First and foremost, we here would like to profusely apologize to Christian “Deckzor” Fockenberg (pictured at left).  Earlier today we reported that Christian had been eliminated during Level 7 of play.  Well, the details of Fockenberg’s demise have been greatly exaggerated and he is, in fact, alive and well with a hearty 79K.  With so many tables being broken and players being moved around sometimes the breaking order changes on us and mistakes are made.  Such was the case with Christian, so don’t worry friends and family of Fockenberg–he is just fine.

Now that we have reported on someone we lost, now it is time to tell you about someone we found amongst the 612 players remaining in the Day 2A field.  Hunter “The_Hunt_D” Frey, who is one of our chip leaders with 384K.  When we found Hunter, he kindly recalled the hand that launched him to the top of the leaderboard.  Frey was involved in an 8-way limped pot with the blinds at 400/800 ante 100 holding 2-3 when the flop came A-3-3 with two diamonds.  One of the other players led out for 6K and another player called before Hunter raised to 17.5K.  Both players made the call and the turn came Q.  The initial better then shoved all-in for his remaining 90K and the third player in the hand thought for some time before folding.  Frey told us he tanked on the decision before making the call.  The other player showed A-K, the river was no help to him, and Hunter shot up to 400K.

We have also lost our “Table of Doom” that featured Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki, Jamie “TheCronic420″ Rosen, Dani “Ansky451″ Stern, and Peter “number1pen” Neff.  Their table was recently broken, but not before Stern reraised one of the other players preflop inducing him to fold.  Before he threw his hand away he turned up K6 and joked, “I ought to show since the table is about to break.”

While that table may have disappeared, we may have another table of doom brewing over in the Blue section.  Mike “SirWatts” Watson had a fairly easy day when he played on Day 1B and seemed to flop sets at will during the early levels and he was hoping Day 2 would be in the same vein.  However, every time his table loses a player, they bring over yet another known pro to add to the already stacked table.  First it was the big stacked Jason Gray (pictured at right) and when we last checked on the table Brandon Adams, who started today 2nd in chips, was unpacking several racks of chips.  Mike also told us there are some other online players at the table as well.

Tim “tmay420″ West continued to sit at a table with Kevin “kice32″ Iacofano and remained steady throughout the last level, hovering around the 100K mark and taking relatively few risks.  When we caught up with Tim’s table, he was raising a min-betting opponent preflop to 6K more with 8K already in the pot.  After awhile in the tank, his opponent folded and he took the pot down to increase his stack to 105K.  Eric “jakz101″ Crain sat nearby, expressing frustration when his flopped straight flush draw bricked out and he lost a 100K pot.  Eric still has 210K in front of him and is confident he will reclaim his lost chips.

When PocketFives caught up to Bobby “gettindeep” Hodson (pictured at left), his strategy seemed to be similar - he reported that he got pocket kings twice in the last level and each time bet out to see what risks he faced.  In one situation, he said that he raised 5K under the gun with kings and was called by four other players preflop.  When the dealer spiked an ace, players checked around.  Hodson said he bet at the turn to see where he was, and was insta-raised by another player.  He folded and said though he’s gotten no value out of his kings, he minimized his loss and is happy with his 72K chipstack.  At a table full of recreational players, he said his strategy for the rest of the night was to play extremely tight through Level 9 and turn up the heat in the last level of the evening.

Here are some unofficial chip counts from midway through Level 9 of play:
Hunter “THE_HUNT_D” Frey - 384K
Eric “jakz101″ Crain - 210K
Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki - 200K
Jason Gray - 190K
Joe “LatestLines2″ Ward - 184K
Doug “resilient” Smith - 180K
Derek “arods33″ Buanomo - 172K
Jeff “YoungSupremacy” Hakim - 168K
Owen “ocrowe” Crowe - 160K
Jamie “TheCronic420″ Rosen - 155K
Paul “comeonphish” Lieu - 142.5K
Peter “number1pen” - 122K
Jan “Erdnase” Heitmann - 122K
Jeff “yellowsub” Williams - 118K
Jon “Pearljammer” Turner - 99K
Dani “Ansky451″ Stern - 90K
Tim “tmay420″ West - 90K
Mike “SirWatts” Watson - 87.5K
Christian “Deckzor” Fockenberg - 79K
Bobby “gettindeep” Hodson - 79K
Darrell “Gigabet” Dicken - 75K
Kevin “kice32″ Iacofano - 65K
Kevin “ImaLuckSac” Macphee - 49K
Justin “looshle” Pechie - 45K
Richard “Lee Nickel” Fohrenbach - 44K
Rami “arbianight” Boukai - 43K
Louis “MrBeeks” Werman - 42K
Mark “sideshowgil” Gilbert - 39K

Recent eliminations include Shaun Deeb, TJ “Doubles00ted” Slifka, Steve “McNallyville” McNally, and Barry Greenstein.

• July 8, 2008 -- Cox Loses Prop Bet, Then His Stack
• July 9, 2008 -- Hustle and Heartbreak
• July 9, 2008 -- Justin Time for a Double Up
• July 8, 2008 -- Bottom Set Not Eneff for Stern

As Level 6 came to a close Jeff “yellowsub” Williams (pictured at right) moved all-in for his remaining 6K on the last hand before break and picked up the blinds and antes.  Well, what a difference a level makes.  When we checked in with Jeff at the beginning of Level 8 he was sitting with a more than ample 65K–over 10 times the stack he had 2 hours earlier.  PocketFives Live inquired to Williams just how someone goes from 6K to 60K in the span of a level he told us, “you run really well.  You get lucky in a couple of spots too.”  Jeff has been all-in for his tournament life on four separate occassions during Level 7 and each time he found himself scooping chips to add to his stack.  We’ll continue to track Jeff’s progress and keep you posted as we play through to the dinner break.

Rami “arbianight” Boukai has doubled up to 45K in Level 8 just before his table broke in the Green section of the Amazon Room. With blinds at 400/800, a player opened to 2,400 in middle position and Boukai shoved for 22,100 on the button. it folded back to the original raiser, who thought for two minutes before calling with 88. Boukai revealed QQ and avoided disaster when the board came out K47JK.

Here are our most recent chip counts:

Derek “arodss3″ Buanomo - 200K
Michael “DblupM0j” Johnson - 198K
Jason Gray - 172K
Eric “jakz101″ Crain - 161K
Peter “number1pen” Neff - 126K
Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki - 110K
Jamie “TheCronic420″ Rosen - 106.5K
Doug “resilient” Smith - 83K
Dani “Ansky451″ Stern - 72K
TJ “Doubles00ted” Slifka - 70K
Shaun Deeb - 52K
Brendan “moe86″ Mahoney - 50K
Louis “MrWerman” Beeks - 46.5K
Carter “notashark” Gill - 25K
Darrell “Gigabet” Dicken - 8K

Recent eliminations include: Faraz “The Toliet-0″ Jaka, Matthias “goodvibe” Neu, and Terry “Asiandude7″ Eichens

• July 9, 2008 -- Hustle and Heartbreak
• July 9, 2008 -- Lost & Found
• July 8, 2008 -- Jeff Hakim Reigns Supreme
• July 4, 2008 -- 2008 WSOP Main Event, Day 1A Concludes