Erik Seidel has eight World Series of Poker bracelets to his credit already and Thursday afternoon he’ll go for one more as he attempts to move closer to the all-time greats Doyle Brunson, Johnny Chan and Phil Hellmuth.

Seidel was one of the 62 players that returned for Day 2  in the $1,500 Pot Limit Hold ‘em (Event 20) where all players were already in the money as play kicked off.

 The small field was dotted with pros, seeing at least one at every table. The unknowns had to battle for the bracelet with the likes of Seidel, Kathy Liebert, David Chicotsky, Roland De Wolfe, Mark Seif, Joe Sebok, Mike Sexton, Philip “USCPhildo” Collins, Hunter Frey and Jason Dewitt. As a group, their winnings amount to more than $7,500,000 and they hold a total of 12 WSOP bracelets.

After cashing in the $5,000 No Limit Hold ‘em (Event #15) just days earlier, Dewitt managed to secure himself a second cash for the 2009 World Series of Poker and outplayed the field for most of the day. The former grocery store stocker was the first player to build his stack in excess of 300,000. Dewitt was briefly knocked out of the lead when he raised 4,700 pre-flop and was re-raised by Alexey Popov to 15,000. Dewitt pushed up to 35,000, Popov moved all-in for 70,000 and Dewitt made the call. Popov turned over A K, Dewitt felted pocket Queens and was wounded when the board ran out A [10h] 6 A 3. He was able to recover his stack and take the lead again after he made a hefty bet of 20,500 on the river of a board reading  Q J 8 9 8. Having made small bets on the flop and turn, his opponents folded and Dewitt raked in enough chips to put him back in the lead.

Chicotsky, Bluff Magazine’s 2008 Online Player of the Year, was raking in the chips the entire day until his K 9 was severely overrun by Collins’ A A. Collins raised to 11,000 pre-flop, Chicotsky re-raised to 31,000 and Collin’s shoved all-in for 62,000. The board ran dry for Chicotsky and the loss of chips moved him from the top of the leaderboard to nearly the shortest chip stack in play. It was an ironic beat considering Chicotsky’s pocket aces took down and eliminated Yesniel Pulido, who held pocket Queens, only a few hours prior. Chicotsky was unable to regain his losses and was eliminated in 14th when he moved all his chips into the middle holding K Q.  John-Paul Kelly called and showed A Q. Both players turned a pair and rivered trips but Kelly’s ace won out as the kicker and Chicotsky’s run at a bracelet was over.

Liebert secured her second cash of the WSOP so far but was unable to hang in long enough to secure a seat at the final table and vie for her second WSOP bracelet. She left the table today with $4,795 and took home $20,026 four days ago after busting 20th in the $5,000 No Limit Hold ‘em (Event 15). Even though she is up nearly $25,000, when Sebok informed her from his table that in order to use Twitter from her iPhone she would need to download an application, Liebert asked “How much does that cost?” Fortunately for her, the application is well within the price range of her 2009 WSOP winnings.

The nine final players will return Thursday to play for a top prize of  $194,434 and a WSOP gold bracelet. Tune in for the live broadcast only at BluffMagazine.com beginning at 2 pm PT.

1. John-Paul Kelly - 627,000
2. Jason Dewitt - 476,000
3. Erik Seidel - 337,000
4. Kyle Karlston - 320,000
5. Marc Tschirch - 268,000
6. Andrew Radel - 250,000
7. Kirk Steward - 231,000
8. Aaron Virchis - 191,000
9. Ravi Raghavan - 145,000

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