Mizrachi's WSOP title defense ramps up on Day 3 as money bubble nears

Posted on: July 9, 2026 00:20 PDT

Day 3 of the WSOP Main Event is always full of promise.

A good portion of the field remains, and the money bubble is close enough to imagine. Everyone is just a spin-up away from a shot at the $15,000 min-cash.

Cashing in the WSOP Main Event may be old hat for the pros in the field, but it's the long-held dream for every recreational player. Some only come to Las Vegas for the Main Event, and many of them have never cashed before this year.

Day 3, with all its promise, is where that dream goes to die for more than half of them. Of the 3,294 players to show up on Wednesday morning, only 1,382 will make it to the payout window.

The money bubble will be on everyone's mind tonight, as 1,389 players go to sleep with chips for Day 4. They all know that seven of them will not make it, but everyone return with plenty of hope.

Will a deep Main Event run sink Shaun Deeb's repeat as POY?

Hayley Hochstetler

Meanwhile, in the shadow of the money bubble, several major storylines are developing throughout a leaderboard that is crowded with notable names.

The defending champion, Michael Mizrachi, is still in, and he ran through parts of Day 3 to get his stack over 1M chips (temporarily.) Several other former champions remain, as well, with Hossein Ensan in the top 20.

Elsewhere is Shaun Deeb, unable to shake free of the Main Event while he chases Player of the Year. Will he have multiple multi-table opportunities on Day 4?

Reigning, defending

Mizrachi looked every bit the part on Day 3, with more than 1.2M in his stack and a place near the top of the leaderboard before his time on the main stage. It would go bad, however, when Mizrachi ran into flopped quads on TV.

Marshall Daigle was all in for 317K with after a Mizrachi four-bet, with the champ holding . The flop was , and Mizrachi had a runner-runner chance at a Royal Flush, but it finished and Daigle doubled up.

The TV table wasn't a great time for Mizrachi, but he bounced out of major trouble and finished with 615,000. He told Jeff Platt at the end of the night that he's still going back-to-back, and there's no reason not to believe him.

Meanwhile, our very own Moneymaker picked up some momentum on his trip to the TV table after he flopped a straight against Chris Frank and Adrian Ziemichod. Frank bumped it up to 10K with before the flop. Moneymaker had , but he played it slow with a series of checks before a 20K bet on the river.

Moneymaker was in vintage form with a flopped straight.

Hayley Hochstetler

Ziemichod called with , and Moneymaker dragged a nice pot to finish his time on TV with 419K. He would take a few steps back on the floor to bag 221,000 for Day 4.

Elsewhere, a number of other former champions were still alive for Day 3, and Hellmuth was at the top of the call sheet. He was out before dinner without much drama, but you will see him in a Netflix documentary at some point in the future.

Hossein Ensan is best in the former champion class, bagging 1.3M for Day 4 to put him firmly in the top 20. John Cynn is just outside the million-mark.

WSOP Main Event champions on Day 3

Hossein Ensan - 1,280,000
John Cynn - 927,000
Michael Mizrachi - 615,000
Ryan Riess - 573,000
Scott Blumstein - 438,000
Joe Hachem - 353,000
Chris Moneymaker - 221,000
Greg Raymer - 326,000
Joe McKeehen - Out
Huck Seed - Out
Greg Merson - Out
Phil Hellmuth - Out
Greg Raymer - Out

SPECIAL OFFERS

Deeb ready to run?

Phil Hellmuth navigated his way through Day 2ABC and has a day off now before his Day 3.

Phil Hellmuth had an unsolicited opinion on the POY race.

Hayley Hochstetler

While the rest of the field chases the ultimate dream, Shaun Deeb continues to eye a second-straight Player of the Year run at the 2026 WSOP. He carried a lot of momentum into Day 3, and it continued throughout the day. The nine-time WSOP champ returns for Day 4 with 960,000.

It's a tough spot for Deeb, who would like to chase points in several other tournaments instead of sitting in one big one for up to two weeks.

He may do just that anyway, as he's already checking the schedule for opportunities to multi-table. Deeb has also been dealing with detractors online, like Hellmuth, who says that the POY race is unfair.

"[Hellmuth] just wants changes based on what makes him seem important," Deeb told Jeff Platt in a mid-day interview. "He can't win bracelets anymore."

Deeb is very likely to join one or more tournaments on Day 4, so keep an eye out for the Paris Ballroom Sprint. He's currently third on the leaderboard behind Naoya Kihara and Alex Foxen, with the latter still very much alive after his own up-and-down trip to the main stage. Foxen finished with 839,000.

Brass tacks

The money bubble now looms in the morning with just seven unpaid spots before everyone claims $15,000. The final 1,389 will return at 11am to white-knuckle their way through it.

And while everyone near the bottom is fighting to the death, it's a good time to be at the top. Sasha Liu has the overnight lead, followed by Martin Zamani and Levon Khachatryan. Liu has just $394K in career earnings and one cash so far in the 2026 series.

WSOP Main Event Day 3 assorted top chip counts