Plenty of media encircled Jeremiah Smith’s table as he was racking up a ridiculous stack as we quickly approach the money bubble on Day 3; when we first caught up with the former Poker Wire writer, he had built a fortress of more than 800K chips (that we could count). Greg “FBT” Mueller sauntered over to the table, took one look at Jeremiah’s stack, licked his lips and laughed. However, near the middle of the last level, PocketFives witnessed another run of cards for Jeremiah; he picked up aces twice and kings once in three consecutive hands, winning huge pots every time. PocketFives guesses his chip count now hovers just below the million mark.

However, he’s not the only huge stack at the table; eight out of nine players seated at the felt were well above the average stack of 186K. Seated immediately to his right is Jon “PearlJammer” Turner (pictured at left), who built a smaller castle of chips and was double the average with 350K. He reported to PocketFives that he also won a big pot earlier this level in the following hand: A player on the button raised 7.5K preflop and Jon reraised him to 26K, which he called. The board came a rainbow A-K-8 and Jon led out for 29K. His opponent called, the dealer turned a ten, and Jon bet out 49K. After taking what Jon said was forever to tank, the player reluctantly folded and the chips were shipped his way.

Also at the table sat Ryan “Daut44″ Daut, who was involved in a huge hand when another player at his table raised, only to have Ryan re-raise. The other player made the call and they saw the flop come QT7. Both players got all their chips in the middle and Ryan’s AA had been out-flopped by his opponents TT. The K came on the turn, giving Ryan a few more outs, but the K on the river couldn’t improve his aces and he was sent to the rail just short of the money. Adam “Roothlus” Levy ran over to the table and was disappointed to see that Ryan had been eliminated. Levy is doing well and is currently sitting on a stack of 440k. Also recently moved to the table? David “davidp18″ Peters.

Aditya “intervention” Agarwal (pictured at right) didn’t take very long to get involved in a huge pot after the dinner break. With blinds at 1.5K/3K/400, a player opened for 9K and Agarwal re-raised to 30.2K. Kush Patel re-reraised all-in directly behind for an additional 85Kgoogle.com. Having Patel covered by 70K, Agarwal called after the action folded back to him but was in bad shape when Patel showed KK to his AK. Patel was looking good when the board read QTTQ but was sent to the rail when the A dropped on the river. Agarwal’s stack shot up to 310k after the hand.

Agarwal and Brian “Like7″ Lamanna were talking about Agarwal’s call afterward and mentioned that it would be a good spot to re-raise Agarwal all-in from Patel’s perspective since Agarwal re-raised someone who had been very active preflop and that his hand would look very strong. Agarwal also mentioned that he was getting extremely compelling odds to chase down queens as well as possibly being up against the same hand. Either way, Agarwal was extremely happy with the result.

Michael “DblupM0j” Johnson had been sitting near 100k in chips for a good portion of the day. He had finally chipped up to a close-to-average stack of 160k when the following hand took place. After preflop betting, all the chips of a shorter-stacked player went in the middle with Johnson attempting to knock him out. Unfortunately for Johnson, his KK was up against the other players AA. The flop made the other player’s hand even stronger when it came down AT5 leaving Johnson drawing to runner runner outs. One of those possible cards came in the form of the K on the turn, but the 8 on the river wasn’t the second card he needed and his stack dropped back to 110k. He seemed rather disappointed but is still alive as bubble play approaches.

Peter “number1pen” Neff (pictured at left) found himself the benefactor of a generously large pot when, with the blinds at 1.5K/3K ante 400 he raised to 8K on the button and the big blind called. When the flop came out 7-7-5, the big blind checked and Neff bet 11K. The big blind then quickly moved all-in for 130K total. Peter obliged the other player by making the call with A7 and the other player turned over 35. After the player was eliminated, Peter added the pot to his stack, which has now increased to 395K.

UPDATE: Play has now gone hand-for-hand in the Amazon Room as only 674 players remain. The money bubble will burst shortly, as 666 players cash. Stay tuned!

In our attempt to try and take over the world in total chip count domination, here are the recent unofficial counts from PocketFives writers’ tired eyes:

