The metrics used to measure distance from the bubble in the World Series of Poker Main Event all work to some degree. Social media activity picks up and the crowd in the corridors becomes denser. Meanwhile bellies stretch the seatbelt-like dividing rail between players and supporters ever further, making the man with 30 years' experience of eight-pint sessions the best friend one can have. He can bend the rail with his belly further than anyone.

For all that, the most obvious marker of an encroaching bubble is intangible. It's just a feeling. Anyone who has been to a major tournament will know exactly the sensation: a nervousness, a slight crackle, a crispness in the air. There's the chatter and the chip-riffling and it probably grows louder, but it's more than that. There's just something, a je ne sais quoi.

There is probably no equivalent moment to this in any world sport. After three days in a pressure cooker, 1,011 people are simultaneously going to be rewarded for their endeavour. The steam is let out with a roar and a round of applause. The chatter soars then dissipates. The crowd rises to tip-toes then relaxes.

But then there's one person for whom all this does not apply. There's one player who has been through the same wringer, had his or her nerves shred as much as anyone's. And yet he or she has nothing to show for it besides a pat on the back, a couple of handshakes, and the knowledge that everyone else in the room is positively elated to see them leave.

This year, that ignominy belongs to Adam Furgatch, from Marina del Rey, California (left). He hits the rail in 1,012th. But, unusually, there was no weeping, no beating of the table and not even a protracted hand-for-hand period of play before Furgatch got it all in. "I'm the bubble boy of the century!" he declared.

Shortly before that, Tournament Director Jack Effel had moved over to stand beside Furgatch. "Are you all ready for hand-for-hand?" Effel said over the microphone. "Well I'm sorry. We're not going to get hand-for-hand."

Everyone could see by now precisely why that was so: the board showed 1,012 players and Furgatch, who was still seated, had no chips in front of him. His elimination would tick it down to 1,011. According to table-mates, Furgatch was down to one big blind -- 6,000 chips -- and couldn't get the help he needed with queen-nine to beat George Zisimopoulos's ace-seven.

Furgatch actually seemed pretty delighted with the way things panned out. He was given a free buy-in into next year's Main Event as consolation, but said, "I was going to go out soon more than likely, with my chip stack. But now I get the experience of being the bubble boy."

Furgatch pointed to his result in the Main Event last year, where he finished 387th and won $24,622, and asked whether he could still buy into the Little One for One Drop tournament as a way to stay occupied for the rest of the tonight.

"In some ways, of course it's disappointing," he said. "But I'm the bubble boy!"

One-thousand and eleven people are equally as delighted. They play 90 minutes more tonight before it's a wrap.

WSOP photos by PokerPhotoArchive.com.

There are approximately 1,200 players remaining in the 2016 World Series of Poker Main Event, which means they're only about 100 away from the money.

At last count, there were five previous Main Event champions still involved: Tom McEvoy, who won in 1983, has 215,000. Johnny Chan, of 1987-88 vintage, has 250,000. Joe McKeehen, the defending champion, is a short stack with about 83,000. There are much bigger piles in front of Ryan Riess (2013), who has 480,000, and Greg Raymer (2004), who is sitting behind 510,000.

Five from 1,200 is a comparatively small number, but there are still many, many players in this thing with a full trophy cabinet. At last sweep through the room, I counted 11 former EPT main event champions, plus a handful of EPT High Roller specialists, a couple of UKIPT winners and even a former winner on the Eureka Poker Tour.

Here's a look at some of the other glittering talent still playing the Main Event:

Tom Middleton (EPT Barcelona champion) - 910,000
Max Silver (UKIPT Dublin; UKIPT Galway) - 870,000
Shaun Deeb (Kyiv HR*) - 750,000
Ivan Luca (Eureka Rozvadov) - 670,000
John Dibella (PCA) - 660,000
Gavin Griffin (Grand Final) - 640,000
Vojtech Ruzicka (Deauville HR) - 630,000
Max Altergott (Grand Final SHR) -
David Vamplew (EPT London) - 330,000
Dimitar Danchev (PCA) - 330,000
Steve O'Dwyer (Grand Final) - 265,000
Anton Wigg (Copenhagen) - 220,000
Aaron Gustavson (London) - 204,000
Ole Schemion (Sanremo HR; Grand Final SHR) - 165,000
Liv Boeree (EPT Sanremo) - 145,000

(*Three players, but whatever.)

A third former PCA champion, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier fell not long ago, a few places short of the money. That leaves us with five Red Spades:

Marc-Andre Ladouceur - 850,000
Jennifer Shahade - 280,000
Jason Somerville - 250,000
Liv Boeree - 145,000
Aditya Agarwal - 100,000

Boeree was recently moved to Somerville's table, opening up the possibility of some cannibalism there. Not before the money, guys. Not before the money.

WSOP photos by PokerPhotoArchive.com.

One of the peculiarities of the WSOP Main Event is that despite all the poker going on across hundreds of tables among thousands of players, sometimes you don't see very much poker.

This is a "can't see the woods for the trees" phenomenon. With so much action happening all over the room, it's often just to skirt past it all, not watching any hand play out in its entirety.

As we progress now through Level 12, where stacks are becoming larger and the money bubble approaches, it seems only right to stop and take a closer look. With that in mind, I stood with Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier for an orbit to watch exactly what he saw. Here we have nine hands start to finish.

ElkY's table was as follows (stacks are approximate):

Seat 1: Antonio Payne - 205,000
Seat 2: Ky MacPherson - 210,000
Seat 3: Erasmus Morfe - 227,000
Seat 4: Ze Chan - 320,000
Seat 5: Thiago Macedo - 180,000
Seat 6: Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier - 155,000
Seat 7: Edward Hislop - 22,000
Seat 8: Juan Ramirez - 100,000
Seat 9: Liina Vark - 35,000

This was Level 12, with blinds at 1,200-2,400 (400 ante).

