It was a celebratory day at the 2025 World Series of Poker Main Event – the $10,000 No Limit Hold’em World Championship – at least at the start of the day. The field came together for the first time under one roof and stopped short of the money bubble on Day Three. Between the start and the finish, a former WSOP Europe Main Event champion and a top female pro demonstrated their skills, while others showcased their ability to annoy.
MAYBE the Money Bubble?
3453 players came back to the tables on Tuesday with the hope of getting down to the money by the end of five two-hour levels. In 2024, the tournament finished just short of that goal, making for an agonizing Day Four start. The staff and especially the players know how that felt, so the plans were to hopefully make the money before calling it a night.
Leading the way at the start of action was Oleksii Kravchuk, who was just short of a million chips (937,000, to be exact) and the only player in that rarefied air. Day 2B leader San Kim was able to parlay that position into a place at the featured table, but that potentially wasn’t the reward that many would think. It also showed a problem that is quickly becoming a pandemic in the world of poker.
Kim was on the same featured table on PokerGO as William Kassouf, and it quickly became apparent that Kassouf has learned nothing in the decade since he “spoke out” at the WSOP. Calling the dealer and fellow pro Vanessa Kade “honey” frequently, Kassouf continually spewed a litany of insignificant BS around the table. It was visibly annoying the players there, eventually bringing a floor to the table to get him to at least slow it down. The problem was that Kassouf was playing well, save for a hand against Kade before dinner where he was finally beaten; the same table did not come back after chowtime (and the audience was mercifully spared).
This type of ‘speech play’ has become too much of a part of today’s game. Whether it is Kassouf, “world famous” Pat Lyons (who was on the other featured table alongside Kassouf), or 2025 villain du jour Martin Kabrhel, this type of constant verbal spewage has become an aggravation at the game. Tournament directors need to get a handle on this issue, and television broadcasters need to quit giving these verbal dullards airtime if we want to put our best foot forward. Otherwise, we are only going to get more of these chirping monkeys.
Big Moves, Big Departures in Big Fashion
Of course, as the players went further into the night, the moves both up and down the ladder became more important. One of those players moving up was the 2023 champion of the WSOP Europe, Max Neugebauer, who started his run by knocking off Roberto Romanello after flopping a set of Jacks against Romanello’s Big Slick that found a King. This pushed Neugebauer to 455,000 in chips, and he would end the night in the Top Ten with over a million.
A similar story was found in Juliet Hegedus, who started the day just off the Top Ten and only seemed to go up from there. Hegedus, a burgeoning star in the tournament poker world who finished in sixth place in the Ladies’ Championship, started the day with 627K in chips. She didn’t seem to make any mistakes through the Day Three action, and Hegedus will be joining Neugebauer in the Top Ten of the 2025 WSOP Main Event when Day Four starts on Wednesday.
The news was not as good for a former World Champion in the field. Phil Hellmuth never had much ammunition throughout his stay on the feature table, but he got his chips in for a race, A-K against the pocket Queens of Michael Zulker, and was seemingly on his way to a big double-up after turning a King. A Queen would cruelly come on the river, however, earning the checkmark for Zulker and sending a subdued Hellmuth to the rail.
Hellmuth wasn’t alone there. He was joined by Daniel Negreanu, who the PokerGO cameras caught going out after his pocket nines were run down on the river by the A-Q of Simon Levy. Former World Champion Greg Raymer suffered arguably the worst beat, all-in with pocket Kings against Weston Wells’ pocket Kings in what looked like a split pot; Wells would instead make a flush by the river to take out the ‘Fossilman.’ Add in defending champion Jonathan Tamayo, Poker Hall of Famer Brian Rast, and the last back-to-back champion in Johnny Chan, and it was quite an illustrious rail.
Once the gong sounded to end the day, Shotaro Kobayashi of Japan reigned over the field with his 1.971 million stack. Neugebauer is pulling into second place, while Hegedus holds down the fourth place slot. Here are the standings of the 2025 WSOP Main Event with the Day Three action in the books:
1. Shotaro Kobayashi (Japan), 1.971 million
2. Max Neugebauer (Austria), 1.928 million
3. Sam Jakubowicz (France), 1.8 million
4. Juliet Hegedus (USA), 1.745 million
5. Tomas Szwarcberg (Mexico), 1.709 million
6. David Alvarez (Spain), 1.629 million
7. Thomas Eychenne (France), 1.618 million
8. Brandon Harris (United Kingdom), 1.616 million
9. Luke Chung (USA), 1.606 million
10. Chad Power (USA), 1.546 million
Other notable names on the leaderboard include two-time WSOP bracelet winner Andriy Lyubovetskiy (1.148 million), Andrey Pateychuk (1.107 million), Arnaud Mattern (1.092 million), Viktor Blom (986,000), the aforementioned Kassouf (957,000), and James Calderaro (946,000), all in the Top 100 for Day Four action.
It is going to be an ugly day for fifteen players who return to the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas today. With 1476 players remaining and only 1461 getting to partake of the $90 million-plus prize pool, fifteen players are going to walk away empty-handed for their efforts in the 2025 WSOP Main Event. Expect the money bubble to pop in the first level of action today, at which point the prize money will start flowing as we get closer to a champion of the 2025 WSOP Main Event.
(Photo courtesy of WSOP.com)
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