Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby exited Day 1c at the beginning of Level 5. With five players seeing a flop of J-10-8, a player in early position led out for 3K and Hamby (pictured right) jammed his last 15K into the middle. It folded back around to the bettor, who called with the flopped straight (Q-9) and Hamby’s A-Q was drawing to four kings or three nines to chop the pot. They never appeared and Hamby was sent home.

Jason “mkind0516″ Laso was reseated in the Blue section after disappearing for awhile from PocketFives’ radar. We caught up to his table while he guarded a 34K stack and was involved in a hand with one other player. There was already a small pot brewing on a T47 board, when he raised the flop to 1,050 and his opponent check-raised him to 4,400 more. After thinking awhile, Jason folded and was down to 32K.

Mohsin “chicagocards1″ Charania got involved in a blind vs. blind battle at his table and continued to run hot. The small blind opened to 1200 at 200/400 and Charania raised to 4000 in the big blind. The small blind then four-bet all in for 22K and Charania quickly called with AK. The small blind flipped over JJ and yelled “Hold!” before the dealer prepared to reveal the board. The Q72 flop wasn’t promising for Charania, but he caught the A on the turn and rivered the A for good measure to eliminate the player and increase his stack to 115K.

Michael “benvo123″ Benvonuti (pictured left) and Gary “GB2005″ Bogdanski would also like us to send out a public service announcement for whoever stole their Everest Poker complimentary seat cushions to please bring them back. For those who are unaware, one of the goodies anyone who plays in the Main Even gets is a nice, green seat cushion bearing the Everest Poker seat logo. While Gary and Michael are not sentimentally attached to their cushions, they feel like the culprit should return them out of principle. They can offer no reward, but they wish bad beats and one outers on whoever stole their swag. We here at P5s Live don’t want to start any rumors, but we did see Jon Wein walking out with something like 10 seat cushions….not to point fingers or anything.

Here’s a look at how the other P5ers still alive are faring as the last level is coming to a close:

David “Bakes” Baker - 145K
David “Raptor517″ Benefield - 87K
Brian “tsarrast” Rast - 84K
Tony “tongni” Rivera - 70K
Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi - 66K
Jason “JCarver” Somerville - 58k
David “DavidP18″ Peters - 46.5K
Russell “rdcrsn” Carson - 46K
Tom “werpennstate23″ Cummings - 44.5K
Matt “mattg1983″ Graham - 40K
Justin “truesyalose” Truesdell - 40K
Eric “basebaldy” Baldwin - 37K
Michael “benvo123″ Benvenuti - 37K
Jordan “Octavian_C” Rich - 36K
Jason “mkind0516″ Laso - 32K
Felipe “Improved” Montenegro - 29.5K
Jamie “pokerjamers” Armstrong - 28K
Gary “GB2005″ Bogdanski - 27K
Kyle “thetruth503″ Zartman - 25K
Scott “stsitron” Sitron - 25K
Keven “Stammdogg” Stammen - 23K
Patrik “Hoffs28″ Hoffman - 23K
Eric “Rizen” Lynch - 23K
Jonathan “driverseati” Tamayo - 22K
Aditya “Intervention” Agarwal - 20K
Hung “HQrespect” Nguyen - 20k
Hung Nguyen - 20K
Leo “Superfluous Man” Wolpert - 17.5K
Adam “Roothlus” Levy - 16K
Jerry “sandler1860″ Payne - 14K
Chris “cmoney3″ Kline - 9.5K

• July 6, 2008 -- BadBeatNinja Disappears Into the Night
• July 9, 2008 -- Dreams Dashed or Doubled Up?
• June 19, 2008 -- Bowker Goes Busto
• June 28, 2008 -- No Way, Jose!

Event #48, the $2K No-Limit Hold’em tournament seems to have settled down and fewer short stacks remain to continue the shovefest. A few over one hundred players were left standing at the end of the level, batting for the bracelet and $770,540 grand prize.

Several PocketFives players were doing exceptionally well when we last caught up with the tournament; Adam “akat11″ Katz was back with his lucky masseuse, Erin, and he had managed to chip up to more than 170K. Eric “jakz101″ Crain was cruising with about 310K in chips and Adam “Roothlus” Levy increased his stack to 100K.

Dan “wretchy” Martin also managed to chip up when his pocket kings dominated the pocket deuces of his opponent and he won a pot of about 30K. His stack increased to 160K. Darren “DABADESTCHIC” Nelson pictured at right) was also sitting comfortably with 110K.

Tristan “Cre8ive” Wade kept his short stack viable, managing to win a few key pots and chip up to 110K. He explained that he raised under the gun with AT and was called by one other player who held Q-T. Tristan’s hand held and he managed to double up his stack. He took down a few more pots uncontested and worked his life-support stack up to a a much safer one.

The real story of the last level, though was Jose “head2782″ Severino’s ascension to chip leader. In a pot with one other player on the flop, Jose sat in late position and his opponent bet out 7K. Jose flat called him. The turn came the T, his opponent bet 23K, and Jose re-raised him all in. His opponent instantly called, flipping over AQ to Jose’s pocket kings. The river came the T and Jose took down a huge pot that had to be counted and re-counted by the dealer (with some help from Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson at the table). After the win, Jose chipped up to more than 360K in chips, surpassing Eric Crain’s domination.

