Poker pro Scotty Nguyen is our current chip leader and is having one hell of a 12-month period. If he can manage to hang on to the lead and take this event down, he will have won a WSOP bracelet and a WPT bracelet within that timeframe and right at $5 million in prize money.

However, lurking behind him is Yevgeniy Timoshenko, who won the APT Macau back in August of last year and final tabled a WSOP Europe event in September. Sitting in fifth place is a name we haven't seen at the top of any leaderboards in quite some time, Shannon Shorr (didn't we read somewhere that he quit poker?). Hanging on in two of those bottom four spots are Bertrand "elKy" Grospellier and Bruno Fitoussi.

Day Six begins later today at 12:00pm PT and, as we said, will continue until the final six are set for the televised WPT final table. Don't forget to follow the WPT's live updates crew on Twitter (@wptliveupdates).

The 2009 WSOP is now closer than ever, so make sure to qualify online for the WSOP with the Bodog Poker Flight Club promotion.

Lurking behind them are a couple of very well-known and talented players. In fact, these two were the last two winners of the $50,000 WSOP HORSE World Championship, Freddy Deeb and Scotty Nguyen. Last year's HORSE champion, Nguyen, is currently sitting in sixth place with Deeb just two spots behind him. They are both above average but must look to chip up quickly today to make a run at the final table.

All sitting below average but with the ability to makes moves up the leaderboard are poker pros Jeff Madsen, Bertrand "elKy" Grospellier and Shannon Shorr. Closer to the bottom than the top are Jennifer Harman, "Crazy Marco" Johnson and Nick Binger.

Play will once again get underway at Noon Vegas time (PT) and they will be looking to get down to the six players who will make up the WPT televised final table. Stay tuned here for updates on who those six will be and don't forget that Bodog is offering many opportunites to qualify online for the WSOP through the Bodog Flight Club promotion, so be sure to check it out.

In the top third of the field (basically the top 20 for those who may be mathematically disadvantaged), you have poker pros Mark Seif, Nenad Medic, David Singer, Phil Ivey, Nick Binger, Freddy Deeb, Jennifer Harman and Jeff Madsen. The list of pros further down the leaderboard is even more impressive and any one of them has the ability to work their way up into the top of the standings.

However, leading the way is Billirakis, who will be looking to add a WPT championship to his list of accomplishments along with the WSOP bracelet he won in the first event of the 2007 WSOP, $5,000 World Championship Limit Hold'em, and the WSOP Circuit event he took down about six months ago at the Horseshoe Hammond in Louisiana.

Play will once again resume at 12pm PT and will continue until it stops. Ha. So, come back here tomorrow for another excellent wrap-up of the action and more obvious observations. As you know, the 2009 WSOP is drawing closer and closer and Bodog is offering many opportunites to qualify online for the WSOP through the Bodog Flight Club promotion, so be sure to check it out.

Bonomo is sitting just below average with 167,900 and is still getting the hang of Twitter. So far his tweets have been pretty bare bones:

136k at 3rd break. Barely played any hands that level.

167,900 at the end of day 2.

So, we'd like to put forth a possible causal relationship between Twitter proficiency and chip count. The more detailed and regular the tweets, the higher the chip count. No? You don't think that would work? Fine, but it would help us keep up with all of the juicy details of playing in a major poker tournament.

Anyway, there are some big names at the top of the leaderboard as Day 3 begins, like Bertrand "elKy" Grospellier, Steve Billirakis, Jimmy "gobboboy" Fricke, Steve Sung, Jeff Madsen and Nenad Medic. Other notables still in the field include Phil Collins (yeh!!!! oh, wait….not that Phil Collins? sucks), Johnny Chan, Jennifer Harman, Mike Matusow, Liv Boeree, Phil Ivey, Chris "Jesus" Ferguson and a whole slew of others.

Play gets underway again at 12pm PT (3pm ET) so make sure to keep track of Bonomo on Twitter and also follow the WPT Live Update crew (@wptliveupdates) for all of the happenings at the Bellagio.

Among the chip leaders going into Day 2 of the event are poker pros Johnny Chan, Shaun Deeb, JC Tran, Freddy Deeb, David Benyamine, Andy Bloch and Mark Seif. Williams and Bonomo are sitting right about at average with 94,250 and 129,350, respectively, giving them plenty of chips to work with the blinds only at 400/800.

However, the story of the tournament so far goes to Vadim Tricncher, who currently leads the pack going into Day 2 and is looking to become the first player to win back-to-back WPT events after taking down the WPT Foxwoods Poker Classic a couple of weeks ago.

The 301 remaining players are congregating in the Bellagio poker room right about now to get started on Day 2 and we'll continue to provide you with updates as the tournament progresses.

Don't forget that the 2009 WSOP is only six weeks away from starting but there are still many, many opportunities to qualify online for the WSOP through the Bodog Poker Flight Club promotion.