by Alex Gomes

After a long and exausting time in Vegas, where I spent almost 70 days dedicated WSOP tournaments, I had decided not to play at the Bellagio. But I'm a poker lover, and despite being tired and a little bit upset about my results at the WSOP, I decided to play at the event after talking with some friends.

It was really a last minute decision. I arrived at the Bellagio at 3:30pm (the tournament started at noon), with blinds 100 / 200 at the third level. That said, this is a really deepstack tournament. Everyone started with 60.000 chips and 90 minute levels, so my late arrival was not a problem.

This is one of the best structures in poker tournaments. It's a very long event, with six days of play and a maximum of six levels per day. So, we started playing at noon, and at 8:30pm the day ended. This is very good for players, because we can have a good meal and a nice night of sleep.

But, on the other side, the WPT has one of the toughest fields around, with a lot of well-known professionals. On my first day, I started at a very tough table, with Nenad Medic, Justin Smith, Jon Turner and some internet pros. The table had a lot of action early on, but I didn't have much success. I finished the day with 39.400 chips with the average sitting around 80,000.

On Day 2, I was seated between Michael Mizrachi and "gboro", the famous online player. Freedy Deeb was at the table, too. My game finally started to kick in and I ran my stack up to 223,000, well above the 160,000 average. That gave me a lot of motivation to came back next day.

My Day 3 had a lot of ups and downs. I started at a table with my friend from Team PokerStars Pro, Humberto Brenes, and with Kevin Saul, the same man who was at the
final table with me at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure early this year.

After three levels, my stack was really growing and was up to around 350,000. That's when I had to change tables. I ended up sitting with Jonathan Little and some online kids. I got crippled by Little when there were only 50 players left, all-in pre-flop with a pair of eights against pocket queens. I played the hand badly, and was left with only 60,000. At the time, the average was around 400,000. I somehow managed to double up two times in a row, and by the end of the day I had a short stack of 222,000.

Day 4 started with only 31 players. We needed to lose four players to bust the money bubble. I decided to take advantage of that, and it worked. I played very aggressively (the way I like!) and got up to a 420,000 stack. From that point on, I played the best poker of my career. I finished the day with 1,700.000 with the average around 1,500,000.

Day 5 was the fastest in WPT history. With only 10 players left, we only had to achieve four eliminations before we hit the televised final table. And that happened pretty fast! The short stack busted on the very first hand. It took just an hour and half to get down to six players. Suddenly, I was at a WPT final table. I was the short stack, but had 1,500,000 with blinds at 10,000 / 20,000, more than enough to play fast and loose!

This table was considered by many (Erik Seidel included) to be one of the toughest in WPT history. That was a huge motivator for me. Thank God I kept playing really well. I played loose with no fear of making mistakes and no fear of the other players. With that mentality and disposition, I worked my way up to chip leader with three players remaining. Soon, I was heads up and confident.

It was not easy. I won some coin flips. I lost some coin flips. I lost some hands when I was a favorite, but then bluffed a lit bit and earned some nice pots. You can see all that on TV later this year!

I want to thank all the Brazilians that supported me, not only those who were at the Bellagio, but everybody who spent the night without sleep, cheering the final table on the internet. I am very proud again, to be the first Brazilian to win this very important title.

By Brad Willis...

The World Series of Poker can be discouraging. You can play all month long and barely have anything to show for it. Look at Team PokerStars Pro Alex Gomes. The best win he came away with in the 2009 Series was a $5,300 cash for an 80th place finish in a $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em event. Not exactly what he was hoping for. Thank goodness he made the decision to go down the street to Bellagio.

A few days ago, while the rest of us were putting the WSOP to bed, Gomes was working his way through the field of 268 players in the $15,000 buy-in event. Last night, he went into the final table of the tournament in last chip position. Just a couple of hours ago, the Team PokerStars Pro from Brazil walked away with his first WPT title and the $1,187,670 first prize.

