It’s hard to believe. Hellmuth holds the record for number of bracelets won and has made three WPT final tables. However, one accolade the decorated poker pro lacks is a WPT title. After a two-year hiatus from reaching a final table on the roving tournament series, Hellmuth is poised to buck the trend by leading the WPT Bay 101 Shooting Star event after two days of play.

Hellmuth told WPT Live Updates Hostess Jacque following Wednesday’s action, “It feels pretty good. I played about as well as I could play today. I had a huge hand against [Faraz “The-Toilet” Jaka]. He’s a great young player and has so much talent. He moves his chips so well and the only way I could beat him was to try to play tight.” In a key hand between the two, the final board read J-J-4-3-Q, Hellmuth led out for 21,000, and Jaka made the call. Hellmuth showed Q-J for a boat and coverage found on the WPT’s website explained, “Jaka didn't appear to expect such a strong hand, and he says with sincerity, ‘Wow! Nice hand,’ as he mucks his own cards.”

Hellmuth’s competition was anything but soft on Day 2. The feature table included Hellmuth, Jaka, Andy “BKiCe” Seth, Unabomber Poker’s Phil Laak, Justin “Boosted J” Smith, Tyler “brainwash” Cornell, J.C. Tran, and Day 1B chip leader Eugene Katchalov. Jaka doubled through Katchalov early on after his pocket queens caught a set against Katchalov’s pocket aces. Jaka ended with the seventh largest stack at 332,500, with Hellmuth amassing 550,000 chips during two days of play.

Seth, an online poker legend, busted two Shooting Stars in back-to-back hands at the feature table to collect a pair of $5,000 bounties and autographed shirts. Tran was all-in with K-5 of spades on a board reading K-8-5-10 for top and bottom pair. However, Seth flipped over a wired pair of eights for a set. Tran shouted for a king on the river to stave off elimination, but a seven fell.

On the very next hand, 2007 WSOP Main Event champ Jerry Yang called all-in with pocket fives on a board of 9-5-2. However, he was the victim of a set over set situation, as Seth showed pocket nines. The board filled out 10-4 and Seth claimed his second straight Shooting Star bounty. The youngster will enter Day 3 with the third largest stack at 453,000.

The money bubble burst on Wednesday with the elimination of Michael Cooper in 37th place. Cooper ran pocket tens into the pocket aces of Scotty Nguyen. Then, a bevy of bust outs occurred, including Mohsin “chicagocards1” Charania in 34th, Steve “gboro780” Gross in 33rd, and PokerXFactor instructor Chris “Fox” Wallace in 28th. Twenty-seven players survived to see Day 3:

1. Phil Hellmuth - 550,000
2. Hasan Habib - 496,000
3. Andy “BKiCe” Seth - 453,000
4. Dan O'Brien - 439,000
5. Matt Keikoan - 426,500
6. Nick Schulman - 381,500
7. Faraz “The-Toilet” Jaka - 332,500
8. Brian “tsarrast” Rast - 322,000
9. Chau Giang - 307,500
10. David Forster - 305,500
11. Joseph “BigEgypt” Elpayaa - 302,000
12. Vanna Tea - 279,000
13. Lon Diamond - 242,000
14. Lars Elmoe - 216,000
15. Taylor Raines - 198,000
16. John Monnette - 179,000
17. Jonathan “FieryJustice” Little - 177,500
18. Dan Gamon - 170,500
19. Jonathan “driverseati” Tamayo - 154,000
20. “Miami” John Cernuto - 134,500
21. Scotty Nguyen - 132,500
22. Tom Marchese - 117,500
23. Ted Jivkov - 105,500
24. Tim McDermott - 80,000
25. Thuy Phan - 78,000
26. Kafir Nahum - 73,000
27. McLean Karr - 30,500

When play wrapped up on Wednesday night, the blinds were 1,500-3,000 with an ante of 500. Each player remaining is assured at least $17,000 and today’s action will conclude when the six-handed final table is determined. The survivors will battle on Friday for an $878,000 top prize. Stay tuned to Poker News Daily for the latest WPT results.

There was three opponents against Isildur1 in his last session: Tom “durrrr” Dwan, Justin “ZeeJustin” Bonomo and Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond.

Isildur1 lost about a million to Dwan in PLO, won about half a million from Bonomo in NLHE and lost almost 1,7 million dollars to Galfond!

Even though the Swede lost really big, he is still up around 1,6 million dollars for the year. Let’s hope he’s going to take a nap before his next session.

