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The last event before the Main Event got underway today and by the end of the day there would only be two events left running... the $1,500 NLHE that was playing down to it's final table and the $1,500 Limit Hold Em Shootout event which was also going down to the final nine but came up way short of reaching that goal. Here are recaps of those two events.

Event #52 - $1,500 No Limit Hold Em

225 of the 2,693 players returned on day two and by the time they stopped the tournament clock, only nine were remaining. Matt Matros kicked off the crazy day of action when tired of Jim Miller raising every pot, he re-raised all in with K-4 off. Unfortunately for him, Miller had A-10 and that's not the kind of hand he folds. Fortunately for Matros, a 4 hit and he doubled up and would be on his way to making the final table as a result.

Ray Henson was the first notable to leave as he finished in 97th place. John Esposito and John Monnette were not too far behind in 81st and 80th. An Tran was knocked out in 56th place when he moved in with a 7 high flush draw hoping his opponent would fold but was called by an ace high flush draw that hit a pair of aces on the turn to knock Tran out. Vanessa Rousso's dreams of a bracelet were shattered when she made a gutsy call of a 185K all in bet from Anders Fraulund with pocket 9's on a 7-6-6 two spade board. Fraulund had a ton of outs with his K-J of spades and hit one of them when the queen of spades came on the river. Rousso finished in 44th place.

Mimi Tran was knocked out in 25th place when her K-Q was crushed by the A-Q of Gary Biggar. Corwin Cole won the biggest pot of the day in a three way all in pre-flop confrontation when his queens bested aces and jacks because of a queen hitting the river. Cole would go on to maintain the chip lead into the final table. Cody Slaubaugh was eliminated in 15th place shortly after losing a huge pot with A-K to Farzad Rouhani's pocket queens.

Here are the players who made the final table and their chip counts:

Corwin Cole (San Diego, California) 1,668,000
Matt Matros (Brooklyn, New York) 1,472,000
Jeff Courtney (Lancaster, Pennsylvania) 1,443,000
David Daneshgar (Westlake Village, California) 1,178,000
Voitto Rintala (Helsinki, Finland) 553,000
Dan Heimiller (Plymouth, Michigan) 544,000
Andrey Zaichenko (Moscow, Russia) 521,000
Scott Sitron (Milwaukee, Wisconsin) 504,000
Farzad Rouhani (Germantown, Maryland) 212,000

Event #53 - $1,500 Limit Hold Em Shootout

823 players started this unique event that is a series of single table matches with the winners from each table moving on to the next round. It took until nearly 10 p.m. for the first round to be completed and because of the late start of the 2nd round, they were unable to get down to the final table and will resume play today with an amazing 72 players still remaining.

Among those who started the day but were unable to advance were Erick Lindgren, Mark Vos, Daniel Negreanu, David Singer, Liz Lieu, Dutch Boyd, Lee Watkinson, Jennifer Harman, Barry Greenstein, Chris Moneymaker, Chris Ferguson, and Andy Bloch.

Making the money in this event was as easy as winning your first round match. Among those to do so were Mike Wattel, Jean-Robert Bellande, Will Durkee, Blair Rodman, Kenna James, Hoyt Corkins, David Bach, and Rhett Butler. Also among that crowd but among the 18 players that were eliminated in the 2nd round before play concluded were Kevin Song, Allan Le, and J.C. Tran.

The players will resume what is sure to be a long day of play at 2 p.m.