Until November, this is the biggest day of the poker year so far. Until November, these 27 players are under the most intense pressure of any World Series competitors of the year. Until November, we will see today the biggest pots of the World Series year. Until November, the focus of the poker world has never been so intense. Until November.

Today is the day that 27 players will try to become the New November Nine. Last year's experiment of playing the World Series Main Event final table a full three months after the bulk of the tournament is being repeated, and so until November, this is the final day of the 2009 World Series. The target is that date in the fall -- survive today's play and you will be back to play for the multi-millions. Each player remaining is guaranteed a quarter million bucks, but the winner of this thing is looking at close to nine million, and the championship bracelet.

While that winner won't be decided today, you have to be in it to win it. And that means grinding through what could be a very long day of nervous energy and tension.

The view across the Amazon Room today

Media in the Amazon Room now outnumber players, and the press room has overspilled into the area where previously there were tables of action. Monitors have sprung up to display the action to railbirds and reporters alike, and yet still vast areas of this hangar are empty and dark.

Expect further description, photos and action throughout the day. We will be here until the close, even if that means tomorrow. Or November.

Only 27 players remain in the World Series of Poker Main Event. It is day eight, and today they will reduce the field further to the final nine who will return in November to decide the new World Champion.

Seven PokerStars players remain in the field at the start of today. The are listed below.

Follow out comprehensive coverage of the race to the New November Nine on our World Series of Poker page.

We were 64 and we dreamed of being 27. And true to its billing as the city where dreams are made, Las Vegas brought us to our target in record-quick time, with nary a nip nor tuck nor surgeon's scalpel in sight.

The field of the Main Event of the World Series of Poker was trimmed today from 64 hopefuls to the final 27. It took a little less than four levels of play, and as ever the departed will be sorely missed.

Dennis Phillips was arguably the highest-profile casualty of the savagery. A week ago, few would have given the man from St Louis any chance of repeating his spectacular run to last year's final table. But when he departed today, the victim of an ace-king versus ace-king accident (flushed), a bubble of genuine expectation burst. It really had seemed as though Phillips would pull off that miracle back-to-back final tables, and 45th place for $180,000 seemed like a disappointment.

Dennis Phillips hits the rail

Phillips proved this week, more emphatically even that last year's performance, that he is a man with real talent. There'll be plenty more of him to come -- and not just in the form of the army of clones that trails him across the globe.

We also bade farewell to the PokerStars qualifiers Grayson Ramage, Adam York, Manuel Labandeira, Mark Ader and George Saca, as well as the former World Series Player of the Year Tom Schneider.

Tom Schneider

Each took more than $100,000, some closer to a quarter of a million bucks. That's a good deal of consolation from six days of poker, but it's going to take some time for them to see it that way. Leave them be for now.

Whoop it up, though, for the following: Ben Lamb, Nick Maimone, Jonathan Tamayo, James Akenhead and Andrew Lichtenberger, all of whom have followed the well-trodden path from the PokerStars online tables to the deep, deep stages of the World Series Main Event.

Jonathan Tamayo

Tomorrow, we will follow them all as they attempt to book their spot in the New November Nine. It's the final push to the final table in the Amazon Room tomorrow. Join us again.

In the meantime, take a look back at all today's coverage with any of the following links.

No rest on Day 7
The ring
Blue 6
Moneymaker II
A tale of two tables
Six figures, good and bad
Life is Tweet
Lamb chops through field

If you'd like to take a look back at how the deep-running PokerStars players fared today, please feel free to check out our 2009 WSOP winners page.

Unlike most of the foreign media who have abandoned their post upon the elimination of the last person from their country, our odd-speaking PokerStars bloggers are staying until the bitter, bitter end. Expand your horizons and read some WSOP coverage in Swedish, Spanish, German and Dutch.

Of course, we always tip our hats to our friends at PokerStars.tv who work with precision and tirelessly (until they get tired) on the best video blogs at the WSOP.

