The 2013 World Series of Poker $10,000 Championship Event rolled through its Day Three activities on Thursday and, for the first time in the tournament, the entirety of the field was drawn together, albeit not in the same room. With a total of 1753 players emerging from the three Day Ones and Twos, the large number of survivors required the usage of the Brasilia Room along with the normal Amazon Room as the players looked to bring the field down to just one arena and, potentially, the money.
Starting the day off as the chip leader was Mark “P0kerH0” Kroon, who ended Day 1C as the overall chip leader of the Day One combatants and ended Day 2B in the same spot with his 507,300 in chips. His nearest competitor, Victor Figueroa, was over 60K in chips behind him and only two other players, Nick Schwarmann and William Reymond, were over the 400K mark. A litany of poker’s elite was arranged behind them, most notably the defending champion of this tournament, Greg Merson, and the legendary Doyle Brunson.
Merson would start the day with a respectable 275,600 in chips and would immediately look to add to his stack. It would be a tough grind for Merson, looking to become the first man to win back-to-back World Championships since Johnny Chan, but by the end of the day he would accumulate some chips to be able to come back on Friday. With 390,500 in his stack, he should be a lock for another WSOP cash and potentially a deeper run in the tournament.
For a man who said that “Father Time” had caught up with him and he wasn’t going to play any tournaments at the 2013 WSOP, Brunson has been doing quite well (perhaps it was all of the rest from not playing any preliminary tournaments except for the $50,000 Poker Players’ Championship). Opening up Day Three with 224,000 in chips, Brunson seemed to be unstoppable as the day’s action progressed. He would slowly grind upwards through the majority of the day but, during the last level of the night, would outfox an opponent on an A-10-5 flop.
After his opponent pushed all in against the Poker Hall of Famer, Brunson made the call and calmly tabled his pocket tens for the flopped set and a nearly unbeatable advantage over his opponent’s A-Q. When the turn failed to bring an Ace or Queen (or another card for a chance at a miracle backdoor straight), Brunson had his opponent drawing dead and rocketed over the 600K mark in chips. By the time the night was through, he sat on a 626,000 stack.
Kroon would struggle a bit through the day’s play, but he would also survive to be a participant in Day Four today. After admitting to the WSOP reporting staff that he had been “running like a god” over his two first days, Kroon actually was able to climb up to over 600K in chips during the early going. Kroon would come back down to Earth after that, however, ending the play on Thursday with a stack of 343,000 and with realistic thoughts of making the money.
As the contingent of players step back into the Amazon Room this afternoon, there is a new chip leader that has emerged. Maxx Coleman, a recreational player with a few cashes on his tournament resume, blasted over the one million chip mark (the only player to do so) to hold the honor of Day Three chip leader, with the Top Ten arranged behind him as such:
1. Maxx Coleman, 1.071 million
2. Joshua Prager, 993,000
3. Max Steinberg, 987,500
4. Dick van Luijk, 940,000
5. Vladimir Geshkenbein, 900,000
6. Nick Schwarmann, 893,000
7. Matthew Huey, 885,500
8. Chris Johnson, 862,000
9. Umang Dattani, 848,000
10. Kevin Williams, 808,500
There are a host of professionals arranged in the Top 30 that are in serious contention for further movement in the tournament. Bryan Pellegrino (12th, 752K), Kyle Julius (13th, 751K), Johannes Strassmann (14th, 725K), Amir Levahot (21st, 679K) and Tuan Le (29th, 630K) join Brunson (in 30th place) in that list, while Luke Schwartz (620,500), Annette Obrestad (564K), one of last year’s “Octo-Niners” Russell Thomas (562K), Jon Turner (558K), Jonathan Jaffe (555K), Melanie Weisner (536K) and Guillaume Rivet (513K) lurk in the Top 50. Some of the notable players whose 2013 WSOP has come to an end include Phil Ivey, Carter King, Sam Stein, Matt Jarvis, Timothy Adams, Matt Stout, Andy Frankenberger and $50,000 Poker Players’ Championship winner Anthony Gregg.
When the players mass again for the start of Day Four this afternoon, there will be 666 players left in the field. That will mean that, with 648 players taking home the minimum payday of $19,106, 18 players will only have the honor of getting to Day Four of the Championship Event but no other record of the event in a tournament cash. It promises to be a tense first few hours this afternoon at the 2013 WSOP as the true drama of the event will now unfold.
