Dag Martin “dmmikkel” Mikelssen began Day 4 with nearly 1 million chips, ranking him fourth among the 474 going into the day. Those chips are now scattered across the Amazon Room, as Mikelsson was eliminated on the final hand of Level 17. He got his last 280K in preflop with KK and found himself against the pocket aces of another player. The board of 843T6 left Mikkelsen with a payday of $35,383 and, like last year, a question of what could have been after losing a big stack in the later stages of the Main Event.

Paul “ComeOnPhish” Lieu has also been on a downward spiral in the past level. First, Lieu reraised an opponent on a board of K97A and his opponent called off the last of his chips with AK. Lieu’s K8 was drawing dead and a sizable portion of his stack had been diminished. Then we caught up with Paul checking a board of KTQJ4. His opponent bet 50K, sending Lieu into the tank. He eventually called and flew out of his seat when his opponent flipped over A6 for a straight. Lieu is down to 225K.

Two-hundred seventy nine players remain and the average stack in 490K. Here’s a look at some notable chip counts as Level 17 came to a close:

David “Raptor517″ Benefield (right)- 1.2 Million
Keith “damurdera3″ Ferrera - 1.1 Million
Peter “number1pen” Neff - 970K
Owen “ocrowe” Crowe - 860K
Adam “Roothlus” Levy - 780K
Garrett “GBecks” Beckman - 700K
Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis - 660K
Andrew “tufat23″ Teng - 700K
Joe “LatestLines2″ Ward - 490K
Cort “the cortster” Kibler-Melby - 450K
Edward “zaner1″ Zane - 230K
David “Bakes” Baker - 180K
Tracey “xtrACEy” Nguyen - 100K

• July 11, 2008 -- People Don’t You Know It’s About Time?
• July 8, 2008 -- Short Day for Ferguson
• July 5, 2008 -- Viva Las Main Event
• July 4, 2008 -- Zpaceman Lifts Off