Break Time; Mehrdad Yousefzadeh Hits the Milli Mark, Huck Seed the Last Remaining World Champion
The fourth and penultimate level of Day 3 has been completed with roughly 855 players remaining. Those players are now on a 20-minute break.
On the resumption of play following dinner break, it would be Mehrdad Yousefzadeh taking a sizeable pot off Phil Ivey to launch himself to roughly 660,000. Although Matthew Haugen would have the biggest flirt of reaching a million in chips when he peaked at 945,000 it would be Yousefzadeh who catapulted himself to 1,050,000 late in the level before heading to break with an impressive 1,049,500.
The other story of the level would be the one that left Huck Seed as the only remaining World Champion in the field following the earlier eliminations of Ryan Riess, Johnny Chan, Robert Varkonyi and most recently Chris Moneymaker. After Moneymaker moved to the action table that included Paul Pierce and Michael Binger, Moneymaker would see the last of his chips enter the flop with his in the lead against Raymond Ezzie's . The on the turn and on the river would ensure Moneymaker's exit as Seed became the last Main Event Champion standing.
Speaking of Pierce, the 10-time NBA All-Star would have a heavy rail for the majority of the level but he would float above and below the 200,000-chip mark before ending with 180,000, while the likes of Steve Dannenmann, Marvin Rettenmaier, Aaron Steury, Jason Koon, Bryce Yockey, John Hennigan and Hac Dang weren't as fortunate as they found themselves on the rail.
Joining Yousefzadeh up top on the leaderboard include Haugen (938,000), Raul Mestre (910,500), Andrew Liporace (899,500), Eric Hicks (848,000).