Source: Highstakesdb

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…Isildur1 yet again. Now it was his turn to lose

Appropriately, the 30-minute show kicked off with discussion of the National Heads-Up Poker Championship, which featured four former World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event champions in the final eight. In addition, the Final Four were all over the age of 40. “Poker2Nite” host Joe Sebok told viewers, “In a game dominated by youngsters, it seemed not to be that way in this tournament.” Sebok also questioned the need to have seven online qualifiers join the field of 64; six were eliminated in the first round.

“Poker2Nite” also touched on the robbery of the European Poker Tour (EPT) Berlin Main Event, where Sebok remarked that thieves made off with $272,000, although that figure has varied widely. Results from the World Poker Tour’s (WPT) Celebrity Invitational and L.A. Poker Classic aired along with a recap of professional golfer Tiger Woods turning down a $75 million sponsorship offer from Paddy Power.

Following footage from the National Heads-Up Poker Championship draw party, which included interviews with Erick Lindgren, Jennifer Tilly, Joe Cada, and Jamie Gold, UB.com pro Annie Duke joined the set. Duke is fresh off a deep run in the L.A. Poker Classic and a $500,000 win in the National Heads-Up Poker Championship. She told Sebok and co-host Scott Huff, “I took from October to February off mainly because I realized that when I was going into a lot of tournaments, I was taking an attitude of resenting poker because it was taking away from time with my kids.”

Duke noted that being mentally prepared to play poker is critically important: “When you’re not in the mood to play, you lose some of those small edges.” The UB.com pro was on her way to San Jose, California for the Bay 101 Shooting Star event, explaining that a fundamentally solid performance was important: “This is going to be a big test of how hungry I am because I’m really tired.” Duke ultimately busted on Day 1B after committing her stack with A-K on a flop of 10-6-3 and running into Yukinori Yamazaki’s pocket aces.

Duke faced a gauntlet of poker talent in the National Heads-Up Poker Championship, including Full Tilt Poker math whiz Andy Bloch, her first round opponent. On getting past the former MIT Blackjack Team member, Duke commented, “Once I got past him, it was a huge confidence boost, like a monkey off my back.” Duke then bested Darvin Moon, Paul Wasicka, Jerry Yang, and Dennis Phillips before battling eight-time bracelet winner Erik Seidel in the finals. Duke dubbed Seidel “really good.”

Snowboarder Hannah Teter, who won a silver medal in women’s halfpipe during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, joined “Poker2Nite” via Skype to discuss her love for poker. She explained that the game was an integral part of her preparations for the Winter Olympics: “We played poker while training this summer, but during the winter, we’re in the zone.” Instead of cash, Teter and company typically played for candy. She added that she’d like to head to the WSOP this year to play in a charity event.

“Poker2Nite” host Dana Workman did not have an in-studio guest this week for the “Girls of Poker” segment, but presented the “Poker2Nite Online” vignette highlighting the groundbreaking Tweets of the week. They included Scotty Nguyen, Brian Balsbaugh, and Annette “Annette_15” Obrestad blasting Twitter messages about the National Heads-Up Poker Championship and a picture that appeared on PokerListings of Lindgren and Erica Schoenberg getting cozy. Also addressed during the update was whether Sebok should continue to rock his beard.

Next week, PokerStars North American Poker Tour (NAPT) hostess Joanna Krupa will join “Poker2Nite.” You can catch the series every Wednesday at 11:00pm ET on Versus.

Justin "ZeeJustin" Bonomo, who has been playing heads-up Hold'em with Isildur1 almost daily, took $101k from the Swede after just over 300 hands of $200/$400 No-Limit Hold'em, but was unable to hold on to it losing back $622,648 a couple hours later.

Bonomo would leave the tables down $521,566 last night.

Tom "durrrr" Dwan, who has been in the process of making a massive comeback since his brutal losses at the end of 2009, would be next on Isildur1's hit-list, but after 888 hands of $300/$600 PLO Dwan managed to pull off a massive $1,021,995 win, almost entirely negating Isildur1's profit for the day.

Dwan's million dollar profit moves him to first place for profit in 2010 with over $3.3 million earned so far at Full Tilt.

Next up, Phil "OMGClayAiken" Galfond continued the heads-up $200/$400 NLHE session started by Bonomo, making just over $57k after 1,482 hands.

The two then agreed to move the game to $300/$600 PLO where they remained for 2,182 hands, moving up to $500/$1,000 after Isildur1 got stuck for over $254k.

Galfond turned up the heat at $500/$1,000, absolutely crushing Isildur1 for over $1.6 million across the action-filled 2,064 hand session.

In total, the two played 8 pots worth over $300k, the largest of which came in at $415,999.

By the end of the day, Isildur1 had lost $1.9 million exclusively to Galfond, booking a massive $1.8 million dollar loss on the day.

Below are three of yesterday's largest pots. To see more hands from last night, head to MarketPulse.