Day 3 of the World Series of Poker Main Event came to a close a few hours ago as the event that everyone wants to win got closer to its conclusion. Leading the way heading into Freaky Friday, or Friday the 13th, is Dave D’Alessandro with exactly 1.1 million in chips. Joining him in the post-million-chips-club will be Sean Rice (1.076m), Jacob Balsiger (1.065m) and Leo Wolpert (1.003,5m). All four will make their way to the Amazon Room at the Rio with a good chance of making some big money.
All those left in the running will be looking to last out until the bubble bursts that, in an interesting quirk, will be at number 666 and we’re praying someone turns up dressed as Freddy or Jason – Messrs Deeb and Somerville don’t let us down!
Of the former Main Event champs still in the Event at the start of Day 3, two will be among the 719 returning for Day 4 – Johnny Chan and Huck Seed. Those that weren’t lucky enough to advance were Dan Harrington, Jerry Yang, Peter Eastgate, Robert Varkonyi and Pius Heinz.
Celebrity players have been an ongoing theme in this year’s Main Event and rather unsurprisingly most have fallen by the wayside – cricketer and womanizer Shane Warne and former NBA star Earl Barron the most recent casualties. There’s one man left though. Roberto Luongo, famous as the up-and-down Vancouver Canucks goaltender, moved onto Day 4 after a steady day’s play and will be making his BCLC sponsors very happy indeed. It’ll also push him into the limelight so that he could even get a trade at some point this summer!
There’s still a very real chance that the Main Event could welcome its first female winner this summer and Vanessa Selbst is keeping those hopes alive with an impressive stack of 814,000 chips. Yesterday’s start-of-day chip leader, Gaelle Baumann, is another in the frame with a stack of 599,000.
Antonio Esfandiari still harbors dreams of adding a Main Event bracelet to his Big One for One Drop title and Daniel Negreanu, David ODB Baker, Sam Holden, Jake Cody, Joseph Cheong and James Mitchell will all be returning tomorrow where the riches of October/November await!
Find more on WSOP and CalvinAyre.com’s Poker month coverage.
