Isaac “mr menlo” Baron (right) was down to 11k chips early in the day, but at last check he was at a much healthier 40k. While Baron was able to recover from his short stack status, David “Bakes” Baker went the other way down the road and has been eliminated from the tournament.

Scott “r_a_y” Montgomery is in the middle of living every poker players dream. He is a member of the “November Nine” and is at the final table of the 2008 World Series of Poker Main Event. While the WSOP ME is on hiatus Montgomery is keeping the hot streak going here at the Bike. He has 70k in chips late in the 4th level of play and what better practice for the biggest final table ever than making another WPT televised final table in the interim. He has a few days to go before thinking about that, but he is positioning himself well in the early going.

At the Bike when you are at a table and get hungry all you have to do is ask for service and choose from a multi-page menu of international choices. There is no official dinner break here, but as play works later into the day more and more food trays are littering the walkways as the orders keep flowing in. The drink orders are also flowing, with Coronas and glasses of wine being ordered all around.

Chip leader Alvin “alsmooth” Zeidenfeld is pushing the century mark in chips after calling down Vinny Vinh on every street with pocket eights. He had an overpair on the flop but with a nine and ten hitting the board on the turn and river he kept calling, including the 7k river bet. Zeidenfelds instincts were spot on, and Vinny had to take a walk to cool off after mucking his hand and watching Alvin rake in the pot.

• August 25, 2008 -- First Level Action
• August 24, 2008 -- Legends Of Poker Day 1A Complete
• August 24, 2008 -- Winding Down
• August 23, 2008 -- Another Level Down

After a little over an hour into play today at the WSOP Main Event it had been apparent that many of the players have the “go big or go home” mentality as we have heard the “all-in and a call!” shout coming from dealers numerous times all over the room. We’re already down to 408 of the 474 players that started the day.

Tracey “XtrACEy” Nguyen (pictured left) was caught in one of these confrontations, but she wasn’t the one at risk. She and a shorter stacked player got all the chips in preflop with Tracey’s 99 ahead of her opponents A3. The flop came T72 keeping Tracey in the lead but the A on the turn reversed things and the Q on the river changed nothing so Tracey doubled the other player up and dropped to around 380k in chips.

A player at risk during his all in was Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis who got all his chips in before the flop holding the QQ against another players TT. The board ran out K324J and Steve managed to double his stack up to around 350k.

Jamie “TheCronic420″ Rosen started the day with 576k in chips and seemed to be using his big stack to try and take out some of his weaker opponents. On a flop of T98 Rosen checked to his opponent who bet 40k. Jamie then raised to 100k and his shorter stacked opponent raised all in and Jamie made the call. The all-in player was ahead with the JT for top pair with an open-ended straight draw in the lead against Jamie’s 86 for a flush draw with a lesser-gutshot straight draw. The turn brought the A and the river was the 7 giving both players a straight but the all-in player held the better one and scooped up the pot knocking Jamie down to around 280k.

It didn’t take Jon “PearlJammer” Turner long to increase his 726k stack considerably in the first thirty minutes of play. The chips didn’t come easy however as Turner had to call an 85k river bet with his set of eights on a board with three hearts and a jack to a straight against his opponent Dustin Holmes. Turner’s hand was good, shipping him a pot near 300k. Turner won a few hands after that as well and is now near the one million mark.

Tim “TMay420″ West picked a good spot to get his last few chips in but was unable to outrace Brent “Astrolux85″ Roberts. Brent raised to 15K in early position and West moved in for 51K. Roberts made the call with AQ, which was behind Tim’s JJ. The 643 flop added a slew of outs for Roberts, and the 4 left West needing help. The K fell on the river and West was eliminated, earning $27,020 for his performance. Roberts chipped up to 360K.

Devin “TranquilChaos” Porter, on the other hand, was able to dodge a bunch of outs to double his stack. David “Bakes” Baker raised to 14K in middle position and Porter moved all in for 46K. Baker made the call, showing JT and Porter flipped over A6. Porter got out of his seat when he saw the flop of KQ7, saying “Well, see you later!” but his hand was able to hold when the 8 and 7 filled the board. Porter is up to over 100K.