All photos © Joe Giron/IMPDI Worldwide

The expectation on days like these is that progress will be slow. The reminder, thrown into any conversation about how long a day will last, is the final day of last year where the long hours spent reducing the field from 27 to nine which last year ended as the sun came up. It makes people naturally cautious and weary of nailing their predictive colours to the mast. Tomorrow the same long haul is expected. But somehow today has gone a lot quicker than anyone had planned and we're now on the brink of ending another day.

We started with 64 and now just 29 remain. With the elimination of just two more players the lights go out on day seven. They'll be nothing extra, no playing to the end of the level, the clock will stop and 27 will return tomorrow. Which is why Jack Effel's announcement there would still be a lunch break came as a surprise for everyone. Despite expected that we'd play through until we reached that magic number play stopped for 90 minutes. At least we caught the last couple of innings in the All-Star game.

But here we are, back for level 28 until two more players bust out and say their last farewells to the Amazon Room their World Series hopes for another year. It's a process that could take minutes or it could take hours. But we'll see it tonight. As it currently stands PokerStars players are in good position to survive till sunrise; they include Jonathan Tamayo (8,200,000), Ben Lamb (5,800,000), Nick Maimone (5,000,000), James Akenhead (4,950,000) and Andrew Lichtenberger (3,000,000).

Spectators have resumed their positions on the rail and the cards are back in the air. We play on...

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TOURNAMENT ADMIN OF THE HOUR

As level 29 begind blinds are now 50,000-100,000 with a 10,000 ante. 29 players remain.

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OUT OF CONTEXT DRUNK OF THE HOUR

"You'll never hit a curve ball... you'll NEVER hit a curve ball"

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JOE GIRON PHOTO HOUR

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VBLOG OF THE HOUR

If you've ever sat in the stands at a sports stadium and watched so-called professional athletes make a hash of the most rudimentary tasks they are paid millions of dollars a year to complete, you've probably also muttered the words: "Hell, I could do better than them."

For a poker dealer, this probably happens at closer quarters and more frequently than it does even for season ticket holders at the Detroit Lions. The major difference, though, is that a dealer can shift only one seat around the table and attempt to prove their mettle, a step taken by the PokerStars player Ben Lamb, currently one of only 35 players remaining in this year's WSOP Main Event. Mettle proven.

Originally from Tulsa, OK, Lamb's road to Las Vegas has taken him through the Business and Psychology department of Trinity University, San Antonio, via the poker dealer's chair at a cherokee casino. He didn't much fancy studying and so abandoned college. He did realise that he already knew enough to beat the game and so turned pro three-and-a-half years ago, moved to Vegas last year, and now dominates pot-limit Omaha tables on PokerStars and is a regular on the live tournament scene.

In the past year, Lamb took down a $500,000 guaranteed tournament on PokerStars, earning $105,000, bolstering an already burgeoning online bankroll. He has cashed once at the World Series, in 2007, but this is his deepest run in the Main Event. By the time our reporter, Mad Harper, caught up with Lamb for a chat in the most recent break, he had only been all in once in the entire six-a-half days, chopping the pot with 9-8 on a nine-high board. (His opponent also had 9-8.)

"I got pretty short yesterday but had very few showdowns," Lamb said. "Why not? Well, I don't stop betting and so people have been folding on the flop or turn because they don't want to face a big bet on the river."

Currently sitting with about 4 million in chips, Lamb remains on course for a huge payday.

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NEW CHIP OF THE HOUR

Denomination: 250,000
Color: Almond

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PRESS RELEASE OF THE HOUR  (from ESPN)

28,000 - Number of pounds of TV equipment used to produce the WSOP  
192 - Total Number of days worked for the 2009 WSOP (Pre-production on May 4- set strike on November 11)  
40 - Number of HD cameras used by ESPN to film the WSOP  
26 - Number of Main Event hours that will air on ESPN in 2009 (highest ever)  
15 - Average amount of hours worked daily by the crew covering the WSOP Main Event for 12 days

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NOT MENTIONED ON THE PRESS RELEASE STATISTICS OF THE HOUR

Number of ESPN camera crew wearing white shoes and black socks: 1
Number of ESPN camera crew wearing black shoes and white socks: 3

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OVERHEARD TELEPHONE CONVERSATION OF THE HOUR

"You can't see anything but it's kind of exciting."

