Only 522 players remain by the end of day 4 of the 2025 World Series of Poker main event. This year’s big dance drew 9,735 entries, making it the third-largest field in the tournament’s 56-year-history.
In a week’s time, one of these several hundred hopefuls will hoist the championship bracelet and then head to the payout desk to collect the top prize of $10,000,000.
Day 4 began with 1,476 still in contention and 1,461 set to secure a piece of the $90,535,500. After a couple of tense, drama-filled hours of bubble action, a trio of players were knocked out during the round of hand-for-hand play: Mark Dickner, Sachin Joshi, and Mathew Frankland. In years past, the three would split the $30,000 in prize money allotted for the 1,461st and 1,460th place finishers and the rest of the field would all celebrate having locked up at least $15,000.
This year, there was the added wrinkle of a $30,000 package into the 2025 WSOP Paradise $60 million guaranteed super main event taking place this December in the Bahamas for whoever hit the rail the direct bubble.
Dickner, Joshi, and Frankland took part in a flip to see who would earn the sizable consolation prize, with Frankland rivering a straight with Q-4 to best Dickner’s pocket nines, which were ahead up until the river.
Three 2025 WSOP bubble players flip for a $30,000 package into the $60,000,000 guaranteed WSOP Paradise super main event. pic.twitter.com/XyiDsp5o6s
— Card Player: The Poker & Gambling Authority (@CardPlayerMedia) July 9, 2025
Big Names, Big Stacks
All those that moved onto day 5 have locked up at least $32,500 for making it this far. The chip leader is Harold Lam with 4,195,000. The Florida resident’s latest deep run was a 171st-place finish in the 2023 WSOP Gladiators of Poker event. Now, he is leading one of the biggest poker tournaments of all time.
Other leaders include Jeremy Kottler (3,725,000), Julien Mariani (3,600,000), Kohei Arai (3,585,000), Benjamin Williams (3,550,000), and Arsenii Karmatckii
(3,445,000).
Plenty of notables are still in with healthy stacks, like bracelet winner Nick Pupillo (3,150,000), 2014 WSOP main event 26th-place finisher Chad Power (3,010,000), 2016 WSOP main event sixth-place finisher Kenny Hallaert (2,805,000), three-time WPT champion Eric Afriat (2,710,000), bracelet winner Anthony Gregg (2,435,000), four-time WSOP Poker Players Championship winner Michael Mizrachi (43rd), and Alex Lynskey (2,050,000). The Australian poker pro is no stranger to success in this event, having finished seventh back in 2018 for a career-best score of $1,500,000. Lynskey was at the featured table for a chunk of the day, and won a big pot while on PokerGO’s broadcast with a flopped full house besting the flopped trips of his opponent, Vikas Sondhi.
Mega Cooler at the @WSOP Main Event! 🤯 Alex Lynskey Flops the Stone Cold Nuts!
Streaming now on https://t.co/v5qF0qsSw4 pic.twitter.com/WTt3s0LWoB
— PokerGO (@PokerGO) July 10, 2025
World Poker Tour champion Josh Reichard finished the day with 3,025,000. His surge up the leaderboard on day 4 was kickstarted when he hero-called all-in on the river on the stone bubble with ace high. The blinds were at 4,000-8,000 with a big-blind ante of 8,000. Reichard min-raised to 16,000 A♠4♠ from early position and Thi Xoa Nguyen called from the hijack with 9♣7♣. The flop came down 10♠5♣2♥ and Reichard bet 18,000. Nguyen called and the 6♦ rolled off on the turn, drawing a check from Reichard. Nguyen fired 50,000 with her gutshot. Reichard called with his gutshot to the wheel and the river paired the board with the 6♣. Reichard checked again and Nguyen moved all-in and Reichard eventually called off his last 200,000 with ace high to secure the double up.
High stakes regulars Stephen Chidwick (1,950,000) and Isaac Haxton (1,915,00), both ranked inside the top ten on the all-time money list, are also sitting with healthy stacks. Chidwick (ranked second on that leaderboard) is a two-time bracelet winner with $70.2 million in lifetime earnings, while Haxton is a bracelet winner and two-time Super High Roller Bowl champion with $57.9 million, which is good for seventh.
