Garrett “GBecks” Beckman doubled his stack in the last level before dinner break. And while he is still below the average stack of 1.4 million, the mere thought of Beckman with enough chips to maneuver should have his tablemates concerned. Just ask Adam “Roothlus” Levy, who is still at his table.

With blinds at 10K/20K/3K ante, Beckman raised to 50K on late position and a player reraised to 180K from the small blind. Beckman shipped his last 423K in and the player called:

Beckman: AK
Small Blind: AQ

The board KT2K3 board was kind to Beckman, who increased his stack to over a million.

Not quite as fortunate in Level 22 were Cort “the cortster” Kibler-Melby, Aditya “Intervention” Agarwal and Peter “number1pen” Neff. Kibler-Melby pushed the remainder of his chip stack in from the button and was called by the small blind, who held the AQ. Cort’s K9 was going to need some help. The flop came 333 and Cort was still behind. The Q came on the turn leaving Cort drawing to only a king but when the 8 fell on the river he was eliminated. One positive note about his elimination is it came right after a nearly $10K pay jump so Cort will take home $51,466 for his 99th place finish.

Agarwal was short-chipped at the ESPN table in the Milwaukee’s Best Arena that featured Mike Matusow and Owen “ocrowe” Crowe. Agarwal had moved all-in twice without getting covered, hovering around a ten big blind stack. Agarwal had been pacing back and forth, conversing with his friends Chris “cbdr3799″ Dombrowski and Jim “MrBigQueso” Collopy about shoving hand standards.

Agarwal got action on his third shove for 234k with blinds at 10k-20k-3k but was in woefull shape when his AJ was up against AQ. Agarwal stormed into the lead when the flop came J83 and held up the board bricked out for his opponent. A few orbits later, he re-reaised Crowe’s 53k open, going all-in for his last 450k. An opponent behind Agarwal called and Crowe folded. Once again, Agarwal was up against a better ace with his AT trailing his opponents AQ. It appeared Agarwal caught another miracle when the flop came TK8 but the J on the turn ultimately eliminated him as he wasn’t able to catch another queen for a chop. Agarwal’s 96th place finish was good for 51k.

Neff (pictured right) found himself in the middle of a button vs. blinds setup, as the button raised and Neff reraised enough to put the player all in. The button called with KK and Neff’s AT would need to come from behind. The K on the flop sealed the win for his opponent and Neff lost a pot worth 925K.

We’ve also found Jonathan Plens again! And who could miss him? Jonathan is seated next to Phil Helmuth with 1.6 million chips. Here’s a look at some other chip counts heading into the dinner break:

David Benefield - 2.5M
Jonathan “therookieqq9″ Plens - 1.6M
Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki - 1.2M
Owen “ocrowe” Crowe - 1.1M
Adam “Roothlus” Levy - 700K
Jeff “jpapola” Papola - 255K
Jeff “thechemist83″ Gaubert - 405K

• July 13, 2008 -- Reunited
• July 12, 2008 -- Kibler-Melby Doubles
• July 12, 2008 -- Tuf Break
• July 13, 2008 -- Papola Bows Out

Plenty of media encircled Jeremiah Smith’s table as he was racking up a ridiculous stack as we quickly approach the money bubble on Day 3; when we first caught up with the former Poker Wire writer, he had built a fortress of more than 800K chips (that we could count). Greg “FBT” Mueller sauntered over to the table, took one look at Jeremiah’s stack, licked his lips and laughed. However, near the middle of the last level, PocketFives witnessed another run of cards for Jeremiah; he picked up aces twice and kings once in three consecutive hands, winning huge pots every time. PocketFives guesses his chip count now hovers just below the million mark.

However, he’s not the only huge stack at the table; eight out of nine players seated at the felt were well above the average stack of 186K. Seated immediately to his right is Jon “PearlJammer” Turner (pictured at left), who built a smaller castle of chips and was double the average with 350K. He reported to PocketFives that he also won a big pot earlier this level in the following hand: A player on the button raised 7.5K preflop and Jon reraised him to 26K, which he called. The board came a rainbow A-K-8 and Jon led out for 29K. His opponent called, the dealer turned a ten, and Jon bet out 49K. After taking what Jon said was forever to tank, the player reluctantly folded and the chips were shipped his way.

