What started with 187 players, including well-known WSOP bracelet winners Erick Lindgren, Mark Seif, Kathy Liebert, David “the Dragon” Pham, Steve Billirakis and Thor Hansen, slowly narrowed to the nine players at the final table, with the level of competition still remaining world-class. Joining Bonomo at the final table were poker legend Men "The Master" Nguyen and Bonomo's eventual heads-up opponent Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi. The final table played out for a long eight hours, four of which involved the heads-up duel between Bonomo and Mizrachi, lasting for more than 100 hands.

"Playing heads-up was really exhausting," said Bonomo. "Every hand I played [against Mizrachi] put me in a tough decision. That made it even more difficult. So, to win this event makes it all the more meaningful to me to have earned it this way.”

While this is the first major live poker tournament victory for the 23-year-old Las Vegas resident, Bonomo has been no stranger to final tables. At the age of 19, he set the mark as the youngest player (19 years and five months old) ever to make a televised final table of an international poker tournament at the 2005 EPT French Open. He followed up that accomplishment with a runner-up performance in the 2008 World Series of Poker $5,000 Mixed Hold'em event, a final table appearance in the 2007 World Series of Poker $2,000 No Limit Hold'em event and at the 2006 World Poker Tour Doyle Brunson North American Poker Classic. In this particular WSOP Circuit event, Bonomo has reached the final table three consecutive years, finishing fifth in 2007 and fourth last year.

With almost $2 million in career tournament earnings in just under four years, Bonomo will be looking to add to his already impressive resume this summer in Las Vegas at the 2009 World Series of Poker*, and his $10,000 buy-in for the Main Event is already locked up as a result of winning the WSOP Circuit event. Bodog is giving online poker players the opportunity to join Bonomo as part of Team Bodog at the 2009 WSOP* through its WSOP* Main Event qualifiers at Bodog.com. $12,000 WSOP* prize packages are up for grabs every week and players can get started on their way toward winning one of those for as little as $1, or 100 PTS.

* World Series of Poker and WSOP are trademarks of Harrah's License Company, LLC ("Harrah's"). Harrah's does not sponsor or endorse, and is not associated or affiliated with, the products, services, promotions or tournaments presented on this website.

Bonomo is at the last WSOP Circuit event for the season being held at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. According tio his Twitter updates (@JustinBonomo), he is one of 16 remaining players left in the $5,000 buy-in event and as the top 18 cashed, he is in the money:

394k end of day 2. 16ish left. 1.5x avg or so.

He also seems to be getting unlucky against fellow poker pro Men "The Master" Nguyen quite a lot:

Avg stack (150k) w 30 left. 18 make the money. Bad level. Men the master sucked out on me twice. Asdfhaghdhwhdg.

We'll assume that was frustration at the end of that tweet.

Williams (@dwpoker) and Ng (@evybabee) are both over in Monte Carlo for the EPT Grand Final and while Evy did not have a great first day (which may be an understatement based on the following):

there's nothing shittier than having to report an early bustout when i am doing twitter updates. i'm not blaming twitter, but ^%$$%^!

it looks like Williams is running strong:

End of level 6. Up to 127k. Making so many big hand.

With 539 players in the field, it looks like the payouts in Monte Carlo will be impressive, so DW will be looking to cash big if he can keep making hands and hitting cards. We'll keep you updated on all the action, or you can check it out for yourselves on their Twitter pages.

The buy-in for the Semifinal event is $250 + $20, but Bodog Poker is running qualifiers during the rest of this week and over the weekend as part of the Bodog Flight Club promotion, so players will have the opportunity to get into the Semifinal on the cheap and possibly turn just a few dollars into several hundred thousand. The WSOP Circuit event held at Caesars Atlantic City a month ago paid out $322,944 to the winner, and as New Orleans is always a popular destination for poker players, the prize pool is expected to be similar for this event.

The qualifiers for the Semifinal can be found under the "Live Events" tab in the Bodog Poker software.

