The 2025 World Series of Poker Main Event – the $10,000 No Limit Hold’em World Championship – began last week, and there has been a great deal of joviality to this point. Players have come to the tables, survived their first hands – or, in some cases, first all-ins – and have enjoyed the thrill of being in poker’s biggest event. Now, the fun and games are over…the REAL tournament is set to begin, as the entirety of the field comes together for the first time on Day Three.

Highlights of the Four-Day Ones

With late registration going into the two-day Twos, the players knew they were not going to know what prize was on hand for some time. What they could get, however, was a bit of an idea of how the numbers would line up. Over the four Day One flights, the numbers came in just under the run of last year’s record-setting pace.

Day 1A kicked things off with a bit of an uptick, actually besting the 2024 totals by a few players. Day 1B would be even better, but Days 1C and 1D would fail to meet their predecessors by a wide margin.

That would bring the total numbers for the four Day One flights to 8694 players, with the late registration continuing, while memories were made on the baize of the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas.

There was the agonizing defeat of 2003 World Champion Chris Moneymaker, who flopped trip Jacks and rivered what looked to be a great full house, only to see that his opponent rivered a better full house. Day 1B saw the usual theatrics from the 1989 World Champion, Phil Hellmuth, as he entered to the strains of AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell(muth),” seventeen dancing models and (air) guitar theatrics from his son Phil III and his “adoptive” son Dan ‘Jungleman’ Cates.

And there were still the two Day Two flights to play out!

Remembering the Fallen Through Two Day Twos

The two Day Two flights brought the total for the 2025 WSOP Main Event to 9737 players, making it the third-largest Main Event in the 55-year history of the WSOP. The only two that topped the 2025 running of poker’s most prestigious tournament were last year’s 10,112 runners and the 2023 event, which was the first to crack the 10,000-player mark at 10,043. For the record, 750 late registrants were received on Day 2B, while Day 2A picked up another 265 entries for battle.

But there will be many top pros who are not going to be around for the Day Three festivities. Top pros Jake Cody, Max Steinberg, Eugene Katchalov, Andre Akkari, and Zachary Gruneberg all would depart on Day 2A, while Julien Martini, John Juanda, Loni Hui, Mike Leah, and Barry Greenstein were all late-night departures on Day 2B. All total, Day 2A saw their 2946-player field whittled down to 1320 survivors, while Day 2B took their numbers from 4553 players to 2133 runners remaining.

What They’re Playing for and the (Unofficial) Top Ten

3453 players are remaining in the 2025 WSOP Main Event, and they will all come together on Tuesday for the first time in the tournament. It is a major moment as the money bubble, which will be with 1461 players remaining, should come either late on Tuesday or early on Day Four of the tournament. The min-cash for the tournament is $15,000, but the entirety of the final table will become instant millionaires with their performance:

1^st – $10,000,000
2^nd – $6,000,000
3^rd – $4,000,000
4^th – $3,000,000
5^th – $2,400,000
6^th – $1,900,000
7^th – $1,500,000
8^th – $1,250,000
9^th – $1,000,000

As far as those who have the best shot at making it to the final 1461 – it is STILL too early to even think about winning this tournament – these are those players, the highly unofficial Top Ten heading to the combined field for the 2025 WSOP Main Event on Day Three:

1. Oleksii Kravchuk (Ukraine), 937,000
2. San Kim (USA), 799,000*
3. Randall Lack (USA), 762,500
4. Fernando Rodriguez (Puerto Rico), 749,000*
5. Nicholas Bond (USA), 724,000
6. David Cabrera Polop (Spain), 704,000
7. Romain Locquet (France), 673,500*
8. Ryuta Nakai (Japan), 648,000
9. Thomas Eychenne (France), 644,000
10. Nazar Buhalov (Ukraine), 633,500*

(* – Day 2B participant)

You have to dive down pretty deep to find some notable professional names in the mix. Leading the way for the ladies is Juliet Hegedus, who has an impressive 627,000 in chips to take to battle on Day Three. Two-time WSOP bracelet winner James Obst (501,000), Bin Weng (500,500), Day 1A chip leader Victor Vo (491,000), high stakes pro Chris Hunichen (480,500), WSOP Europe Main Event champion Max Neugebauer (435,000), Omar Mehmood (460,000) and former WSOP Main Event final tablist Josh Arieh (448,500) all have viable ammunition for the upcoming war.

Today marks the day that friendly faces disappear from the 2025 WSOP Main Event. It is time to get serious as the money bubble approaches and the more than $90 million prize pool starts to be handed out to the victors – and trust me, if you’re one of the ones getting paid at the WSOP, you’re one of the victors. Who will win the Main Event bracelet and the $10 million? That is a question we’re going to need a few more days to figure out, and it will play out on the live stream of PokerGO.

The post 2025 WSOP Main Event: The REAL Tournament Begins on Day Three appeared first on Poker News Daily.

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