Also at the table sat Ryan “Daut44″ Daut, who was involved in a huge hand when another player at his table raised, only to have Ryan re-raise. The other player made the call and they saw the flop come QT7. Both players got all their chips in the middle and Ryan’s AA had been out-flopped by his opponents TT. The K came on the turn, giving Ryan a few more outs, but the K on the river couldn’t improve his aces and he was sent to the rail just short of the money. Adam “Roothlus” Levy ran over to the table and was disappointed to see that Ryan had been eliminated. Levy is doing well and is currently sitting on a stack of 440k. Also recently moved to the table? David “davidp18″ Peters.

Aditya “intervention” Agarwal (pictured at right) didn’t take very long to get involved in a huge pot after the dinner break. With blinds at 1.5K/3K/400, a player opened for 9K and Agarwal re-raised to 30.2K. Kush Patel re-reraised all-in directly behind for an additional 85Kgoogle.com. Having Patel covered by 70K, Agarwal called after the action folded back to him but was in bad shape when Patel showed KK to his AK. Patel was looking good when the board read QTTQ but was sent to the rail when the A dropped on the river. Agarwal’s stack shot up to 310k after the hand.

Agarwal and Brian “Like7″ Lamanna were talking about Agarwal’s call afterward and mentioned that it would be a good spot to re-raise Agarwal all-in from Patel’s perspective since Agarwal re-raised someone who had been very active preflop and that his hand would look very strong. Agarwal also mentioned that he was getting extremely compelling odds to chase down queens as well as possibly being up against the same hand. Either way, Agarwal was extremely happy with the result.

Michael “DblupM0j” Johnson had been sitting near 100k in chips for a good portion of the day. He had finally chipped up to a close-to-average stack of 160k when the following hand took place. After preflop betting, all the chips of a shorter-stacked player went in the middle with Johnson attempting to knock him out. Unfortunately for Johnson, his KK was up against the other players AA. The flop made the other player’s hand even stronger when it came down AT5 leaving Johnson drawing to runner runner outs. One of those possible cards came in the form of the K on the turn, but the 8 on the river wasn’t the second card he needed and his stack dropped back to 110k. He seemed rather disappointed but is still alive as bubble play approaches.

Peter “number1pen” Neff (pictured at left) found himself the benefactor of a generously large pot when, with the blinds at 1.5K/3K ante 400 he raised to 8K on the button and the big blind called. When the flop came out 7-7-5, the big blind checked and Neff bet 11K. The big blind then quickly moved all-in for 130K total. Peter obliged the other player by making the call with A7 and the other player turned over 35. After the player was eliminated, Peter added the pot to his stack, which has now increased to 395K.

UPDATE: Play has now gone hand-for-hand in the Amazon Room as only 674 players remain. The money bubble will burst shortly, as 666 players cash. Stay tuned!

In our attempt to try and take over the world in total chip count domination, here are the recent unofficial counts from PocketFives writers’ tired eyes:

Owen “ocrowe” Crowe - 620K
Dag Martin “dmmikkel” Mikkelsen - 510K
Keith “damurdera3″ Ferrera - 500K
Andy “tufat23″ Teng - 480K
Adam “Roothlus” Levy - 440K
Matthew “Burton1080″ Jensen - 420K
Jamie “TheCronic420″ Rosen - 440K
Paul “comeonphish” Lieu - 430K
Peter “number1pen” Neff - 395K
Jon “Pearljammer” Turner - 350K
Jonathan “therookieqq9″ Plens - 320K
Aditya “intervention” Argawal - 310K
Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier - 254K
Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki - 250K
Cort “thecortster” Kibler-Melby - 230K
Tracey “XtrACEy” Nguyen - 230K
Devin “TranquilChaos” Porter - 242K
David “Raptor517″ Benefield - 200K
Frank “Round42″ Rusnak - 200K
Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy - 195K
Zelong “freeman” Dong - 194K
Derek “arodss3″ Buanono - 190K
David “DavidP18″ Peters - 190K
Clayton “clayton27″ Newman - 170K
Aaron “NDGrinder59″ Steury - 170K
Jason Gray - 170K
Jeff “YoungSupremacy” Hakim - 168K
Bruce “cornellxc11″ Hyde - 140K
Josh “squintngo” Goldstein - 110K
Michael “DblupM0j” Johnson - 110K
“Bodog” Ari Engel - 102K
Brian “Like7″ Lamanna - 90K
Jeff Papola - 90K
Leo “SuperfluousMan” Wolpert - 85K
Jan “Erdnase” Heitmann - 75K
Doug “resilient” Smith - 67K
Justin “truesyalose” Truesdell - 60K