Winners of this Bodog Flight Club package for the WSOP Circuit event in New Orleans will instantly become a member of Team Bodog, receiving $2,000 for travel and accommodation, the $5,000 buy-in to the championship event and the chance to make a little extra cash based on performance and exposure.

For more details on the Bodog Flight Club promotion and how to qualify online for the 2009 WSOP, head over to BodogLife.com and see how you can get started on your way to becoming the next WSOP World Champion.

2. Poker pro Phil Ivey definitely lost $800,000 after the first half of the Super Bowl for betting on the Cardinals to have the lead, but then he either broke even or went up $800,000 after the Cardinals stayed within the points spread at the conclusion of the game. According to Ivey during his show on PokerRoad.com, there doesn't seem to be much difference between the two amounts to him. We'd like to point out that he could buy three and a half of our houses with that.

3. The 2009 Venetian Deep Stack Extravaganza I is underway but there doesn't seem to be anything really interesting happening there at the moment.

4. The Caesar's Palace Mega Stack Series is also underway and, as you may have guessed, there is nothing exciting happening there either.

5. The Imperial Palace Super-Duper Stack Bonanza does not exist, but someone should get on that.

6. Actor Steve Martin revealed during an appearance on Late Night with David Letterman that he won $1,000 playing online poker during an Ambien-induced sleepwalking episode. Really? We're no good conscious, so… *quickly Googles nearest pharmacy*

7. Hear the Hardcore Poker Radio remix of some of Phil Hellmuth's best quotes here.

That's all we've got for now, but come back next week for more poker news and poker tournament updates.

Two days ago, 154 entrants ponied up their $5,000 buy-ins to enter in the event and generated a total prizepool of $735,900. 145 eliminations later and there are now only nine players remaining to battle it out for the $183,974 first-place prize and one of them is in commanding position to take that home.

Online poker pro Matt "Allinat420″ Stout holds a commanding lead over the final table with more than double the chips of Jeremy Byrum, who is currently sitting in second place. In fact, if you added second and third place together, you still wouldn't have enough chips to cover Stout. So, while the final table seems like a mere formality at this point, this is poker, so you never know.

Here are the full final table chip counts.

1. Matt Stout – 1,000,500
2. Jeremy Byrum – 404,500
3. Kai Landry – 375,000
4. Leonard Eidson – 375,000
5. Mike Leah — 335,000
6. Glynn Hyde – 155,000
7. Brian McCoy – 150,200
8. David Dao – 150,000
9. Frank Wyville – 138,500

Qualify online for poker tournaments here and win a Bodog Flight Club package to travel the world and play poker instyle.

It was no easy road for Binger either. On top of the fact that the final table included fellow pros Allen Kessler and Scott Clements and Chris "Jesus" Ferguson just barely missed joining them there, Binger went into his heads-up match against Ty Stewart with an 8.5 to 1 chip disadvantage, or 1.7 million in chips to 200,000. Then, displaying the talent that got him to the final table of the 2006 WSOP Main Event final table, Binger stoically and determinedly clawed back to even, the overtook Stewart and finally put him away.

Binger earns $181,379 for the win along with the coveted WSOP Circuit gold ring and a buy-in to the 2009 World Series of Poker Main Event, plus $1,000 in spending money. As the runner up, Stewart received $112,675.

The WSOP Circuit rolls into Atlantic City for the next event and if you really enjoy AC in December (weirdo) then the Bodog Player's Choice package will get you there and get you a buy-in….if you so desired. Check out how to qualify online for major poker tournaments and get yourself one of the $12,000 Player's Choice packages.

The newcomer to the schedule is Horseshoe Hammond (too much alliteration to call it Harrah's Horseshoe Hammond?) outside of Chicago, which will take place just 10 days after the stop before it and four days before the one after it. Nothing like squeezing it in.

Anyway, here is the schedule of dates for the 2008-2009 WSOP Circuit events.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming here at the 2008 WSOP.