After the day of rest on Sunday, the 2010 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event got back underway on Monday, as for the first time in a week, the entire tournament field played at the same time. 2,559 players began Day 3 with high hopes, but with the knowledge that even if they made it through the day, they would still be a long way from making the money.
Henderson, Nevada’s James Carroll leads the way after Day 3 with 803,000 chips, 62,000 more than Chicago’s Imari Love, who has 741,100. Gerasimos Deres, who hails from Helsingborg, Sweden, is the highest ranking non-U.S. player, sitting in third place with 733,700 chips. Rounding out the top five are Italy’s Filippo Candio (727,300) and Max Casal from Burbank, California (687,200).
The talk of the tournament so far, and something that must have ESPN giddy with anticipation, is the emergence of the legendary Johnny Chan. Currently sitting in ninth place with 636,000, the ten-time WSOP bracelet winner looked strong all day and was actually the chip leader for a while. Like much of poker’s “old guard,” Chan has not been as prolific a tournament player in recent years, with his last WSOP bracelet coming in 2005 when he won the $2,500 Pot Limit Hold’em event. What cashes he has had in recent years at the WSOP have been solid, though. In 2008, he cashed three times with one final table, one top-15 finish, and a cash in the Main Event. He cashed once last year, making the quarterfinals of the $10,000 Heads-Up event. And this year, while it was not an official bracelet event, he banked $100,000 in the Tournament of Champions.
Other notable names near the top of the standings include Cole South (40th place), Theo Jorgensen (47th), Scott Clements (48th), Fabrice Soulier (68th), Dragan Galic (87th), Shannon Shorr (88th), J.P. Kelly (120th), Vanessa Selbst (164th), Jay Rosenkrantz (168th), Sammy Farha (225th), Karina Jett (247th), Matt Matros (260th), Vince Van Patten (269th), and Barry Shulman (276th). Annie Duke, Phil Galfond, Dan Harrington, Mori Eskandani, Humberto Brenes, Bernard Lee, Patrik Antonius, Adam Junglen, and Hoyt Corkins are also among the “name” players who have advanced to Day 4.
Falling into the “wait ’til next year” category were the defending Main Event champ Joe Cada, legendary gambler Archie Karas, Kenny Tran, David “Devilfish” Ulliott, Bill Chen, Dan Heimiller, 2003 Main Event champ Chris Moneymaker, Kara Scott, Erik Seidel, Paul Wasicka, David Williams, Barbara Enright, Prahlad Friedman, Phil Laak, Lacey Jones, Jennifer Harman, Tom Franklin, David Singer, and Daniel Negreanu, just to name a few.
In addition to Chan, perhaps the most intriguing player story is not about one player, but four. The four Mizrachi brothers – Michael, Robert, Donny, and Eric – are all still in the running for the 2010 Main Event title. Robert leads the family with 342,800 chips, followed by Donny with 128,600, Eric with 95,800, and Michael with 91,700. The brothers have already made the 2010 WSOP a family affair, as both Michael and Robert made the final table of the $50,000 Player’s Championship, with Michael knocking out Robert in third place en route to his first bracelet.
And from the odd news department comes Belgium’s Philip Goossens. Goossens was doing quite nicely in the Main Event, sitting on a healthy 92,400 chip stack going into Monday’s Day 3. But therein lied the problem. Goossen had qualified through Bwin, which paid for his buy-in, hotel accommodations, and travel expenses until July 12th. Since Goossens made it to July 12th, Bwin paid to extend his hotel stay, but any expenses incurred for rescheduling his flight home were up to him.
He didn’t have the money to foot the €1,000 bill to change his ticket, so he appealed to Bwin to help him out. The poker room did not honor his request and so rather than spend the money without being guaranteed to cash in the tournament, Goossen elected to go home as scheduled. His chip stack sat in front of an empty seat Monday and Goossen was finally blinded out of the tournament late in the day.
Just over 1,200 players will return to the Rio on Tuesday for Day 4 of the 2010 WSOP Main Event, hoping to find themselves on the right side of the money bubble when it likely bursts at some point today. Cards will be in air at Noon PT.
