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WPT World Championship Money Bubble Bursts On Day 3

Just 128 Players Remain With A Shot At The $4.1 Million Top Prize

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The money bubble has burst in the largest World Poker Tour main tour main event in tour history.

The $10,400 buy-in WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas drew a record field of 2,960 entries, building a prize pool of $29,008,000 that was paid out among the top 371 finishers. Only the top 370 were slated to cash, but with two simultaneous eliminations taking place during the final deal of hand-for-hand action, the 370th-place prize of $17,400 was split between Yi Klassen and two-time bracelet winner, WPT champion, and WPT commentator Tony Dunst.

Day 3 of the main event began with 399 contenders remaining, which meant that the bubble arrived late on the first level of the day. Shortly before Dunst’s top pair was outrun by an open-ended straight draw and Klassen’s pocket aces were cracked by the pocket tens of Freddy Deeb, Soheb Porbandarwala won a big pot that saw him move into the chip lead.

Porbandarwala, a WPT champion and bracelet winner, raised from early position with ADiamond Suit5Spade Suit and Edmund Chan called from middle position with AHeart SuitKHeart Suit. The player in the big blind also came along and the flop came down 7Heart Suit4Spade Suit2Diamond Suit. Porbandarwala bet and Chan was the only player to call. The 3Heart Suit turn saw Porbandarwala check. Chan bet 80,000 with his newly-found nut flush draw. Porbandarwala check-raised to 280,000 and Chan shoved for 830,000, and Porbandarwala called with his turned straight. The river was the 9Diamond Suit and Porbandarwala won the hand to eliminate Chan just before the bubble.

“That was a huge pot. He just thought that I was just making the move on the bubble, maybe, and I might have been, but I just happened to have the nuts there. So that’s nice,” Porbandarwala told Card Player in a video interview. “It’s been a convenient day so far, basically. No complaints.”

Check out the full chat with Porbandarwala below:

Porbandarwala ended day 3 with 6,300,000, good for third place among the 128 players heading into day 4. He trails only second-ranked Lucas Foster (7,095,000 ) and chip leader Benny Glaser (7,565,000).

Benny GlaserGlaser is a four-time bracelet winner with nearly $3.7 million in prior live tournament earnings to his name. The UK native will be looking to outdo his previous top finish of 11th in a WPT event, which he achieved in the 2020 WPT Online Championship.

Other big stacks heading into day 4 include WPT champion and two-time bracelet winner David ‘ODB’ Baker (4,665,000), bracelet winner Frank Funaro (4,265,000), recent WSOP Circuit main event winner Frank Lagodich (4,230,000), bracelet winner and WPT champion Pat Lyons (3,935,000), WPT champion Asher Conniff (3,615,000), two-time bracelet winner Andriy Lyubovetskiy (3,260,000), bracelet winner Igor Kurganov (2,800,000), and two-time WPT champion and six-time bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu (2,400,000).

While WPT talent Tony Dunst was knocked out on the bubble, two other ambassadors of the tour are still in with a shot. Longtime WPT anchor Lynn Gilmartin bagged up 650,000, while popular vlogger and WPT ambassador Brad Owen ended the night with 2,085,000.

Plenty of big names were eliminated after the bubble burst, including high-stakes tournament regular Chris Brewer (299th), four-time bracelet winner Ben Yu (296th), bracelet winner Kathy Liebert (288th), Card Player contributor and two-time bracelet winner Steve Zolotow (285th), WPT ambassador and popular poker vlogger Andrew Neeme (284th), reigning WSOP main event champion Espen Jorstad (262nd), three-time bracelet winner Ryan Leng (243rd), bracelet winner and WPT champion Dan Smith (194th), four-time bracelet winner John Monnette (191st), three-time bracelet winner Upeshka De Silva (168th), two-time bracelet winner Eric Baldwin (160th), top Card Player Player of the Year race contender Adam Hendrix (158th), WPT champion Taylor von Kriegenbergh (155th), five-time bracelet winner Jeremy Ausmus (148th), and WPT champion and two-time bracelet winner Freddy Deeb (144th).

Day 4 begins at noon on Saturday, Dec. 17. The schedule calls for six 90-minute levels to be played, with a dinner break following the fourth level of the day. The remaining contenders have all locked up at least $29,450. For a full listing of payouts, check out the event info tab in our tournament database.

Photo credits: World Poker Tour.

Here is a look at the chip counts and seat assignments heading into day 4:

