The most exciting day of action yet in the 2026 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event played out on Wednesday, as Day 3 of the World Championship ended with PokerStake seller Sasha Liu top of the chipcounts. With a host of other PokerStake sellers high on the leaderboard too, the chances of our players running deep and maybe making the final table and beyond are starting to look very good indeed.

Piling on the Pressure

When Day 3 of this year’s World Championship begun, a whopping 3,294 players were still in their seats, battling to reach Day 4 and, if possible the last 1,382 players. That’s because anyone who makes the top 1,382 will be inside the money places and guaranteed to earn at least $15,000 for their efforts in Las Vegas.

As it happened, a total of 1,389 people put chips in bags at the end of the night and they included plenty of PokerStake’s finest. Not least Sasha Liu who topped the leaderboard at the close of play with a stack of 2,364,000 chips. The only player over 2 million chips, Sasha was a good chunk ahead of second-placed Martin Zamani (1,963,000), Levon Khachatryan (1,745,000), Robert Gill (1,604,000) and Zdenek Zizka (1,576,000, below) inside the top five places and will be sure to pile on the pressure on the money bubble. For Sasha, the longer the bubble lasts on Day 4, the better.

Other PokerStake players performed brilliantly on Day 3 too, with regular sellers Chris Hunichen (1,055,000), Chris Brewer (754,000), Stephen Song (725,000), Brock Wilson (660,000), and Chino Rheem (588,000) all high in the chipcounts. Josh Arieh (302,000) was thrilled to make another day in “the best tournament in the world”, while Jeremy Ausmus (192,000), Alex Livingston (181,000), and Kristen Foxen (86,000) are all going to be threats to the rest of the field when play resumes.

Shaun Deeb Making Strides in POY Race

With the WSOP Player of the Year race heating up in every sense of the word, Phil Hellmuth’s criticism of Shaun Deeb’s lead was brushed off by the current POY leader and reigning champion in that regard. Deeb piled up a massive stack of 938,000 chips on Day 3 and he will be pushing for glory as he looks to make it 10 bracelet wins with the one they all want to win in Las Vegas.

Another to battle their way to a chip mountain was Alex Foxen. The American picked off a bluff superbly to build a stack of 839,000 chips, and the four-time bracelet winner, who has also won gold already this summer, will be confident of running over his table during pre and post-bubble play. Russian legend Artur Martirosian (1,063,000) is also in a great position to make a deep run and add to his bracelet haul this summer, while British poker legend Stephen Chidwick (599,000) could be poised to make a rare run in the Main Event.

Gorilla mode might be on the cards for Jesse Lonis (402,000), while TV writer Matthew Salsberg (360,000), Americas Cardroom pro Chance Kornuth (330,000), WPT anchor Tony Dunst (228,000), online poker tournament king Chris Moorman (218,000), WSOP Main Event legend Matt Affleck (164,500), and Women in Poker Hall of Famer Kathy Liebert (110,000) are all still involved in the action.

In and Out

Working towards a $10,000,000 top prize that would change most people’s lives, some former champions who have already experienced the moment of ultimate elation fell short while others thrived. The 2013 world champion Ryan Riess ‘The Beast’ bagged up 431,000 chips on his way up the leaderboard.

The 1989 world champion Phil Hellmuth (above) came into play on 173,000 but left with the roundest number of all when his nut flush draw failed to come in. With Hellmuth’s son Phillip also failing to progress, family hopes are pinned on Nicholas Hellmuth, though the bubble period will be crucial to him with a stack of just 53,000.

Michael Mizrachi, however, consolidated his position as the first realistic possibility of going back-to-back in the Main Event for many years. The last person to do so was ‘The Orient Express’, a.k.a. Johnny Chan in the 1988 World Championship, but Chan outlasted only 167 other players. Mizrachi topped 9,734 opponents in 2025 and has already outlasted 7,819 in 2026 – don’t rule out another win for ‘Grinder’, who ended the day on 615,000 chips.

Plenty more former champions made the cut, with the 2019 winner Hossein Ensan totalling 1,280,000 and John Cynn bagging up 927,000, while Joe Hachem (353,000), Chris Moneymaker (221,000) and Greg Raymer (205,000) all survived too. Not everyone dodged a bullet, however, as the 2015 champion Joe McKeehen joined Hellmuth in busting on Day 3.

WSOP 2026 Event #82: $10,000 Main Event Day 3 Top 10 Chipcounts:
Place	Player	Country	Chips
1st	Sasha Liu	United States	2,364,000
2nd	Martin Zamani	United States	1,963,000
3rd	Levon Khachatryan	United States	1,745,000
4th	Robert Gill	United States	1,604,000
5th	Zdenek Zizka	Czech Republic	1,576,000
6th	Robin Kleinbeck	Germany	1,558,000
7th	Will Givens	United States	1,540,000
8th	Brian Carraher	United States	1,463,000
9th	Felix Kuemayr	Austria	1,398,000
10th	Jared Passanante	United States	1,361,000

Photography courtesy of Luther Redd exclusively for PokerGO at the 2026 WSOP.