With the elimination of TJ Cloutier the top spot in the chip counts is now even more solidly in the hands of Gus Hansen. Gus (right) was in the big blind and had called a 40k opening bet from Cloutier at the 8k/16k blind level. On the 7-6-3 rainbow flop Gus checked and TJ bet 100k of his roughly 600k stack. Gus thought for a moment while riffling a stack of the red 25k chips before putting out a bet of around 500k, committing himself to the pot and letting TJ know he was willing to go all the way.

Cloutier announced all in and Gus quickly put out more red 25k chips to make the call and turned over his 6-3 offsuit for flopped bottom two pair. Cloutier had the 88 for an overpair and needed to improve to stay alive in the tournament. He did not and was out the door in the 34th place for $65,955 saying “the three six got me.”

Gus is now pushing the 3 million chip mark while his next closest competitors are both right around 2 million. Both Tom “durrrr” Dwan and Cory “UGOTPZD” Carroll are sitting with around 2 million chips and are the chip leaders at their respective tables.

Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis is at the lone table without a 2 million chip stack. He sits with around 460k and is in the bottom third of the chip counts.

With 33 players left in the field the players will continue at their current tables until the next redraw at 27 players. After a short break players will come back to play the 10k / 20k blind level with a 3k ante.

• April 23, 2008 -- Billirakis Busted
• April 23, 2008 -- Redraw at 27
• April 23, 2008 -- Day 3 Complete, Late Eliminations
• April 23, 2008 -- Stalled at 19