The 2025 World Series of Poker $10,000 buy-in no-limit hold’em main event made a podium showing with the third-largest field in the tournament’s history. Players were able to late register for this event through the four starting flights and two day 2s, with 9,735 entries in the end.
Tuesday, July 8’s day 3 saw all remaining players combine to play simultaneously for the first time. 3,453 survivors from the first six days of action took their seats, and by the end of the night, just 1,476 remained.
The top 1,461 are set to make the money, with $15,000 for a min-cash and $10,000,000 up top from the final prize pool of $90,535,500.
Day 4 will begin just 15 eliminations away from the bubble bursting.
Tight Race At The Top Of The Chip Counts
The chip leader heading into day 4 is Shotaro Kobayashi of Japan. His 1,971,000 (246 big blinds) has him just out in front of a crowded pack of players near the top of the field. He does not appear to have any major tournament results of note prior to making this deep run.
Other big stacks in the top 10 include 2024 WSOP Europe main event champion Max Neugebauer (1,928,000), France’s Sam Jakubowicz (1,800,000), recent WSOP ladies event final tablist Juliet Hegedus (1,745,000), and French high roller Thomas Eychenne (1,618,000). Chad Power, a Pittsburgh native who finished 26th in the 2015 WSOP main event, bagged 1,546,000.
Klemens Roiter
Notables near the top include WSOP bracelet winners Antonio Galiana (1,368,000), Sebastien Aube (1,327,000). and Klemens Roiter (1,297,000). Aube, who won a $2,500 WSOP event in 2022 and final tabled the World Poker Tour Choctaw main event earlier this year, enjoyed a strong run late in day 3. He believes his preparation and previous successes should serve him well as the WSOP main event goes on.
“I think it will help a lot, for sure, like knowing the spots, understanding ICM that will come up eventually,” said Aube. “Just playing with confidence. I took a nice break before coming here. My goal was really to perform in the main event, so I feel very happy. I worked really hard in the winter and then took like three weeks, no poker, no study, nothing, just before coming here to play my A-game.
“We all know the stack can be gone in three hands, but I’m just going hand per hand. I feel like my mindset is really on point, and I feel like I’m playing, very solid right now.”
Big Names Still In The Mix
Plenty of other notables are still in the mix heading into day 4. Multi-time WPT final tablist Josh Kay (1,342,000), European Poker Tour and WPT champion Andrey Pateychuk (1,107,000), and EPT champions Micah Raskin (1,126,000) and Arnaud Mattern (1,092,000), each broke the million-chip mark.
Viktor Blom, the former young online wizard who has made numerous deep runs already at the 2025 WSOP, just missed out on putting 1 million in the bag, settling for 986,000.
Nate Silver, Mike Matusow, Liv Boeree, Josh Arieh, Michael Mizrachi, Brad Owen, Jason Mercier, Landon Tice, Joseph Cheong, Matt Affleck, Brian Yoon, Yuri Dzivielevski, James Calderaro, Chris Hunichen, Isaac Haxton, Brian Hastings, Henrik Hecklen, Leon Sturm, Allyn Shulman, and Kenny Hallaert are just a small cross-section of players still in the mix.
Just two previous champions of this tournament are still in. 2012 WSOP main event winner Greg Merson has a comfortable 560,000 going into day 4. Five years on from his 2020 WSOP main event title, and eight years after his first WSOP main event final table appearance, Damian Salas also bagged for day 4, with 480,000.
But Many Fell By The Wayside
While all those players are still in contention, there were a sea of players knocked out during day 3 action, including seven-time bracelet winner Daniel Negreanu, three-time bracelet winner Michael Wang, ten-time bracelet winner Johnny Chan, high-stakes regular Sean Winter, bracelet winner and three-time WPT champion Gus Hansen, three-time bracelet winner Ryan Leng, seven-time bracelet winner Brian Rast, and 2024 WSOP main event champion Jonathan Tamayo.
A classic coin flip ended the reigning champ’s attempt at a title defense, with his 8♥8♠ unable to hold against the A♣K♣ of Brazil’s Alen Tenorio.
We caught up with last year’s Main Event champ, Jonathan Tamayo (@driverseati), after his Day 3 bust-out as he reflects on this year’s run!
Plus, he’s already back in the mix in Event 87: $5K Super Turbo Bounty. #WSOP2025 pic.twitter.com/WyQGNqWvlh
— WSOP – World Series of Poker (@WSOP) July 9, 2025
Hellmuth’s 18th Bracelet Won’t Be Won In This Year’s Main Event
Tamayo was certainly not the only former winner of this tournament to hit the before the day was done. All-time bracelet leader and 1989 main event champion Phil Hellmuth announced earlier this year that he planned to skip the big dance because it had become an “endurance contest.” He ended up going back on that decree and made it down to day 3 only to run A♠K♦ into the Q♠Q♦ of recent WSOP $10,000 limit Omaha championship runner-up Michael Zulker.
Zulker had opened to 6,500 from under the gun and received a call from bracelet winner Leon Sturm, who held 8♠8♣ in middle position. Hellmuth then jammed for 93,000 total out of the hijack. Zulker went into the tank before making the call, which prompted a quick fold from Sturm.
The flop came down [invalid notations] to keep Zulker ahead. The K♣ turn gave Hellmuth the lead, which meant the 17-time bracelet winner needed to dodge only a single card, since one queen was already folded by another player preflop.
That one card, the Q♥, did roll off on the river to give Zulker a set and the pot. Hellmuth headed to the rail roughly 1,200 away from the money.
He wasn’t going to play, but now he’s no longer allowed to play as all his chips are gone! @phil_hellmuth with a sickening exit from the 2025 @WSOP Main Event extending his drought in the greatest tournament of all time to 10 years! pic.twitter.com/KtSQ7FVoYY
— PokerGO (@PokerGO) July 9, 2025
Greg Raymer was the final former champion ousted on day 3, and it couldn’t have been a more brutal runout.
FossilMan hits the rail
The 2004 Main Event Champion Greg Raymer (@FossilMan) is out of this year’s Main after busting with KINGS VERSUS KINGS!
Weston Wells held the king of spades and the board ran out four spades – sending the former champion to the rail.
This leaves Damian… pic.twitter.com/79tt2L7Shr
— WSOP – World Series of Poker (@WSOP) July 9, 2025
Looking Ahead To Day 4
The final 1,476 players will return for day 4 at noon on Wednesday, July 9. Players will sit down to blinds of 4,000/8,000 with an 8,000 big blind ante for level 16. The average stack of 395,731 will represent just shy of 49 big blinds when action resumes in the third-largest WSOP main event ever held.
Here is a look at the top ten chip stacks heading into day 4:
| Rank | Name | Chips | Country |
| 1 | Shotaro Kobayashi | 1,971,000 | Japan |
| 2 | Max Neugebauer | 1,928,000 | Austria |
| 3 | Sam Jakubowicz | 1,800,000 | France |
| 4 | Juliet Hegedus | 1,745,000 | USA |
| 5 | Tomas Szwarcberg | 1,709,000 | Mexico |
| 6 | David Alvarez | 1,629,000 | Spain |
| 7 | Thomas Eychenne | 1,618,000 | France |
| 8 | Brandon Harris | 1,616,000 | U.K. |
| 9 | Luke Chung | 1,606,000 | USA |
| 10 | Chad Power | 1,546,000 | USA |
