After two days of relatively few eliminations, the blinds during day three finally reached a level where we saw a bit more action and as a result around 2/3 of the total field were sent to the rail with just 44 competitors making it through to Day 4 (an additional 17 entries on Day three brought the total player count to 152)
Sitting atop the leader board currently is part time player Curt Kohlberg on 918k chips, over 150k ahead of his nearest rival (Nick Schulman who made a late surge up the leaderboard in the last level of play after taking a big pot from Day 2's chip leader Michael "The Grinder" Mizrachi.
Kohlberg may only be a "recreational" poker player (he owns a highly successful international consulting business) but he is no stranger to success having won over $2 million dollars in the past decade. In fact he took 2nd place for $586,000 in the WPT Hardrock Seminole Showdown less than a month ago. He also counts both Daniel Negreanu and Phil Ivey as friends established over a long time on the circuit - so this a a guy who knows his stuff at the table. However, with 5 of the next 6 chipleaders already WPT title holders this is going to be no walk in the park for Kohlberg to maintain his chip lead!
Some big names fell on Day 3 (as you may expect with a prestigious $25k buy in event such as this) including Day 3 entrants, Phil Hellmuth, Faraz Jaka and Jason Mercier. Also falling were Brian Hastings, Vanessa Rousso, Isaac Haxton, Jake Cody and reigning champ Scott Seiver. Current POY points leader Will "The Thrill" Faila also bailed on Day 3 leaving his POY position in serious jeopardy - in particular Joe Serock looks in a great position to take that particular title as he needs to end in 15th place or better to be named WPT Player of the Year and thanks to a double up late in the day thru Brock Parker, Serock currently sits in 14th place with a little over 400k chips.
With Day 4 looming large and the prize pool now confirmed at $3.66 million with $1.2 million for the winner.
Current top ten chips counts are;
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Curt Kohlberg – 918,300
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Nick Schulman – 768,000
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Guillaume Darcourt – 641,000
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Antonio Esfandiari – 632,100
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Rinat Bogdanov – 624,100
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David Steicke – 589,700
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Tony Ruberto – 581,400
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Viacheslav Igin – 567,000
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Farzad Bonyadi – 519,900
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Nicolas Fraioli – 501,600
Play starts shortly with the blinds at 2.5k/5k with a 500 ante.