First Name Last Name Table Seat Chips
Benny Glaser 300 7 7,565,000
Lucas Foster 403 4 7,095,000
Soheb Porbandarwala 300 2 6,300,000
Coery Paggeot 401 6 5,865,000
Alberto Moron Matias 302 8 5,535,000
Krasivmit Yankov 201 2 5,275,000
Juan Orellana 303 1 5,255,500
Nathanael Kogel 404 3 5,135,000
David Baker 303 2 4,665,000
Wojtek Barzantny 130 2 4,550,000
Drew O’Connell 103 4 4,455,000
Conrad Simpson 301 2 4,390,000
Frank Funaro 101 4 4,265,000
Frank Lagodich 403 8 4,230,000
Thomas Zanet 403 1 4,175,000
Fausto Tantillo 403 5 4,085,000
Patrick Lyons 404 1 3,935,000
Steve Gross 403 3 3,825,000
Tarun Giulati 100 1 3,710,000
Maurice Paradis 300 5 3,630,000
Lewis Spencer 300 8 3,620,000
Asher Conniff 201 5 3,615,000
Joni Jouhkimaimen 201 6 3,560,000
Kyle Carlston 401 5 3,545,000
Jean Claude 202 1 3,500,000
Sam Laskowitz 402 2 3,455,000
Jerry Maher 101 1 3,445,000
Alexander Farahi 101 7 3,410,000
Santiago Soriano 302 7 3,385,000
Michael Banduca 201 1 3,365,000
Andriy Lyubovetskiy 203 4 3,260,000
Yervand Boyadjian 302 2 3,210,000
Zachary Graneberg 102 7 3,200,000
State Sore 404 5 3,200,000
Thomas Schultz 202 8 3,190,000
Joseph Coaden 401 4 3,145,000
Isaac Kemptan 101 6 3,130,000
Eliot Hudon 102 5 3,090,000
Michael Loncar 102 2 3,065,000
Lori Ann Persinger 201 3 3,055,000
Brendan Shiller 404 8 2,865,000
Bryce Yockey 301 6 2,860,000
Igor Kurganov 200 3 2,800,000
Hamza Khalek 202 4 2,745,000
Jeff Madsen 201 4 2,715,000
John Roveto 100 4 2,690,000
Jean Gaspard 100 5 2,600,000
Davide Suriano 102 1 2,555,000
Prasad Vemulapalli 402 7 2,530,000
Andrew Ostapchenko 303 4 2,525,000
Vikenty Shegal 202 6 2,500,000
Johad Guilbeht 102 8 2,440,000
Fikret Kovac 200 1 2,410,000
Daniel Negreanu 402 5 2,400,000
Peter Gould 302 6 2,280,000
Mirgael Niocco 203 5 2,215,000
Colton Blomberg 102 3 2,175,000
Aaron Massey 302 1 2,155,000
Scott Margereson 300 6 2,150,000
Tony Swift 303 3 2,100,000
Bradley Owen 100 6 2,085,000
Alex Greenblatt 401 1 2,075,000
Kenny Neri 303 7 2,050,000
Kyna England 200 6 2,030,000
Thomas Gabriel 102 6 2,010,000
Kharlin Saed 100 7 2,000,000
Baebae Liu 101 8 1,825,000
Philip Peterson 401 2 1,770,000
Farhad Sinaei 301 5 1,755,000
Brian England 300 4 1,700,000
Eric Siegel 202 3 1,700,000
Casey Stewart 203 8 1,675,000
Garrett Greer 302 5 1,635,000
Mike Del Vecchio 404 6 1,545,000
Blake Whittington 303 8 1,540,000
Stephen Kehoe 401 8 1,470,000
Danny Auckland 302 3 1,455,000
Scott Matte 203 7 1,455,000
Marle Cordeiro 103 3 1,450,000
James Carroll 100 3 1,440,000
Martins Stausholm 100 2 1,410,000
Spencer Champlin 301 1 1,375,000
Kenny De Frasnes 101 3 1,340,000
Corey Lieblein 103 6 1,325,000
Danny Allen 201 8 1,325,000
Anthony Gregg 103 7 1,325,000
Nissim Varnin 102 4 1,320,000
Rania Masreddine 201 7 1,320,000
Chang Yu Chang 404 2 1,302,000
Cary Katz 403 6 1,300,000
Patrick Quinn 101 5 1,300,000
Patrick Stacey 401 3 1,290,000
Adnan Mohammad 202 5 1,280,000
Luis Torres 303 5 1,200,000
Adam Adler 301 3 1,200,000
Eric Liu 203 1 1,195,000
Gary Tatavarti 402 6 1,175,000
Andre Butler 200 8 1,140,000
Rami Owera 202 2 1,140,000
Kane Kalas 230 3 1,130,000
Eric Sfez 100 8 1,107,000
Pratik Mehta 103 5 1,085,000
Arden Cho 403 2 1,050,000
Ramin Hajiyev 402 4 1,045,000
Dianlei Zhang 404 7 1,040,000
Joel Brown 200 7 1,010,000
Elilton Gouveia 203 2 985,000
Daniel Sepiol 403 7 890,000
Timothy Bishop 300 1 810,000
Yita Choong 301 2 805,000
Kurt Jewell 301 7 770,000
Chris Lee 202 7 750,000
Jason Smith 200 2 725,000
Amir Marar 301 8 720,000
Markus Gonsalves 402 8 710,000
Benjamin Landowski 402 1 710,000
Alejandro Perez Torres 402 3 675,000
Gerald Skullman 103 8 665,000
Lynn Gilmartin 303 6 650,000
Jonah LaBranche 404 4 625,000
Calvin Lee 103 1 560,000
Jiustin Young 200 5 530,000
Julie Dang 230 6 520,000
Kristen Foxen 300 3 405,000
Bud Lavassani 302 4 300,000
Jason Gooch 200 4 270,000
Stanley Lee 101 2 100,000
Michael Gathy 401 7 100,000