Owen “ocrowe” Crowe continued his onslaught by eliminating a player and climbing over the 1 million chip mark. Crowe got his money in on the turn with 99 on a board of 9247 and had his opponent drawing dead. He now has nearly 1.3 million, which is right near the top of the leaderboard.

Here’s a look at some chip counts midway through the first level on Day 4:

Peter “number1pen” Neff - 660K
Keith “damurdera3″ Fererra - 615K
Paul “ComeOnPhish” Lieu - 600K
David “raptor517″ Benefield - 540K
Jon “pokertrip” Friedberg - 475
Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis - 415K
Mark “AceSpades” Radoja - 400K
Dag Martin “dmmikkel” Mikkelsen - 260K
Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy - 280K
Joe “LatestLines2″ Ward - 180K
Thayer Rasmussen - 153K
Brian “Like7″ Lamanna - 150K
Hunter “The Hunt D” Frey - 105K
Clayton “clayton_27″ Newman - 140K

• July 10, 2008 -- Crowe’s Chips Riding a Roller Coaster
• July 10, 2008 -- Levy’s Ruthless Pursuit of Chips
• July 9, 2008 -- Lost & Found
• July 4, 2008 -- Short Stacked Shorr Looking to Chip Up

733 players are now on their 90 minute dinner break and the tension in the air has been continuously rising as we get closer and closer to the money bubble of 666 players. The staff here at the Rio is somewhat going to be restricting media access to the tables as hand for hand play approaches so we’ll do our best after the break to catch as much as we can.

Owen “ocrowe” Crowe (pictured right) started the day with a healthy 220k in chips but during the level before the dinner break he was caught up in a couple crazy hands. After building his stack up to nearly 350k, Crowe and two other players saw a flop of Q43. The big blind bet out 17.9k and the player in the middle and Crowe made the call. The K fell on the turn and both the other players checked to Crowe who pushed a large stack of orange 5k chips into the middle, 80k total. The big blind folded and after a lot of thought the other player made the call. The 7 fell on the river and both players checked. Crowe’s opponent flipped over the K9 for the 2nd nut flush and Crowe was livid. He couldn’t believe that the other player had made his flush and checked it. The other player requested to see Crowe’s cards and so the dealer flipped over his KQ. The ESPN cameras caught all the action but Crowe was visibly not enjoying being filmed and was steaming after the hand.

It didn’t take too long to get a few of his chips back. We caught up with the action with the board reading 8639J and Crowe bet 23k which another player called. Crowe tabled the T7 for a turned straight that only improved on the river and scooped up to pot. A little later Crowe got into a hand with Leo “Superfluous Man” Wolpert but they weren’t too eager to create much action. They both checked the KT5 flop, the K on the turn, and the 3 on the river. Crowe showed the J5 for kings and fives which was the best hand as Leo mucked and Crowe climbed back up to around 320k.

We caught up with David “Bakes” Baker (pictured left) as he and another opponent were heads up in a raised pot on a flop of QJ8.  Baker’s opponent bet 15K and David thought briefly before raising enough to put him all-in.  The other player tanked for some time and tried to pry information from David asking him questions and announcing, “I know you’re only on a draw.”  He eventually made the call for his remaining 38.7K with AQ.  David turned over the KK and the turn came the 3, leaving the other player with one less out since David picked up the flush draw.  The Q fell on the river and the other player doubled through Baker leaving him with right around 150K going into dinner break.

Today, Table 12 in the Blue section of the Amazon room may qualify as one of the sickest lineups we’ve seen so far in the entire 2008 World Series.  Tim “tmay420″ West, Garrett “GBecks” Beckman, Darren “DABADESTCHIC” Nelson, Cort “thecortster” Kibler-Melby and Allen Cunningham are lined up in a row.  When we last caught up to their table, Darren gave us -the look-; he was feeling frustrated as his stack dropped from 190K earlier today to a much less comfortable 85K.  When we asked what happened, Tim chuckled and Garrett groaned.