Hand 1 - Button with Juan Ramirez

It was silent at Table ElkY. And this is a theme that would dominate for the coming 20 minutes as almost nothing was said, even though some pretty big pots played out. Spoiler alert: ElkY played only one of them, and this is it. Further spoiler: he didn't win.

It started with Thiago Macedo opening from mid-position, making it 5,000 to play. That's the "all but" min-raise and conveniently represented by a single orange chip. ElkY, one seat to Macedo's left, made the call and all others folded.

They went to a flop of [8h][4h][8d] and Macedo checked. ElkY bet 5,500 and Macedo called, which meant they saw a turn of [ac]. Macedo checked. ElkY now bet 11,000 and Macedo called for a second time. They saw the river [td] and Macedo checked again.

ElkY kept up his aggressive line and bet 25,500, committing about a quarter of his stack to this pot. Macedo now went into the tank, but seemed to be pondering a raise rather than a fold. And raise he did, making it 66,000.

Macedo may not be particularly well known in the poker world, but he has recorded the best two results of his career here in Vegas in the past 12 months. He cashed the Main Event last year, finishing in 180th, and made the final table of the 30-minute levels bracelet event this year, finishing in fourth.

ElkY clearly respected his play and took a long, long time over his decision. ElkY is one of the quickest players on the circuit under usual circumstances, so this was obviously a tough decision. He span chips in his left hand. He wasn't distracted by Edward Hislop, one seat to his left, watching a video on his cellphone that appeared to show a sinking ship.

Eventually ElkY decided that he wanted to sail on. He toppled his Mau5 card protector from the top of his cards and folded. Macedo took a nice chunk of chips with the check-raise on the river.

Hand 2 - Button with Liina Vark

Liina Vark, the player with the button, had only 35,000 chips and didn't seem keen to commit them. She did not play a hand in the orbit I watched, but is clearly happy to play a waiting game. She is a chess master and content to play a waiting game.

The same did not appear to be the case on a neighbouring table. As the hand between ElkY and Macedo played out, there was an interesting discussion accompanying a player with pocket deuces doubling up against another with A-J.

"Sets have been killing me all week!" complained the player with the ace-high.
"He doesn't have a set, though," a table-mate observed as the board ran dry.
"He might have done," said another. (That's poker, folks.)

Back on ELkY's table, the Team PokerStars Pro exhaled loudly and turned to his phone for comfort. He tapped out a note, before going back to fold his cards after Ze Chan raised to 6,000. Juan Ramirez called from the cutoff and those two saw a flop of [ad][3s][2s]. Chan bet 7,000 and that took it down.

Hand 3 - Button with Antonio Payne

Action folded to Ky MacPherson in the small blind and he raised to 7,200. He may have hoped this was going to be an easy steal, but he was wrong. Chan, in the big blind, raised to 17,000.

MacPherson called.

Both players checked the [4s][6s][qh] flop and then MacPherson also checked the [ah] turn. But Chan now bet 23,000 and MacPherson called.

The [9h] came on the river and MacPherson checked for a third time. Keen still to build a pot, Chan pushed out a chunky 72,000. After a short pause for thought, MacPherson called but was shown [ad][as] for a turned set.

Nice to wake up in the big blind with aces when your opponent tries to pinch your blind.

Hand 4 - Button with Erasmus Morfe

Erasmus Morfe, now with the button, was among last year's Cinderella stories at the WSOP Main Event. He satellited in at the last minute to last year's tournament and won $262,574 for 19th place.

Although he is clearly a long way from repeating that performance, he is still well stacked here, and could be going back to back in terms of World Series cashes.

On this hand, Juan Ramirez got things started with a limp from early position. That persuaded Morfe also to call from the button, which then tempted a raise from Macedo in the big blind.

No sooner was the raise out there than Ramirez moved all in, thumping his stack of orange chips, a total of 107,600, over the line. Morfe folded quickly and Macedo wanted a count, but wasn't far behind.

Hand 5 - Button with Ze Chan

Ramirez, whose limp from early position on the previous hand got the raise he seemed to be hoping for, tried the tactic again. He limped from under the gun. In unrelated news, ElkY sneezed loudly and the "Bless you" offered by Ramirez was, I think, the first words uttered from the entire table in the previous five hands. It is quiet out there.

Perhaps encouraged by the two-word ice-breaker, Antonio Payne now started chatting to his end of the table, although the conversation did not seem to flourish. They returned quickly to icy silence, perhaps hopeful of another sneeze.

Morfe called from the cutoff, Chan called from the button and Macedo then raised to 12,200 from the small blind. He didn't seem concerned that Ramirez may shove again. As it happens, he didn't shove. He called, which also encouraged Chan and Morfe to a flop of [6c][4s][3d].

Macedo bet 18,500 now, which both Morfe and Chan called. (Ramirez folded.) All three checked the turn of [5h].

After both Macedo and Morfe checked the [ts] river, Chan bet a tower of orange chips and picked it up.

Hand 6 - Button with Thiago Macedo

Action folded to Antonio Payne, whose raise of 6,000 got everyone else to fold.

Hand 7 - Button with ElkY

ElkY hadn't been involved in any pots this orbit after the first one cost him a quarter of his stack. He had the button for this one, but still didn't fancy it. As it turned out, he made a wise decision.

Chan opened the pot, making it 6,000 to play. Action folded through ElkY to Edward Hislop, who had only 17,200 in his stack and decided that it was now or never.