Owen “ocrowe” Crowe - 620K
Dag Martin “dmmikkel” Mikkelsen - 510K
Keith “damurdera3″ Ferrera - 500K
Andy “tufat23″ Teng - 480K
Adam “Roothlus” Levy - 440K
Matthew “Burton1080″ Jensen - 420K
Jamie “TheCronic420″ Rosen - 440K
Paul “comeonphish” Lieu - 430K
Peter “number1pen” Neff - 395K
Jon “Pearljammer” Turner - 350K
Jonathan “therookieqq9″ Plens - 320K
Aditya “intervention” Argawal - 310K
Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier - 254K
Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki - 250K
Cort “thecortster” Kibler-Melby - 230K
Tracey “XtrACEy” Nguyen - 230K
Devin “TranquilChaos” Porter - 242K
David “Raptor517″ Benefield - 200K
Frank “Round42″ Rusnak - 200K
Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy - 195K
Zelong “freeman” Dong - 194K
Derek “arodss3″ Buanono - 190K
David “DavidP18″ Peters - 190K
Clayton “clayton27″ Newman - 170K
Aaron “NDGrinder59″ Steury - 170K
Jason Gray - 170K
Jeff “YoungSupremacy” Hakim - 168K
Bruce “cornellxc11″ Hyde - 140K
Josh “squintngo” Goldstein - 110K
Michael “DblupM0j” Johnson - 110K
“Bodog” Ari Engel - 102K
Brian “Like7″ Lamanna - 90K
Jeff Papola - 90K
Leo “SuperfluousMan” Wolpert - 85K
Jan “Erdnase” Heitmann - 75K
Doug “resilient” Smith - 67K
Justin “truesyalose” Truesdell - 60K

• July 10, 2008 -- Strasser vs. Nguyen
• July 11, 2008 -- People Don’t You Know It’s About Time?
• June 3, 2008 -- Stacked 5k Mixed field, Sowers Bad Beats Dicken
• July 12, 2008 -- Double Trouble

It seems everywhere you turn some player is making a bad call to put their tournament life at stake. This definitely wasn’t the case for Greg “FBT” Mueller (pictured at left). We caught up with the action on the flop with the board reading T72. A short stacked player was already all in and Greg and another player were tangled up in a side pot. Both players on the side had large stacks that were similar in size and when the other player pushed all in Greg went into the tank.

He talked out his entire thought process over a period of time that lasted nearly ten minutes. “You must have aces or kings” he said… followed by “Would you make that move with nines or eights? You could be on a flush draw.” Jon Friedberg got up from the table and whispered to a PocketFives reporter that he was sure Greg had the best hand and the other player probably had A-K or maybe the flush draw. Greg apologized to the table for taking so long to make a decision, but no one seemed upset. Eventually Greg said “I really think I have the best hand. I call.” His opponent said “Nice call” as he flipped over the 99 for a pair of nines and Greg proudly flipped over his KT for a pair of tens. The all in player showed KQ and Greg was set to win the entire pot. The turn came with the 5 and the river was the Q which gave the short stacked all in player the main pot of around 40k, but Greg’s tens took the side pot which totaled nearly 250k.

Gerry “TheGatherer” Kane has also been accumulating chips. He busted a player with his pocket queens and then on a hand not long afterwards the cutoff raised to 9k and Gerry re-raised to 23k from the small blind. The cutoff made the call and the flop came 532. Gerry pushed all in and his opponent folded and Gerry’s stack grew to around 115k.

With 90 players remaining Jon Friedberg has around 180k, Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar has almost 100k, and Hevad “RainKhan” Khan has a little less than 50k.

The $1.5k HORSE event #51 got started at 5 pm tonight and with the smaller buy-in we’re sure we’ll see a large number of online players dipping their toes into this mixed game event even if they aren’t as experienced at all of the games. This is sure to make for some exciting action and we’ll keep you posted as the tournament progresses.

The $50k HORSE final table is still progressing. Barry Greenstein is currently the short stack with 1.3 million while Scotty Nguyen is the current chip leader with 4.4 million.

• June 29, 2008 -- Clements Takes an Early Lead
• June 29, 2008 -- Saddling Up for HORSE
• June 30, 2008 -- Clements Holding Steady in 10k PLO
• June 30, 2008 -- Daut Busted in 10k PLO

In the $10k PLO event #50, a number of players have already built their stacks up while a few have already been eliminated from the tournament. Eric “EFro” Froehlich was knocked out when his opponent flopped top two pair and all Eric had was a pair of aces in his hand. Scott “BigRiskky” Clements‘ stack is heading in the opposite direction. Clements (pictured right) is the current chip leader with 32k and has not used his reload chip yet. Barry Greenstein was one of the chip leaders in the PLO event until a massive hand took his entire stack away. Greenstein flopped a set of kings on a KQT board and the Q came on the turn giving him the best full house possible. Unfortunately for Greenstein, his opponent held the other two queens for quads and scooped up a 50k pot to knock Greenstein out of the tournament. He’ll now have a little over an hour to prepare for the final table of the $50k HORSE event that kicks off at 3pm.

Day 2 of the $1.5k NLHE event #49 is set to kick off at 2 pm with a number of notable online players still in the field.