Gomes, the smiling man from South America, exploded onto the poker scene in 2008 when he won his first WSOP bracelet. Just a few months later, he nearly grabbed his first EPT title when he took fourth place at the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure.

Now, Gomes has erased any doubt he can close. His win on the WPT gives him a chance to be one of the few people in the world who can claim poker's triple crown--a win on the WSOP, WPT, and EPT circuits. Now we just have to work on getting Gomes over to Europe and see if he can get it done.

Congratulations to Alex Gomes for this morning's big win!

Brad Willis reports at the start of the main event...

As far as we know, it is not written in any poker bible that every tournament Day 1 must be a blistering marathon that leaves the players a blubbering mess at the end. That understood, never before at the World Series have we left a Day 1 and thought, "Well, that went fast." Until today.

For an as-yet unexplained reason, the WSOP tournament staff decided to cut a level out of all four Day 1 flights. That meant all 1,116 players came in, played two levels, went to an early dinner, and came back for two more levels. Easy-bodeezy.

As always the Amazon Room was a sea of PokerStars players and Team Pros. Most survived the afternoon and evening. Though a shortened day, there were casualties to report. St. Louis rapper Nelly and former major league pitcher Orel Hershiser drew the cameras and railbirds like flies, but couldn't manage to attract any chips. They were both eliminated shortly after the dinner break. German stars Jan Heitmann and George Danzer hit the rail early, too.

The survivors came through the day in greater number, with some of PokerStars most prolific and successful tourney players still in the mix going to Day 2. Steve Paul-Ambrose (6,900), Lex Veldhuis (75,000), Raymond Rahme (57,000), Katja Thater (37,500), Jason Mercier (38,000), John Duthie (25,000), Johannes Strassmann (20,000), Juan Manuel Pastor (48,000), Sandra Naujoks (16,500) all made it through.

If there is a take away story of the day though, it is this: This very well could be the Summer of George. Friend of PokerStars Jason Alexander went on a massive tear in the last level of the night to move his chip stack to the 75,000.

Day 1 begins again with the B flight Saturday at noon. No word yet on the number of runners, but due to the holiday, we expect another light day before the two big flights on Sunday and Monday.

See you then.

That's all, folks. There are no more preliminary events at the World Series of Poker. If a player hasn't cashed in one yet or still have a seat in one of the two events running today, he is going to have to make his nut in the Main Event.

This is the first day since May that a new WSOP event has not started and most people are taking that day off from the Rio. After several weeks of hard core poker play, everyone is in need of a bit of a break.

The penultimate day finished off with a bit of a splash last night as Chad Brown and Daniel Negreanu racked up a couple more big cashes.

There are still a few PokerStars players left in their seats. Lex Veldhuis, Bill Chen, Grant Levy, and Alexander Kravchenko all made day 2 of the $5,000 Six-Handed No-Limit Hold'em event are still working to get their piece of the $1 million first prize.

Thursday hosts the $5,000 Ante Up For Africa charity tournament. Then, one day later, we're in the thick of it. The Main Event begins on Friday and will run for the next two weeks.

Good luck to PokerStars players who still have a chance at some prelim event money. And to the rest of you, get some rest. It's going to be a big couple of weeks.

Brad Willis with the latest from the Amazon Room...

Last night at this time we were reporting that Daniel Negreanu had just hit his seventh cash of the year.

Now we can report he's posted his eighth.

Negreanu has been multi-tabling the 2-7 game and $5,000 short-handed event all day long. Just a little bit ago, Negreanu made it into the money on the 2-7 game.

Kid Poker has now made it down to the final three tables and is gunning for another final table. We'll let you know how he makes out.

Good luck, Daniel.

Update: Shortly after we posted this report, Negreanu was eliminated in 16th place.

Team PokerStars Pro announced today that it has signed to its stable two rock stars of the modern poker world.

In one fell swoop, Team PokerStars Pro pulled in longtime tournament veteran Marcel Luske and prolific young gun Jason Mercier.