• July 10, 2008 -- Strasser vs. Nguyen
• July 11, 2008 -- People Don’t You Know It’s About Time?
• June 3, 2008 -- Stacked 5k Mixed field, Sowers Bad Beats Dicken
• July 12, 2008 -- Double Trouble

Jason “strassa2″ Strasser probably just made the ESPN footage of the main event. With the blinds at 1.2k/2.4k with a 300 ante he raised to 7k from middle position and Men Nguyen pushed all in for 20.8k more. Jason contemplated for awhile before deciding to make the call and Nguyen proudly flipped over his AA while Jason tabled the KT. His chance to bust a well known pro loomed and the flop came 542. Jason would need running cards to best Nguyen’s aces but the turn brought the 8 sealing the deal. The Q fell on the river and the 60k pot was shipped over to Nguyen with the ESPN cameras catching all the action.

Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen (pictured right) won a gigantic pot over 200k earlier when he flatted the small blind’s raise with pocket eights in the big blind after it was folded around to the small blind. Thayer promptly flopped a boat when it came 8-4-4, trumping his opponents pocket kings. Rasmussen later got moved to a table playing alongside Brent “astrolux85″ and and Hunter THE_HUNT_D” Frey.  Several other stacked tables are forming that bear mentioning.  Earlier we reported on the table that contained Leo “Superfluous Man” Wolpert, Owen “ocrowe” Crowe and “Bodog” Ari Engel, but that isn’t the only table where you’ll find PocketFivers duking it out. Just a few tables over, Brian “Like7″ Lamanna, Aditya “intervention” Agarwal and Kush Patel are all seated together as well. Another table to watch out for boasts Tim ‘tmay420″ West, Garrett “GBecks” Beckman, Darren “DABADESTCHIC” Nelson, and Cort “thecortster” Kibler-Melby.

After being merely a spectator for the first few levels, Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy’s chip stack started fluctuating in big margins. Keith “damurdera3″ Ferrera raised to 5400 under-the-gun and a player in middle position shoved all-in for 20k. Josephy re-raised to 38k and Ferrera moved all-in for a total of 202k. Josephy made the call tabling pocket kings but was trailing Ferrera’s pocket aces. The hand boosted Ferrera’s stack to 409k and Josephy was left with around 60k.

Luckily for Josephy, a table change helped move his stack north. In his first orbit at his new table, Josephy raised under-the-gun only to have a player in the blind put him all-in for his last 57k. Josephy made the call and tabled pocket kings again but this time was ahead of his opponents pocket jacks. The board ran true for Josephy, although his friend Kevin “BeLOWaBOVe” Saul, watching from about 40 feet away from the rail, had thought Josephy lost given his demeanor.

“Tell him to smile next time he doubles through,” Saul said to Pocketfives. A few minutes later Saul came over to congratulate Josephy on his double up and gave him a hard time about looking glum. Given Josephy’s last level, who can blame him?

“I had a lot more,” Josephy told Saul in response to his ribbing.

There are currently only 801 of the 1307 players that started the day which means we are only 135 spots away from the money. Play has been fast and furious all day but will likely slow down as the bubble approaches.

Here are some of our most recent unofficial chip counts:
Matthew “Burton1080″ Jensen - 465K
Andy “tufat23″ Teng - 350K
Owen “ocrowe” Crowe - 330K
Jeff “YoungSupremacy” Hakim - 320K
Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier - 305K
Cort “thecortster” Kibler-Melby - 270K
Aaron “NDGrinder59″ Steury - 265K
Devin “TranquilChaos” Porter - 225K
Hunter “THE_HUNT_D” Frey - 220K
Aditya “intervention” Argawal - 220K
Frank “Round42″ Rusnak - 200K
David “Raptor157″ Benefield - 195K
Peter “number1pen” Neff - 165K
Jonathan “therookieqq9″ Plens - 160K
Garrett “GBecks” Beckman - 155K
Ryan “Daut44″ Daut - 145K
David “Bakes” Baker - 140K
Josh “squintngo” Goldstein - 135K
Brent “Astrolux85″ Roberts - 135K
Jason Gray - 120K
Kush Patel - 115K
Tim “tmay420″ West - 110K
Bruce “Cornellxc11″ Hyde - 105K
Chris “cmoney3″ Kline - 95K
Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki - 94K
Matt “mattg1983″ Graham - 90K
Clayton “clayton27″ Newman - 89K
Darren “DABADESTCHIC” Nelson - 86K
Justin “truesyalose” Truesdell - 75K
Jon “Pearljammer” Turner - 70K
Cody “shankingyou” Shedd - 43K