Darren reported that he picked up aces two levels ago.  On a flop of Q-7-8 with an already-sizeable pot in the middle, Darren put his one remaining opponent all-in.  Darren’s pocket aces dominated… that is, until a 3 on the turn and a jack spiked on the river gave his opponent’s Q-J two pair.  Darren quartered his stack, falling below 50K in chips.  However, Garrett chimed in at this point in the story, noting that he’d later doubled Darren up when his J-T connected to a jack-high flop with all clubs on the board.  Darren’s pocket aces held and he edged his stack upwards.  He left for dinner break with a stack of 85K to Garrett’s 150K.  Tim reported that he was trying to stay out of it; he said, “It sucks when I have no other choice but to bust my close friends!”  He guarded a 97K stack while Cort had 200K.

Josh “Squintngo” Goldstein, however, didn’t have such an exciting table draw.  He lamented to PocketFives that he’s been bored the last few levels.  Regardless, he was taking the opportunity to rake in a few small preflop pots; he increased his stack to 127K before the break.

On a side note, Mike Matusow was just spotted running “laps” outside near the poker kitchen during the break. By laps, we actually mean 20 ft smallish circles… perhaps trying to work off nervous energy? Maybe he just didn’t get all his running in today and is trying to make up for it. Regardless, it gave us here at P5s a chuckle.

In case you’re hungry, here’s a heaping pile of chip counts for you to munch on during the break! (The average stack based on the tournament clock is currently almost 187k)
 
Matthew “Burton1080″ Jensen - 580K (pictured right)
Jamie “TheCronic420″ Rosen - 430K
Adam “Roothlus” Levy - 400K
Paul “comeonphish” Lieu - 390K
David “DavidP18″ Peters - 340K
Jonathan “therookieqq9″ Plens - 310K
Owen “ocrowe” Crowe - 290K
Aaron “NDGrinder59″ Steury - 285K
Jon “Pearljammer” Turner - 280K
Jeremy “thechemist83″ Gaubert - 276K
Jeff “YoungSupremacy” Hakim - 270K
Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier - 265K
Allen “abari” Bari - 255K
Peter “number1pen” Neff - 205K
Cort “thecortster” Kibler-Melby - 200K
Joe “LatestLines2″ Ward- 190k
Ryan “Daut44″ Daut - 185K
Aditya “intervention” Argawal - 182K
Hunter “THE_HUNT_D” Frey - 180K
Thayer Rasmussen - 170K
Clayton “clayton27″ Newman - 165K
Jason Gray - 155K
Frank “Round42″ Rusnak - 150K
David “Bakes” Baker - 150K
Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki - 140K
Brent “Astrolux85″ Roberts - 130K
Josh “squintngo” Goldstein - 127K
Garrett “GBecks” Beckman - 120K
Chris “cmoney3″ Kline - 120K
Kush Patel - 115K
Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy - 110K
Leo “SuperfluousMan” Wolpert - 109K
Tim “tmay420″ West - 100K
Jan “Erdnase” Heitmann - 97K
Brian “Like7″ Lamanna - 95K
Michael “DblupM0j” Johnson - 85K
Jeff Papola - 75K
Doug “resilient” Smith - 70K
“Bodog” Ari Engel - 70K
Justin “truesyalose” Truesdell - 68K
Darren “DABADESTCHIC” Nelson - 50K

Recent eliminations include Mike “SirWatts” Watson, Matt “mattg1983″ Graham, Jason “strassa2″ Strasser, Cody “shankingyou” Shedd, Jonathan “HoosierAlum” Depa, and Brandon Shaefer.

