Jason “strassa2″ Strasser probably just made the ESPN footage of the main event. With the blinds at 1.2k/2.4k with a 300 ante he raised to 7k from middle position and Men Nguyen pushed all in for 20.8k more. Jason contemplated for awhile before deciding to make the call and Nguyen proudly flipped over his AA while Jason tabled the KT. His chance to bust a well known pro loomed and the flop came 542. Jason would need running cards to best Nguyen’s aces but the turn brought the 8 sealing the deal. The Q fell on the river and the 60k pot was shipped over to Nguyen with the ESPN cameras catching all the action.

Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen (pictured right) won a gigantic pot over 200k earlier when he flatted the small blind’s raise with pocket eights in the big blind after it was folded around to the small blind. Thayer promptly flopped a boat when it came 8-4-4, trumping his opponents pocket kings. Rasmussen later got moved to a table playing alongside Brent “astrolux85″ and and Hunter THE_HUNT_D” Frey.  Several other stacked tables are forming that bear mentioning.  Earlier we reported on the table that contained Leo “Superfluous Man” Wolpert, Owen “ocrowe” Crowe and “Bodog” Ari Engel, but that isn’t the only table where you’ll find PocketFivers duking it out. Just a few tables over, Brian “Like7″ Lamanna, Aditya “intervention” Agarwal and Kush Patel are all seated together as well. Another table to watch out for boasts Tim ‘tmay420″ West, Garrett “GBecks” Beckman, Darren “DABADESTCHIC” Nelson, and Cort “thecortster” Kibler-Melby.

After being merely a spectator for the first few levels, Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy’s chip stack started fluctuating in big margins. Keith “damurdera3″ Ferrera raised to 5400 under-the-gun and a player in middle position shoved all-in for 20k. Josephy re-raised to 38k and Ferrera moved all-in for a total of 202k. Josephy made the call tabling pocket kings but was trailing Ferrera’s pocket aces. The hand boosted Ferrera’s stack to 409k and Josephy was left with around 60k.

Luckily for Josephy, a table change helped move his stack north. In his first orbit at his new table, Josephy raised under-the-gun only to have a player in the blind put him all-in for his last 57k. Josephy made the call and tabled pocket kings again but this time was ahead of his opponents pocket jacks. The board ran true for Josephy, although his friend Kevin “BeLOWaBOVe” Saul, watching from about 40 feet away from the rail, had thought Josephy lost given his demeanor.

“Tell him to smile next time he doubles through,” Saul said to Pocketfives. A few minutes later Saul came over to congratulate Josephy on his double up and gave him a hard time about looking glum. Given Josephy’s last level, who can blame him?

“I had a lot more,” Josephy told Saul in response to his ribbing.

There are currently only 801 of the 1307 players that started the day which means we are only 135 spots away from the money. Play has been fast and furious all day but will likely slow down as the bubble approaches.

Here are some of our most recent unofficial chip counts:
Matthew “Burton1080″ Jensen - 465K
Andy “tufat23″ Teng - 350K
Owen “ocrowe” Crowe - 330K
Jeff “YoungSupremacy” Hakim - 320K
Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier - 305K
Cort “thecortster” Kibler-Melby - 270K
Aaron “NDGrinder59″ Steury - 265K
Devin “TranquilChaos” Porter - 225K
Hunter “THE_HUNT_D” Frey - 220K
Aditya “intervention” Argawal - 220K
Frank “Round42″ Rusnak - 200K
David “Raptor157″ Benefield - 195K
Peter “number1pen” Neff - 165K
Jonathan “therookieqq9″ Plens - 160K
Garrett “GBecks” Beckman - 155K
Ryan “Daut44″ Daut - 145K
David “Bakes” Baker - 140K
Josh “squintngo” Goldstein - 135K
Brent “Astrolux85″ Roberts - 135K
Jason Gray - 120K
Kush Patel - 115K
Tim “tmay420″ West - 110K
Bruce “Cornellxc11″ Hyde - 105K
Chris “cmoney3″ Kline - 95K
Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki - 94K
Matt “mattg1983″ Graham - 90K
Clayton “clayton27″ Newman - 89K
Darren “DABADESTCHIC” Nelson - 86K
Justin “truesyalose” Truesdell - 75K
Jon “Pearljammer” Turner - 70K
Cody “shankingyou” Shedd - 43K

• July 10, 2008 -- Levy’s Ruthless Pursuit of Chips
• July 11, 2008 -- Olly Olly Oxen Free!
• July 10, 2008 -- Crowe’s Chips Riding a Roller Coaster
• July 11, 2008 -- Crowe Pecking Away

Returning from a break in the 1.5k NL WSOP Event #49, Vivek “psyduck” Rajkumar (pictured right) encountered a problem he’d never faced when playing online.

Thanks to hundreds of people mixing in with a monotone grid of tables, Rajkumar was unable to find his seat as the tournament was about to start.

“I’m such a clown,” Rajkumar said. “I’m a world class clown,” he told P5’s as he was having fun with the situation.

As Rajkumar was wondering around the Amazon Room one of his tablemates waved him over. Then Rajkumar had to decided which stack to sit in front of as two stacks of chips remained vacant next to each other where Rajkumar was seated. They figured it out rather quickly as Rajkumar got a little ribbing from the table as the tournament was underway.

