005″ Bogdanski (pictured at left) - 13K
Noah “fouruhaters” Schwartz - 11.5K
Aaron “NDGrinder59″ Steury - 11K
Jon “pokertrip” Friedberg - 10K
Richard “Lee Nickel” Fohrenbach - 9K
Craig “MrCasino” Gray - 9K
Brent “bhanks11″ Hanks - 8K

• June 24, 2008 -- “You Know You Have a Good Table When…”
• June 20, 2008 -- Rough Day at the Office
• June 20, 2008 -- Tusk Love for the Wahlroos
• June 19, 2008 -- Chip and a Chair

No one likes a cold deck and John “jdawg0913″ O’Brien certainly didn’t like one as the $1.5k LHE event was nearing the final table. We reported earlier a couple of big hands that hurt his stack and when O’Brien returned from the break the coolers continued. In one hand O’Brien’s pocket tens ran into another players pocket queens knocking his chip stack down pretty low. He then got all his chips in on the turn of a board showing 9444 while holding the AK only to find he was drawing dead to his opponents AA. He gracefully shook the hands of his tablemates and left saying that he was very happy with how well he did and he’ll be back tomorrow to play in the $1.5k Shootout which he cashed in last year.

The $5k Shootout final table is now down to 4 players all thanks to Leo “Superfluous Man” Wolpert. Thomas Roupe bet his last 31k and Wolpert raised over the top to isolate. Leo was way ahead holding the AK to Roupe’s T7. The board ran out 94259 and Roupe was eliminated in 6th place. Only 5 hands later, Tim “tmay420″ West put all his chips in preflop with the 99 only to find he was dominated by Wolpert’s KK. The board of 742JT was no help to West and he was eliminated in 5th place. West will take home $63,450 for his efforts today. Wolpert is now up to 2.4 million in chips and is the current chip leader.

Across the room, the $2k O8 event #16 began a little while ago and while the action has been rather slow (as is in the beginning of most limit tournaments) we’re keeping our eyes on some P5ers in the field including Chris “SKOAL” Falconer, Jeff “gnsd22″ Higgins, Senovio “Dorsal Fin” Ramirez, and Aaron “NDGrinder59″ Steury.

• June 8, 2008 -- Babes in Pokerland
• June 7, 2008 -- Porter Hopes for Tranquil Final Table
• July 10, 2008 -- Levy’s Ruthless Pursuit of Chips
• June 20, 2008 -- “Crzysavage” Beat