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Sasha Liu Bagging Big in $85 Million WSOP Main Event World Championship

09 Jul 2026

Mrinal Gujare 09 Jul 2026

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Sasha Liu leads 2026 WSOP Main Event with 2,364,000 chips after Day 3.
1,389 players remain; only 7 more must exit before payouts from the $85.6M prize pool.
Day 4 starts soon, with a $10M top prize and several poker champions still in contention.

Sasha Liu bagged 2,364,000 chips to lead the 2026 WSOP Main Event after Day 3. With 1,389 players remaining and 1,382 making the money, the tournament rests just seven eliminations away from bursting the historic $85.6 million prize pool bubble.

The most important and richest live poker tournament of the year is on the verge of the money bubble following a dramatic Day 3 of action.

Event #82: $10,000 WSOP Main Event NLH World Championship attracted a massive field of 9,208 entries, generating a gargantuan $85,634,400 prize pool. This makes the 2026 edition the fourth-largest World Series of Poker Main Event in poker history.

After five intense levels of play, the starting field for the day was whittled down significantly. Only 1,389 hopefuls remain in contention, meaning just seven more players must exit before the remaining 1,382 participants secure a slice of the prize pool.

Each player who survives the bubble will claim at least a $15,000 min-cash, while the eventual world champion will take home a staggering $10 million first-place prize. A payout of $1 million is also locked up for the ninth-place finisher.

Liu Surges to the Top of the Chip Counts

Pot-Limit Omaha cash game specialist Sasha Liu put on a dominant performance to claim the overall chip lead.

Liu initially entered the tournament as a late registrant at the start of Day 2 and instantly went to work, accumulating more than six starting stacks within the first level of her play. Her momentum carried heavily into Day 3.

By the dinner break, Liu had already eclipsed the seven-figure mark. She then more than doubled her stack in the final levels of the night to bag an astonishing 2,364,000 in chips.

Liu chip lead places her just ahead of Martin Zamani, who finished the session with an impressive Safe stack of 1,963,000.

Levon Khachatryan, who earned a career-best score of $1,440,680 earlier this summer by finishing runner-up to Eelis Pärssinen in Event #47: $25,000 High Roller Pot-Limit Omaha, bagged the third-largest stack with 1,745,000.

Other notable players finishing near the top of the leaderboard include Zdenek Zizka with 1,576,000 and Will Givens with 1,540,000.

Field thins at Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas

A total of 3,294 players returned to their seats at the Horseshoe and Paris Las Vegas after navigating their respective opening flights and the two Day 2 sessions. The five levels of play saw hundreds of tournament lives come to an end.

Before the dinner break arrived, two highly polarizing figures in live poker were sent to the rail empty-handed. Will Kassouf lost a crucial pre-flop flip holding pocket sixes against the king-queen of Kevin Killeen. The Irish player rivered an ace-high flush to eliminate and silence Kassouf well before the payout window.

Thirteen-time bracelet winner Phil Hellmuth was knocked out shortly after when his flopped flush draw failed to improve. While Phil Hellmuth and his son Phil Hellmuth III were both eliminated, a third family member remains in the hunt, as Nicholas Hellmuth bagged up 53,000 chips.

British mixed-game specialist and nine-time WSOP bracelet winner Benny Glaser also fell late in the evening when he ran into pocket aces, missing out on a consecutive deep run.

Former Champions and Notables Grind Big Stacks

Several former WSOP Main Event champions found success on Day 3. 2019 champion Hossein Ensan navigated a slow start to build his stack past the half-million mark before knocking out three opponents in just three minutes to cross into seven-figure territory.

Defending champion Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi spent his day under the spotlight of the main feature table. Utilizing his trademark aggressive style, Mizrachi propelled his stack over 1.2 million.

Despite a temporary setback where his ace-king fell to an opponent who flopped quads with a pair of queens, Mizrachi recovered to bag an above-average stack of 615,000. A strong contingent of other former world champions successfully punched their tickets to Day 4:

John Cynn (927,000)
Ryan Riess (431,000)
Joe Hachem (353,000)
Greg Raymer (326,000)
Chris Moneymaker (221,000)

They are joined in the counts by former GGPoker WSOP Main Event online winner Stoyan Madanzhiev, who preserved a stack of 499,000.

On the secondary live stream tables, high-stakes regular Alex Foxen put together a strong run to bag 839,000, with Pedro Neves right behind him at 811,000. Chino Rheem headlined the third streaming table in the arena and closed the night with 588,000.

In that same arena segment, Mark Lacoste (1,147,000) and Callum Roque (1,025,000) emerged as the only chip millionaires at the table. Meanwhile, Shaun Deeb won a critical flip prior to the dinner break to elevate his stack to 938,000, keeping his hopes alive of defending his hard-earned WSOP Player of the Year title.

The Stage is Set for a Dramatic Day 4 Bubble

As the final break of the night concluded fewer than 150 spots away from the money, tournament officials announced to the room that play would conclude for the evening before the bubble burst.

This mirrors the exact scenario from last year's tournament, where the money bubble loomed large at the end of Day 3 but ultimately survived into the following afternoon.

Eliminations continued rapidly until the final bags were distributed. Among the late departures were Simon Wilson and Michael Kamran, who both saw their runs ended by Francisco Mateo when his pocket kings held up.

When Day 4 resumes on Thursday, July 9 at 11 a.m. local time at the Paris Hotel Las Vegas, hand-for-hand play is expected to begin immediately. The remaining 1,389 players will return to blinds of 4,000-8,000 with a 8,000 big blind ante.

With the tournament average sitting at nearly 50 big blinds deep, players will have plenty of room to maneuver as they fight for a spot in the money and a shot at the $10 million grand prize.

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