2026 WSOP Main Event: Sasha Liu Out Front With Money Bubble Seven Spots Away

The most important and richest live poker tournament of the year has all but reached the money stages at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas. A total of 3,294 players returned to their seats for Day 3 after surviving their respective opening flights and the two Day 2s. 

After five levels of play, hundreds of hopes vanished. With the money bubble looming, the tournament floor announced to the room that play would conclude for the night before the bubble burst. 

Only 1,389 hopefuls remain from the massive field of 9,208 entries, meaning just seven more eliminations are required to reach the 1,382 paid positions.

This year's Event #82: $10,000 WSOP Main Event NLH World Championship features a gargantuan $85,634,400 prize pool, making it the fourth largest Main Event in World Series of Poker history. 

Those who navigate past the impending bubble will claim at least a $15,000 min-cash, while the ultimate winner will take home a $10 million first place prize. A spot at the final table also guarantees a seven-figure score, as the ninth place finisher is set to receive $1 million.

Pot-Limit Omaha cash game specialist Sasha Liu entered the tournament like a wrecking ball after late-registering at the start of Day 2, where she built a stack of more than six starting stacks within the first level. 

By the dinner break on Day 3, Liu had already accumulated a seven-figure stack. She then more than doubled that figure to end the night at the top of the leaderboard with an astonishing 2,364,000 in chips.

Liu surpasses Martin Zamani, who sits in second place with 1,963,000. Levon Khachatryan, who earned a career-best score of $1,440,680 earlier this summer by finishing runner-up in Event #47: $25,000 High Roller Pot-Limit Omaha, bagged the third-largest stack of 1,745,000. Other notable big stacks rounding out the top of the chip counts include Zdenek Zizka with 1,576,000 and Will Givens with 1,540,000.

Several polarizing figures and prominent pros were eliminated during the Day 3 action. Prior to the dinner break, Will Kassouf bowed out in a preflop flip holding pocket sixes against the king-queen of Kevin Killeen, with the Irish player rivering an ace-high flush. 

Phil Hellmuth was sent to the rail shortly after when his flopped flush draw failed to improve. While Phil Hellmuth III was also eliminated, Hellmuth's other son, Nicholas Hellmuth, managed to advance with 53,000 chips.

In the penultimate level of the night, British mixed-game specialist and nine-time WSOP bracelet winner Benny Glaser ran into pocket aces and was eliminated. As the night drew to a close, Simon Wilson and Michael Kamran were among the final casualties after being knocked out by Francisco Mateo's pocket kings.

Former WSOP Main Event champion Hossein Ensan enjoyed a highly successful day. Following a slow start, Ensan ground his stack above half a million and later knocked out three players in just three minutes to cross the seven-figure threshold. 

Defending champion Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi spent his day under the spotlight on the main feature table. Mizrachi ran his stack over 1.2 million using his signature aggressive style. 

Despite a temporary setback where his ace-king lost to an opponent who flopped quads with pocket queens, Mizrachi bagged an above-average stack of 615,000. A strong contingent of fellow former champions also advanced to Day 4, including:

They are joined in the counts by GGPoker WSOP Main Event online winner Stoyan Madanzhiev, who finished with 499,000.

On the secondary live stream tables, Alex Foxen bagged up a dangerous 839,000, closely trailed by Pedro Neves with 811,000. Chino Rheem headlined the third stream table, finishing with 588,000, while tablemates Mark Lacoste (1,147,000) and Callum Roque (1,025,000) were the only chip millionaires in that group. Shaun Deeb won a crucial flip before the dinner break and neared the one-million mark, bagging 938,000 to boost his chances of defending his WSOP Player of the Year title.

Hand-for-hand play is expected to begin immediately when Day 4 resumes on Thursday, July 9, at 11 a.m. local time at the Paris Hotel Las Vegas. With 1,389 players remaining and 1,382 making the money, only seven players will leave empty-handed. 

Play will recommence in level 16 with blinds at 4,000-8,000 and a big blind ante of 8,000. The current tournament chip average sits nearly 50 big blinds deep.