Stretching out five fingers of one hand and dangling a bracelet from his other hand, Scotty Nguyen celebrated his fifth WSOP bracelet sitting in front of a pile cash after winning the 50k HORSE WSOP Event #45.

Nguyen started a final table stacked with poker’s biggest names second in chips, trailing only Erick Lindgren, who finished third. The HORSE final table also featured Lyle Berman, Barry Greenstein, Huck Seed, Matt Glantz and Patrick Bueno.

It only took Nguyen ten hands of heads up play to defeat 22-year-old Micheal DeMichele, who finished fourth in the 10k World Championship Mixed Event a few weeks ago.

Nguyen took home $1.98 million and the Chip Reese Memorial trophy.

The 1.5k NL WSOP Event # 52 is underway and is sold out at 2700 players. Court Harrington and Jeremy “ChipSteela” Menard informed P5’s that they were unfortunately locked out of the event after registering when it was capped.

• June 30, 2008 -- Crain Event
• June 29, 2008 -- Mueller Makes a Massive Call
• June 29, 2008 -- Crain Wrecks
• June 28, 2008 -- Players Continue to Hit the Rail

After a marathon day of hold ‘em yesterday, Eric “jakz101″ Crain (pictured below) played another grueling day of cards today in the $1.5K HORSE event.  Eric promised Pocket Fives he was either going to end the day as the chip leader or out.  Looks like it is going to be the latter.  After playing virtually every hand for the last level of play, Eric got the last of his chips in the middle during a 3 way Razz hand showing Q-3-3.  After 7th was dealt out, Crain showed A-2-3-4-10, but his opponent had him bested with A-5-6-7-8.  Eric was in high spirits though and left with a smile on his face and informing us he will be taking a much deserved day off tomorrow.

As play was wrapping up, we spotted the following unofficial chip counts of a few players:
Michael Binger - 18K
Doug “Resilient” Smith - 13K
Alex Jacob - 12K
“Bodog” Ari Engel - 9K
Bart Hansen - 7K
Allen Cunningham - 6K
Brett “Gank” Jungblut - 5K
Shannon Shorr - 4K
Bryan “badbeatninja” Devonshire - 1K

The other HORSE Event, the $50K World Championship, continued 3-handed play.  Michael DeMichele currently maintains his chip lead with 7 million chips, but Erick Lindgren has worked his way back from the short stack and is now second in chips with 4.6 million.  Scotty Nguyen is the shortest stack with 3.4 million.

• June 30, 2008 -- Nguyen Wins 50k HORSE
• June 29, 2008 -- Crain Wrecks
• June 28, 2008 -- The HORSE Race Continues
• June 29, 2008 -- Saddling Up for HORSE

The 2,718 player field of the $1.5K NLHE tournament has already been reduced to less than 1,200 after a mere four hours of play. That means during these first four hours, an average of more than six players were eliminated every minute. Among those that have been knocked out are Jordan “iMsoLucky0″ Morgan, Anna Wroblewski (pictured below), Alex Jacob and Shannon Shorr. Shorr got the remainder of his chips in with A-7 only to run into another player’s pocket jacks. The board brought no help for Shorr and he was eliminated.

Players just went on their second break of the day; here are some notable unofficial chip counts at the beginning of the break:

Taylor “tdomeski” Douglas - 16K
Scott “thebasher007″ Stubbs - 11K
Matt “SamENole” Smith - 11K
Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar - 10K
Carter “ckingusc” King - 10K
Hevad Khan - 9K
William “gptbigguy” Looper - 8K
Brent “bhanks11″ Hanks - 7.5K
Eric “Rizen” Lynch - 7K
Scott “ssitron” Sitron - 7K
Micah “mordan” Hendrix - 4.5K
David “seal” Eisenstein - 4K
Jon “pokertrip” Friedberg - 4K

Starting the day short-stacked, James “mig.com” Mackey hadn’t been able to get any momentum in the $50k HORSE event and finally got the last of his chips in preflop during a round of Omaha High-Low with the J754 against Farzad Bonyadi who held the AA72. The board ran out T3592 and Bonyadi’s pair of aces was best for the high and his 7532A was good for the low knocking Mackey out in 22nd place. Barry Greenstein is currently in the top five in chips with 943k while chip leader Michael DeMichele holds more than 1.5 million.

• July 4, 2008 -- Short Stacked Shorr Looking to Chip Up
• June 28, 2008 -- The HORSE Race Continues
• June 28, 2008 -- Basebaldy Bullies Bubble and Whiffs
• June 27, 2008 -- A Player Makes a “FatalError”

In the $2.5K Stud 8/Omaha 8 event, Brock “t_soprano” Parker (pictured at right) and Scott “BigRiskky” Clements are seated side by side as the final 5 tables approach the money bubble.  Clements lost most of his chips in an earlier Omaha hand with John Racener, who scooped the pot and left Clements with 9K, less than five big bets.  With the blinds at 1K/2K with a 500 ante, Parker brought in the stud hand hand for a completed bet to 2K with the 6 up.  Clements raised with his Q and another player with the K offered to put Clements all in for his remaining 3700 before Parker reminded him he was still in the hand.  The player apologized before 3-betting.  Parker made the call and Clements moved all-in for his remaining 1700.  Both made the call and their cards came as follows:

Clements: Q2TQ
Parker: 6844
Opponent: K5KJ

After 7th street, Parker missed his low, but had 2 pair, 4s and 6s.  The other player held kings and jacks with no low, and Clements turned over an ace and 2 deuces for the boat and scooped the pot.  He is now up to around 23K.

Despite losing the hand, Parker was still very active throughout the level and sits with a relatively healthy 47K.  Craig “mr. casino” Gray also remains in the event, but his mind appeared to be more on a $100 side bet than the event itself.  Gavin Smith laid Craig Gray 15-1 that Allen “The Chainsaw” Kessler would finish in exactly 43rd place.  Poker writer Gary Wise observed Smith’s terrible line on the bet since 40 spots pay and Kessler, who is notorious for tight play around the money bubble, would likely not let himself be eliminated without getting paid.  Wise’s suggestion for a better line?  39th place.  We’ll see if Wise’s predicition is correct, but in the meantime, Smith will be paying up as 41 players, Kessler included, remain in the event.

Meanwhile, in the $10K Mixed Game Championship, Anthony “tongni” Rivera crippled Michael DeMichele in an unreal race of 2-7 Triple Draw.  DeMichele showed down 8-7-5-4-3 to Rivera’s 8-7-5-3-2 and was left with 40K.  Shortly afterwards, DeMichele went all-in pre-draw and was eliminated by Rivera.  He takes home $139,872 for his valiant efforts.

At the dinner break, the final table was three-handed with the following chip counts:
 
Tony “tongni” Rivera - 1.896M
Matt Glantz - 1.015M
James “mig.com” Mackey - 926K

• June 7, 2008 -- Sterling Silvers; Porter Final Tables
• June 6, 2008 -- “Worldsgrtest?” World’s Greatest!
• June 11, 2008 -- Lieu Doubles, Saul Busts
• June 25, 2008 -- Pocket Fives No Good to Graham

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