He moved all-in, the action folded back to Chan and he called.

Chan: [ah][tc]
Hislop: [as][7d]

The dominated ace stayed that way and Hislop picked up his bag, swung it over his shoulder and headed home.

Hand 8 - dead button

With Hislop having departed, Ramirez and Vark posted the blinds, but ElkY still had the best position. However, he saw nothing to encourage him to call Macedo's open to 6,000 from the cut-off, and only Ramirez paid the price from the small blind.

At almost the exact time he pushed his cards forward, Ramirez also winced. Was it a tell? "Your nails," he said. "You need a nail clip." He was talking to the massage therapist who was busy working on his back, but who had apparently gone in nail first on one particularly harsh kneading manoeuvre.

The massage therapist apologised and the two players saw a flop of [ah][2c][5s]. Ramirez checked, Macedo bet 11,000 and that was enough.

Hand 9 - Button with Juan Ramirez

As the dealer prepared the deck, a very familiar figure appeared at the door to the Amazon Room and began to make his way towards the table. Greg Raymer, for it was he, zeroed in on the empty seat beside ElkY and greeted his former team-mate with a tap on the shoulder and a "How you doing?"

ElkY welcomed Raymer, although he still seemed a little disconsolate about the rough patch he was going through at the table. It fell to Antonio Payne to start the chit-chat with Raymer, who placed a bottle of apple juice on the table, deposited a backpack on the floor and then began opening his stuffed bag of multicoloured chips.

"What you got in the bag?" Payne said.
"Guess," Raymer said, inviting the players to join a kind of fairground "guess the number of candy pieces in a jar" game. No one offered their estimates, though, leaving Raymer first to hoik out a fossil, which he put on the table beside ElkY, and then begin stacking about 200,000 chips.

While this was happening, Macedo opened the pot to 5,000 and Ramirez called from the button. Those two saw a flop of [5c][3c][4d].

Macedo check-called Ramirez's bet of 9,000 and then both players checked the [6c] turn.

The [th] came on the river and Macedo bet 16,000. Ramirez didn't take long to move all in, about 77,600 more, and that gave Macedo a decision.

He anguished almost all the time it took for Raymer to arrive, sit down, and begin stacking his chips. But eventually Macedo folded, imploring Ramirez to show him one card.

Ramirez went one better than that and turned over [as][9h] for ace-high. Macedo tapped the table.

That, then, is the end of the round with ElkY. It wasn't great for our hero, and Edward Hislop will have enjoyed better rounds too. But Ze Chan is on his way to the top 20 in the tournament, with more than 650,000 chips.

WSOP photos by PokerPhotoArchive.com.

Aditya Agarwal is playing his 11th World Series of Poker and, having cashed in five of his previous outings, is in confident mood ahead of this year's tournament. It makes Agarwal, the 31-year-old Team PokerStars Pro from India, an obvious candidate for someone to follow closely through his tournament. We're going to attempt to give a close-up insight into a player's journey through the World Series Main Event.

The plan is to talk to Agarwal at every break for what we hope is many days.

DAY THREE, LEVEL 11
Blinds: 1,000-2,00000 (300 ANTE)

When we last left Aditya Agarwal, towards the end of Day 2AB, the Team PokerStars Pro from India had 157,000 chips heading into the last hour of the day. When bags came out at the end of the night, he had precisely 157,100--the stack he brings back to the Amazon Room today.

"I'm feeling good, well rested," he said this morning, taking his seat at a new table. He said he spent his day off yesterday sleeping, before hitting the buffet at Caesar's Palace for dinner. Was that a lucky buffet? "Using up the points," he said, brandishing his Total Rewards card.

Agarwal's table today is as follows:

Seat 1 - Rory Brown, Ireland, 107,800
Seat 2 - Frank Peluso, United States, 81,900
Seat 3 - Tony Tran, United States, 215,800
Seat 4 - Aditya Agarwal, India, 157,100
Seat 5 - Michael Guzzardi, United States, 171,300
Seat 6 - David Floyd, United States, 145,000
Seat 7 - Phung Ngo, United States, 111,800
Seat 8 - Adam Geyer, United States, 82,300
Seat 9 - Giuseppe Pizzolato, United States, 122,400

That's a pretty typical line-up for this stage of the tournament. Although there are still some superstars involved, and some pretty mighty stacks, Agarwal is faced with seven relatively unknown players, plus the highly-rated Adam Geyer. Geyer has $2.5 million in tournament earnings and has narrowly missed out on WSOP and WPT titles in the past. He has also been deep twice at the PCA. Although his stack is the second-shortest at the table, it's still 40 big blinds.

Ireland's Rory Brown has some EPT pedigree and has a string of results from both Ireland and the United States; Tony Tran made the top 100 in this tournament last year; and Phung Ngo has a WSOP final table appearance under his belt and made a deep run in this year's Millionaire Maker.

It's probably worth pointing out that recorded live tournament successes are not the only barometer for a player's ability. Agarwal himself has earned $630,000 in live tournaments, but more than $4m online.

Agarwal thinks the money bubble will likely come into view after dinner tonight. That has now become the consensus among players in the room. Stick around to see if he is still there then. The average stack at the start of the day was 154,000 -- almost precisely Agarwal's -- but things could change dramatically over the coming hours.

DAY TWO, LEVEL NINE
Blinds: 600-1,200 (200 ANTE)

During the past level, the first after dinner, Aditya Agarwal hit his high point for the tournament so far of about 180,000 chips. At time of writing, as he and his fellow competitors take their last break of the night, he sits with 157,000. This, folks, is tournament poker, particularly the early days. It's very often just a steady grind.

