Given The Economy^TM, an impressive showing of 201 pros forked over $40,000 for 2009 WSOP Event #2, creating a first place prize of $1,891,012. By the end of the day, 88 remained.

Bruno Fitoussi closed out Day 1 play as chip leader, stacked at 812,500. Fitoussi is a high-stakes player who finished second to half-man, half-amazing Freddy Deeb at the 2007 WSOP $50k H.O.R.S.E. event.

Second overall is Chris Moneymaker with 805,000. Suffice to say, if Moneymaker can make a deep run (something we were a year off maybe on predicting, as we tabbed last year as his John Daly-esque resurgence), that would be good for poker. Justin Bonomo is third overall with 738,000. It’s just like high school. Evy Ng‘s boyfriend Lex ‘RaSZi’ Veldhuis is fourth with 646,500. And Kyle ‘krisqueen’ Wilson is fifth, stacked at 611,500.

Other notable big stacks include Brian Townsend (609,000), Michael “Glambert” DeMichele (519,500), Andy Black (449,500), Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond (443,000), Sorel Mizzi (431,000), Mark Seif (411,500), Ted Forrest (401,500), and Isaac Haxton (392,500).

On a side note, Haxton gets an honorary mention into our Top 5 New Poker Pro looks post. Thanks to FOWCP BJ Nemeth for the at left pic and notice. That Haxton kid cleans up well.

Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson, the spectacularly-breasted J.C. Tran, and Huck Seed are all still alive as well. Get full chip counts here.

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Poker pro Brett Richey is really short on chips. Really short. On chips. He's among the many short stacks right now in the $40k event. Also among the short stacks are Phil Laak (55,000), Shawn Buchanan (37,000), and Michael Binger (28,000). With dinner break approaching, we're sure they'll really try to grow their stacks and survive into Day 2.

Not short are chip leaders Antonio Esfandiari (395,000) and Justin Bonomo (330,000). Get full chip counts at wsop.com here.

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There is nothing funny about the above photo.

A respectable 201 players entered 2009 WSOP Event #2 ($40,000 NLH), creating a first place prize of $1,891,012.

In probably the first "wtf" moment of the Series, Phil Laak was the early chip leaders. Then in not so shocking news, he lost just about all of his chips and is under the starting stack level.

Current chip leaders as of about 4:30pm PT include Ted Forrest (310,000), Antonio Esfandiari (no, seriously) (302,000), Justin Bonomo (275,000), and Jeffrey Lisandro (270,000).

Get full chip counts and updates at wsop.com here.

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At post time this morning, Matthew Woodward has built on his overnight chip lead at the EPT Grand Final. He is currently stacked at 2,800,000.

Only 18 players remain. Unless you live near a fjord you probably don't know/don't care about the rest, except for perhaps Annette Obrestad, a woman, who is currently stackd at 1,400,000.

Follow the action live here.

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Vanessa Claudio, a woman, is not among the many female chip leaders at the EPT Grand Final. However, she IS among the hottest girls we've ever seen come out of Mexico. Granted, that list is like five girls deep, but still, we'd gladly self-inflict ourselves with the swine flu for a romp with Claudio…if we were single. Love you honeys! View more Vanessa Claudio in Max Magazine here.

Of the 935 starting field, 149 remain after Day 2 wrapped. Marc Naaldenis overall chip leader, stacked at 770,000. Among other chip leaders are the aforementioned Annette Obrestad, a woman (600,000), the aforementioned Naujoks, also a woman (280,000), Ilari "ziigmund" Sahamies (200,000), Sorel Mizzi (170,000), Alexander Kravchenko(157,000), seriously wtf Phil Laak (150,000), Dennis Phillips (135,000), J.J. Liu, a woman (130,000), and "Salty" Joe Hachem (130,000).

Also still alive going into Day 3 is Phil Laak. Wait, what?

Get full chip counts here.

Phil Laak.

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