Known around the world as 'The Flying Dutchman,' Luske is a household name in European poker. Just last year he won the European Poker Awards' Lifetime Achievment Award.

Known for his sartorial elegance and distinctive singing voice at the poker tables, Luske was ranked Europe's top poker pro in both 2001 and 2003. In 2004, Luske went to the World Series of Poker and became an international star after a tenth place run in the main event.

Now, at long last, the longtime friend of PokerStars players and mentor to Team Pro Noah Boeken has come home to roost. Luske is now officially a member of Team Pro. Count on seeing him a lot in the coming season of the European Poker Tour.

Luske is joined by one of the hottest poker players on the circuit today. Mercier, a 22-year-old poker pro from Fort Lauderdale, Florida, has put together $3.2 million live tourney cashes since his first tourney appearance at the 2008 PCA.

Mercier first came to the attention of the international poker community when he took down the Season Four PokerStars EPT San Remo event for $1,372,893. Only a few months later, he finished sixth at the PokerStars EPT Season Five event in Barcelona, earning $324,946. Just the next month, he took downPokerStars EPT London £1 Million Showdown High Roller tournament for $944,847.

Yeah. Seriously. He is that good.

As if that wasn't enough, just a few weeks back, Mercier did something people wait a lifetime to achieve. He won his first WSOP bracelet in the $1,500 Pot Limit Omaha tourney for $237,415.

After all of that, you would think nothing could make Mercier any happier. Not so.

"Becoming a member of Team PokerStars Pro means a lot to me," he said. "I'm so excited to be playing for the site I first started playing on. I feel like this solidifies my standing as one of the top poker players' around."

The PokerStars Blog would like to welcome both players to Team Pro. We look forward to continuing to cover you for years to come.

Brad Willis reports from the World Series...

It was not to be, apparently, for Team PokerStars Pro Chad Brown.

Seeking his first-ever WSOP bracelet to mix with his more than $2.3 million in lifetime tournament winnings, Brown came into day 3 of the $1,500 Stud-8 event with the chip lead and a plan to take it down. He was still among the chip leaders when they reached the eight-handed final table. From there, nothing good happened.

Bricks, big limits, and second-bests ground Brown's stack down to a do-or-die situation. Before long, he was forced into a hand with Costa Rican stud kingpin Max Stern. By the river, Stern had made two pair with no low to Brown's ace-high with no low.

The fourth place finish puts another $44,000 in Brown's pocket. It's not a bracelet, but it's not bad.

If anything, we can take heart in the fact Max Stern (seen above next to Brown) is still alive and kicking three-handed in the same event. Stern is a good friend to the PokerStars Blog and we wish him all the luck in the world. If he could win today, it would be his fourth WSOP bracelet.

More from the Amazon Room at the World Series...

Daniel Negreanu may be a lot of things, but a tragic figure he is not.

Shakespeare would have a field day in building full of tragic tales. They may not end with star-crossed lovers offing themselves or a crazed prince speaking to a skull, but they often end with as many tears. The saddest of the tales usually begin with the words, "I've played 16 events" and end with "I haven't cashed once." If it weren't so common, it would be enough to make a jaded poker writer blubber all over his keyboard.

In a world of tragedy, Negreanu is the court jester. Having just busted out of the $1,500 Stud-8 tournament, he could very easily be cranky about not having a shot at another bracelet. Instead, he's happy to report his seventh in-the-money finish. So happy, in fact, he's walked the few dozen feet to the back of the Brasilia Room to play in the 2-7 tourney. The money didn't mean much (in fact, Negreanu earned more from his last longer with Chris Reslock than he did for making it into the cash). It was just some more padding on the Negreanu legend.

Just behind him, Barry Greenstein slipped out for the same money and, coincidentally, his seventh cash as well. He started four to a wheel and bricked the rest of the way too many times. He was hot on Negreanu's heels and is sitting in the 2-7 event, too.

