Day Three of the North American Poker Championship

With 79 players still in contention for the title at the World Poker Tour North American Poker Championship, the $1,387,224 first-place prize seemed light years away. But the day started with a flourish of bust-outs, and players dropped from the race at an extraordinary rate.

It didn't take long to lose several well-known professionals. In a span of an hour we lost Jordan Morgan, Kathy Liebert, J.C. Tran, Joe Cassidy, and Jeff Madsen, among others.

Matt "Ch0ppy" Kay, who currently leads the Card Player Online Player of the Year race, was eliminated close to the bubble when his pocket sixes ran into Brent Tucker's pocket kings. Kay had been touring the last few WPT stops but will be out of commission for a while because he is too young to play in the United States.

Peter Feldman was also eliminated just before the bubble when his top two pair was two-outed by an opponent's underpair. Feldman quickly exited the room, and then hand-for-hand play began.

Hand-for-hand play can either be excruciatingly long or pleasantly short. Thankfully for the rest of the field, this tournament was an example of the latter. Nick Schulman was the tournament's bubble boy when he fell into the trap set by Kofi Farkye. Farkye raised to 12,000 and Schulman made the call in the big blind. The flop came J 7 4, and Farkye bet 16,000 after Schulman checked. Schulman made the call and the turn was the Q. Both players checked and the river was the 7. Schulman bet 35,000 and Farkye instantly announced a raise to 210,000. Schulman moved all in and Farkye quickly called, showing 4 4. Schulman took a quick look at his hand and then tapped the table. According to Barry Greenstein, Schulman held A-7 and made trips on the river. The bubble burst in only one hand, and the remaining 45 players celebrated their newfound fortune.

Once the players made the money, the action didn't bother to slow down, and a number of players quickly hit the rail. Farkye continued to dominate his table and became the first player to reach the one-million mark when he eliminated Allen Cunningham in 40th place. Lee Markholt raised to 18,000, and Sean Burstein made the call. Farkye reraised to 62,000, and Allen Cunningham pushed all in for 169,000. Markholt and Burstein folded, while Farkye made the call. Farkye showed A J and Cunningham showed 10 10. The board came A 9 8 8 6 and Cunningham was out the door.

Jean-Robert Bellande, who dominated day one to build an overwhelmingly large chip stack, couldn't keep up his momentum and was eventually eliminated in 39th place. Despite rumors that Bellande was voted out of the tournament, in reality, his pocket queens ran into the pocket aces of Marc Karam.

The longest bubble of the day turned out to be the pay jump from 37th to 36th place. For a while, it seemed like the short-stacks would never be eliminated, as they doubled up time and time again. Eventually, Scott "SCTrojans" Freeman got involved in a pot with Karam. Freeman raised to 16,500 and Karam raised to 55,000. Freeman pushed all in and Karam reluctantly called. Freeman flipped up K K and Karam showed down A 8. The board came Q 10 5 2 4 and Freeman was eliminated, allowing the rest of the field to go to dinner.

After the hour-long break, the short stacks didn't waste any time getting their chips in the middle, and as a result, we lost 15 players in rapid succession. Among the fallen was Karam, who finished in sixth place in this event last year. Karam's pocket jacks couldn't out-race Jonathan Little's A-K, and he was eliminated in 25th place.

Markholt has been one of the most consistent players on the WPT. He couldn't survive the day, but added his eighth cash of the calendar year. This is a remarkable accomplishment and it puts his cash rate at 42 percent. His final hand came when he pushed all in with K-6 against Dan Shak's pocket jack's. The board offered no help, and Markholt was eliminated in 23rd place.

After Catherine Caterini was eliminated in 19th place, the final 18 players bagged and tagged their chips. The players will have Halloween off and will return on Thursday to play down to the final TV table of six.

Here are the final 18 players and their chip counts.

Jonathan "fieryjustice" Little - 1,576,000
David Cloutier - 1,340,000
Kofi Farkye - 1,212,000
Harry Tsoukalos - 1,079,000
Steve "zugwat" Silverman - 857,000
Barry Greenstein - 612,000
Adam "Roothlus" Levy - 537,000
Chery Lynn Deleon - 486,000
Wei Kai Chang - 485,000
William Hames - 351,000
Dale Pinchot - 263,000
Dan Shak - 261,000
Giuseppe Galuzzo - 239,000
Jeff "ActionJeff" Garza - 225,000
Scott "BigRiskky" Clements - 190,000
Ryan "southside1" Aiken - 129,000
Narinder Khasria - 124,000
Arun Jamasi - 98,000

Tune in to CardPlayer.com at noon on Thursday, Nov. 1 to catch all of the action in live updates, chip counts, photos, and videos.