PokerWorks

The Rio was jam packed with poker players as nearly 3,000 players filed into the hallways and tournament rooms to take part in another $1,500 NLHE tournament. Two final tables were going on but there was only one other event taking place making it a relatively quiet day at the Rio in terms of the number of events that were going on. Here are recaps of the two non-final table events that took place.

Event #38 - $2,000 Pot Limit Hold Em

605 players had been pared down to 63 as play started. Already in the money, now it would be a matter of who could survive and thrive. Among those to exit early in the day's proceedings were Roy Winston, Vanessa Rousso, Liv Boeree, Matthew Hilger, Thomas Fuller, Marco Traniello, Shane Schleger, and Clonie Gowen. Gowen had done a remarkable job building up from a short stack to an average one before making the mistake of giving Ben Roberts a free card on a 8-6-5-A board. Gowen's A-J would go down in flames to the set of 10's that Roberts would hit on the river.

Players returned from the dinner break with 21 remaining and would continue to play until 9 were left. Eugene Todd would see his final table dreams come up short as he would go out in 18th place when his A-Q ran into the aces of Jan Von Halle. Neil Channing would follow him shortly when he was eliminated in 16th place. Keith Lehr, best known for his glass eye, was eliminated by Ayaz Mahmood just short of the final table when Lehr's A-9 could not improve against Mahmood's pocket 4's.

Michael Binger came into play today as the chip leader and high hopes of making a final table. In a huge hand with Chris Bell, Binger re-raised Bell's 24K opener to 82K. Bell moved all in and Binger seemed resigned to making the call and did so with A-Q. Bell had pocket jacks and when no ace or queen came, Binger was eliminated in 11th place. Unhappy, Binger left the room storming through the ropes and reportedly head butting the wall in anger.

The final table contains some well known professionals including Ben Roberts, Chris Bell, Jan Von Halle, and Lee Watkinson. The seating assignments and chip counts for the final nine is as follows:

Seat 1: David Kitai (Belgium) 274,000
Seat 2: Ben Roberts (London, England) 82,000
Seat 3: Ayaz Mahmood (Houston, Texas) 314,000
Seat 4: Michael Greco (London, England) 120,000
Seat 5: Chris Bell (Raleigh, North Carolina) 260,000
Seat 6: Jan Von Halle (Hamburg, Germany) 485,000
Seat 7: Robert Cheung (Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) 352,000
Seat 8: Keith Greer (Fort Worth, Texas) 238,000
Seat 9: Lee Watkinson (Cheney , Washington) 357,000

Event #39 - $1,500 NLHE

2,720 people took part in the madness that is a $1,500 WSOP NLHE event and by the end of the day only 218 players would be left and they would be in the money. Among the players who took part and failed to receive at least their buy in back were Greg Raymer, Carlos Mortensen, Daniel Negreanu, Jeffrey Lisandro, Mike Sexton, Phil Hellmuth, Joe Hachem, and Mike Caro. Some of the players who made the money but didn't make it to the end of the day were Nick Binger, Arnold Spee, and Theo Tran.

There are still many notable players returning to battle for the bracelet including Minh Nguyen, Phil Tom, Joe Tehan, Scott Seiver, Hasan Habib, Adam Levy, Kenna James, Bill Gazes, Humberto Brenes, and Barry Greenstein. Michael Polcari is the end of day chip leader with 130,000 in chips. Play will resume at 2 p.m.