According to Agarwal, the table has got slightly tougher--Vojech Ruzicka is now the big stack with about 240,000--but is still "pretty good". He said: "I think I can last the night."

That is still three hours away. The organisers have put an extra half level onto the scheduled five levels after the turnout was bigger than expected. "Eleven hours for the Main Event, that's a new one," Agarwal, who has played this tournament 11 times, said.

But we'll leave him to it for the night now and catch up when he returns on Thursday for Day 3. That, at least, is the hope.

DAY TWO, LEVEL EIGHT
Blinds: 500-1,000 (100 ANTE)

Aditya Agarwal is heading to dinner with a little more than 100,000 in his stack. He has lost his team-mate Fatima Moreira de Melo from his table--she was eliminated midway through the last level--and has been joined by Vojtech Ruzicka, the Czech pro. Ruzicka is very well known in Europe, having won a High Roller event at EPT Deauville a few years ago (worth $426,907 of his $1.4 million recorded cashes). "He seems good," Agarwal said, even though he admitted not having seen Ruzicka before.

The only significant pot the two of them played ended with Ruzicka taking a slice from Agarwal's stack. Agarwal flopped top pair and bet it, Ruzicka called. They checked the turn and then Ruzicka check-raised the river, by which point he had a flush.

Although there's been a quite considerable changing of personnel at Agarwal's table both today and on Day 1, he is yet to be responsible for busting anybody. Right now it's back to Palms Place, 90 minutes of relaxation, before returning to 100 BBs.

DAY TWO, LEVEL SEVEN
Blinds: 400-800 (100 ANTE)

"That was a pretty good level," Agarwal said, looking at a stack of chips that now total 130,000. The Team PokerStars Pro from India has increased his overnight stack three-fold within the first two levels today and now is the chip leader at his table.

"It's still super-early," he said. "But right now it's good because they've seen me with a lot of hands and some people are short so they're playing tight. I'm able to open a lot of pots."

With the exception of the set-over-set hand against Fatima Moreira de Melo, detailed earlier, Agarwal has still avoided major confrontation. He has, however, continued a steady climb, which, in this long marathon, is precisely the tactic required.

When players return, they'll be paying a big blind of 1,000, which is likely to put a lot of pressure on the short stacks at Agarwal's table. There's a high chance a few of them will bust, potentially to be replaced by stacks far larger even than his.

Over Agarwal's shoulder, Antonio Esfandiari has more close to 200,000. Grant Levy, on a neighbouring table, has 200,000 well cleared. Meanwhile, according to the official updates, Alvaro Lopez has 350,000.

DAY TWO, LEVEL SIX
Blinds: 300-600 (100 ANTE)

Aditya Agarwal came into Day 2 with a stack of 57,100 and a table that featured his Team PokerStars colleague Fatima Moreira de Melo and the three-time WSOP bracelet winner Dewey Tomko. Brad Willis passed by the table earlier and saw how Agarwal's match up against Moreira de Melo started off (it's safe for work, despite the promise of nudity in the title), and Tomko busted pretty early on.

Other than that, not much has been going on. "The table is playing pretty tight," Agarwal said. "No really big pots." Largely thanks to the set-over-set encounter against Moreira de Melo, Agarwal has built his stack to its high point of 85,000. That puts him in the top three stacks at his table but, obviously, with a long way still to go.

DAY ONE, LEVEL FIVE
Blinds: 250-500 (75 ANTE)

As Day 1B of the $10,000 World Series Main Event draws to its close, our hero for the day Aditya Agarwal sits with 57,000 chips. That's only marginally more than the amount he sat with at 11am today, when things began, and that's the way it goes sometimes. For all its manifold riches or horrific bad beats, very little says "That's poker!" more efficiently than playing 10 hours in the most prestigious tournament on the planet to bag up your starting stack.

That, of course, is the purpose of this experiment: to give a real-life view of a player's progress in an event like this. No one could win the tournament today, but plenty could lose their chance. Of the 1,733 who started Day 1B, about 550 are out. The full numbers will all be revealed first thing tomorrow, but the belief is that about 30 percent of the field will perish on Day 1.

Agarwal described his day as "exhausting" and "way swingy". He said that for obvious reasons he didn't much enjoy the period when he was short-stacked and staring at an early elimination. "It was much better when I got back to starting stack," he said.

Overall, he said he was "pretty happy". And he'll be back on Tuesday for more of the same.

DAY ONE, LEVEL FOUR
Blinds: 200-400 (50 ANTE)

A confession: I was worried about this concept. Aditya Agarwal agreed at the start of play to keep us updated on his tournament progression, but poker can be cruel. The last thing anybody wanted was for his Main Event challenge to fizzle out, particularly with its details being broadcast far and wide. It's very easy to feel responsible on the rail: not only a cooler, but someone prepared to amplify the despair.

But we now have better news than the previous update: Agarwal is back to 53,300, more than his starting stack, after the most eventful level of his day so far.

Returning to 18,000 after the dinner break, he dribbled down to 11,000 not long into Level 4. But he then found Q-J in the big blind and called a late-position raise. He then flopped the world when it came 9-10-K.

They checked the flop, Agarwal bet 2,000 on the turn and shoved the river, finding a willing caller with K-Q. And then not long later he found aces against queens and they got it in pre-flop, doubling him again to the high 40,000s.

"That was good," he said. His distinctive giggle when relating good news is also back.

Remember back in Level 1 when we were talking about his tough table draw? Well, every single one of those vaunted opponents is now out. According to Agarwal, Anton Astapau bluffed it off; Jeremy Ausmus lost less spectacularly, but also hit the rail. Agarwal was not responsible. "Unfortunately," he said.