Other PocketFivers, however, did not fare as well in recent play. Daniel “voff” Deveau, Jon Wein, and Gary “GB2005″ Bogdanski were amongst the recent eliminations.

• June 28, 2008 -- Katz’s “Moment of Truth”
• June 29, 2008 -- Katz and Cahail Bust Out
• June 28, 2008 -- The HORSE Race Continues
• June 29, 2008 -- CrazyMarco Running CrazyHot

Tristan “Crea8ive” Wade, Faraz “The-Toilet 0″ Jaka, Ben “bfineman” Fineman and Jon Wein — all P5ers — helped form the busiest (and loudest) table in the past hour of the $1,500 No-Limit Hold’em event. The four were seated next to each other (with Phillip Yeh in between) and had no problem taking whacks at one another.

Wade was the first we saw making a move. With the blinds at 200/400, Jaka raised to 1,100 from middle position and Wade shoved for 7,100 from the cutoff. The small blind then moved his last 5K into the pot and Jaka folded. Wade found that his AQ was way behind AK and failed to catch up, leaving him with around 2K.

Then it was Fineman (pictured right) moving his last 3K in with A3 and finding himself up against two players with big slick. Fineman’s hand was no good after the board was revealed and he was eliminated.

Wade was back at it again shortly after. Before the cards were dealt, he said that he would shove blind from under-the gun for his last 2875. None of that was the truth, as he bet 2800 (leaving 75 chips behind) after looking at his cards. A player (who had erupted after busting a few players already during the day) moved all in from middle position and action folded back around the Wade, who threw his last three green chips into the pot and said he had pocket aces. Again it was a lie, as he revealed A8 after his opponent showed QQ. The entire room heard a loud roar as the flop brought QJJ and Wade was sent out of the tournament.

The 482 players still standing are currently on a 90-minute dinner break. With the average stack at 14.4K, here are some of the notables still in the field:

Michael “worldsgrtest” Banducci - 40K
Scott “ssitron” Sitron - 37K
Court Harrington - 34K
Faraz “The-Toilet 0″ Jaka - 25K
Mike “SowersUNCC” Sowers - 25K
Eugene Todd - 24K
Cody “thugmoneymakr” Slaughbaugh - 20K
Andy “tiltyjoker” Lee - 11K
Jon Wein - 8K

• June 30, 2008 -- No Double Dipping
• August 27, 2008 -- Short Day for Fineman, Amit Takes Lead
• August 27, 2008 -- Amit Doubles, Graham Crumbles
• July 9, 2008 -- Dippy Destruction

Brent “bhanks11″ Hanks (pictured left) lost a crucial 1 million chip pot when he got it all in with AK on the flop of AK5 against the 78 of Steve Merrifield. The turn brought the 9, giving Merrifield four more outs, and the Q spelled disaster for Hanks as his stack was slashed down to 250K. He was later taken out by Merrifield when he shoved A2 and was unable to outdraw the AT of his nemesis. Hanks took 5th place for $178,327.

In the $1.5K NLHE Shootout, Jon Wein recently doubled to grab the chip lead at his table. With the blinds at 150/300, the button moved all in but had the small blind and Wein covered. Wein called off his remaining 6K with JJ and was in a race sitaution against AK. The J on the flop increased Jon’s lead and the board bricked for his opponent, shipping a 12K pot to Wein. He currently has almost half of the table’s chips with four remaining.

Chris “sooooted” Vaughn and Casey “ccmuney” Coleman advanced to Round 2 and Richard “Lee Nickel” Fohrenbach (6K), Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar (10K) and Tony “Bond18″ Dunst (14.5K) were all heads up in Event #17 as we went into a 20-minute break. Others still battling away are Stu “thedonator” Patterson (3-handed, 10K), Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi (4-handed, 9K), Craig “MrCasino” Gray (3-handed, 15K) and Tim “Tim0thee” Adams (2-handed, 14.5K).

Dan “Stainley88″ Adams elimination from the shoot out was particularly painful. Dan moved all in pre-flop with pocket queens and another player tanked for what Dan said was almost two minutes. He asked for a count of Adams’ chips and stood up, clearly conflicted about what to do. He eventually made the call and turned up…pocket aces. Dan subtly suggested the player was slowrolling him and his opponent insisted it wasn’t intentional. He then apologetically explained to Adams that, “he just didn’t like having to call so much with pocket aces.” It worked out for him this time though, as the board was no help to Adams and the other player is currently heads-up at his shoot out table.

Maria “Maridu” Mayrinck has just exited the $1K Ladies Event in 35th place. Mayrick got the rest of her chips in with AQ and couldn’t get the best of her opponent’s 88 on a board of 877Q5. She picked up her second cash of the Wrodl Series for $4,765.

• June 19, 2008 -- Bowker Goes Busto
• June 2, 2008 -- WSOP Event #3 Underway
• June 9, 2008 -- For Whom the Bell Tolls
• June 9, 2008 -- Original Hanksta