2012 World Series of Poker Day 47: D'Alesandro Leads Main Event; Money Bubble Approaches

Shari Geller

Jul 13, 2012 4 min read

On Day 47 of the 2012 World Series of Poker, the entire surviving field of Main Event entrants was under the same roof for the first time. The remaining 1,765 players sat down together to play five two-hour levels on Day 3 in the Brasilia Room and the Amazon Room at the Rio. By the time the final level of the night was completed, only 720 players remained, with Dave "doubledave22" D'Alesandro and his 1.1 million chip stack leading the way.

2012 World Series of Poker Main Event: Day 3

Gaelle Baumann was the leader with 505,800 in chips when the day began. She remained at the top of the leaderboard through the first level of play but was passed as her chip stack stayed about the same throughout the day. She finished with 599,000, more than double the average chip stack.

Two-time bracelet winner and Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Selbst will be back for Day 4, thanks to a very lucky double up late in the day. In the pivotal hand, she check-raised all in for over 200,000 with a board reading K♣Q♣4♦9♠. Her opponent snap-called, turning over 4♠4♥ for a flopped set. Selbt tabled 10♣8♣ for a gutshot and flush draw semi-bluff. Selbst stood up from her seat, ready to say her goodbyes, and congratulated her opponent on his good call before the dealer turned over the 7♣ on the river. That winning flush brought her up to 540,000 chips, and she finished the day in 12th place with 814,000.

Several well-known players will be returning on Day 4 with varying chip stacks. Joining chip D'Alesandro in the million-chip club are Sean Rice (1,076,000), Jacob Balsiger (1,065,000), and Leo Wolpert (1,003,500). There are still many notables remaining in the field including 2011 WSOP Circuit Regional Champion A.J. Jejelowo (928,500), Sorel Mizzi (738,000), Jason Somerville (637,000), Shaun Deeb (598,000), Lee Childs (570,000), Antonio Esfandiari (485,000), Mike “Timex” McDonald (396,000), Maria Ho (382,000), John Juanda {357,500}, David “ODB” Baker (291,500), Jackie Glazer (187,000), Daniel Negreanu (109,000), and former November Niners Eric Buchman (478,000), Sam Holden (424,500), Phil Collins (252,500) and Joseph Cheong (237000).

Before the dinner break, four former Main Event champs dropped out—Pius Heinz, Peter Eastgate, Jerry Yang and Robert Varkonyi—as well as many notables including Abe Mosseri, Sam Farha, Kurt Jewell, John Racener, Chris Tryba, Adam Levy, Jeff Shulman, Dean Hamrick, Marco Traniello, James Dempsey, Taylor von Kriegenbergh, Nenad Medic, Nam Le, Gabe Kaplan, Bryn Kenney, Aaron Steury, Michael Benvenuti, Farzad Bonyadi, Karina Jett, Soi Nguyen, Nick Schulman, Tristan Wade, Brian Hastings, Ryan Eriquezzo and PokerStars Team Pros Barry Greenstein, Vicky Coren, Christophe De Meulder, and Eugene Katchalov.

Dan Harrington was in position to join Johnny Chan and Huck Seed as the only previous winners of this event to move on to Day 4 but lost most of his chips to Evan Jarvis with A♣K♣ against J♥J♠ after the board ran out 4♣3♦2♠7♥Q♥. In his last hand, Harrington three-bet all in from the button with Qx5x and the original raiser called with Ax2x. Harrington failed to improve and he was sent to the rail.

In just two hands, Ben Lamb saw his run for another Main Event final table come to an end. In the first, Lamb had four-bet all in and his shorter-stacked opponent called for 94,600 total. Lamb was in trouble with pocket jacks versus pocket queens, and found no help on the 7♠3♥8♣2♥6♦ board. Lamb was down to about a dozen big blinds and, a few hands later, he put them at risk with pocket fives. Chris Moorman called him from the small blind with A♣7♦. Moorman went ahead on the 2♥2♦7♠ flop and stayed there as the board ran out Q♥ J♦. Lamb was on his way out of the tournament short of the money.

Among the many eliminated during the last two levels of the night were Faraz Jaka, Jason Lester, Leif Force, Shannon Shorr, Phil Galfond, Michael Binger, Will “The Thrill” Failla, Brett Richey, David Pham, PokerStars Team Pros Toni Judet and Alex Kravchenko, Todd Witteles, Jake Cody, Athanasios Polychronopoulos, Eoghan O'Dea, Kelly Kim, and 2006 runner-up Paul Wasicka.

On Tap

On Friday, the remaining 720 players from Day 3 of the Main Event will return at 1200 PDT (2000 BST) to the Amazon Room to play five more levels. The first order of business is breaking the money bubble at 666 players. After that, expect the action to really heat up as the remaining players try to build their chip stacks as players pass the halfway point of the Main Event.

PokerNews will be there to cover all the exciting action as we approach the magic number 666 and then as we move from making it to the money to building a big stack for a deep run. We will have all the updates, hands, chip counts, bust-outs and more from the Rio in our live reporting blog, so make to follow our coverage throughout the day.

Video of the Day

In the Video of the Day, Lynn Gilmartin talks during the dinner break with Shaun Deeb about his good run so far, his “volatile” table, and the pluses and minuses of sitting at a televised table. Deeb also talked about what he did after winning the $1 million at the One Drop satellite.