Hachem arrives at WSOP, but who hasn't?

Is that a tent out there? We're playing in a tent?

We definitely know who is here.

Wall-to-wall coverage highlighting every name poker player under the sun to hit the Amazon Room has made that easy.

But the 2007 World Series of Poker is nearing the halfway point, and a few big names have yet to make much of an impact. Included among them: Gus Hansen, "Action" Dan Harrington, "The Matador" Carlos Mortensen and 2005 Main Event champ Joe hachem. 

Hachem, at least, has a reasonable excuse for his lack of results.

He's been filming in Australia for an appearance on 60 Minutes.

But Hansen? Mortensen? Harrington? Is it high-stakes cash games keeping them away? A distaste for the new WSOP set-up and schedule? A fierce case of an embarrasing ailment, such as the dropsy?

Info is scarce, but PokerListings.com has managed to track down a few bits here and there, with these just some of the top pros yet to make waves at the 2007 WSOP.

1. Joe Hachem

The 2005 champ had been conspicuously missing from the WSOP as of yet, but the mystery was solved today when Hachem arrived for his first event - and was even seen mingling with his fellow Main Event winner Jamie Gold before he busted out early in the afternoon.

The reason for his absence? Australian paper The Age says he's been busy filming for a feature piece on television news magazine 60 Minutes. A reporter and his crew have been following Joe and his family around over the last week, watching him play at the Crown casino, enjoy a family barbecue and go to an Aussie rules football game to see his favorite team.

2. Gus Hansen

The "Great Dane" - notorious ladykiller, Bellagio big game regular, TV superstar and current Aussie Millions title holder - is in town and has been from the beginning.

But he's only played three or four events and left the poker room post haste, busting out early in all of them.

His excuses, however, are more then understandable. For the tourneys, he chalks it up to either bad cards or bad decisions. And for the light schedule: epic cash game sessions on Full Tilt Poker, with Hansen actually just finishing his best session ever, taking almost $1.4 million in only two days.

He's also, according to his blog, playing a lot of squash. For serious. And he'll definitely play the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event, he says.

3. Carlos Mortensen

No word on where the 2001 Main Event champ has been keeping himself, but it would be a major surprise if he wasn't at least in the vicinity and about to poke his head in. He's running well lately, with a WPT Season 5 World Championship victory and plenty of momentum towards a second Main Event title.

But when you cash for $3.9 million just a month before the World Series, you do likely work a bit more time off into your schedule and avoid playing in tents.

4. Dan Harrington

The guy who wrote the book - literally - on Hold'em tournament poker hasn't, it seems, yet appeared in the Amazon Room - or has decidedly slipped under the radar if he has.

The man with the ballingest hat in the poker business is likely avoiding hurting his wrist signing copies of Harrington on Hold'em - the reason why half of the players under 25 are even here in the first place.

5. Patrik Antonius

Not much of a surprise. A notorious high-stakes player with likely little drive for the relatively small stakes and epic days (inside a hot tent or out) of tournament poker, Antonius has still played an event or two. But he's more than likely somewhere in the vicinity of Sammy Farha, Brian Townsend and an enormous pile of cash that would suffocate a small man if it fell on him.

Or he's being similarly piled on by a slew of leggy cocktail waitresses.

He's also been seen losing a few Omaha pots to Hansen online at Full Tilt, and should likely be pulled into the mix for for the $50,000 H.O.R.S.E. event, we'd suspect. Even if he has to carry the ladies with him.

6. Ram Vaswani

After some pre-Series posts on the Hendon Mob site made it seem Vaswani was ready to take the WSOP by storm, playing every event and piling bracelets on his wrists like he's a costume-jewelry inclined fortune teller, Ram sightings have been few and far between. That does not include surveillance at any of the local golf courses however.

He's here, but he's holed up and yet to score a bracelet.