In the Money

They've reached the money at the 2006 WSOP Main Event. Of the 8773 who entered, 481 remain. The top 873 places paid. I happened to have been watching online last night as the bubble burst. With about three to go before they were down to 873, a player found himself in the big blind with less than 30,000 in chips. The table folded to the small blind, who put in a raise that would force the big blind player all in. The big blind called, and as he showed the table his pocket aces he announced that was the only hand with which he would have even considered calling. The small blind showed a pair of sixes. The flop came A65, giving both players sets. The turn brought the only card in the deck that could eliminate the big blind -- the case six. What agony.

If you click on the picture you'll get an Excel file that lists the top 50 chip stacks heading into Day 4. I've added columns that show where these players stood entering Day 3. I've also added other notables at the bottom of the list. Incidentally, these chip counts were culled from a couple of different sources, neither of which was CardPlayer (who currently lists a different player atop the leaderboard). CardPlayer, the "official content provider" of the WSOP, has been pretty erratic, frankly, when it comes to providing clear chip counts (a topic of discussion over on the Card Clubs Network Forums as of late).

It is interesting to see how much movement occurs from day to day. Of these top 50, only 16 were in the top 50 heading into Day 3. Most of this group features players who were able to make tremendous moves, the most dramatic probably being Christopher Budak who started yesterday with a meager 21,000 chips (sitting 1,062nd out of 1,159). Today he has 359,500 chips and finds himself in 48th place. Albert Padilla's Day 3 was more than a little impressive as well -- he built 99,800 chips up to 640,000, moving from 274th to 3rd.

None of the name pros are among the top fifty, but Allen Cunningham (100th, 278,000), Annie Duke (191st, 180,000), Hoyt Corkins (218th, 163,000), Joe Hachem (259th, 139,000), Tom McEvoy (278th, 130,000), and Kathy Liebert (282nd, 126,000) all certainly have enough chips to make something happen. The blinds will start today at 2,000/4,000 (with a 500 ante), so none of these players have an "M" ratio below 10 just yet. However, they will all certainly be looking to make moves. Meanwhile pros like Hans "Tuna" Lund (318th, 105,500), Daniel Negreanu (354th, 93,500), Ted Forrest (385th, 78,000), Surindar Sunar (400th, 71,500), and Cyndy Violette (457th, 42,000) have all slipped down into Harrington's orange or red zones and thus will be pushing right away when play resumes today at noon PDT. I imagine about half of the field will be gone after today, but there will still be another five days of play before they reach the end.

I wonder how they plan to fit $12 million cash on a single poker table . . . .