Because play ended last night in the $2k NLHE event #48 right after the bubble burst, the “all-in fest” that usually occurs immediately following was saved for today. Less than 30 minutes after play began two tables had already been broken and David “ComptonMasta” Barter and Matt “plattsburgh” Vengrin are amongst the early casualties.

Bryan “Devo” Devonshire was also eliminated when his pocket fives ran into pocket jacks and failed to improve.

60 players have been eliminated in the first 75 minutes of play today and the other short stacks will obviously be looking to make moves soon so the high number of eliminations is likely to continue through the early part of the afternoon.

In the $1.5k NLHE event that started at noon today Justin Bonomo (pictured right) has jumped out as one of the early chip leaders with 14k while Theo Tran, Jeff ”yellowsub” Williams and Kevin “BeL0WaB0Ve” Saul have already been eliminated.

Eric “Rizen” Lynch was guarding a short stack when PocketFives caught up to his table on a T-7-4 flop.  Eric moved all in with Q-8 after the flop and managed to double against pocket jacks when he spiked a queen on the turn.  Another player at his table asked, “Is there a bounty on you or something?” before Eric laughed and collected the pot.  Other players faring less profitably include Dave “davyg” Gyarmti, who had accumulated up to 5.2K in chips until his pocket kings were cracked by pocket nines.  He was down to 1.8K at the break.

Other PocketFives members spotted in the event include David “seal” Eisenstein, Scott “thebasher007″ Stubbs, Nick “FU_15″ Maimone, William “gptbigguy” Looper, Joseph “Dyzalot” Morneau, Micah “mordan” Hendrix, Faraz “The Toilet-0″ Jaka, Chris “sooooted” Vaughn, Steve “willywoo” Nolan, Matt “All In At 420″ Stout, Eric “erbloore” Bloore, and Matt “SamENole” Smith. Some chip counts for other players are listed below.
Amit “amak316″ Makhija - 3.5K (pictured left)
Eric “Rizen” Lynch - 4K
Stuart “zpaceman” Taylor - 5.2K
Chris “big huni” Hunichen - 4K
Andriy “tormos” Pavlyuk - 6K
Shawn “raptorfan” Morris - 4.5K

• June 28, 2008 -- Rizen Out
• June 25, 2008 -- Shorr Silences Minneapolis Meehan
• June 16, 2008 -- Pop Goes the Bubble
• June 29, 2008 -- Saddling Up for HORSE

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

Nursing a short stack after the money bubble burst in the 1.5k NL WSOP Event #39, Scott “gunning4you” Seiver (pictured right) adopted a strategy to either build up his 7k stack or go home with less than 40 minutes left in the day.

After a few double ups, once making a straight when he went all-in preflop with 5 high, Seiver now has a puncher’s chance with 21k with the average stack at 38k.

He was admittedly hoping to bust when he was really short so he could play the 2-7 triple draw tournament that starts in eleven hours.

Once Seiver built his stack up he said that he wasn’t throwing in the towel anymore as he started the 5k NL tournament on day 2 with a below average stack of 22k and went on to win the bracelet and 755k a few weeks back.

Wayne “Imustcall” Leonard won a nice pot off of Amit “amak316″ Makhija when he won an all-in confrontation with QQ against Makhija’s AK minutes after the money bubble bursted, increasing Leonard’s stack to 40k and dropping Makhija’s down to 14k.

Theo Tran continued to add to his tally of cashes, making the money for the fifth time this WSOP. Tran won’t be able to make his third final table this series however, busting with two minutes left on a 4.5k stack.

Tran’s chances of making another deep run was thwarted when he lost a 40k pot before the money bubble when his AK lost to AQ in a hand that was all-in preflop.

Here’s a list of other notable players left.

Barry Greenstein - 84k

Garrett “GBecks” Beckman - 68k

Luke “JohnnyCashOut2″ Priour - 46k

Richard “Lee Nickel” Fohrenbach - 45k

Adam “Roothlus” Levy -  44k

Kenna James - 40k

Jason “JCarver” Somerville - 27k

Hasan Habib - 26k

Tony “Bond18″ Dunst - 18k

Joshua “pbdrunks” VanDuyn - 17k

• June 28, 2008 -- Seat Open!
• June 25, 2008 -- Pocket Fives No Good to Graham
• June 22, 2008 -- Beckman Elimates Levy
• June 21, 2008 -- “Another Day, Another Donkament.”

A massive field of 2,720 players began play at the Rio in today’s $1.5k NLHE event but only 350 remain after 8 levels of play. The players are currently on a 20 minute break but after they return eliminations are bound to slow down considerably as the infamous money bubble approaches. 270 players are going to cash in this event and we may well hit that number before play ceases tonight but as we’ve seen with these NLHE tournaments anything can happen so we’ll keep you posted as players continue to hit the rail.

Before the break started Theo Tran eliminated a player when his pocket aces held against his opponents pocket jacks. Tran now has around 45k while P5er Jeff “yellowsub” Williams (pictured right) hit the rail when his pocket deuces couldn’t outdraw his opponents pocket aces.

Garrett ”GBecks” Beckman scooped a few nice pots late in the 400-800-100 level, increasing his stack from 40k to 63k.

The rush started when Beckman busted two short stacks that moved in from late position. The initial raiser went all-in for 4500 and another short stack went all-in as well, shoving in for 8800.

Beckman called with AQ and was way ahead as he was up against A4 and A9. Beckman promptly flopped trip queens and busted the short stacks without much of a sweat.

Cody “thugmoneymkr” Slaubaugh is still playing heads up with Jesper Hougaard at the final table of event #36’s $1.5k NLHE tournament and while Hougaard has regained the chip lead, Slaubaugh is not far behind. The super agressive play Hougaard used earlier to push the short stacks around seems to be a thing of the past as Hougaard has 4.1 million to Slaubaugh’s 3.1 million in chips.

• June 22, 2008 -- Slaubaugh Takes 2nd
• June 22, 2008 -- Slaubaugh Leading Heads-Up Battle
• June 21, 2008 -- That’s the Way You Need It
• June 28, 2008 -- Seat Open!

In the Brazillia room Sorel “Imper1um” Mizzi just took a painful beat in event #24, the $2.5k PL HE/O tournament. A short stacked player limped preflop during an Omaha rotation and Mizzi, on the button, raised. After both blinds folded the limper committed a good portion of his chips by calling the raise and they saw the flop come T53. The limper pushed the rest of his chips into the pot and Mizzi quickly made the call showing the T876 for top pair, a gutshot straight draw, and a backdoor flush draw which was ahead of the other players 8765 for middle pair with the same straight draw and a different backdoor flush draw. While Mizzi should win or split the pot almost 90% of the time, the poker gods dealt the cruel 5 on the turn putting his opponent way ahead and the J on the river was no help and Mizzi doubled the short stack up.

Back in the Amazon room the 3rd round of the $10k Heads Up NLHE World Championship tournament is just beginning. Notable players who are looking to move on to tomorrow’s round 4 include: Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo, Gavin Griffin, Alex Jacob, Anna “VietCutie” Wroblewski, Isaac Haxton, Theo Tran, and Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond. The action is sure to be exciting in this 3rd round and we’ll keep you updated as players advance to round 4.

• June 13, 2008 -- Wolpert and Gray Get Coolered in 10k Heads-Up
• June 14, 2008 -- OMGClayAiken Sings Final Song
• June 14, 2008 -- Gray Done For the Day
• June 26, 2008 -- Top of the Chip Counts or Bust!