The Money Bubble Bursts On Day 3 Of The 2015 World Series of Poker Main Event661 Players Survived The Day, Brian Hastings Among Leaders |
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They’re in the money!
A little before 10:00 PM local time the money bubble burst in the 2015 World Series of Poker $10,000 buy-in main event. With the simultaneous elimination of Jonas Lauck and Roy Daoud the remaining 1,000 players were all guaranteed to cash for at least $15,000 in this year’s championship event.
The event drew a total of 6,420 players to build a prize pool of $60,348,000 this year. Normally somewhere around 640 players would have made the money, with the standard amount of the field making the money being 10 percent in most tournaments. In this year’s main event the WSOP decided to guarantee that the top 1,000 players would cash regardless of the total number of entries, basically ensuring that more players than normal got something back in the event.
For many amateurs and enthusiasts this modification to the payout table seemed to be a welcome one. One player who benefitted from the change was Elie Williams of Lousville, KY. The retired Marine and property investor had just seven big blinds when the bubble burst and wis visibly ecstatic to have turned a satellite win into at least $15,000 in his first ever WSOP event.
“I think it’s a great thing,” said Williams directly after the bubble burst. “Monetarily everybody is still going to get a good payday, including the winner, but now more people get to make it to the money, including me.”
Williams eventually finished 948th for the minimum payout of $15,000. Without the decision to pay 1,000 he would have left empty handed for that finish.
As Williams noted, the payouts were accordingly lessened across the board to accommodate more players cashing. The top prizes are still quite substantial though, with $7,680,021 set to go to the winner and every player at the final table guaranteed a seven-figure payday (9th place is worth $1,001,020).
At the end of the day only 661 were still in with a chance at the title and the aforementioned prize money. The outright leader heading into day 4 is Amar Anand with 1,139,000. Second in chips is Joseph McKeehen with 1,052,000 while three-time bracelet winner Brian Hastings ended the day with 1,034,500 in chips, enough to put him in third place for day 4.
Hastings has already had an incredible summer at the Rio All Suite Hotel and Casino, winning two gold bracelets this summer in the $10,000 seven-card stud championship and the $1,500 10-game mix. Now he has one of the top stacks heading into the business end of the year’s biggest tournament.
Other notables with big stacks include Fedor Holz (994,000), Stephen Graner (916,000), former November Niner and bracelet winner Matt Jarvis (803,000), Scott Baumstein (792,000), Justin Bonomo (745,000), Christian Harder (681,000), Daniel Negreanu (444,000) and Antonio Esfandiari (392,000).
A number of former main event winners are still in with a chance to repeat, including 1993 champion Jim Bechtel (575,000), 2005 champ Joe Hachem (414,500), 1989 champ Phil Hellmuth (170,500), 2013 champ Ryan Riess (143,500) and 2010 champ Jonathan Duhamel (53,000).
More than a thousand players hit the rail today including Mike Matusow, Adrian Mateos Diaz, Daniel Cates, Allen Cunningham, Kevin MacPhee and David Benefield.
Here is a look at the top ten chip counts heading into day 4:
| Rank | Player | Chip Count |
| 1 | Amar Anand | 1,139,000 |
| 2 | Joseph McKeehen | 1,052,000 |
| 3 | Brian Hastings | 1,034,500 |
| 4 | Fedor Holz | 994,000 |
| 5 | Jason Roberts | 948,000 |
| 6 | Emmanuel Lopez | 942,000 |
| 7 | Jake Toole | 940,000 |
| 8 | Chad Power | 917,500 |
| 9 | Stephen Graner | 916,000 |
| 10 | Dmitry Chop | 901,500 |
A complete listing of the Day 3 survivors and their chip counts can be found here.
For more coverage from the summer series, visit the 2015 WSOP landing page complete with a full schedule, news, player interviews and event recaps.
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