Meanwhile in the same event, Team PokerStars Pro Chad Brown is threatening to make his second final table of this year's Series. He already has a third place finish in the $10,000 Limit Hold'em Championship for more than $188,000. At this hour, with 37 players remaining, Brown is among the top five chip leaders.

Down the hall here in the Amazon Room, Team PokerStars Pros Christian De Leon and Johnny Lodden are both still alive in the $3,000 No Limit Hold'em Triple Chance tourney. With 63 players left, both men are already guaranteed twice their buy-in with a shot at the half million dollar first prize.

Hold that thought: Seconds after we hit publish, De Leon and Lodden both busted out of the $3,000 Triple Chance event for $8,037. Congrats, guys.

Brad Willis reports on Event 53 at the World Series...

The rail at the $1,500 is the thicker than you'd expect for a limit, split pot Stud game. Normally at a rail for that kind of event, you'd have two people watching and one of them would only be there because he thought they were giving out free soup.

Today, though, the cream is sitting on top (not to mention right on the rail). The $1,500 Stud-8 Day 2 field is packed full of name pros, notably Barry Greenstein, Chad Brown, and Daniel Negreanu. Accordingly, the rail is two and three deep with fans.

For a lot of people (and, let's be honest, especially Stud players) all the attention would be a little more than annoying. Team Pro Negreanu, however, is taking it in stride, despite referring to how he's running as, ahem, "like ass."

Between every hand, Kid Poker is joining in conversations on the rail, standing up for photos, and signing autographs, No sooner has he made it back to the table than he peeks at his hole cards and declares, "I'm gonna raise THAT guy." He bricks a couple of cards, folds to a bet, and back to the rail. Back to the table and then, "I'm going to raise that guy, again!"

This time he gets a different caller. A couple of streets go by and Negreanu's hand has barely improved. Even an amateur on the rail can tell his opponent is holding the wheel, so it's particularly funny when the guy checks to Negreanu.

"You're checking?" Negreanu laughs. He checks behind, bricks again, and pulls off his hat. He pretends to shoot himself in the head, hits himself in the forehead with his hat four times, and folds.

All the bricks should be enough to put Negreanu into an ugly funk. Instead he hops up and heads toward a pretty blonde on the rail. "Ready for me?" She smiles widely and steps in to have her picture taken. That opens the flood gates. Suddenly, ten people are crowding in.

"It's my 40th birthday!" a woman implores with camera in hand.

Negreanu glances over his shoulder to make sure he won't miss a hand and then smiles for the camera. And then another. And another. One woman is holding more cameras than seems reasonable.

"How many do you have?" Negreanu asks. Then he counts them, "One, two, three, four, five?"

He manages to fit in a picture with every one of them before noticing the dealer is about to shuffle. He double times it back to the table, calling over his shoulder, "I gotta get back. They've got rules around here!"

All three Team Pros are still alive at the dinner break with fifty players remaining.

Brad Willis, working the rock face in the Amazon room, reports on the HORSE event at the end of the first day...

It's hard to fully define what Day 1 of the $50,000 HORSE means. It takes an incredible amount of Run Bad or some equally terrible play to get eliminated. It's not that Day 1 means nothing, but nobody will be hitting the Dom to celebrate making it to Day 2. With another four days of play before we crown a champion, today wasn't so much important as it simply was.

If there is a headline to print, though, it is that every member of the PokerStars stable who started the day will be joining us here for Day 2.

After finishing fifth in the $2,500 Mixed Hold'em event, Barry Greenstein made it over to the day's biggest tournament. He is working to be the only person to cash in every $50,000 HORSE tournament since it began in 2006. After losing 16,000 chips to blinds and antes while he was at the other final table, Greenstein finished with 151,500.

Daniel Negreanu, who helped conceive this event in 2006, started strong today. He's cashed in this event once before, and is looking to make it happen again. By night's end he was still rocking, rolling, and entertaining the crowd. When the clock hit zero, his stack sat at an impressive 204,100.

