Jonathan “therookieqq9″ Plens’ roller-coaster day has come to an end. With blinds at 25K/50K Plens raised to 135K in the cutoff and Anthony Scherer re-raised to 400K from the big blind. Plens moved in for his last 900K and Scherer made the call:

Plens: AK
Scherer: A8

Unfortunately for Plens, Scherer flopped top two pair and Jonathan couldn’t catch a king on the turn and river and he was eliminated in 42nd place for $154,400.

Andrew “foucault” Brokos has been very active at his table, which happens to include Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki, Peter “number1pen” Neff and Owen “ocrowe” Crowe.

He hasn’t tangled with any of them much but has found a nemesis in Scott “r_a_y” Montgomery, whom we just came to realize is a PocketFiver as well. On a board of A52K, Montgomery checked to Brokos, who bet 350K. Montgomery then raised to 950K and Brokos went into he tank for seven minutes. He eventually moved all in and Montgomery called instantly with K5, which had Brokos’ AT drawing thin. The 9 fell on the river and Montgomery doubled up.

We’re midway through Level 26 and the dinner break will come in one hour. With the average stack at 3.6 million, here’s a look at the chip counts of those still hanging on with 37 players remaining:

Scott “r_a_y” Montgomery - 5.65M
Team Ladbrokes player Peter Eastgate - 4M
Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki - 3M
Owen “ocrowe” Crowe - 2.3M
Andrew “foucault” Brokos - 1.5M
Peter “number1pen” Neff - 1.1M

• July 14, 2008 -- P5ers In the Hunt for “November Nine”
• July 13, 2008 -- KLOD Nicks More Chips
• July 13, 2008 -- Adam Out in Ruthless Hand
• July 16, 2008 -- So Long, Farewell

Day Three has come to a close here at the Rio, with 474 players remaining in the race for the bracelet. All remaining players are guaranteed $25,090 with each lusting after the $9.1M prize. Because hand-for-hand play continued for quite awhile this evening, the tournament ended in an interesting fashion: staff held a draw to determine the number of hands remaining. Mike Matusow was given the opportunity to draw the number, and eight hands it was before play concluded after 2am in the Amazon Room. Day Four will begin at 1PM PST tomorrow.

Owen “ocrowe” Crowe came through a table stacked with online pros on Day 3 of Main Event and emerged as one of the top stacks at day’s end.
Crowe wielded one of the top stacks at his table throughout the night and picked it up late, elevating his stack to 950k, well over the 288k average.

Jonathan “therookieqq9″ Plens overcame a tough table that featured Aditya “intervention” Agarwal (270k) and Brian “Like7″ Lamanna (61k). He improved his 38k starting stack to become one of the chip leaders at his table with 560k.

Adam “Roothlus” Levy (pictured at right) maintained the 450k stack he acquired earlier in the day and will hit Day 4 with 480k. It’s been an incredible run for Levy, who got down below 20k on Day 2. Levy clipped a two-outer when he was all-in preflop against Brad Booth when he hit a set on the river to best Booth’s flopped pair with overcards.

Peter “number1pen” Neff ran on a heater the last level of the night; at one point, Neff picked up pocket fives and flopped a set to eliminate his opponent, who held K-T. His P5s held strong and he went on to end the evening with 600K in chips.

Here are some chip counts at the end of the day, despite the tournament staff’s insistence that the media not mingle amongst the tables any longer for fear of getting run over by ESPN camera crews.

Congratulations to all for their deep run and good luck tomorrow!

Owen “ocrowe” Crowe - 960K
Chris “Panamatony” Barrile - 873K
Peter “number1pen” Neff - 600K
Derek “arodss3″ Buanono - 558k
Andy “tufat23″ Teng - 520K
Keith “damurdera3″ Ferrera - 510K
Adam “Roothlus” Levy - 480K
Tracey “XtrACEy” Nguyen - 480K
Cort “thecortster” Kibler-Melby - 400K
Aaron “NDGrinder59″ Steury - 400K
Leo “Superfluous Man” Wolpert - 360K
Edward “zaner1″ Zing - 330K
Jeff “jpapola” Papola - 305K
Jon “pokertrip” Friedberg - 300K
Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier - 275K
Jeremy “thechemist83″ Gaubert - 254K
Garrett “GBecks” Beckman - 175K
Bruce “Cornellxc11″ Hyde - 102K
Clayton “clayton27″ Newman - 90K
Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy - 89.5K
Tim “tmay420″ West - 75K

Recent eliminations include the following:
581st - Justin “truesyalose” Truesdell
556th - Zelong “freeman” Dong
545th - Michael “DblupM0j” Johnson
519th - Doug “Resilient” Smith

• July 10, 2008 -- Levy’s Ruthless Pursuit of Chips
• July 10, 2008 -- Crowe’s Chips Riding a Roller Coaster
• July 10, 2008 -- Strasser vs. Nguyen
• June 22, 2008 -- Slaubaugh Takes 2nd