Merson and Salas Look To Repeat
William Kassouf and Greg Merson on day 4.
There were only two prior champions in the mix to start day 4: 2012 winner Greg Merson and Damian Salas, who took down the online/live hybrid in 2020.
Both of them bagged up chips to move on to day 5. Merson has 1,495,000, while Salas will have to battle back early on day 5 with 450,000 in the bag.
For Merson, who was also the 2012 WSOP Player of the Year, this is his deepest main event run since the year after his victory. In 2013, Merson finished 167th.
Merson entered the realm of the bigger stacks by the midway point of day 4, and despite losing a few big pots on the live streaming table late in the day he’s quite comfortable with where he’s at.
“I literally just lost a million chips in, like, the last hour,” said Merson. “It doesn’t matter. [Knowing] not to get too attached to where you were and just taking it one hand at a time, it’s a pretty cliche thing to say, but it’s very true.”
Merson came into this tournament feeling particularly fresh, not having had much of a poker grind before entering this field.
“This year, I’ve played the least amount of poker in the last 20 years,” Merson told Card Player. “I started a sports card company, so I hadn’t played a hand of online in six months until I got here, and I had played four hours of live poker the whole year until I got here two weeks ago. Every time I’ve sat down to play, like right now, I feel like it could play another eight hours with no problem. That wouldn’t have been the case in previous years, just because I was playing so much.”
Day 4’s Departed
Among the over 900 players that were eliminated on day 4 were plenty of decorated stars of the game, including five-time bracelet winner Yuri Dzivielevski (1,402nd), three-time bracelet winner Timur Margolin (1,378th), two-time bracelet winner Boris Kolev (1,341st), three-time bracelet winner Dylan Linde (1,068th), two-time bracelet winner Loni Hui (1,054th), four-time World Poker Tour main event champion and recent online bracelet winner Darren Elias (1,046), four-time bracelet winner Farzad Bonyadi (1,021st), three-time bracelet winner Dash Dudley (911th), three-time bracelet winner Matt Matros (825th), two-time Triton winner Igor Yaroshevskyy (741st), bracelet winner and European Poker Tour champion Liv Boeree (645th), four-time bracelet winner Kevin Gerhart (567th), 2023 WPT World Championship winner Dan Sepiol (560th), and two-time bracelet winner JC Tran (539th).
The final 522 players will return for day 5 at noon on Thursday, July 10 with blinds of 10,000-20,000 with a 20,0000 big blind ante for the second half of level 20. The average stack of 1,118,966 will represent just over 56 big blinds when action resumes.
Here is a look at the top ten chip stacks heading into day 5:
| Rank | Player | Chip Count |
| 1 | Harold Lam | 4,195,000 |
| 2 | Jeremy Kottler | 3,725,000 |
| 3 | Julien Mariani | 3,600,000 |
| 4 | Kohei Arai | 3,585,000 |
| 5 | Benjamin Williams | 3,550,000 |
| 6 | Arsenii Karmatckii | 3,445,000 |
| 7 | Michael Hawker | 3,400,000 |
| 8 | Ramon Pessoa | 3,400,000 |
| 9 | Mounir Tajiou | 3,250,000 |
| 10 | Luke Chung | 3,180,000 |
Remaining payouts up for grabs in the 2025 WSOP main event:
| Place | Payout |
| 1 | $10,000,000 |
| 2 | $6,000,000 |
| 3 | $4,000,000 |
| 4 | $3,000,000 |
| 5 | $2,400,000 |
| 6 | $1,900,000 |
| 7 | $1,500,000 |
| 8 | $1,250,000 |
| 9 | $1,000,000 |
| 10-11 | $750,000 |
| 12-13 | $560,250 |
| 14-17 | $450,000 |
| 18-26 | $360,000 |
| 27-35 | $300,000 |
| 36-44 | $240,000 |
| 45-53 | $200,000 |
| 54-62 | $165,000 |
| 63-71 | $135,000 |
| 72-80 | $115,000 |
| 81-89 | $100,000 |
| 90-98 | $85,000 |
| 99-161 | $70,000 |
| 162-224 | $60,000 |
| 225-287 | $52,500 |
| 288-350 | $45,000 |
| 351-413 | $40,000 |
| 414-476 | $35,000 |
| 477-539 | $32,500 |