There's one level left in the day after which the night-long audit can begin. Agarwal is not counting any chickens and said he would "hopefully" agree to continue the story on Day 2. Two more hours and then we'll be there.

DAY ONE, LEVEL THREE
Blinds: 150-300

There's no way to dress this up: Things have taken a downturn in the last level for Aditya Agarwal. He is heading to his dinner break and leaving only 18,000 chips behind. In truth, he might easily have been out. After finding J-9, you might have thought a board of 9-9-J (two spades) was boom-time, but Barry Schultz was sitting with pocket jacks.

That cost Agarwal a chunk of chips, but it was even worse for Carter Gill. Gill had two spades and made his flush by the river. He was all-in and sent home.

Agarwal is now heading back to Palms Place for his dinner break and to spend some time with his wife. "I'll talk through some hands with some friends," he said. Although how to escape a cooler like that is not really something anyone can do much about.

Schultz is now the table captain, with more than 100,000. Astapau and Ausmus remain, but Gill's seat is empty, meaning they are playing eight handed on that table. Blinds will be 200-400 when they return, which is still 45 big blinds for Agarwal. There will be two more levels after that.

DAY ONE, LEVEL TWO
Blinds: 100-200

Without question, the WSOP Main Event is one of the most eagerly anticipated tournaments of the year and players look forward to it for months. But it's also true that there will be long periods when very little happens. It is a long and often tedious grind exchanging nothing much more than the occasional ante.

At the end of the second level on Day 1B, Aditya Argawal has 45,000 chips. It means he has played the past two hours for the net loss of 7,000--a negligible shift. "Uneventful," he said, before upgrading to, "Very uneventful."

Despite (or maybe because of) the talent stacked at the table, there haven't been any significant swings. Jeremy Ausmus has 50,750 and Anton Astapau has 58,000. Only Carter Gill's stack has changed markedly. He is left with 17,500 at the moment, which is still 87 big blinds.

That said, Anthony Zinno is in sight on a neighbouring table. He has a stack of 125,000 already, so there's always the chance for matters to change very quickly.

DAY ONE, LEVEL ONE
Blinds: 75-150

Agarwal was in his seat ahead of play starting at 11am and watched all other seats at his table gradually fill. And it's a tough table: Jeremy Ausmus (a WSOP bracelet winner, with close to $5m in tournament earnings) is to Agarwal's immediate left, while the APPT and LAPT champion Carter Gill is in the four seat.

"I have had softer tables on Day 1," Agarwal said.

He added that he didn't recognise the player who came to sit at seat six, but immediately established that he was a decent opponent. "He seems really good," Agarwal said. "In the Main Event, you can just tell: who seems comfortable, who isn't. He seems really comfortable."

The player in question is Anton Astapau, the Belarussian high roller. One suspects the two have crossed swords many times online, where Agarwal plays as "intervention" or "Adi Agarwal" and is top of the all-time Indian money list.

As you would expect from the opening level, very little changed to Agarwal's starting stack of 50,000 here. He said he got it up to 57,000 at one point, then ran top pair into a turned flush to take it back to 52,000.

It is very early days, but every road starts somewhere.

We'll update this post throughout the day.

WSOP photos by PokerPhotoArchive.com.

A big question mark hovers over the World Series of Poker Main Event today as the entire remaining field convenes for the first time for Day 3 action. Will they reach the money?

In most years, and in most multi-day tournaments, the bubble has burst on the third day. But over the past couple of days at the 2016 WSOP renewal, tournament organisers have suggested it may not burst until Day 4, which would mean another 11 hours of play with nothing to show for it for some. The reasoning was the larger-than-expected field, plus the 50,000-chip starting stack.

But players were sceptical. I met a man in the elevator this morning who was convinced the bubble would burst today ("I might take a prop bet on that," he said) while the two others heading down from the Masquerade Tower at the Rio said they believed the tournament administrators. They weren't expecting to be in the money.

However, even the suits have now changed their tune. Tournament Director Jack Effel, during his introductions to the day's play, said he expects the bubble to burst tonight, possibly quite late in the day. With 2,177 players still involved, and 1,011 due to be paid, more than half need to be eliminated. It's going to be close.

The ranks of PokerStars now number seven. Here are the men and women carrying the red spade on their shoulder in the hunt for the money:

Marc-Andre Ladouceur: 410,500 (Amazon Room 420/6)
Liv Boeree: 364,400 (Brasilia Room 30/7)
Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier: 278,200 (Amazon Room 439/6)
Aditya Agarwal: 157,100 (Amazon Room 397/4)
Jason Somerville: 62,000 (Brasilia Room 9/6)
Vanessa Selbst: 55,600 (Amazon 407/8)
Jake Cody: 22,000 (Pavilion Room 171/9)

While prospects are looking exceptionally bright for Ladouceur, Boeree and ElkY, this is going to be a tough test for anyone with a sub 100,000 stack. In Cody's own words, his chip stack is "pathetic", but he's "gonna spin". He used only one character when discussing his approach to Day 3 on Twitter today:

That's fighting talk tweets. Here they go.

WSOP photos by PokerPhotoArchive.com.

It's the tournament series played by thousands. It's the tournament series that makes finding loose change down the back of the sofa a potentially life changing act. It's the tournament series for everyone. That's right. MicroMillions is back.

MicroMillions homepage is the tournament series that turns a few cents into a few thousand dollars, making it the ultimate low-stakes tournament championship.

If you need proof, then there's the millions of dollars awarded in prize money to date, and all from buy-ins that start from as little as $0.11.

It basically means that whatever level you play at, this is the tournament series for you.

It all begins this Sunday, July 17 running through to Sunday July 31, with millions of dollars to be won over the course of the 90 events.

