Poker Pro Gus Hansen Leads WPT World Championship After Day 3

Danish poker pro Gus Hansen is currently the chip leader after Day 3 of the WPT World Championship. (Bodog Beat Image)

After Day 3 of the WPT World Championship wrapped up yesterday, there were 55 players left out of the 188 that began and the money bubble was well beyond burst. The field moved with speed down to the money and never slowed down, ridding itself of two-thirds of the starting players with only 45 getting anything for their troubles.

When Day 4 kicks off in a few hours there will still be a lot of big names out at the tables and one of the biggest is sitting in the top spot. Danish poker pro Gus Hansen rode a late day surge up to the top and currently sits with a 2,246,000 chip stack, mainly thanks to a tangle with Tim Phan. Hansen made a sick call with A-K over Phan's A-Q, crippling Pham and catapulting himself into good position for today's battle. The Dane will be looking to add a record fourth WPT title to his resume.

Just behind him are a couple of online poker pros, Cory "ugotpzd" Carroll in second with 1,900,000 in chips and Tom "durrrr" Dwan a little further down with 850,000. Also in the top ten are Martin de Knijff (856,000), Nick Binger (829,000), CardPlayer Magazine editor and publisher Jeff Shulman (771,000), Mark "Newhizzle" Newhouse (770,000) and Day 2 chip leader Robert Mizrachi (701,000).

Other notables sprinkled throughout include Amir Vahedi, 2007 WSOP Main Event final tablist Jon Kalmar, Men "The Master" Nguyen, Irish pro Andy Black, TJ Cloutier, JC Tran, defending champ Carlos Mortensen, Joe Sebok and Tom "DonkeyBomber" Schneider. They will all be walking home with at least $39,570 and that number will, obviously, get larger as players are eliminated en route to the $3,389,140 first-place prize.

Play resumes at the Bellagio in Las Vegas in just a few hours and will go until the final 27 players are set. So, stay tuned to the Beat for updates on the action from the 2008 WPT World Championship.

Charles Simmons is a regular contributor of poker news to the Bodog Beat.