The last hour has been a harrowing run for the bubble in Event #48, the $2K No-Limit Hold’em tournament. After finishing standard tournament play after Level 10, players were nearly on the bubble and took a 15-minute break before resuming to burst the bubble. Most players were anxiously hovering over other tables to watch action occur; one PocketFiver in particular took the opportunity to double up at the hesitation of his table.

Tristan “Cre8ive” Wade found himself incredibly short-stacked with 11K after a huge 80K lost pot to another player. He was visibly tilted by the loss, but when action folded to him in the cutoff, he shoved the rest of his stack into the middle. The player in the big blind (to whom he’d lost his chips earlier), thought awhile before calling and flipped over his KT to Tristan’s 7-8. Tristan was in big trouble when the flop spiked a ten, but a miracle 7 and 8 on the turn and river bought him an extra life in the tournament.

Our bubble boy for the evening was Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin (pictured at right), who raised from early position to 4.4K, hoping for a walk. His opponent re-raised him preflop to 16.4K, Baldwin shoved all in, and met an instant call. Baldwin was caught bluffing and whiffed 74 to his opponent’s pocket aces.

The 198 remaining players are guaranteed $3,795 for their run and will return at 2pm PST tomorrow afternoon to commence Day 2. PocketFivers still in the running for the $770,540 and WSOP bracelet include chip leader Eric “jakz101″ Crain with 253,500 chips, Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson, Adam “Roothlus” Levy, Daniel “voff” Deveau, Adam “akat11″ Katz, David “ComptonMasta” Barter, Gary “GB2005″ Bogdanski, Dan “wretchy” Martin, and Matt “plattsburgh” Vengrin.

Play has slowed substantially in the $5K No-Limit Hold’em 6-max event following the elimination of Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier in 16th place. While we last reported that Grospellier had picked up a healthy pot off Jason Gray, he ran into a series of hands that resulted in substantial hits to his chip count. The final blow came when Bertrand bet every street on a jack high board, moving all-in on the river with his A-J only to be called by the pocket aces of his opponent.

Gray has had a rollercoaster ride of a level himself. With the blinds at 6K/12K and an ante of 1K, Tom Luntz raised to 30K in early position and Jason reraised to 120K. Luntz then moved all-in and Gray made the call with A-Q. Luntz showed pocket jacks, but a queen on the turn shipped the 530K pot in Gray’s direction.

Just a few hands later, Luntz and Gray got it all-in preflop again and Tommy held pocket jacks a second time. Jason was in much worse shape this time around with his pocket tens and when the board came out AK53K Jason doubled Luntz up and was left with 225K. Play is scheduled to continue down to the final 6-handed table this evening.

Day 3 of the $50K HORSE event has come to a close and 24 players remain in contention for the much coveted bracelet. Barry Greenstein continues to stay towards the top of the leaderboard along with Daniel Negreanu. James “mig.com” Mackey will also be returning tomorrow to play down to the final eight players.

• June 28, 2008 -- The HORSE Race Continues
• June 28, 2008 -- The Katz Came Back
• June 27, 2008 -- A Player Makes a “FatalError”
• June 27, 2008 -- Feelin’ Good

If you have been following our coverage regularly, you may remember us reporting on Adam “akat11′ Katz’s (pictured at left) deep run in Event #13, a $2.5K No Limit Hold Em event. You may also remember us mentioning his “lucky masseuse”, Erin. Well, we are happy to report the duo are reunited and it appears to be feelin’ so good. Adam informed Pocket Fives that he was down to a mere 9K going into the dinner break. He was concerned about returning from dinner to 400/800 blinds, but all his fears dissipated when he spotted Erin in the distance.

Erin dutifully reported to Katz’s table after play resumed and has been by his side ever since. Their magic seems to be working again, because Adam is now up to 94K with only 7 players left to eliminate before the money bubble bursts. 

Another player who has been moving up, up, and up is Eric “jakz101″ Crain who continues to maintain his chip lead.  When we checked in with Eric, he told us that he has been picking up a number of quality starting hands and kept getting it all-in good and eliminating opponents.

Daniel “voff” Deveau reported to PocketFives that he doubled up in the last round at the expense of David “The Dragon” Pham who was on a tear at his table.  Daniel picked up pocket kings when Phan had been showing down big pocket pairs for several hands in a row.  He shoved all in for 30K and was pleased to see Pham call, as he held the hooks.  Daniel’s hand held and his stack increased to 65K.

Here are some unofficial chip counts as play begins to wind down for the night:

Eric “jakz101″ Crain - 220K
Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin - 100K
Dan “wretchy” Martin - 45K
Adam “Roothlus” Levy - 38K
David “DavidP18″ Peters - 37K (pictured at right)
David “ComptonMasta” Barter - 28K
Tristan “Cre8ive” Wade - 22K
Jon Wein - 22K
Matt “plattsburgh” Vengrin - 20K

Over in the $5K Short Handed No Limit Hold Em event, Jason Gray and Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier recently tangled in a hand when Grospellier raised to 25K on the button with the blinds at 5K/10K ante 1K.  Both the small blind and Gray in the big blind made the call and the trio saw a flop of J73.  It checked around to Bertrand, who bet 46K.  The small blind folded and Jason made the call.  Both players checked the A on the turn and Gray checked once again when the 3 came on the river.  Grospellier then bet out 127K and Jason tanked for a couple of minutes before making the call.  ElkY rolled over 36 for a rivered set of trips and Gray pushed his hand into the muck.

