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

Adam “Roothlus” Levy’s (pictured left) resurrection from a short stack last night to 230k at the start of Day 3 of the Main Event has continued escalate. Levy scooped a 280k in the last level in a cutoff vs blind battle when Levy raised in late position and got reraised by his opponent out of the blind. Levy put in another raise, resulting in the massive all-in pot with his AK trailing his opponents pocket jacks. Levy clipped a pair and currently sits with 400k.

Matthew “Burton1080″ Jensen has also been on an enormous tear today, starting with the second hand of the day.  A player opened for 4K and Jensen raised to 14K out of the big blind with A-K with the king of clubs.  The flop came out {ac]72 and Matt led for 20K.  The other player raised to 55K and Jensen moved all-in.  The other player then folded and Matt picked up a nice sized pot. 

Leo “SuperfluousMan” Wolpert has been treading water all day but has managed to keep his 160k starting stack intact. Increasing that stack will be much more difficult after Wolpert drew an extremely tough table with Owen “ocrowe” Crowe (300k) and “Bodog” Ari Engel (130k).

Aaron “NDGrinder59″ Steury continues to ride the roller coaster he boarded last night as his stack continues to fluctuate in six-figure swings. Steury started the Day 3 with 121k after getting up to 250k late in Day 2. Steury ran his starting stack up to 250k again but got back down to 185k after losing a big pot post-flop with pocket jacks.

Senovio “DorsalFin” Ramirez continues to build a big stack and recently just busted a player in an all-in preflop confrontation. Ramirez re-raised a 10k open to 25k out of the blind with blinds at 1k-2k-300. Ramirez’s opponent went all-in for an additional 40k and Ramirez called with his AK way ahead of his opponents A-10. The board ran true for Ramirez, who has 225k.

Mohsin “chicagocards1″ Charania was fighting the deck most of the day and eventually hit the exit when his kings ran into pocket aces on a ten high flop. Charania started the day with 65k and was able to get up to 125k before his bustout.  Others eliminated recently include Bobby “gettindeep” Hodson, Mike “RunScreamin” Herder, Kevin “kice32″ Iacofano, Mark “sideshowgil” Gilbert, and Darren Elias.

• July 10, 2008 -- Strasser vs. Nguyen
• July 11, 2008 -- Crowe Pecking Away
• July 10, 2008 -- Crowe’s Chips Riding a Roller Coaster
• July 11, 2008 -- Double Double (or Toil and Trouble)

• July 11, 2008 -- Crowe Pecking Away
• July 11, 2008 -- Money Makin’, Super Tables Breakin’
• July 11, 2008 -- People Don’t You Know It’s About Time?
• July 11, 2008 -- Olly Olly Oxen Free!

Nachman “thelandlord” Berlin (pictured left) didn’t have the best start to his Day 3 of the Main Event. He’d lost half of his 125k starting stack in the first level when his middle set was trumped by top set. No matter how Berlin played the hand, he was doubling the other player up.

Shortly after that cooler, Berlin picked up a huge hand and re-raised Men “TheMaster” Nguyen’s wife 5k open from early position to 20k. An opponent behind Berlin re-raised him for his last 40k and Berlin mucked his pocket queens.

Rest assured, Berlin’s opponent tabled pocket aces.

Berlin has since went on rush at his table, scooping various small to medium size pots, many going without a showdown. After rising up from all the setup situations he encountered early, Berlin returned from first break with 140k, a 20k improvement from the start.

One Pocketfiver whose journey through Day 3 has been way less turbulent is Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy. After accumulating a 246k stack yesterday when Josephy was extremely active throughout, he’s admittedly been very quiet today.

“I haven’t seen one flop out of the blinds all day today,” said Josephy, who turned to the table for confirmation of what is an uncharacteristic pattern of behavior for him.

Allen “albari” Bari started the day with 117k and through the first level had chipped up to around 240k. He lost a little bit of that when a player went all in for around 30k and Allen made the call with his 99. It was a classic race as the all in player held the AK. The flop came KT6 to put the all in player in the lead and while the 2 on the turn gave Allen a flush draw, the A on the river couldn’t help him and Allen doubled the other player up and his stack dropped to a little over 200k.

Paul “comeonphish” Lieu began day 3 of play with an above average stack of 183K, but he has since nearly doubled the stack he started with today.  We weren’t there to catch the action, but Paul fessed up to PocketFives Live that he sucked out on a player in a 100K pot when the got it all-in preflop with Lieu holding pocket sevens while his opponent had pocket jacks.  The flop and turn left Paul drawing dead to a seven, but one of the two remaining in the deck came on the river and the other player was eliminated.
 
Matt “mattg1983″ Graham (pictured right) recently got a boost to his chip stacks after a hand he termed, “one of the sickest things you’ll ever see.”  Matt raised preflop, another player reraised out of the blinds, and Graham made the call.  The flop came J74 and the reraiser bet 16K.  Matt then did some reraising of his own, bumping it up 36K, which the other player called.  When the 2 fell on the turn the other player bet out 40K leaving 15K behind and Graham called.  When the 3 hit on the river the other player checked to Graham who moved all-in and the other player folded, leaving himself with less than ten big blinds.  Graham showed Q8 for queen high and now has over 200K.
 