Rajkumar didn’t have nearly as hard a time doubling his 16k stack minutes later when he 3-bet his opponent with pocket jacks and his opponent called and moved all-in on a 10-10-7 flop. Rajkumar’s hand held up against his opponents ace-high as his stack shot up to 30k.

William “gptbigguy” Looper has maintained his 36k stack amid a home-game environment with Minh “The Master” Nguyen sitting to his immediate left. Nguyen had been cracking jokes and cackling loudly following the break and was last seen taking shots with some people at the table. Although he was enjoying the atmostphere, Looper didn’t succumb to the party environment.

“No shots for me just yet,” Looper said. “I’ve got to keep my concentration level.”

Here’s a list of other notable chip stacks in Level 7 with blinds at 300-600-75 and the average stack at 17k. There are 460 of the initial 2,718 players left.

Greg “FBT” Mueller - 50k

Andy Black - 35k

David Pham - 28k

Chris “sooooted” Vaughn - 16k

Eugene Todd - 16k

Jonathan “FieryJustice” Little - 15k

Jon “pokertrip” Friedberg - 15k

Owen “ocrowe” Crowe - 14k

J.C. Tran - 12k

Hevad Khan - 8k

In the $2K No Limit Hold Em event Dan “Wretchy” Martin recently doubled up when a player raised to 18K and Martin then reraised to 43K with blinds at 3k-6k and a 500 ante.  The first player then moved all-in, forcing Dan to a decision for his remaining 80K.  Luckily for Martin, the decision was pretty simple and he quickly made the call with AA.  The other player showed KK and when the cards ran out 6434J Dan’s stack shot up to 240K.  Martin told Pocket Fives he picked up pocket queens the very next hand and picked up another pot after reraising pre-flop.  He now sits with 300K.
 
Here are some other notable chip counts from some of the 48 remaining players:

Eric “jakz101″ Crain - 540K
Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson - 410K
Blake “BallaB13″ Cahail - 333K
Adam “akat11″ Katz - 300K
David “DavidP18″ Peters - 145K
Darren “DABADESTCHIC” Nelson - 133K
Jose “head2782″ Severino - 110K
Ibuki “bukithepro” Fukui - 77K

Recent eliminations include Adam “Roothlus” Levy and Tristan “Cre8tive” Wade.

• June 28, 2008 -- Rizen Out
• June 28, 2008 -- Seat Open!
• June 30, 2008 -- Daut Busted in 10k PLO
• June 29, 2008 -- Mueller Makes a Massive Call

Many online players seemed a bit disgusted with their tables after players returned from an hour and a half dinner break in the 1k rebuy WSOP Event #44.

Richard “Lee Nickel” Fohrenbach lamented having to play at his table, playing with Jason “JCarver” Somerville and Jeff “yellowsub” Williams to his left.

Somerville was hating life even more as he said Williams, who was sitting two players his left, was “abusing” him. The two had a playful deamenor with each other as they made cracks on each other as P5’s was watching the action.

Somerville even tried to bribe P5’s to write something bad about Williams, even offering up a green 25 chip as compensation. P5’s scoffed at the offer, electing to wait for higher compensation!

Fohrenbach’s frustration didn’t get much sympathy from Adam “Roothlus” Levy, who walked over and talked about his table which included Shaun Deeb (21k), Theo Tran (75k), Scott “BigRiskky” Clements (45k), and Jordan “Octavian_C” Rich (13k).

This table was one of the more social tables, talking about many random poker stories capped off by who has broken more laptops.

After much discussion, Deeb mentioned that nobody has broken more than Chad “lilholdem954″ Batista, who has a tally Deeb confidently described as “double digits” piled up in his garage.

Joshua “pbdrunks” VanDuyn (pictured left) was battling a short stack of 10k at one of the more interesting tables left, playing alongside Mark Seif (98k), Minh “The Master” Nguyen, David Daneshgar (9k), and Jeremiah “Believer82″ Vinsant (25k).

Although VanDuyn’s situation seemed dire with about a third of the 30k average stack, it was much worse until he tripled up his 3k stack off of Vinsant when his kings held up against Vinsant’s AJ. Perhaps VanDuyn will need to borrow another colorful hat like the pink one he borrowed from JJ Lieu earlier in the day to improve his fortune.

Here’s a list of notable chip stacks during the 400-800-100 level with 198 of 879 left.

Jason Mercier - 73k

Eric “E-fro” Froehlich - 64k

Darrell “Gigabet” Dicken - 49k

Ben “bfineman” Fineman - 30k

Brett “bhanks11″ Hanks - 26k

Craig “MrCasino” Gray - 21k

Stu “TheDonator” Paterson - 20k

Adam “akat11″ Katz - 20k

Matt “All in At 420 Stout” - 18k

Scott “SCTrojans” Freeman - 9k 

• June 25, 2008 -- Pocket Fives No Good to Graham
• June 25, 2008 -- “The Toilet” Makes Flush
• June 26, 2008 -- Freeman and Vinsant Moving Up
• June 5, 2008 -- Poker Pro Tip of the Day