Anand maintains lead after Day 3 at WSOP Main Event
Amar Anand held the overall lead for the second straight day as the World Series of Poker’s $10,000 buy-in No-limit Texas Hold ’em World Championship hit the halfway point.
Anand, from Shrewsbury, Mass., bagged 1,139,500 chips when action stopped early Saturday at the Rio Convention Center, nearly doubling his stack on Day 3.
The Main Event continues at noon today with Day 4 as 661 players are alive from a starting field of 6,420 entrants and guaranteed a minimum prize of $15,000. The tournament runs through Tuesday, and the final nine players return Nov. 8 at the Rio’s Penn & Teller Theater for the final table, with the winner set to receive $7.68 million.
Joseph McKeehen of North Wales, Pa., was in second place with 1,052,000 chips. McKeehen has two career WSOP circuit rings and was second in last year’s $1,500 buy-in “Monster Stack” event for more than $820,000.
Brian Hastings, a professional poker player living in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., is in third place with 1,034,500 chips after spending most of the day as the chip leader. Hastings won a key pot during the second level of play Friday to climb over the 800,000-chip mark when his flush draw turned into three of a kind on the river.
Before the dinner break, Hastings eliminated another player in a pocket kings vs. queens confrontation to become the first player to surpass 1 million chips.
Five players remain alive in their quest for a second Main Event title: Jim Bechtel (575,000), Joe Hachem (414,500), Phil Hellmuth (170,500), Ryan Riess (143,500), and Jonathan Duhamel (53,000), who already has a seven-figure payout this summer after winning the $111,111 One Drop High Roller event.
With the top 1,000 places being paid, the money bubble burst shortly after the players returned from the dinner break. Jonas Lauck and Roy Daoud busted out on the second hand of hand-for-hand play, and Daoud drew the high card between the two to officially become this year’s Bubble Boy.
CHIP COUNTS
1, Amar Anand (Shrewsbury, Mass.) 1,139,000
2, Joseph McKeehen (North Wales, Pa.) 1,052,000
3, Brian Hastings (Fort Lauderdale, Fla.) 1,034,500
4, Fedor Holz (Germany) 994,000
5, Jason Roberts (Las Vegas) 948,000
6, Emmanuel Lopez (Caballito, Argentina) 942,000
7, Jake Toole (Hoboken, N.J.) 940,000
8, Chad Power (Pittsburgh) 917,500
9, Stephen Graner (Henderson) 916,000
10, Dmitry Chop (Ukraine) 901,500