• July 11, 2008 -- Double Double (or Toil and Trouble)
• July 10, 2008 -- Strasser vs. Nguyen
• July 10, 2008 -- Levy’s Ruthless Pursuit of Chips
• July 12, 2008 -- Kibler-Melby Doubles

As Day 1C came to a close, we tried to grab as many end of day chip counts as we could.  These are the unofficial numbers we tracked down during the final twenty minutes of play:

David “Bakes” Baker (pictured at right) - 153K
Michael “martine23″ Martin - 123K
Mohsin “chicagocards1″ Charania - 108K
Josh “thenorfman” Norris - 106K
David “raptor517″ Benefield - 95K
Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi - 85K
Jason “JCarver” Somerville - 80K
Ladbrokes Pro Jonas Danielsson - 79K
Brian “tsarrast” Rast - 76K
Tony “tongni” Rivera - 67K
David “DavidP18″ Peters - 49.5K
Michael “benvo123″ Benvonuti - 47K
Justin “truesyalose” Truesdell - 44K
Russell “rdcrsn” Carson - 43K
Jerry “sandler1860″ Payne - 38.5K
Matt “mattg1983″ Graham - 37.5K
Kyle “thetruth503″ Zartman - 37K
Jason “mkind0516″ Laso - 34K
Felipe “Improved” Montenegro - 33K
Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier - 33K
Matt “Hoss_TBF” Hawrilenko - 33K
Aditya “intervention” Argewal - 27K
Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin - 27K
Jordan “Octavian_C” Rich - 26K
Tom “werpennstate23″ Cummings - 24K
Leo “SuperfluousMan” Wolpert - 24K
Hung “HQrespect” Nguyen - 22K
Gary “GB2005″ Bogdanski - 21.5K
Keven “Stammdogg” Stammen - 21K
Alex Jacob - 19.5K
Adam “Roothlus” Levy - 18K
Scott “stsitron” Sitron - 18K
Eric “Rizen” Lynch - 18K
Jamie “pokerjamers” Armstrong - 11K
Patrik “Hoffs28″ Hoffman - 10.5K
Chris “cmoney3″ Kline - 7.5K

 Around 1,000 players survived to come back for Day 2A of the nearly 2,000 who started play today.  Our own David Baker is currently one of the chip leaders, but the unofficial chip leader as play came to a close was Henning Granstad.

• July 11, 2008 -- Double Double (or Toil and Trouble)
• July 10, 2008 -- Crowe’s Chips Riding a Roller Coaster
• August 23, 2008 -- Baron Back, Baker Baked
• July 6, 2008 -- Finally Friedberg’s Time

Jordan “Octavian_C” Rich (left) got off to a rough start when he had set under set early in the first level and dropped from the 50k starting stack down to 30k. A few levels later he had notched a few more sets, and chipped up to just over 70k. A lot of those chips came from David “Bakes” Baker. Jordan was able to fill up with his pocket threes when a trey hit on the river. The board had paired sevens and Rich’s full house won the pot. Jordan said Baker didn’t show his hand but he was fairly certain he had a 7.

Some of Baker’s chips weren’t enough though. Jordan was in a 3-way pot with Baker and another player on a flop of K-T-7 and when an 8 hit on the turn he had made another set. The set of eights was one step above Baker’s flopped set of sevens and when all was said and done all the chips were in the middle and Baker saw his tournament ended in just 2 big hands.

Glen “Choron” Chorny (right) is fresh off a life changing victory in the EPT Grand Final in Monte Carlo. Players always want more though and dual titles in the two major poker tours would be an accomplishment difficult for anyone to match. Chorny has some work to do to be a contender here though. After three levels of play on day 1 he is down to around 15k and one of the shorter stacks in the field. It is early though and a few big hands could put him right back in contention.

Louis “MrBeeks” Werman is playing his usual steady style and has chipped up to almost 60k after three levels. Werman doesn’t play all the events, but he is a regular for the big tourneys here at the Bellagio and seems very comfortable in this setting.

Tom “durrrr” Dwan (left) lost a bet and is wearing a fruit basket hat, but is all smiles for now even with the goofy hat. Dwan was able to eliminate Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo when he ran down Bonomo’s queens. Durrrr is up to 140k after a few nice pots and is trailing only Rhynie Campbell in the Day 1B chip counts.

Jordan “iMsoLucky0″ Morgan has also worked his way towards the top of the chip counts and was pushing the 100k mark at last check.

• June 26, 2008 -- Top of the Chip Counts or Bust!
• April 22, 2008 -- Not So Rich
• April 22, 2008 -- Around The Room
• June 26, 2008 -- Mackey Riding High