Across the room, Greg Raymer is working to get second $50,000 HORSE event cash, too. He had a rocky day, but managed to end the day on 123,900.

Bill Chen, Chad Brown, and Alexander Kravchenko are all in search of their first money finish in this tournament. They all still have a shot. Chen is sitting on 208,400. Brown finished with 165,000. Kravchenko will go into Day 2 with 234,400.

Ninety-one players will return for Day 2. Because another giant $1,500 no-limit hold'em event is scheduled to kick off tomorrow, the $50,000 HORSE event has been pushed back to a 4pm Pacific Time start. So, we'll catch a nap and be back with full coverage of Day 2 at that time.

Photos by Joe Giron/IMPDI Worldwide

Brad Willis reports on the first day of the HORSE...

After an initial slow start during which time we couldn't tell exactly who was playing the $50,000 HORSE World Championship and who was not, we now have a clearer picture of the event.

When registration closed this afternoon, 95 total players had signed up for the event. While not quite the 148 players the event has seen the past couple of years, it still will pay out more than a million bucks to the winner. Sixteen runners will walk away with cash. The eventual champion will bank $1,276,802.

Team PokerStars Pro is represented by some of the top players in the stable. Daniel Negreanu, Greg Raymer, Chad Brown, Alex Kravchenko, and Barry Greenstein are all in action today. They are joined by Friend of PokerStars Bill Chen.

Greenstein is essentially freerolling the event. Having just won $57,000 in the $2,500 Mixed Hold'em tourney, Greenstein is now getting a chance to play the big one without any significant ding to his bankroll. As it turned out, the HORSE event went on dinner break just as he finished on the other final table. As he put it on his Twitter account, "On dinner break of the 50k HORSE, #wsop49. I have 134k from my original 150. Haven't yet played a hand."

Of all the Team Pros in the field, Negreanu went into the dinner break with the best of it. He's up to 195,000 after three levels of play.

All 95 players managed to survive until the dinner break. With five days of play, this HORSE event is in no danger of breaking major news tonight. Slow and steady, as they say.

Last November, Peter Eastgate defeated Ivan Demidov heads up to become the youngest World Series of Poker Main Event champion ever. Demidov claimed his own piece of poker history, becoming the first player to ever make the final tables of both the WSOP and the WSOP-Europe, and he did it in the same year.

Between making the final table in July and the restart in November, Demidov flew over to London and took third in the Main Event across the pond. So when PokerStars decided to replay the heads-up portion of the WSOP Main Event from 2008, we knew it would be a great matchup. Obviously this time there weren't millions of dollars on the line, but bragging rights a $10,000 for charity isn't chicken feed, either.

The stacks were deep as the competitors took their seats at the virtual felt, with Eastgate leading 80 million in chips to Demidov's 56 million. The blinds were 120,000/240,000 with a 30,000 ante, so there was plenty of play in the structure. The only difference was in the time players had to make their decisions, which was adjusted to fit the standard PokerStars time allowances. The levels were also shortened to fit the parameters of internet play, with 30 minutes levels instead of the 2-hour levels in the WSOP.

First blood went to the runner-up, as Demidov took down a big pot to cut Eastgate's chip lead in half. The pace of internet play took some getting used to for these players, accustomed as they were to taking their time making decisions. Demidov ate into his time bank heavily in the first couple of hands, then his time bank took a further his as he suffered a disconnection at about the 10-minute mark of the match.

By 15 minutes into the match the pendulum had swung back to Eastgate, as he reclaimed his chip lead in this big hand.

Eastgate kept the pressure on, three-betting Demidov and moving all in on occasion to force a fold. Demidov's connection issues came into play again as he times out of a big pot, to which Eastgate jokingly remarked that he was abusing Demidov's lack of a time bank. While he wasn't abusing his opponent's lack of a time bank, Eastgate certainly wasn't giving him any breaks, either. He raised practically ever time he started with the button, not letting off the accelerator for a minute. Demidov responded with plenty of opening raises of his own, and the odd three-bet, and for a spans of five or six hands in a row we sat by as no-flop poker was the method du jour.

