The early double up was what Ben “bfineman” Fineman needed. Instead he got the early exit. He was all in with pocket sixes against Zachary “CrazyZachary” Clark’s pocket jacks. The jacks stood tall on the T-9-4-5-K board to eliminate Fineman and push Clark over the 500k chip mark.

Fineman’s 27th place finish made him the first out today, but he will earn the same payout as everyone finishing between 19th and 27th - $21,125.

In the first 30 minutes of play 2 other players were eliminated along with Fineman. Adam Weinraub was eliminated in 26th by Matt Keikoan and Amit “Amak316″ Makhija busted Ron Jenkins in 25th place.

After busting Jenkins, Makhija (right) now has the chip lead in the tournament and over 1.5 million chips. Jenkins started the day 7th in chips with 740k but got caught up in a hand with Makhija that spelled his demise. Jenkins flopped a guthsot and led out only to be raised by Amit who had flopped top pair with AJ. The turn paired the board but also gave Jenkins a flush draw. Ron pushed only to be snap called by Amit and Jenkins bricked out on the river to shift a large pile of chips to Amit.

The players all agreed to forgo the break and roll right into the 8k / 16k level. In the first few minutes of play both Allen Cunningham and Mario Ho were eliminated.

• August 27, 2008 -- Amit Doubles, Graham Crumbles
• August 28, 2008 -- Final Table Chip Counts
• August 28, 2008 -- Dodging Bullets
• August 28, 2008 -- Closing In

Is there a poker tournament going on at the Bicycle Casino tonight? Or is it just a group of people gathered to watch the Olympics? As the USA men’s volleyball team played their way to a gold medal much of the attention span in a room full of ADD players was tuned towards the TV and away from the table. Now that the game is over the focus is back on poker, for some of the room at least.

Phil Laak and Allen Cunningham were just involved in a juggling prop bet. Laak had to juggle three apples for 60 seconds to win a few hundred dollars bet. Carried out right by the tournament poker table Laak completed his task, drew the attention of the room, pocketed his couple of Benjamins and is back to playing poker, at least for the next few hands.

Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo (left) and Scott “BigRiskky” Clements have been freed up to divert their attention anywhere they would like after their eliminations from the tournament. Barry Greenstein and Allen Cunningham both still have around 70k and are near the top of the chip counts, trailing Maria Ho with 95k and Ali Eslami with 135k and a handful of other players in the 100k range.

Much of the field is still scrapping around the 30-40k range. Peter “#1Pen” Neff raised to 1,100 after a player limped in for 200. The limper called and on the QJ5 flop checked to Neff who bet 1,600. He was check raised to 4k and Peter thought for a brief moment before grabbing his entire stack and sitting it out in the middle. After the 4k was pulled in Neff’s bet was about 20k more to his opponent who folded after some consideration. After the hand Neff had around 32k.

Josh “pbdrunks” VanDuyn is also still around the starting stack. He recently had to fold a set on a board of T6258 to a river bet. After ditching the set Josh still has just under the 30k starting stack.

• August 26, 2008 -- Final 50, No Bear
• June 27, 2008 -- Stud Players Wanting Tang
• June 26, 2008 -- Treacherous Tables in Rebuy
• June 17, 2008 -- Parker Taking it to the Limit

The starting stack at the Legends of Poker World Poker Tour event was 30,000 chips. The first level of blinds was 50 / 100 and goes up to 75 / 150 for the seconds level. 20,000 chips is still a pretty healthy amount, but Phil Ivey seemed to lose interest and reportedly opened with an all in bet for 20,000, later telling the table he had not looked at his cards. Brian Rast called with pocket kings and Ivey had the stellar holding of 3-2 offsuit, giving credence to the claim he had not looked at his cards.

The kings held up and Ivey was the first elimination of the day. The chips continue to pile up on the table Ivey started on though. Not too long after Ivey found a way to get out the door Scott “SCTrojans” Freeman was headed in the same direction. Allen Cunningham knocked Freeman out of the tournament and now has over 60k going into the second level.

• August 24, 2008 -- Legends of Poker Day 1B
• August 24, 2008 -- Volleyball Gold
• August 27, 2008 -- Short Day for Fineman, Amit Takes Lead
• August 25, 2008 -- Full House

With the blinds at 400/800, Chris “Genius28″ Lee and the player in the cutoff raised back and forth pre-flop until Chris put the other player all in. Chris showed AQ while the other player had KK. The flop came 36K giving the other player top set, and the K on the turn sealed the deal giving him quads. Although it hurt Chris’s stack he still has about 35k as we move into the dinner break.

The randomness of table draws brought some interesting collections of players. One table could seemingly be labeled the “live pro’s table” populated with players including Allen Cunningham, Joe Sebok, Andy Black, Tony Cousineau, Patrick Antonius, and Kathy Leibert.  Some tables had higher concentrations of known online players as well with one table including Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi, Brock “t_soprano” Parker, Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson, Ben “Milkybarkid” Grundy and Jeff Madsen.

Other tables, such as the table with Kevin “BeLOWaB0Ve” Saul, had a mixture of well-known live and online tournaments players including Shaun Deeb, Isaac “luvtheWNBA” Haxton, John Phan, Michael Mizrachi, Minh Ly, and Dan Shak.

Among the chip leaders heading into the dinner break were Shawn Keller and Marco Johnson (pictured), who have around 150k in chips with about 170 of the initial 352 remaining.

Other notable players had the following chips stacks: Alex “AJKHoosier1″ Kamberis 18k, Isaac Haxton 30k, Shaun Deeb 20k, Chris “Genius28″ Lee 35k.

• May 31, 2008 -- Elezra, Sowers chip leaders; Mizzi eliminated
• May 30, 2008 -- Big Event Early
• June 3, 2008 -- Mizzi Accumulates Big Stack at Manic Table
• May 30, 2008 -- PrtyPSux Doubles, Shaundeeb and Amak316 Collide