In addition to prize pools there are some must-have Micro Millions prizes. Opening up the Challenges window in the PokerStars Lobby gives details of $35,000 worth of prizes to be won. There's also a new feature to the championship, the "Last Man Standing" contest, with $1,000 to the player who cashes the most days in a row starting from day one.

All of this will be tracked on the MicroMillions homepage, along with championship results and statistics.

It all starts in three days from now. Loose change ahoy!

Glenn Frey, one of the founding members of the country-rock band Eagles, often engaged in marathon sessions of poker, particularly a game he invented called "Eagle Poker." Frey was an avid card player along with his songwriting partner Don Henley. It didn't matter if they were backstage, or on a tour bus, or playing in their own homes, poker was a popular pastime for the Eagles.

The unglamorous side to the rock biz involves arduous traveling from gig to gig or killing time in between sound check and show time. Bands, no matter the type of music or era, often share universal experiences. More than a few have utilized cards to pass the time, maintain their sanity, and earn a little cash on the side. Musicians play a range of card games from drinking contests to high-stakes poker. The Eagles were one of the many card-slinging bands out there, and they happened to also be one of the most successful bands of all time.

ORIGINS WITH LINDA RONSTADT AND BACKSTAGE WITH SMOKEY

Frey and Henley befriended each other in 1971 when they were hired as sidemen in Linda Ronstadt's backing band. John Boylan, record producer and manager, assembled the best country rock musicians in the Los Angeles area to join Ronstadt's band. Boylan specifically scouted musicians who could also sing, which is why both Henley and Frey were added to the roster with Frey on guitar and Henley on drums. Music historians point to that moment as the origin of the Eagles which formed soon after when David Geffen signed them to Asylum Records in 1971.

During downtime backstage, Ronstadt's touring band frequently played poker with each other and other bands, because everyone knew the basic rules and the rankings of poker hands. During a series of gigs at Disneyland in 1971, Ronstadt's band hung out backstage with the legendary Smokey Robinson. A poker game fired up initiated by Ronstadt's new guitar player, Glenn Frey.

In a remembrance piece about Glenn Frey in the L.A. Times, Ronstadt explained, "We had to do four shows a night. You'd play a 20-minute set, then be off for three or four hours, then play another 20 minutes -- there was a lot of time to kill between sets. At one point we got into a poker game with Smokey Robinson, who also was booked there. I had a huge crush on Smokey at that time, and we were playing poker, and Glenn kept winning. I told him, 'Quit winning!' That's the kind of poker player I was."

Ronstadt also expressed how Frey's poker skills extended way beyond the tables and spilled into his dealings with the murky world of the music business. "Glenn was always smarter, and better prepared than you thought he would be. It was like going into a card game with him. We used to play poker, and you'd go into a game thinking you were going to take his money, but he always ended up winning."

THE KIRKWOOD CASINO

During the early 1970s, the Laurel Canyon neighborhood nestled in the Hollywood Hills blossomed into a popular enclave for musicians and artists along with many iconic members of L.A.'s counterculture. Frey rented a bungalow which became the meeting place for the band and their friends. The close proximity of Laurel Canyon to the Sunset Strip meant that Frey's house in the hills attracted a steady stream of revelers once the bars closed and friends' gigs were done. The party and poker games lasted all night and spilled into the next morning.

In an interview with Vanity Fair about the Hollywood Hills music scene, Frey described his pleasure palace: "In 1974, I moved to a place at the corner of Ridpath and Kirkwood in Laurel Canyon, and we had poker games every Monday night during football season. Notorious card games. Joni Mitchell got wind of those card games, and she always was a good hang, so she started coming every Monday night and playing cards with us. We'd watch football from six to nine and then play cards until the wee hours. They called our house the Kirkwood casino."

The Kirkwood Casino resembled a fraternity house decorated with an empty beer can pyramid in the corner, a nonstop poker game, and with multiple TVs to keep an eye on sporting events. According to To the Limit: The Untold History of the Eagles, Monday nights at Frey's Kirkwood Casino were devoted to Monday Night Football and poker. So long as they had enough players, they'd play cards on any given night. Henley, one of the co-founders of the Eagles, grew up in East Texas where he learned the basics of the local pastime called Texas Hold'em. Henley was well-versed in poker strategy before he arrived in Los Angeles as an aspiring musician and songwriter. Like a true Texan, Henley held a deep love for football. He also enjoyed betting on games, particularly the NFL. Monday nights at Frey's Kirkwood Casino in Laurel Canyon combined two of Henley's passions: football and poker.

In addition to Joni Mitchell, other musical figures from the L.A. scene were in attendance, including songwriter J.D. Souther, roadies from the Eagles, members of the Flying Burrito Brothers, record producer Bob Buziak, Eagles' manager Irving Azoff, and an older rodeo trainer nicknamed Wild Bill. According to the book To the Limit, one of the Flying Burrito Brothers, Rob Roberts, lost a gigantic pot to Wild Bill at Frey's Monday Night game. Normally, the regular musicians in the game kept the vibe friendly, so they forgave any ridiculous debts. However, in that instance, Wild Bill insisted on getting paid. When the indigent Burrito Brother could not pay the debt, Wild Bill took matters into his own hands. He walked through the front door of Rob Roberts' house and helped himself to one of Roberts' vintage guitars to settle the debt.

