The grind known as the 2026 WSOP $10,000 Championship Event – the 2026 WSOP Main Event, to some – continued through Wednesday as the field came together for the first time. The object of the five levels of play on Day Three was to get to the money bubble, and the field got very close. Alas, they would come up just a bit short, meaning that a few unfortunate souls must return on Thursday and will receive nothing for their efforts.
Come Together…Right Now!
After six days, the four Day One flights and the combined two Day Two sessions, the entirety of the 2026 WSOP Main Event field came together on Wednesday. 3,294 players, who previously had not been put in the same battle together, suddenly got a look at each other to size up their competition. Those who were sitting down at the tables in both the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas also knew there was a long way to go before they could even conceive of the money bubble.
With that trek in mind – and the potential to get to the 1,324 players who would pick up some of the $85 million-plus prize pool – the players set off on Wednesday. Michael Rossitto, the Day 2B leader, and Day 2A leader Gaspar Fernandez led the way, but there were several top pros in the battle looking to chase them down. Of those pros, the defending World Champion, Michael Mizrachi, and current WSOP Player of the Year leader, Alex Foxen, led the more than 3,900 players left in the fight.
One of the two leaders would not make it through the day. In the early action, Fernandez would run into a full house and fall just short later in the Day Three action. Rossitto, however, would be able to run through the minefield and live to see the action on Thursday. By the end of the night, Rossitto would have 659,000 in chips and should make the money.
That same news would not go to several of the pros in the field. The all-time leading bracelet winner in WSOP history, Phil Hellmuth, will not be making room for an eighteenth bracelet on his mantle. He was joined – perhaps thankfully – by William Kassouf, who only seems to have come out for the Main Event this year (Kassouf has only one cash on his 2026 WSOP resume). Kassouf would try to make a move against Kevin Killeen, as seen on the ESPN+ presentation of the Main Event, pushing all in with air against a potential flush; the flush would come home for Killeen, and Kassouf would go home without anything for coming to the Main Event this year after picking up $300,000 for his 33rd-place finish in 2025.
Keep Feeding ‘The Grinder’ The Chips…
In our latest instance of “keep feeding chips to top pros,” the defending champion was the beneficiary of such an occurrence. Mizrachi, sitting at one of the ESPN-featured tables, was getting the cards too, in this particular situation being dealt pocket Aces. But he was facing a sizeable challenge from an opponent who, with an inferior K-Q, had made a boat on the K-Q-K-x flop and turn. Facing a 5% chance of hitting his Ace to improve to a superior full house, Mizrachi would catch his card on the river and get his opponent to commit the remainder of his chips on his way to cracking the seven-digit mark in chips; Mizrachi would suffer some setbacks after that (including running another full house into quads), but he still made his way through the day with 615,000 in chips in defending his title.
There are several former World Champions still in the mix for the 2026 title, some with a better chance than others. Along with Mizrachi, Hossein Ensan (1.28 million), John Cynn (927K), Mizrachi, and Ryan Riess (431K) lead that contingent. In comparison, the trio from the “poker boom” of the Aughts – Joe Hachem (353K), Greg Raymer (326K), and Chris Moneymaker (221K) – have some work in store if they want to make it through the Day Four battlegrounds on Thursday.
One person who won’t have to worry too much about making it to the money is the Day Three chip leader, Liu. After taking advantage of late registration and getting into the game on Day Two, Liu has stormed through her tables. Day Three for Liu was particularly profitable, as she motored her way to the top of the leaderboard, the only player over the two-million-chip mark. She will rule the roost of this Top Ten leaderboard:
1. Sasha Liu, 2.364 million
2. Martin Zamani, 1.963 million
3. Levon Khachatryan, 1.745 million
4. Robert Gill, 1.604 million
5. Zdenek Zizka, 1.576 million
6. Robin Kleinbeck, 1.558 million
7. Will Givens, 1.54 million
8. Brian Carraher, 1.463 million
9. Felix Kyenayr, 1.398 million
10. Jared Passanante, 1.361 million
Top professionals lurking underneath the Top Ten include former WSOP final tablist Arnaud Mattern (1.284 million, 14th place), Ensan (1.28 million), Farid Jattin (1.279 million), and four-time WSOP bracelet winner Loren Klein (1.091 million).
The first order of business on Thursday will be the popping of the money bubble. There are 1,389 players left in the field, seven short of the 1,382 that will take a piece of the $85 million prize pool. It will be extremely tense, as the seven people who will not receive anything for their efforts are determined, and it will probably air live on ESPN+.
Today is the first “double duty” day for the ESPN+ presentation of the 2026 WSOP Main Event. There will be an afternoon session for those on the East Coast airing from 3 PM to 7 PM on Thursday, with a “night session” that will air from 9 PM to 3 AM. If you have ESPN+, you’re in store for almost wall-to-wall coverage of the tournament starting on Thursday as the money bubble pops.
The post 2026 WSOP: Main Event Comes Up Short of Money Bubble on Day Three; Late Registrant Sasha Liu Holds Lead appeared first on Poker News Daily.
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