World Series of Poker Main Event Day 5 preview

The money bubble was not only burst yesterday at the 2010 WSOP Main Event, it was incinerated! The 1,200 or so players that took to the tables at the Rio yesterday was pared down to just 574, and the money bubble burst shortly after the dinner break, when Tim McDonald went out in 748^th place -The WSOP eased his suffering by giving him a free entry into next year’s Main Event.

The big news from yesterday however was the continued strong performances by some of poker’s biggest names; most notably 2-time WSOP Main Event and 10-time bracelet winner, Johnny Chan. Chan is currently sitting in 13^th place with 1.1 million chips, and has been among the chip-leaders throughout the tournament.

Also sitting pretty is Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond, who is currently in 5^th place with just under 1.5 million chips -barely trailing chip-leader Tony Dunst and his stack of 1.546 million chips.

Some other big names still alive in the tournament are UB Poker pro Adam “Roothlus” Levy, PokerStars pro JP Kelly, Hasan Habib, Jesper Hougaard, Alexander Kostritisyn, Christian “CHarder” Harder, Juha Helpi, Praz Bansi, 1999 WSOP Main Event Champion Scotty Nguyen, Jason Somerville, Jason Senti, Doyles Room poker pro Hoyt Corkins, Eric Baldwin, Shannon Shorr, World Poker Tour announcer Vince Van Patten, Bruce Buffer, Danny Mizrachi, Christopher Bolt, Matt Matros, Jason Mercier, Vanessa Selbst, Robert Mizrachi, Sammy Farha, John-Robert Bellande, David Benyamine, Adam Schoenfeld,  Dwyte Pilgrim,  Eric Buchman, Mike “The Grinder” Mizrachi, Todd “DanDruff” Witteles, Brian Rast, Theo Tran, Shawn Rice, Brandon Cantu, Cole “CTS” South, Evelyn Ng, Jason Lester, Alex Jacob, Vitaly Lunkin, Can Kim Hua, Yeveginy Timoshenko, Karina Jett and Foxwoods poker spokesman Bernard Lee.

We did lose one Mizrachi brother on Day 4, Eric, but Danny, Robert, and Mike all have decent stacks to work with when they return to the poker tables later today.

Up to this point the tournament has been playing very fast, even as the bubble approached. However, players have not been able to pull away from the pack up to this point, and there is still a logjam of players near the top of the leader-board, all within striking distance of the chip-lead.

If Day 5 follows form about half the field will be eliminated, and the most aggressive players will be positioning themselves for a deep run in the tournament. While most poker fans will be watching the progress of former champions Johnny Chan and Scotty Nguyen, I would look for one or two of the young online Poker Pros to shoot to the top of the leader-board on Day 5: So keep an eye on JP Kelly, Phil Galfond, Jason Somerville, Jason Senti, Cole South, Brian Rast and the other young guns.