Eventually Eastgate's pressure poker built up a 2:1 chip lead, which he extended in a huge pot that actually went all the way to the river. Eastgate raised from the button, eliciting no surprise from anyone watching anywhere around the world. Demidov flat-called to see a flop of [3s]-[8s]-[2c]. Demidov checked, and again Eastgate surprised no one by betting out. Demidov called again, and the [Td] came on the turn. Demidov checked again, and then called again when Eastgate bet. The river brought the [8d], and the players went check-check, with Eastgate showing [Kd]-[Kc]. Kings were good enough as Demidov mucked his hand, and Eastgate dragged a pot worth almost 12 million in chips.

After a period of raise/fold poker, Demidov's connection issues raised their ugly head again, costing him a big pot and moving Eastgate over the 100-million chip mark. Now holding a 3:1 advantage, Eastgate applied even more consistent pressure as he worked to wear Demidov down. We continued to see very few showdowns, as the players generally got all the raising in on the first couple of streets. Just before the end of the second level, Demidov doubled through Eastgate to bring things almost back to even. All the chips went in preflop, and it was a classic coin flip. Demidov got it all in with [Kc]-[Qd], and Eastgate called with [5s]-[5h]. Demidov caught a king on the [8h]-[As]-[Kd] flop, and Eastgate needed one of two cards to eliminate his opponent. The turn and river blanked out, coming down [Js]-[7h], and Eastgate's formidable chip lead had been hacked almost to nothing. The champ as undeterred, and he went right back to work, but at the beginning of Level Three the chip stacks were almost exactly even.

Eastgate came back from the first break with a little more gas in the tank, and quickly took control of the match. By just a few minutes back from break, he had extended his lead to 30 million in chips with very few showdowns. But Demidov wasn't ready to lie down and die just yet, picking up a big hand with a flush over flush to move back into contention. And in one big hand, the momentum swung abruptly into Demidov's favor.

Eastgate got all his money in on the very next hand, and it turned out to be for the last time. He and Demidov traded raises back and forth preflop until all the money went in, and Eastgate tabled 4d-4c for a pocket pair. He was in deep trouble when Demidov's 10d-10c was revealed, because not only was he behind to a bigger pair, he had no chance at a four-flush as both his suits were dead. The board ran out 2h-2s-9h-3d-10s, and Demidov rivered a full house to take down the rematch and win $10,000 for charity.

Congratulations to both our champions, as Team PokerStars Pro put on a great show tonight, and congrats to Ivan Demidov for beating the champ heads up!

JC Alvarado has narrowly missed out on winning a WSOP bracelet like his fellow Team PokerStars Mexico Pro Angel Guillen. Alvarado made it to the last five in the $10,000 Pot Limit Hold'em, but despite a temporary comeback from the jaws of defeat, he fell in a huge coin flip with John Kabbaj.

Alvarado raised to 200,000, Kabbaj came over the top to 700,000, the Mexican moved all in for a total of 1,250,000 - call!

Alvarado: [ah][qs]
Kabbaj: [10c][10s]

The race was on, but the board ran dry for the PokerStars man- [7s][6d][jd][7d][jh] - busting him in fifth place for a $138,375 pay day.

He could and perhaps should have been out a little earlier, after falling to the felt when he doubled up Kabbaj leaving him with only 200,000. But he went on a terrific little run that, for a short time at least, threatened a remarkable comeback. On the next hand he was all-in with [kd][qc] against Davidi Kitai's [6h][4s], which held up getting the Mexican up to over 400,000.

Next hand he raised the pot to 350,000 and it was folded around. The next hand he raised the pot again - and again it was folded to his disgust, as he revealed pocket aces.

Finally on the next hand he raised again, got re-popped by Eric Baldwin, all in, call!

