WSOP Main Event Day 3: Sasha Liu Leads 1,389 Into a Thursday-Morning Money Bubble; Alex Foxen Holds 839,000 in Player-of-the-Year Chase

By Alex Drummond, Editor-in-Chief · July 9, 2026 · Fact-checked by Maya Chen

Day 3 of the 2026 World Series of Poker Main Event ran through five 90-minute levels at Horseshoe Las Vegas on Wednesday and left the field one final orbit short of the money bubble. Of the 3,294 players who took their seats when Day 3 opened at 2 p.m. Eastern, 1,389 remain at the end of the night, according to tournament staff's overnight count. The 1,382nd-place finisher will collect the min-cash of US$15,000. That leaves exactly seven eliminations between the current survivors and the payout window, and effectively guarantees that Thursday morning's opening levels will play at a hand-for-hand pace under an air of active dread.

The overnight chip lead belongs to Sasha Liu. The Pinehurst golf-course grass consultant, whose Cinderella story from Day 2ABC late registration through a Day 2 chip lead to a Day 3 dinner-break stack of more than one million had already made her one of the tournament's central narratives, closed the night at 2,364,000 chips, or 295 big blinds at Thursday's opening level. Poker.org's Matt Hansen noted that Ms. Liu, who was a US$394,000 lifetime tournament earner before this summer and had only one prior cash on the 2026 WSOP ledger, has now overtaken every professional player in the tournament by an outright margin of 401,000 chips.

The Top of the Board

Behind Ms. Liu on the overnight leaderboard sits Martin Zamani (1,963,000), a former high-roller cash-game regular from the Bahamas, and Armenia's Levon Khachatryan (1,745,000), whose Day 3 climb from a mid-tier Day 2 bag was one of the quieter runs of the day. Robert Gill, who held a top-five Day 2D stack, added 875,500 to bag 1,604,000. The Czech Republic's Zdenek Zizka closed at 1,576,000, Germany's Robin Kleinbeck at 1,558,000 and American Will Givens at 1,540,000. Brian Carraher (1,463,000), Austria's Felix Kuemayr (1,398,000) and Jared Passanante (1,361,000) fill out the overnight top 10.

Just outside that group, Kevin Ordet (approximately 1.2 million), Japan's Masato Yokosawa (approximately 1.1 million), 2013 Foxwoods Championship winner Brian Yoon (approximately 1.1 million), the Russia-born Artur Martirosian (approximately 1.1 million) and cash-game specialist Chris "Big Huni" Hunichen (approximately 1.1 million) all bagged deep-stacked positions for Day 4. Erick Lindgren, the four-time bracelet winner in the middle of a mid-career reset, closed at approximately one million.

The Foxen Update

For readers in Ontario, the main tournament thread now runs through Alex Foxen, the American married to Ottawa-born four-time bracelet winner Kristen (Bicknell) Foxen. Mr. Foxen went into Day 3 with 493,500 chips, sat middle-of-the-pack through most of the afternoon, and closed the night at 839,000, one of the top 50 stacks in the room. His day was, by Poker.org's account, "up and down," with several three-bet pots swinging in his favour late.

Mr. Foxen's Main Event run is worth watching in Ontario for a specific reason. He currently sits second on the WSOP Player of the Year leaderboard behind Japan's Naoya Kihara, the two-bracelet winner who took the US$10,000 Seven Card Stud Championship earlier in the series. Shaun Deeb, the reigning POY who bagged 960,000 into Day 4, is third on the ledger. A deep Main Event run, particularly a final-table appearance, would pass Player-of-the-Year point volume of the sort that reshuffles the summer-long standings entirely.

Kristen Foxen's Day 3 status was not confirmed in publicly available end-of-day chip-count reports. She started the day with 143,000 chips, or roughly 143 big blinds, which is comfortably above the pre-Day 3 average but below the median for a tournament this deep. If she survived the day at a similar or reduced stack, she would begin Day 4 as a short-stack candidate for early elimination through the bubble. Ms. Foxen's summer already includes two bracelets (US$25,000 High Roller, US$1,000 Super Turbo Bounty) and a total of US$2.1 million in gold-medal cash. A Main Event cash of any amount from the money bubble on would consolidate her position on the women's all-time money list, on which she already sits at number one.

Other Canadians

Dhiraj Sharma, the Toronto-area business analyst who bagged the seventh-largest Day 2D stack at 623,500, was not confirmed in the overnight top 10 or the top 20 stacks published by PokerNews or ESPN. He has almost certainly ceded some ground through Day 3 without busting; that combination is common for mid-tier Day 2 stacks who advance without doubling. Toronto pro Matt Salsberg, whose 205,999 chips at the end of Day 1C represented the largest confirmed Canadian Day 1 bag, was similarly not confirmed in overnight counts. Freddy Deeb, the two-time bracelet winner who lived in the Greater Toronto Area from 2003 to 2008, has not appeared in overnight top counts.

The WSOP's live tournament database is authoritative for confirmations of survival and elimination; PokerNews and ESPN cover only the notable bags. A full Day 4 seat draw is expected to be posted in the WSOP LIVE app early Thursday morning, and Ontario coverage will update once the draw is available.

