Day 6: Two final tables of Hold'em fun

Where it's at! The Rio is filled to the gills today as two events work toward winners this afternoon while two more play a second day and two more get under way.

Event 3

The $1,500 Pot-Limit Hold'em final table began play at 2 p.m. today. Joe Tehan led the way into the event with $458,000 in chips and the other pro at the table, David Singer, was sitting low in second-to-last position with $85,000.

Initially, the players seemed to be in silent agreement to play super-cautious, rarely seeing a flop. After about an hour, however, Singer came to life and doubled up twice in a matter of four hands.

The move pushed him from second-to-last to second in the chip count.

Meanwhile, Jacobo Fernandez, who started out the day second in chips, has surpassed Tehan. He's up over $1 million in chips, with Singer in the second-place seat with $350,000 in chips, according to the WSOP Web site.

Tehan, on the other hand, has been steadily falling down the leaderboard. He doesn't have all that far he can fall, though, since Glen Bean has already been eliminated in ninth place and Al Barbieri hit the rail in eighth.

This final table isn't going to be found anywhere on ESPN, folks, so if you were waiting to see it play out on TV, you're going to be out of luck. Instead, head to the PokerListings Live Tournament section for updates, photos and more live from the event.

Event 4

The Bodog Poker Team is in the hunt for a bracelet win in the $5,000 Mixed Hold'em event. The final table got started after 4:30 p.m. with Bodog pros David Williams and Justin Bonomo hot on the heels of chip leader David Rheem.

With Howard Lederer, Isaac Haxton, Erick Lindgren and Roland De Wolfe adding their star power to the table as well, this is sure to be a final table poker fans are going to want to see. With only about an hour of play done, that promise has already been realized.

On the very first hand Haxton and Bonomo clashed, with Haxton deciding to lay down the hand after a $50,000 reraise from Bonomo. Then on the second hand of the final table, Haxton was done.

He open-raised to $18,000 from middle position, and Lindgren reraised to $60,000 from the button. Haxton reraised all-in, and Lindgren made the call.

With A♣ K♠ Haxton was behind Lindgren's pocket queens, and a board of 6♥ 2♥ 5♠ 8♠ 7♥ couldn't save him.

This may turn out to be a fast one, so poker fans may want to tune in soon to catch some of the action.

Event 5

The $1,000 No-Limit Hold'em Rebuy Event began its second day of play at 2 p.m. today. On Day 1, play seemed to be fast and furious as players were trying to rake in lots of chips quickly with wild play while they still had time the opportunity to take advantage of rebuys.

You might think play would be a little less frenetic on Day 2, as players would want to protect their stacks a little better to at least try to get in the money. Instead, more than 30 players were eliminated within the first hour of play.

Some of those players missing out on the money were Phil Ivey, who had come in as the chip leader on the day, along with Sorel Mizzi, Clonie Gowen and Phil Hellmuth.

Poker pros still in the action include Chad Brown, Amit Makhija, Daniel Negreanu, Jeff Madsen, Michael Binger and John Juanda. It's still anybody's game, however, and by the end of the day the final nine left to play tomorrow's final table might consist of unknowns.

Event 6

Two hundred and five players returned to the Rio's Amazon room today for the $1,500 Omaha Hi-Lo Split Eight-or-Better, down from the 832 players who paid in to test their skills on Tuesday. At about 3 p.m. today the cards were in the air again, with James Van Alstyne starting the day as the chip leader.

After just a couple hours of play, the field is down to just over 170, and Van Alstyne is no longer king of the Omaha tourney.

A player named Mark Wilds has that honor at the moment, but there are more than a few pros still in the mix hoping to make a good run and end the day at the top or at least at the final table to play tomorrow.

Scott Clements has been working to rebuild his stack while Allen Kessler, Robert Mizrachi, Linda Johnson and Perry Friedman are all sitting pretty good in the count. Meanwhile, Jimmy Fricke is one of the unfortunates who has started to sag in the ranks, but he's still in it.

Check out the action here.

Event 7

Anybody up for a little more Hold'em action today? Apparently 1,592 players were, as they ponied up $2,000 apiece for another No-Limit Hold'em event today. That's slightly more than last year's playing field for the same event, and it means a pretty hefty payout for the winner.

Here's some of the who's who from the start of the event: Men Nguyen, Jennifer Tilly, JJ Liu, Brandon Cantu, Michael Craig, Mike "Little Man" Sica, John Myung, Danny Ryan, Kevin Saul, Mark Seif, Jon Friedberg, Fred Goldberg, Tony Cousineau, Noah Boeken, Sabyl Cohen, David Pham, Victor Ramdin, David Levi, Alexia Portal, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Theo Tran, Chris Grigorian, Tim Vance, Matt Stout and Eugene Todd.

There's probably a laundry list of players not being mentioned as well, and perhaps they'll be found on the list of players who've already left Event 7 for the day.

They include Bill Edler, Liz Lieu, Vanessa Rousso, T.J. Cloutier, Kathy Liebert, Dave "Devilfish" Ulliott, Jamie Gold, Jonathan Little, Phil Laak, Rafe Furst, Ted Lawson and more.

Event 8

The second $10,000 World Championship event of the 2008 World Series of Poker got under way at 5 p.m. today with players looking forward to a mix of eight events.

Doyle Brunson mentioned in his blog that he was cherry-picking events this year to save himself for the ones he thought he'd have a great chance in, and this is one of them. He's an old-school pro who can take on any variation, so the $10,000 Mixed Event is right up his alley.

This event has the players rotating through eight different poker variations. They are: 2-7 Triple Draw, Fixed-Limit Hold'em, Omaha Hi-Lo Split Eight-or-Better, Razz, Seven-Card Stud, Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo Split Eight-or-Better, No-Limit Hold'em and Pot-Limit Omaha.

Brunson isn't the only former Main Event champ who's been spotted among the 170-plus players already seated and playing. Berry Johnston, Johnny Chan, Scotty Nguyen and Greg Raymer are also in the event.

There could be still more players to show up and there are certainly plenty of other popular poker pros in the mix.

For all the action from the 2008 WSOP, head to the Live Tournaments section where you'll find live updates, photos, interviews, videos and more.

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