After starting with a massive field of 2,018, only 215 players survived the day to return on day 2. The bubble burst last night at 270 players and all the players returning today are guaranteed at least $2,968 while the 1st place finisher will take home $631,170 along with the gold bracelet. Some notable players hitting the felt again today include Greg “FBT” Mueller (131.7k), Alex “42oneverloses” Case (97.3k), Hevad “RainKhan” Khan (58.8k), and Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar (20.7).

• June 29, 2008 -- Mueller Makes a Massive Call
• June 30, 2008 -- Daut Busted in 10k PLO
• June 29, 2008 -- To Reload or Not to Reload?
• June 26, 2008 -- Online Players Looking to Run Deep

Play was very methodical as expected in the early rounds of the 1.5k NL Shootout WSOP Event #17.

Most tables didn’t have more than a few recognizable faces but one table in particularly was stacked with live pro’s including Greg “FBT” Mueller, David Williams, Nick Schulman, and Carlos Mortensen.

Garrett “GBecks” Beckman drew one of the tougher tables with Amnon Fillipi and Michael Gracz tableside.

Playing 3-handed while most tables where six to eight handed, Devin “TranquilChaos” Porter’s table battled it out 3-handed for about an hour until Porter matched up with David “nutstr84444″ Redlin.

A few hands into the match with blinds at 100-200, Porter and Redlin got all-in preflop. With a 5-to-1 chip disadvantage, Porter with a 5k a stack, raised the button and got reraised by Redlin. Porter moved all-in rather quickly and Redlin called way ahead of Porter’s AJ with AK. The board ran true for Redlin’s hand and he became one of the early winners.

Matt “plattsburgh” Vengrin (pictured right) was crippled by Tom Franklin for a 12K pot and then met his demise a few hands later. On a board of KT7, Vengrin got it all in with QJ against Franklin’s KT. The T on the turn left Vengrin drawing dead and with less than 2K in his stack at 100/200. He then shoved J8 into KK and failed to improve.

Craig “MrCasino” Gray scooped a decent pot when he a shortstack moved all-in for 575 and he re-raised with AK, isolating his opponents AJ.

Here’s a list of notable players left from Event #17.

Dan “Stainley88″ Adams (6-handed), Jason Gray (3-handed), Sorel Mizzi (5-handed), Stu “TheDonator” Patterson (3-handed), Noah “fouruhaters” Schwartz (6-handed), Tony “Bond18″ Dunst (3-handed), Chris “sooooted”Vaughn (heads-up).

• July 11, 2008 -- Together They Fall
• June 28, 2008 -- CrazyMarco, Roothlus Chip Up
• June 20, 2008 -- Gary vs. Gray
• June 14, 2008 -- Sitron Makes Costly Laydown

A self admitted broke college student and teacher’s assistant just a few years ago, P5er Leo “Superfluous Man” Wolpert’s student loans shouldn’t be much of a concern anymore.

Wolpert, whose previous biggest score was from an online rebuy tournament for 31k, took third in the 5k NL Shootout WSOP Event #11 for 187k.

Wolpert took down quite a bit more however since the players agreed to a 3-way chop for 300k apiece, playing for the remainding purse and the WSOP bracelet.

If not for a river card that poker players have nightmares about, Wolpert may have taken home even more money and a bracelet.

With blinds at 25k-50k with a 5k ante, Wolpert moved all-in from the sb for 425k with K3. Greg “FBT” Mueller, called with K2 in the big blind.

When both players tabled their cards, a Harrah’s tournament official and announcer said this hand will most likely end in a chop to the small crowd of about 30 people watching inside the dimly lit ESPN arena.

After a AQ85 board, the harrah’s official announced that unless one of the players paired their cards the pot would be split.

When the 2 dropped on the river, Mueller’s fans roared and Wolpert was off to an exit interview.

Winning the Shootout Event has been proclaimed as even more of a feat than winning other bracelet events by some pro’s like Daniel Negreanu because the winner had to come through winner’s of previous tables and succeed at multiple stages of full-ring, short-handed and heads-up play.

In typical Wolpert fashion, he downplayed the notion that a good showing in this event was more impressive and said it was more of a gamble fest with the shallow structure.

Despite coming so close to the coveted bracelet, Wolpert didn’t seem very upset about the river card that kept him from having a shot at winning it.

“The money means more to me than a bracelet,” he said. “Since i’m a professional poker player, the money is paramount to me.”

Phil Tom, the eventual winner who defeated Greg “FBT” Mueller, confirmed to being the father of Scott Tom to a media member.

Scott Tom was a former Absolute Poker executive who came under fire for the superuser account “PotRipper”.

• June 7, 2008 -- Levy Staging a Comeback
• June 8, 2008 -- O’Brien Feels the Chill
• June 8, 2008 -- Bubble Bursts in $2.5K NLHE Event
• June 7, 2008 -- Porter Hopes for Tranquil Final Table