Playing down to an 8-handed final table in WSOP Event #8 Mixed Championship, online’s wiz kids yield big stacks with ten players left.

James “mig.com” Mackey doubled up earlier to acquire his 480k in an earlier NL hand when his 3bet of Tom “durrrr” Dwan got 4bet all-in back to him by Dwan.

With his tournament on the line, Mackey called with TT, way ahead of Dwan’s KT.

Mackey’s tens prevailed, taking him from an average stack to one of the chip leaders.

Despite his stack taking a huge hit, Dwan rebounded big in the triple draw round, which didn’t go unnoticed by his tablemate David Oppenheim.

“Durrrr’s won every single hand in triple draw,” Oppenheim said to Gus Hansen, sitting at the other table.

Here are the stacks of the ten remaining players: Mathew Glantz 650k, Tom Dwan 520k, Gus Hansen 440k, Michael DeMichele 320k, Jeff Madsen 320k, Sammy Farha 265k, Tony Rivera 200k, David Oppenheim 170k, Eli Elezra 90k.

• June 6, 2008 -- “Worldsgrtest?” World’s Greatest!
• June 6, 2008 -- Dwan, Rivera Chip Leaders in 10k Mixed
• June 26, 2008 -- Online Kids Get on Their HORSE
• June 6, 2008 -- $2K NL and $10K Mixed Final Tables Set for Today

Sowers seems to be running into hands against the same people, with both good and bad results.

Sowers bet 100k after a flop of AJT and after thinking for a while Eli Elezra raised to 300k putting Sowers all in. Sowers quickly called and tabled his KQ for a flopped straight while Elezra held A5 for a pair of aces. The turn was the Q giving Elezra a flush draw, but the river was the 8 shipping the whole pot to Sowers.

In another confrontation between Sowers and Elezra, Sowers called Elezra’s preflop raise of 35k. The flop came 6-3-2 and Elezra bet out 45k. Sowers raised enough to put Elezra all in and after thinking about it for a bit Elezra called. Sowers showed 6-4 for a pair of sixes with a gushot straight draw which was behind to Elezra’s A-6. Fortunately for Sowers, the turn brought a 5 giving him a straight and the meaningless 3 on the river sent Elezra to the rail.

Kathy Liebert raised all in preflop and Sowers happily called showing his pocket aces against Liebert’s pocket kings. The 865 flop was harmless, but on the turn the K spiked putting Liebert in the lead. The 9 on the river was no help to Sowers and Liebert took the 375,000 pot.

In another hand, the board read 6426A and Sowers called Liebert’s bet on the river and mucked his hand when she turned over AQ. That 150,000 pot pushed Liebert’s stack over 500,000 as Sowers slipped to 840,000.

• June 1, 2008 -- Final Table of PL Tourney Set
• July 16, 2008 -- So Long, Farewell
• May 31, 2008 -- The Bubble Finally Bursts
• May 31, 2008 -- WSOP Event #2 begins, Day 2 of Event #1 continues

The first day of the WSOP wrapped up well after midnight last night, Eli Elezra leading the field with an official chip count of 302,900. Trailing just behind with 251,100, Amit “Amak316″ Makhija ended the day to Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers’ 216,700. Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar rounds out the top ten chip stacks with 194K. Day 2 of Event #1 will recommence at 2pm PST with 70 players.

Players have now taken their seats for the first of two opening days of WSOP Event #2, which began at noon. Expected to break registration records, this event received more than 3K entries by Friday night, with hundreds more expected this morning for tomorrow’s second opening day.

The Amazon Room has been broken down into four separate sections (Red, Blue, Green, Orange) and nearly 2,000 participants have filed in to take their seats for Day 1A. Some familiar faces scattered around the tournament area include Jimmy “gobboboy” Fricke, Jon “PearlJammer” Turner, Matt “Plattsburgh” Vengrin and Jon “pokertrip” Friedberg, as well as live pros Erik Seidel and David Pham.

Good luck to all P5ers!

• June 1, 2008 -- Sowers Stack Slides Up and Down
• May 31, 2008 -- The Bubble Finally Bursts
• July 16, 2008 -- So Long, Farewell
• June 26, 2008 -- Six-Handed Players Making Moves