EAGLE POKER

Frey claimed he invented Eagle Poker while growing up in Detroit, Michigan. Eagle Poker is a derivative of Acey Deucey (aka Red Dog,). The rules are simple: you bet on whether or not a third card's value will fall in between two other dealt cards. The Eagles moved to London in 1972 to record their self-titled debut album with renowned producer Glyn Johns. Johns ran a tight ship with no drinking or drugs in his recording studio, so the Eagles lived a monastic life while diligently working on the album. Johns did not have any problems with gambling or cards, therefore the band soaked up the only vice they could engage in. While bored out of their skulls in London, the Eagles gambled for endless hours and perfected a game that would become Eagle Poker.

BIG STAKES AND SURLY DON

Henley had an ongoing spat with David Briggs, one of Neil Young's record producers, which developed while the Eagles and Neil Young toured the United Kingdom together in 1972. Henley did not take kindly to Briggs' constant razzing of the band and did not let the grudge go until he found a way to enact revenge. Henley challenged Briggs to Eagle Poker, and a marathon session ensued on their tour bus. When it was over, Henley beat Briggs for $7,000, a sizable sum today, let alone 45 years ago.

BIG SWINGS

The pots in Eagle Poker and other high-stakes games grew so large that one of the band members stopped playing after losing a nearly $2,000 pot. In his memoir "Heaven and Hell," Don Felder, one of the Eagles' guitar players, wrote about poker games that started up out of sheer boredom yet quickly ballooned to high-stakes action. When the band migrated to Miami, Florida to record their seminal album "Hotel California" at Criteria Studios with producer Bill Szymczyk, Felder quipped that the band spent many hours playing poker to kill time while waiting on a perpetually-tardy Henley.

"We had a saying, 'Hurry up and wait,' because you'd hurry to be in the studio on time, and then you'd wait and wait and wait," explained Felder. "We'd play marathon Eagle Poker games that lasted several days, where thousands of dollars would be won and lost. One night, I lost $1,800 in one hand to a roadie, and it hurt so much, I never really played again."

POKER-THEMED LYRICS

The music of the Eagles evokes the freedom of the western frontier. A couple of their earliest albums, particularly On the Border and Desperado, have an overt outlaw cowboy theme, while also paying homage to their 1960s hippie and folk influences. The cowboy lifestyle, including poker, is an elemental competent of Western Americana roots music. The embodiment of the gambling spirit is entrenched deep into the base of the Eagles' music and lyrics.

In an interview with Cameron Crowe, Henley revealed the origins of the title track "Desperado." The band had grown disillusioned after critics marginalized them as a "California laid-back." They actively sought to alter the music industry's perception of their band.

"Jackson Browne suggested a Western theme -- something to do with playing cards -- which is sort of where we were headed anyway," explained Henley. "The theme turned decidedly Western... you know... mythical, majestic images of the great American Southwest."

The Eagles' second album, Desperado (produced by Glyn Johns in 1973), is a concept album with a few card references. The poker lyrics fit the western theme, but in real life the band played nonstop cards while in London during the album's production. The track "Out of Control" (co-written by Henley and Frey) contains a specific reference to poker at the end of the last verse.

You got to gamble on your story
You got no guts, you get no glory
And I'm bettin' my money on an ace in the hole
Think I'm gettin' out of control

"Desperado," the title track off the album, tells the story about an old loner cowboy's desire to settle down, but he's skeptical to shed his outlaw past because he always got burned by women. Frey and Henley equated the search for love to gambling. They included specific references to love interests as both of the red queens.

Don't you draw the queen of diamonds, boy
She'll beat you if she's able
You know the queen of hearts is always your best bet
Now it seems to me, some fine things
Have been laid upon your table
But you only want the ones that you can't get

LIFE IN THE FAST LANE

In another interview with Crowe, Frey revealed the origins of the song "Life in the Fast Lane." Frey also told the infamous story again in the "History of the Eagles" documentary. The music was based on a riff that guitarist Joe Walsh often diddled around with while warming up. The lyrics were based on a real-life experience for Frey while a friend sped along Pacific Coast Highway without a care in the world driving them to a weekly poker game.

"The true story is: I was riding in a car with a guy we used to call 'The Count' because his count was never very good. We were driving out to an Eagles poker game. I was in the passenger seat. He moved over to the left lane and started driving 85-90 miles per hour. I said, 'Hey, man, slow down.' He goes, 'Hey, man, it's life in the fast lane!' And I thought, 'Oh, my God, what a title!' I didn't write it down. I didn't have to."

ALMOST FAMOUS

One of the characters in the film "Almost Famous" (directed by Crowe) is loosely based on Frey. Crowe had also hired Frey to work on the film as a consultant. In the original screenplay, Crowe referenced a poker game attended by road managers from various 1970s rock bands. In that scene, they played Eagle Poker. Because Eagle Poker is not film-friendly, Frey and Crowe altered the screenplay and changed the game to Blind Man's Bluff. That's the type of poker that appears in a pivotal poker scene in the final cut of the film.

HISTORY OF THE EAGLES AND POKER

The Eagles are not just the band that The Dude poked fun at in the movie The Big Lebowski, but they are also a part of American gambling lore. It didn't matter if the band members were relaxing at home, in the studio recording an album, or passing time backstage before their set. Poker was an essential part of the Eagles' lifestyle.

When Frey moved to California, he put his own spin on his favorite poker game that he played in Detroit home games. He tweaked Acey Deucey and rebranded it Eagle Poker after he taught his bandmates and roadies how to play. From that moment on, the band notoriously played poker whenever they could find some time.

Poker became a vital aspect of the band's life, and the gambling bug seeped into the creative process. Lyrics penned by Frey and Henley were peppered with poker and gambling references. The history of the Eagles is entwined with poker from its earliest days as a backing band to Linda Ronstadt to playing high-stakes poker on the Eagles private jet at the pinnacle of their career.