Alvarado: [10c][10d]
Baldwin: [as][kc]

The board ran [qd][7c][3d][jd][7h] and Alvarado found himself up at 1,400,000!

Then the fateful hand with a rejuvenated Kabbaj sealed his fate. Shortly after Davidi Kitai busted in fourth, leaving Kabbaj, Kirill Gerasimov and Eric Baldwin to fight for the bracelet and the $633,335 first prize.

We started with 14 and now we're down to just nine in the $10,000 Pot Limit Hold'em. Among them is Team PokerStars Mexico Pro JC Alvarado, who survived a few early escapades to take a place at his first WSOP final.

While still at two tables, Alvarado nursed a 200,000 loss from his 900,000 starting stack. "I did not even have a showdown," he said. "It's just that I lost a few small pots and then a decent one when I raised and then he jammed it, so I had to let it go."

His buddy Angel Guillen has already made two final tables in this Series, and JC was there to rail him all the way. But today, Guillen is nowhere in sight. "Some friend he is," joked JC. "But I expect he is still asleep."

When they got ten-handed the two tables combined, and JC picked up the blinds a few times with pre-flop raises. Then, an interesting hand developed with Jason Lester.

With blinds up to 15,000-30,000, it was folded around to JC in the small blind. He raised it up to 60,000 and Lester called. The flop came [6s][7s][7c] - JC check-called Lester's 60,000. On the [9h] turn JC checked again, and this time Lester made it 110,000, leaving 180,000 behind.

JC tanked and then announced all-in - barely loud enough to hear, but the message was clear enough and Lester folded. JC showed one card - [3c].

Tenth-placed finisher, and the final table bubble boy, was Mohsin Charania, who collects $57,645, leaving everyone else a guaranteed $77,136 pay day.

Chip leader, still, is the UK's John Kabbaj on 1,867,000, but David Kitai, who eliminated Charania, is right behind with 1,737,000.

Final table chip counts:

John Kabbaj, 1,867,000
Davidi Kitai, 1,737,000
Isaac Haxton, 1,139,000
Eric Baldwin, 1,115,000
JC Alvarado, Team PokerStars Mexico Pro, 810,000
Kirill Gerasimov, 621,000
Jason Lester, 386,000
Eugene Todd, 341,000
Darryll Fish, 241,000

Simon Young reports on events towards the end of another day at the World Series...

After being all-in for her last 30,000 or so not too long ago, Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Rousso has gone on a monumental tear-up around her $10,000 Pot Limit Hold'em table - and shot above 300,000! It all happened in four quick hands just before the dinner break, which will have made the refreshments go down a treat.

Rousso takes up the story: "First I had [ad][qd] and limped under the gun for 5,000 and Bryn Kenney called, then Alex 'AJKHooiser1' Kamberis potted it, I called and my hand held - he had A-10," Rousso explained.

"A few hands later I'm in the big blind and called a Bryn Kenney raise of 12,500. There was a ten-high flop and he bet, I re-raised and he folded.

"When the button came round I raised with [ac][6c] and got one call. We checked it all the way down and my ace-high was good. Then my raise of 15,000 was re-raised to 26,500 and I called. The flop was K-10 and a small card, I make a big bet and get a fold!"

Phew! That's how you go from short-stack to seventh in chips in just a few of orbits of the table, folks.

There are still 44 players left in this event, with only the top 27 getting paid. Team PokerStars Pro ElkY will find it a struggle after bluffing off a large chunk of his remaining chips. He bet out with his missed flushed draw on a paired board, and was called by Justin Young with A-6 for second pair. ElkY is now down to just 10,000.

Still going well is Team PokerStars Mexico Pro JC Alvarado on 220,000, Germany's Florian Langmann on 110,000 and Friend of PokerStars Bill Chen with 115,000.

STOP PRESS ElkY found Q-Q just after dinner and got his last 10,000 in the middle, but was up against the A-K of Bobby Firestone. An ace on the flop, and the Frenchman is outta here.