The excitement meter increased on Monday, July 12, as players in the 2010 World Series of Poker $10K No-Limit Hold’em Championship were brought together for the first time. After four separate Day 1 flights developed into two Day 2 fields, the number was finally manageable enough to combine all of the players into one field at the Rio Convention Center in Las Vegas.
Day 3 of the WSOP Main Event got underway with 2,557 players, almost all of whom had dreams intact of making it through to the money and ever closer to the biggest final table in all of poker. Out of the original 7,319 players, less than half remained, and the players still holding on to chips were ready to play forward.
It started with several of the very short stacks not even coming to the Rio to try. Jack Ury, the 97-year old man who plays in the WSOP each year, had approximately 8,200 chips with which to start Day 3, and for someone who is transported to the tables in a wheelchair by his grandson, it may have seemed like more trouble than it was worth. The oldest player at the WSOP decided not to play on Day 3, and his stack was quickly blinded off. Other short stacks made the same decision, quite possibly just to avoid the heartbreak of seeing the last chips disappear or hearing the dealer yell “seat open!”
Other players tried their best to work their short stacks, but some couldn’t make anything happen. Early eliminations included Lex Veldhuis, Jim Bechtel, Matt Hawrilenko, Scott Seiver, Thomas Keller, Erik Seidel, Lacey Jones, Maria Ho, and musician Sully Erna. It was later in the day that notables like Daniel Negreanu exited, as well as Kara Scott, reigning champion Joe Cada, Vanessa Rousso, Steve Sung, Eugene Katchalov, Thor Hansen, Mandy Baker, John Hennigan, and Archie Karas.
Play finally ended in the 10pm hour, and when all of the chips were bagged and counted, the staff determined that 1,203 players remained in the tournament, less than half of the number that started the day. But they were still a few hundred away from the money, despite having survived a third grueling day of play. The leaderboard showed who the top chip counts belonged to, and they were as follows:
| James Carroll | 803,000 |
| Imari Love | 741,100 |
| Gerasimos Deres | 733,700 |
| Filippo Candio | 727,300 |
| Max Casal | 687,200 |
| Arie Kliper | 666,200 |
| Andrew Brown | 657,700 |
| Johnny Lodden | 656,400 |
| Johnny Chan | 636,000 |
| Josh Brikis | 616,900 |
All of the 1,203 survivors would return to the Rio on Tuesday, July 13, with one particular goal in mind: to play through the money bubble, a process that could take several hours to arrive and quite a long time to play through. But whether they were playing for the cash or the win, the motivation is high to be the last player standing.