Mizrachi and the Runner-Runner That Wasn't

Defending champion Michael Mizrachi, whose short-stack Cinderella narrative through Day 1B and Day 2ABC has anchored the tournament's most compelling storyline, briefly held more than 1.2 million chips at the featured Amazon table on Wednesday evening. Then Marshall Daigle went all-in for 317,000 chips into a Mizrachi four-bet. Mr. Mizrachi called with what Poker.org's account described as "a runner-runner chance at a Royal Flush." Mr. Daigle had flopped quads. The Grinder had no outs.

Mr. Mizrachi cooled to 615,000 by the end of the night, still above average but no longer among the top 25 stacks. He remains, at his own account, playing to win a second consecutive Main Event. "I'm still going back-to-back," he told broadcaster Jeff Platt near the end of the night. Only three players in Main Event history have ever done that: Doyle Brunson (1976-77), Stu Ungar (1980-81) and Johnny Chan (1987-88). No player has repeated since 1988.

Past Champions and Hellmuth's Exit

Six past Main Event winners return to Day 4. Hossein Ensan, the 2019 champion, leads the group at 1,280,000, one of only a dozen or so top-20 stacks in the field. John Cynn, the 2018 champion, added to his Day 3 opening total of 403,000 to close at 927,000. Ryan Riess (2013) sits at 573,000. Scott Blumstein (2017), who began the day dangerously short at 21,800 chips, roughly 21 big blinds, mounted a Day 3 recovery to 438,000. Joe Hachem (2005) is at 353,000. Chris Moneymaker (2003) is at 221,000. Mr. Mizrachi's 615,000 rounds out the past-champion class alive for Day 4.

Two former winners busted during Day 3: Joe McKeehen (2015) and Huck Seed (1996). Also out are Greg Merson (2012) and Greg Raymer (2004), the latter closing Wednesday's short stack after briefly reaching 326,000 in the middle levels.

The day's marquee exit belonged to Phil Hellmuth, whose 17 bracelets and pursuit of an 18th have shaped the WSOP narrative for a generation. Mr. Hellmuth entered the Main Event on Day 1B, bagged 173,000 chips at the end of Day 2 and busted before the dinner break on Day 3 "without much drama," per Poker.org. His run through the 2026 series remains active, however: he closed Day 3 of Event #83, the US$10,000 No-Limit 2-7 Lowball Championship, with 620,000 chips, one of the top stacks in that field, still chasing the elusive 18th bracelet.

The Bubble Mechanics

Play resumes Thursday at 11 a.m. Pacific across the four ballrooms at Horseshoe. Tournament directors have not confirmed whether the bubble will play hand-for-hand from the opening bell or after the first 15-minute break, but historical precedent from 2023 through 2025 suggests hand-for-hand from Level 1. Under hand-for-hand play, every table stops at the end of each hand and waits for every other table to finish before starting the next. This eliminates the tactical advantage a short-stack table might otherwise gain from playing faster than a deep-stack table, and it typically stretches the final orbit or two before the bubble bursts to two hours or more of clock time.

Once the bubble bursts, blinds resume at 4,000/8,000 with an 8,000 big-blind ante, and the 1,382 in-the-money players (or their remaining subset) will play through until Level 22, or approximately 10 p.m. Pacific, Thursday night. The payout curve is steeply back-loaded: the 1,382nd-place finisher collects US$15,000; the 400th-place finisher collects approximately US$50,000; the 100th-place finisher, approximately US$150,000; and the top nine each collect at least US$1 million, with the runner-up at approximately US$7 million and the champion at the fixed US$10 million.

Overnight Top 10 Chip Counts

What Ontario Coverage Will Track

Ontario's coverage of Day 4 will centre on three threads. First, the bubble mechanics: whether the bubble bursts within the first two levels of Thursday's play and which player finishes as the official 1,383rd-place finisher, the last player to lose without a payout. Second, the Foxen storyline: whether Kristen Foxen returns and, if so, whether she can climb from the low end of the field into a competitive Day 5 stack, and whether Alex Foxen consolidates his Player-of-the-Year push. Third, the confirmed Canadian survivor pool: Dhiraj Sharma, Matt Salsberg, Freddy Deeb and any other Canadian passport holders whose Day 3 status has not yet been publicly confirmed.

ESPN's over-the-air broadcast begins on Sunday, July 12, with Day 5 coverage. Wednesday and Thursday coverage runs live on ESPN+ and PokerGO Plus. The GGPoker Canada watch party at their Bay Street office in Toronto is scheduled to run 2 p.m. to midnight Eastern each of Days 4, 5 and 6, with capacity for approximately 60 attendees.

For readers in Ontario tracking the qualifier path into future Main Events, our best poker sites in Ontario hub, the tournament schedule, and the Ontario WSOP satellites guide all update on a rolling basis. iGaming Ontario, the province's stand-alone Crown agency, permits live-event qualifier promotions provided the eligibility rules and package terms are clearly disclosed by the operator. Players must be 19 and physically located in Ontario to register.

Deeper coverage of the money bubble and Day 4 will follow this evening as tournament reports become available.

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