• July 10, 2008 -- Levy’s Ruthless Pursuit of Chips
• July 11, 2008 -- Olly Olly Oxen Free!
• July 10, 2008 -- Crowe’s Chips Riding a Roller Coaster
• July 11, 2008 -- Crowe Pecking Away

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

Aditya “intervention” Agarwal (pictured at left) came into the Main Event Day 2b with a below average stack of 25k. After the first few levels, Agarwal went on a rush, increasing his stack to over 100k. Agarwal won a big hand off of Mohsin “chicagocards1″ Charania earlier in the day to get the bulk of his chips. Agarwal raised to 1,300 preflop, Charania made it 3,300 and Agarwal called.

The flop came 6T7 and Agarwal check-called Charania’s bet of 4,500. The turn was the 9 and Agarwal bet 14k. Charania raised him all-in for his last 20k and Agarwal called, tabling the 54 for a flush. The river held for Agarwal’, which bested Charania’s pocket jacks that didn’t have a heart draw on the turn. Mohsin currently sits with 20k.

Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy has more than doubled his stack to over 200K this afternoon in the Brasilia Room. Josephy hit that mark when he called a player’s all-in bet with QQ and had his opponent’s QT dominated. The flop brought no help to the other player and Q on the turn left his opponent drawing dead. Josephy has been one of the more active players today and doesn’t appear to be slowing down any time soon.

Michael “BraveJayhawk” Jensen was recently eliminated when he reraised all-in for his remaining 17.5K after a player ahead of him raised and another made the call. The player who flat called held AQ and Michael turned over QQ. After the flop came J65, Jensen looked to be in good shape, but the A on the turn left him drawing to one out. When the K came on the river, he was eliminated.

Jason “JCarver” Somerville (pictured at right) hit the exit after he got crossed up in an interesting battle of wills with his opponent. Somerville raised to 1,800 preflop and his opponent called out of the blind. Somerville’s opponent bet 2k into him on a 9-9-5 flop and Somerville called. The turn was a ten and Somerville raised his opponent’s 7k bet to 18.5k and got called. The river was a king and Somerville put his opponent all-in for 35k after he checked to him. Somerville’s opponent called and revealed a straight with Q-J, rivering Somerville’s K-J high, which was best until the river. To make matters more comical, Somerville’s opponent added, ‘I played it perfect, I trapped you,’ Somerville later told PocketFives. Somerville was left with 5k and busted shortly after the hand.

Here’s a look at some chip counts as players went into a 40-minute break after Level 7:

Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy - 200K
Garrett “GBecks” Beckman - 185.5K
David “Bakes” Baker - 165K
Dylan “ImaLucSac” Linde - 122K
Aaron “gotcha55″ Kanter - 113K
Darren “DABADESTCHIC” Nelson - 94K
“BodogAri” Engel - 80K
Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier - 80K
Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen - 75K
Mike “RunScreamin” Herder - 64k
Jeff “jpapola” Papola - 60K
Jason “strassa2″ Stasser - 60K
Senovio “DorsalFin” Ramirez - 60K
Jonathan “driverseati” Tamayo - 60K
Matt “mattg1983″ Graham - 58K
Devin “TranquilChaos” Porter - 53K
Simon Marlow - 52K
Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi - 38K
Ladbrokes team pro Azad Pirooti - 36K
James “POKERPRO33″ Campbell - 30K
Ryan “Daut44″ Daut - 28K
Bryan Micon - 28K
Greg “DuckU” Hobson - 26K
Bryan “bparis” Paris - 24K
Tracey “xtrACEy” Nguyen - 24K
Tony “Bond18″ Dunst - 22K
Justin “truesyalose” Truesdell - 15K
Adam “Roothlus” Levy - 13K
Hung “HQrespect” Nguyen - 9K
Jason “MKind16″ Laso - 6K

• July 10, 2008 -- Beckman Moves Up Leaderboard
• July 6, 2008 -- BadBeatNinja Disappears Into the Night
• July 10, 2008 -- King is Dead
• July 9, 2008 -- Dreams Dashed or Doubled Up?