Bodog Beat

Bodog poker pro Justin Bonomo and Lex Veldhuis have been trading the chip lead all afternoon. (Bodog Beat Image)

It has been a battle royale for the top spot over in the 2009 WSOP $40,000 40th Anniversary Special event as Bodog poker Justin Bonomo and Lex Veldhuis have been trading paint all day long. What doesn't help is that they are also seated directly next to each other.

For most of the afternoon, Bonomo has held a dominating chip lead, to the point the the WSOP Live Update crew actually referred to his performance so far as "dominating" on Twitter just a couple of hours ago. However, as with all things poker, the action comes in waves and we just learned that Veldhuis was able to rake in a 2 million chip pot and put himself about that much out in front of Bonomo who is now second in chips.

There are currently now 14 players left and play will wrap up later tonight when they reach the final table. The play is tightening up considerably as the promise of being on one of the only televised final tables that will be filmed at the 2009 WSOP, so there's no telling how long it will take for them to reach that point.

Meanwhile, in the Omaha Hi/Lo 8-or-Better event there are 126 players left out of the 918 that started. Notable names up near the top of the leaderboard include Layne Flack, Freddy Deeb, Eli Elezra and Annie Duke, while the chip leader is Thang Luu.

In the monster event taking place in the Amazon Room, we spotted Bodog poker pro David Williams trying to take advantage of some of the dead money at his table and doing an excellent job. While the field has narrowed down considerably, there are still a large number of people in here, which also means their family and friends are milling around the rails trying to be "supportive" and making it difficulf for us to get around. *humph*

Keep it here for mosre 2009 WSOP updates and head over to Bodog Poker for 2009 WSOP satellites as little as $1 and get in on some of this crazy action for yourself.