Louis “MrBeeks” Werman was eliminated after a hand was raised and reraised preflop and he and his opponent got it all in on a flop of 9-8-6.  Werman’s pocket jacks were no match for the other player’s pocket aces and he was sent to the rail. 

Here are some updated and unofficial chip counts as players returned from their first break of the day:
Paul “comeonphish” Lieu - 340K
Owen “ocrowe” Crowe - 300K
Adam “Roothlus” Levy - 285K
Tim “Tmay420″ West - 240K
Aditya “intervention” Argawal - 240K
Chris “SLOPPYKLOD” Klodnicki - 235K
Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy - 230K
Jamie “TheCronic420″ - 220K
Derek “arodss3″ Buonano - 201K
Matt “mattg1983″ Graham - 200K
Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis - 200K
Garrett “GBecks” Beckman - 195K
Darren “DABADESTCHIC” Nelson - 190K
Mike “RunScreamin” Herder - 175K
Leo “SuperfluousMan” Wolpert - 174K
Tom “titantom32″ Braband - 170K
Frank “Round42″ Rusnak - 165K
Jason Gray - 160K
David “DavidP18″ Peters - 160K
Peter “number1pen” Neff - 155K
“Bodog” Ari Engel - 150K
Brian “Like7″ Lammana - 130K
Devin “TranquilChaos” Porter - 125K
Dylan “ImALucSack” Linde - 110K
David “Bakes” Baker - 100K
Doug “resilient” Smith - 100K
Ben “shankingyou” Palmer -95K
Clayton “clayton27″ Newman - 80K
Cody “CalBandGreat” Shedd - 80K
Mark “sideshowgil” Gilbert - 67K
Mohsin “chicagocards1″ Charania - 62K
Kevin “kice32″ Iacofano - 41K
Ryan “Daut44″ Daut - 38K

• July 11, 2008 -- Together They Fall
• July 10, 2008 -- King is Dead
• July 9, 2008 -- Divine Intervention
• July 11, 2008 -- Crowe Pecking Away

Starting with a below average stack of 65k on Day 3 of the Main Event, Scott “BigRiskky” Clements (pictured right) wasn’t wielding the big stack he’s accustomed to bludgeoning on his opposition.

Clements position got bleaker after getting down to 49k in the first hour with blinds at 800-1600-200. Then Clements finally scooped a pot that will perhaps enable him to play more of his aggressive style that’s been so successful for him.

Clements raised to 4700 under-the-gun and got re-raised all-in by his opponent for an additional 36k, costing Clements the majority of his chips. Given the position Clements raised from, he wasn’t exactly ecstatic about getting raised all-in for most of his chips by this particular opponent.

“I thought about folding,” he said.

Clements eventually made the call and his AK was trailing his opponents pocket tens.
Clements picked up a two extra outs when the flop came Q-J-x, but was bad shape until he clipped a king on the river, elevating his stack to 87k.

Another PocketFiver whose built his stack early is Senovio “DorsalFin” Ramirez, who started the day with 124k. Ramirez’s opponent raised to 5k from middle position and Ramirez called out of the blind. On a flop of A86, Ramirez check-raised his opponent’s overbet of 20k to 55k. His opponent went all-in for an additional 10k and Ramirez called with AK, way ahead of his opponents AQ. The board ran true for Ramirez, who now has 190k.

Darrell “Gigabet” Dicken played a big all-in preflop hand with his opponent, both with approximately equal stacks. Dicken held the QQ but found he was behind his opponents AA. Behind until the flop came KQ3 to catapult Dicken into the lead. Ah but the poker gods can be cruel sometimes and in a classic “suck-out re-suck-out” the A hit on the turn to put the other player back into the lead. As the river was being dealt the player with aces nearly jumped out of his seat seeing it was a face card but it was just the K. No quads for Dicken and he was sent to the rail.

Devin “TranquilChaos” Porter and another player saw a flop of 997. The other player checked over to Porter who bet 7k only to be check-raised to 15k. Porter made the call and when the 9 fell on the turn both players checked. The T came on the river and the other player bet out 12k which Porter called. The other player showed the 66 for nines full of sixes which was good enough and Porter mucked his hand. As his table broke he said he was down about 30k from the start of the day but is looking to get it back soon!

Some early chip counts we spotted include Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen (125k), Nachman “thelandlord” Berlin (60k), Ryan “Daut44″ Daut (40k), and Christian “Deckzor” Fockenberg (11k).

Early eliminations include Noah “exclusive” Boeken, Kevin “ImaLucSac” Macphee, Michael “benvo123″ Benvenuti, and Jeff “yellowsub” Williams

• July 7, 2008 -- By the Numbers: 2008 WSOP Main Event
• July 11, 2008 -- Money Makin’, Super Tables Breakin’
• July 11, 2008 -- People Don’t You Know It’s About Time?
• July 10, 2008 -- Levy’s Ruthless Pursuit of Chips