Pauly McGuire is a freelance contributor to PokerStars and the author of Lost Vegas. His newest novel, a rock-and-roll novel titled Fried Peaches will be released at the end of the year.

Day 2 of the World Series of Poker Main Event has only 60 minutes left. That means that this is the last hour where we cannot be certain whether the future World Champion is in the room. When Day 3 begins, all the remaining players will be under one roof for the first time, and the aim for anyone still in a seat right now is to be among them.

Sorry to report, but is now impossible for Daniel Negreanu to win the Main Event. He has just been eliminated, ending the best show in Vegas for his countless fans. He continued to entertain and remain in great spirits right until the end, but the sorry fact was that for the final hour, he had more supporters than chips.

During a late sweep, I saw 52 people standing within viewing distance of Negreanu's table, but his stack was only around 20,000 chips. Those spectators all wanted to see Negreanu double up, but they actually became mourners at his wake.

He moved in with pocket nines and was looked up by Ryan Levy's ace-queen. An ace on the flop helped only Levy and Negreanu was sent packing.

Jake Cody is also grinding a short stack. He has about 42,000 at this point but, as he pointed out earlier, he has been as low as 20 big blinds so still has reason to believe. He began his day in the Pavilion Room but now finds himself in the furthest corner of the Amazon Room, with the big stack of Scott Clements to his left.

But time for the better news. The much better news. Liv Boeree has enjoyed a spectacular day and presently sits behind around 320,000 chips. That's the most of any of the Red Spades in the field today (Celina Lin has now been eliminated, running ace-king into aces) and Boeree seems to be in fine form.

The Pavilion Room, where Boeree still resides, is becoming a dangerous place to be. The likes of Steve O'Dwyer (330,000) and Ole Schemion (345,000) are sitting with towers of chips. I walked past another table and watched Dan Heimiller scoop a pot that took his stack to beyond 400,000. He flopped a straight and a straight-flush draw and stayed good against an opponent's top set of kings.

Heimiller is a two-time bracelet winner and is a stubborn campaigner. He looks like a very good bet to go deep.

We will return tomorrow at noon for Day 3, where that field combines. That means a return to action for Marc-Andre Ladouceur, Jason Somerville, ElkY, Vanessa Selbst, Aditya Agarwal as well as today's survivors. There's still life in this game yet.

WSOP photos by PokerPhotoArchive.com.

For most players, chips mean chat. But as we have already established, Daniel Negreanu is not "most players" and the size of his chat does not depend on the size of his stack.

When we last dropped in on Negreanu, he had one of the smallest stacks in the room, but he was still an effortless ringmaster at the circus of a Day 2 restart, nattering to fans, goading Phil Hellmuth and even taking photographs on behalf of a supporter on the rail.

Since then, the good karma built up by Negreanu has been reflected in the steady growth of the chips in front of him. There has been an outpouring of good wishes on Twitter for Negreanu (see below) while his own timeline has told a story of steady accumulation.

"Got back to starting stack with 57k," he said at 4:44pm. At 7:07pm he said, "I have 100,000 in chips in the World Series of Poker Main Event." That update got 1,100 "likes". That's how popular this man is.

As many have noted today, Negreanu is especially easy to locate even in the hangar of the Pavilion Room. There are now about 25 people standing beside his table, watching his every move and hanging from his every word. But here's another remarkable thing: the white card suspended from the ceiling above Negreanu's table displaying his table number is the only one in the whole section that is swinging from side to side.

The rational explanation is that the table is directly beneath the cool stream of an air conditioner, but it is too early to rule out cosmic forces. The power of personality is shimmering on the upward jetstream.

To the nuts and bolts: Negreanu presently has about 130,000 chips. That's not in the top 10 for the tournament or anything, but it's a nine-fold increase on the start of the day and is more than 100 big blinds at this stage.

Negreanu said he wanted to have 200,000 by the end of the day, and he is well on track.

He is also continuing to dominate the table, as well as the whole area around him. In between hands, he leans back to talk to supporters on the rail, evidently remembering one woman in particular who had apparently swung by earlier, went away for dinner and has come back on her way to see Penn & Teller. She still seems taken aback that Negreanu is interested in her day, but he is.

All the conversation at the table is also going through Negreanu, be it a complaint at the unprecedented number of rail-birds ("Dammit Daniel, I hate people behind me. It's all your fault. I get so paranoid. It's all your fault.") or an attempt to get conversation started even with some icy central Europeans. (Negreanu: "That sounded French?" Opponent: "Croatia." Negreanu: "Same thing.")

He is also complementing the dealer on her manicure ("Pretty good nail care there, Allie.") and offering advice, when asked, on the state of the game.

Aaron Kweskin was the player who sought Negreanu's endorsement after he moved all in with [6d][6s] and was called by Navid Lofti's [ad][td]. The board bricked and the pocket pair held up, prompting Kweskin to ask, "Did I play it right, Daniel?"

Negreanu said, "You did all right. I would have folded." But before the joke could be misinterpreted he asked, "How much did you have? Twenty thousand?"
"Seventeen two," Kweskin said.
"You did just fine," Negreanu said.

It wasn't so great for Lofti. He was left with a short stack and open shoved a few hands later. Kweskin found [ad][kd] and finished the job as Lofti could show only [9d][ts].

"Thank you guys, good luck everyone," Lofti said. The hand he sought to shake belonged, of course, to Negreanu, alongside whom he had sat all day.

The short version of this is that the Negreanu show goes on, the conversation, the smiling, the goofing around. And amid it all, the poker is also pretty special. There's still a long road ahead before he can match last year's achievement, but he has taken some giant strides in the right direction this afternoon.

WSOP photos by PokerPhotoArchive.com.