2026 WSOP Main Event: Sasha Liu On Top With Money Bubble Looming
After Day 3 of the 2026 WSOP Main Event, only 1,389 players remain from an original 9,208-entry field. Sasha Liu holds the chip lead as play pauses, just seven spots away from the $15,000 min-cash. The event boasts an $85.6 million prize pool, with $10 million up top. Several high-profile players and former champions continue competing, while big names like Phil Hellmuth and Benny Glaser have exited. Day 4 will resume hand-for-hand play with the money bubble looming.
- Sasha Liu leads 1389 players after Day 3 of 2026 WSOP Main Event.
- Only 7 eliminations left until the $85.6M money bubble bursts; min-cash is $15,000.
- Top champions and pros advance; action resumes Thursday in Las Vegas.
Sasha Liu leads the remaining 1,389 players after Day 3 of the 2026 WSOP Main Event. The tournament features an $85,634,400 prize pool, and play will resume on Day 4 just seven eliminations away from the $15,000 min-cash.
The richest and most prestigious live poker tournament of the year is on the verge of reaching its critical money bubble.
Event #82: $10,000 WSOP Main Event NLH World Championship features a massive $85,634,400 prize pool, making it the fourth largest World Series of Poker Main Event in the history of the game. Following five intense levels of play on Day 3, the massive starting field has been whittled down significantly.
Out of the original 9,208 entries who built the historic prize pool, only 1,389 hopeful contenders remain in the field. A total of 1,382 players will officially secure a payout, ensuring that almost all remaining participants will claim at least a $15,000 min-cash for their performance.
However, because the money bubble did not pop at the end of Day 3, the remaining field must wait until the start of Day 4 on Thursday, July 9, to lock up a return on their investment. Only seven more eliminations are required to push the tournament into the money.
Pot-Limit Omaha cash game specialist Sasha Liu put on a dominant performance during Day 3 to seize the overall tournament chip lead.
Liu originally entered the tournament like a wrecking ball, registering at the very start of Day 2 and accumulating more than six starting stacks within her first level of play. By the dinner break on Day 3, Liu had already built a seven-figure stack.
She then proceeded to more than double that total, bagging up an astonishing 2,364,000 in chips by the end of the night to surpass Martin Zamani, who finished the session in second place with 1,963,000.
Levon Khachatryan secured the third-largest stack of the night, bagging up 1,745,000. Khachatryan is already having a successful summer at the series, having finished as the runner-up to Eelis Pärssinen in Event #47: $25,000 High Roller Pot-Limit Omaha for a career-best score of $1,440,680.
Other notable players finishing near the top of the chip counts include Zdenek Zizka with 1,576,000 and Will Givens with 1,540,000.
The day began with ,3294 players returning to their respective seats at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas after successfully navigating their opening flights and the two Day 2 sessions.
Over the course of the day, hundreds of tournament life spans came to an end, with some players departing quietly and others showing visible frustration at the tables when the cards did not fall in their favour.
Before the scheduled dinner break arrived, two highly polarizing figures in the live poker world were eliminated before reaching the payouts.
Will Kassouf was knocked out during a preflop flip, holding pocket sixes against the king-queen of Kevin Killeen. The Irish poker player rivered an ace-high flush to eliminate and silence Kassouf well ahead of the money.
Soon after, poker legend Phil Hellmuth was sent to the rail when his flopped flush draw failed to materialize. Phil Hellmuth III was also eliminated during the day, leaving Nicholas Hellmuth as the only family member left in contention with a stack of 53,000 chips.
In contrast, 2019 WSOP Main Event champion Hossein Ensan enjoyed a highly successful day at the tables. After experiencing a slow start to his session, Ensan steadily ground his way up to over half a million chips before knocking out three separate opponents in a three-minute span to cross the seven-figure threshold.
Defending champion Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi also commanded attention on the main feature table. Mizrachi utilized his signature aggressive playing style to build his stack over the 1.2 million mark. Although he suffered a temporary setback when his ace-king ran into pocket queens and his opponent hit quads, Mizrachi recovered to bag up an above-average stack of 615,000.
Several other former world champions managed to advance through the day and remain in contention for the title.
John Cynn bagged up a strong stack of 927,000, followed by Ryan Riess with 431,000, Joe Hachem with 353,000, Greg Raymer with 326,000, and Chris Moneymaker with 221,000. Stoyan Madanzhiev, who previously won the GGPoker WSOP Main Event online championship, also advanced with 499,000.
High-stakes regular Alex Foxen put together a strong performance on the secondary live stream table, bagging up 839,000. He is closely followed in the counts by Pedro Neves with 811,000.
On the third feature table in the arena, Chino Rheem headlined the action with 588,000, while tablemates Mark Lacoste with 1,147,000 and Callum Roque with 1,025,000 were the only chip millionaires in that specific lineup.
Meanwhile, Shaun Deeb won a crucial coin-flip before the dinner break to elevate his stack to 938,000 by the end of the night, boosting his bid to defend his WSOP Player of the Year title.
Not every prominent name found success late in the evening. In the penultimate level of the night, British mixed-game expert and nine-time WSOP bracelet winner Benny Glaser ran his stack into pocket aces.
Glaser was unable to come from behind, resulting in an elimination just short of the payouts.
The final tournament break of the evening took place fewer than 150 eliminations away from the $15,000 min-cash.
History ended up repeating itself from the previous year's edition of the tournament, as the money bubble loomed large but ultimately did not burst before the bag-and-tag process began.
Following an official announcement from the floor that the tournament would not reach the money on Wednesday night, eliminations continued at a steady pace.
Among the final casualties of the evening session were Simon Wilson and Michael Kamran, both of whom were eliminated by Francisco Mateo when his pocket kings held up.
With 1,389 players remaining and 1,382 spots paid, formal hand-for-hand play will begin immediately when Day 4 recommences at 11 a.m. local time at the Paris Hotel Las Vegas. The blind levels will resume at 4,000-8,000 with a big blind ante of 8,000.
The current chip average across the room sits at nearly 50 big blinds deep. The eventual winner of the tournament will take home a massive $10 million first-place prize, while the 9th place finisher is guaranteed to receive $1 million.
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