Here are some updated chip counts from that event:
Alex Jacob - 660K
Davidi “legrouzin” Kitai - 620K
Steven “CornellFiji” Ware - 595K
Jason Gray - 315K

• June 28, 2008 -- No Way, Jose!
• June 29, 2008 -- Katz and Cahail Bust Out
• June 29, 2008 -- Case Making Good on Satellite Entry
• June 28, 2008 -- Katz’s “Moment of Truth”

The bubble burst in event #47, the $1.5k Stud h/l and the remaining players are all guaranteed at least $2,450. Brett “Gank” Jungblut and Craig “MrCasino” Gray have both survived the day so far. Brett currently has around 18k while Craig has been hovering around the 12k mark for a majority of the day. Phil Hellmuth has made his 66th WSOP cash in this event and Men “The Master” Nguyen has now cashed in 61 WSOP events.

Many notable players are still alive in the $5k NLHE six-handed event with the field down to 47. Steven “Cornell Fiji” Ware went on a killer run after the bubble burst. He started play after the bubble with 35k in chips and an hour later held over 350k. PocketFives asked Ware if he had proposed marriage to Frank (the dealer who dealt him all those monster hands) and Ware laughed and said he probably should have.

Players who have been knocked out recently include Glen “choron” Chorny (69th, $8,323), Mike “inissint” Glasser (66th, $9,080), Jason “tresfull21″ Mercier (51st, $10,972), and Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar (49th, $10,972). Below are the unoffical chip counts of the remaining players.

Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier (pictured right)- 470k
Steven “Cornell Fiji” Ware - 370k
Jason Gray - 210k
Chris “cdbr3799″ Dombrowski - 200k
Ryan “Daut44″ Daut - 170k
Chris “cmoney3″ Kline - 150k
Shannon Shorr - 130k
Alex Jacob - 50k

• June 27, 2008 -- Sweating the Bubble
• June 27, 2008 -- A Player Makes a “FatalError”
• June 27, 2008 -- Feelin’ Good
• June 28, 2008 -- Making ‘Cmoney’

Players in the $5k NLHE six-handed tournament are all carefully watching the tournament clock as the player count slowly drops. Play started with 96 players and they are now down to 79 players, just 1 shy of the money.

Chad “lilholdem954″ Batista was involved in a couple big hands. First a player raised to 4.2k and Chad (pictured left) re-raised to 18k total. After contemplating for quite awhile the other player moved all in and Chad made the call with his A2. His opponent held the 44 and Chad commented that he was baffled as to how the other player could make such a big move with that hand after facing a re-raise. The board ran out KTT53 and the pocket fours held and Chad’s stack was reduced to around 30k.

On the very next hand, Chad open-shoved all in only to have a player behind him with more chips move all in as well. Chad held the 88 against the other players AK so it was off to the races as the board came down KT953 and Chad was eliminated just 11 places shy of the money.

Mike “inissint” Glasser had been short stacked since the beginning of play today and he got all the money in preflop with QT but was way behind his opponents AT. The flop came 832 and Glasser called for another club to come on the turn which could give him outs to a chop, but instead the Q fell putting him in the lead. The river was the J and Glasser doubled to around 75k.

Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar was trying to double up at his table as well. After another player raised Jon pushed all in for a total of 38k. His opponent decided to fold so Jon lived to see another hand and told PocketFives to put “Choo Choo” in the update with a picture of Thomas the Tank Engine. We’re not quite sure what that means, but we figured we would post it for him anyway.

The bubble will burst soon and we still have quite a few players left looking to make the money including Glen “choron” Chorny, Chris “cdbr3799″ Dombrowski, Ryan Daut, Shannon Shorr, Jason Gray, Steve “Cornell Fiji” Ware, Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Jason “tresfull21″ Mercier, and Alex Jacob.

• June 27, 2008 -- Stud Players in the Money
• June 27, 2008 -- Feelin’ Good
• June 26, 2008 -- Six-Handed Players Making Moves
• June 27, 2008 -- Short-Handed Event Calls It a Night

James Brown’s “I Feel Good” was playing over the loudspeakers in the Amazon room before play began in today’s $2k NLHE event #48. Players seemed anxious to get started today in what will likely be another exciting and fast moving tournament.

The tournament clock is already showing 2,159 entrants into this event which has surpassed last years total number of entrants into this event (2,038) and will likely increase even more before late registration ends. There are a large number of notable online players hitting the felt once again today and we’re looking forward to seeing them build some monster stacks as the day progresses.

Scott “SCTrojans” Freeman (pictured left) and the other eight players at the final table of event #44, the $1k NLHE w/rebuys, will begin play at 2 pm today with Freeman looking to regain the chip lead he lost yesterday.

Also starting at 2 pm today is day 2 of the $5k NLHE six-handed event #46 where players such as Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier, Shannon Shorr, Glen “choron” Chorny, Jason “tresfull21″ Mercier, and Jason Gray will be trying to run deep and make the money. 96 players will begin play today but only 78 will make the money.

Lots of action here at the Rio today and we’ll keep you informed about everything going on as the day progresses!

• June 27, 2008 -- Stud Players in the Money
• June 27, 2008 -- Sweating the Bubble
• June 28, 2008 -- Basebaldy Bullies Bubble and Whiffs
• June 28, 2008 -- The Katz Came Back