33 players resumed competition at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas yesterday for the third day of the final World Poker Tour event before the World Series of Poker kicks off later this month.
The immediate concern for all those involved was the money bubble, which due to the small field didn’t burst until Eugene Todd was busted by Chau Giang in 28th place. That brought a sigh of relief from all those who still had chips, but for Jared “Wacokid” Hamby it was more significant than for most. By surviving the bubble Hamby cashed in his third consecutive WPT event, meaning he is one off the current record of four consecutive cashes.
With that objective out of the way Hamby pushed on and began to climb up the leaderboard, eventually ending the day at the very top after Chris Bell made a mistake he will not ever want to be reminded of. On the last hand of the day Hamby raised to $27,000 from early position and Chris Bell pushed all-in for $186,000. Oops! Hamby insta-called with pocket aces and Bell’s A-9 was dead in the water.
Day Three also saw strong performances from a number of veteran pros, with Barry Greenstein, David Levi, Chau Giang and Danny Wong all making it into the final ten.
The chip counts for the start of play tomorrow:
Jared Hamby - $698,000
Thayer Rasmussen - $685,000
Shawn Buchanon - $658,000
J.C. Alvarado - $541,000
Danny Wong - $465,000
David Haddad - $444,000
Barry Greenstein - $375,000
Chau Giang - $318,000
Ryan Daut - $217,000
David Levi - $158,000