On Monday, July 8, Day 3 of the 2019 WSOP $10,000 Main Event kicked off at 12 noon local time. Day 3 is composed of all the survivors of Days 2ab and Day 2c in a combined field.
2019 WSOP: Event #73: $10,000 NLHE MAIN EVENT
- Schedule: July 3 to July 16, 2019
- Venue: Rio All-Suites Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas
- Buy-in: $10,000
- Remaining: 1,286
A total of 2,880 players returned but only 1,286 survived when Day 3 ended.
Chip Leader of the Pack
The second-biggest WSOP Main Event in history saw a field of 8,569 player entries chopped down to 1,286 hopefuls as the money bubble burst within the final minutes of the 5th level on Day 3. This means each player who survived in this event so far is guaranteed a payday of at least $15,000.
Day 3 saw Preben Stokkan as the chip leader who bagged 2,184,000 chips. He said at the end of the day, "I started the day with 93,000. I had a pretty good start. I was up to like 180,000 pretty early in the first level. But I blew it all on a huge bluff, but I saved myself one chip. I almost went all-in but he over shoved, and I folded. So, I had 5,000 left on the first break and spun it up from there."
The Norwegian pro said his hot streak continued in a big pot, "I had a pretty crazy hand against a French guy on my table where I opened from under the gun and he had 600,000 behind. I had him covered, it was right before the bubble. He three-bet me to 40,000, I four-bet to 100,000 with aces. He called. The flop came ace-nine-deuce rainbow. He check-called 40,000. The turn was a four, rainbow board still. He checks, I bet 120,000, he jams! I had top set and he had pocket sevens. Yeah, that was a crazy hand."
Trailing behind Stokkan are Andrew Brokos (1,906,000), Ryan Dodge (1,800,000), Galen Hall (1,658,000), Cassio Pisapia (1,646,000) and Chris Hunichen (1,618,000).
Two former WSOP Main Event champs are still in the scene, hoping they could repeat their victorious history: Chris Moneymaker (681,000) and Qui Nguyen (669,000). Moneymaker started the day with a short stack and gradually added more chips as the day progressed, Nguyen meanwhile began with a fairly huge stack but went below the average, yet he managed to bounce back once again before the day ended.
Other notable players who made include partypoker ambassador Bertrand Grospellier (727,000), Mike Matusow (515,000), Todd Brunson (260,000), Sam Greenwood (220,000) and Alex Foxen (183,000).
Those Who Didn't Make It
Former WSOP Main Event champs Joe Hachem, Johnny Chan, Scotty Nguyen, and defending champ John Cynn were among the thousands of hopefuls that unfortunately had to leave empty-handed.
Even other notable players weren't spared. Asi Moshe, Benjamin Pollak, Faraz Jaka, Igor Kurganov, John Esposito, Nick Schulman, Phil Hui, and 2018 runner-up Tony Miles were the unlucky ones to run out of chips before the day ended.
A big highlight for Day 3 was the one elimination that made players in the Pavilion and Amazon rooms feel happy and excited was that of Ryan Pochedly, who ended up as the bubble boy of the 2019 WSOP Main Event. He may end up with no payday in this WSOP Main Event, but he's not leaving empty-handed because he received an entry to the 2020 WSOP Main Event, absolutely for free!
Here's the list of End-of-Day Chip Counts, showing the top 20 spots for Day 3:
The 2019 WSOP Main Event, in Numbers
After the money bubble has burst, the 1,286 remaining were asked to bag and tag their chips.
They shall return for Day 4 at noon local time, with 6:26 minutes left in level 15, at blinds of 3,000/6,000 with a big blind ante of 6,000.
Source:
http://www.wsop.com/tournaments/updates/?aid=2&grid=1622&tid=17298&dayof=7654&rr=5