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PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE HOUR

Number of 16 oz. beers delivered to Blair Rodman while he was playing in the final four tables of the 2009 WSOP: 1
Number of minutes until his elimination after beer deliver: 14

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BIGGEST BELT BUCKLE OF THE HOUR

That one.

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RAILBIRD CONVERSATION OF THE HOUR

Railbird (jubilantly): "How you feeling, Nick?"
Nick Maimone (not at all jubilantly): "Card dead."

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STATUS REPORT OF THE HOUR

"Didn't sleep much. Too much energy." -- PokerStars player Nick "fu_15" Maimone

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JOE GIRON'S PHOTO HOUR

The packed rail at the non-featured table

Mobile phones have always been part and parcel of the poker player's armoury, along with headphones, iPods and tip money. Texting friends your latest news was pretty straight forward, also mandatory if they had a piece of you. But now there's an easier way to let the world know about that last hand you played against a guy you saw on TV, or the pot you just lost to some dude who gave you a rubdown. If you can boil down what you want to say into 140 characters or less, twitter will help you share your plight to onlookers around the world.

Invariably someone knows, or knows something about how an event transpired, roughly, kind of, well not really. But as it filters through the truth outs, is checked, before the bigger picture emerges. Team PokerStars Pros provided running commentaries on their summer this year in the same way, among them Daniel Negreanu (from the golf course), Vicky Coren, Chris Moneymaker, Barry Greenstein and Maria Mayrinck, providing access that was unimaginable just a few years ago.

Nick Maimone, known as FU_15 on twitter, knows this. Even though he has some of the loudest supporters just five feet away on the rail, he's regularly seen bashing away at his phone providing content for a twitter feed that bleeps news to anyone with access to the internet and an insatiable thirst for World Series news.

For instance there was bad news...

FU_15: 14 July 22.03 via text: 5m lost QJ to QQ on Q73J10

Then better news...

FU_15: 15 July 1.05 via text: "4.5m on break. Carddead but staying very patient"

Elsewhere others are reporting on the same event, if not players then railbirds, providing intimate if slightly bias accounts of the day...

JeffShulmanWSOP: 00.43: Dennis Phillips out, everyone is now guaranteed 178K. Jeff still sitting around the same mark, floating around 5 million.

Then...

JeffShulmanWSOP: 01.16: Jeff just busted jeff duval with a set of deuces. He now has what he thinks is 8 million.

A simple idea that has turned the poker world into one where anyone on the rail can play reporter, although with 140 characters there's not much room for action verbs and grammar. You can even check out our own feeds for PokerStars and the blog, where we maintain high standard of English despite the 140 rule.

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STATISTICS OF THE HOUR

Number of non-feature tables remaining: 2
Approximate distance, in feet, between credentialed media "pit" and non-featured tables: 20

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DISASTER AVERTED OF THE HOUR

Kevin Schaffel, moved to the secondary feature table, who was that close to dropping a stack of fuschia-coloured chips, worth 2 million.

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GIBE OF THE HOUR

"Don't embarrass yourself on TV!" -- friend of Schaffel, at moment described above

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OUT OF CONTEXT QUOTE OF THE HOUR

"Stop poking my muffin!"

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CHIP COUNT OF THE HOUR

PokerStars player Nick "fu_15" Maimone-- 4.4 million

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RAILBIRD OF THE HOUR

2006 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure final table player Robert Ford, railing Nick "fu_15" Maimone.

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OUT OF CONTEXT QUOTE OF THE HOUR

"...and then you could say 'Ship the jerky!'

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BEST SELF-PROFESSED NICKNAME BY A MASSAGE THERAPIST OF THE HOUR

Sugarlips.