To play for 3 full days and then have your tournament life and large sums of money riding on the outcome of one hand is the sickness that tournament poker players expose themselves to time and again. Peter “#1Pen” Neff (left) had all his chips in preflop with AQ and was in a dominating position against Matt “Hazards21″ Giannetti holding of AJ.

Both players paired their ace on the flop, but Neff wasn’t looking to improve his hand, only for Giannetti to not hit his 3 outer. A jack on the turn was all it took to send Neff to the rail though and his 44th place finish put him in the second rung of the payouts for $52,765.

• June 14, 2008 -- Gray Done For the Day
• April 23, 2008 -- Day 3 Complete, Late Eliminations
• April 22, 2008 -- Not So Rich
• April 22, 2008 -- Around The Room

Gus Hansen ended day three strong, with a good call against Tim Phan on the very last hand of the day and a good turn card a little earlier to eliminate Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby. When all was said and done Gus walked away as the chip leader of the final 55 with 2,246,000 chips.

Jared had called an opening bet of 33k from Gus from the blinds and then Jared checked on the 4-2-2 flop. Gus put out a bet that was enough to put Hamby all in, which was a sizable chunk since Hamby started the hand with 320k. Hamby made the call with pocket eights and was in position for a huge double up against Hansen’s pocket sixes. A six on the turn was the dagger to Hamby’s tournament heart though and a somewhat heated Hamby was eliminated from the tournament.

Jared’s 59th place finish was worth the same $39,570 as all the other players that end up finishing between 51st and 100th.

Other late eliminations included Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen (right) and Richard “Lee Nickel” Fohrenbach. They bookended Jared, finishing in 58th and 60th respectively though there is no difference in payout between the three.

Select Chip Counts:
Cory “UGOTPZD” Carroll - 1.9 million
Tom “durrrr” Dwan - 805k
Peter “#1Pen” Neff - 781k
Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis - 432k
Matt “plattsburgh” Vengrin - 423k
Joe Sebok - 137k

Full End of Day Counts:

• April 22, 2008 -- Around The Room
• April 22, 2008 -- Not So Rich
• April 22, 2008 -- End Of Day 2
• June 11, 2008 -- Loaded Field in 5k NL WSOP Event #21

The first hand of hand for hand play was uneventful and took about 3 minutes for all the tables to finish up. The next hand put an end to the money bubble and hand for hand play. Jordan “Octavian_C” Rich (left) was all in preflop with pocket aces against the pocket eights of Amir Vahedi. Amir made a set to crack Jordan’s aces and cost eliminate him in 101st place and on the money bubble.

Just before the break Jordan “iMsoLucky0″ Morgan and Eric “Rizen” Lynch were also eliminated.

Play is expected to move along pretty quickly now that everyone left is in the money and there are no pay jumps all the way down to 50th place.

Here is a short list of some of the players to make the money:
Peter “#1Pen” Neff, Richard “Lee Nickel” Fohrenbach, Tom “durrrr” Dwan, Matt “plattsburgh” Vengrin, Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen, Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby, Cory “UGOTPZD” Carroll, Joe Sebok, Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis, Daniel Negreanu, and Bryan Devonshire.

• April 22, 2008 -- Around The Room
• April 23, 2008 -- Day 3 Complete, Late Eliminations
• April 22, 2008 -- End Of Day 2
• April 21, 2008 -- Staying Hot

The century mark of remaining players gets closer and closer as the field has dropped to only 113 after an hour of play into the 3rd level of the day. Here are some chip counts from a quick scan of the room:

Cory “UGOTPZD” Carroll - 625k (right)
Joe Sebok - 425k
Richard “Lee Nickel” Fohrenbach - 390k
Tom “durrrr” Dwan - 350k
Matt “plattsburgh” Vengrin - 285k
Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis - 210k
Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby - 165k
Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen - 140k
Jordan “Octavian_C” Rich - 130k
Chris “Genius28″ Lee - 125k
Peter “#1Pen” Neff - 120k
Jordan “iMsoLucky0″ Morgan - 110k
Eric “Rizen” Lynch - 75k

Peter “#1Pen” Neff (left) and Tom “durrrr” Dwan are both at table 59 and both recently picked up pots without going to showdown. Neff was able to grab a nice pot with a 54,500 chip all in on a board of 443 with the pot already containing over 60k. His uncalled all in earned him the pot and built his stack to around 120k as the money bubble gets closer.

Dwan had opened a pot and a player two to his left put in a raise of 23,500 more. Tom thought for a minute before putting out a stack of chips worth 75,000, leaving his opponent 51,500 more to make the call. The player folded though and Dwan picked up the pot preflop and is up to 350k.

• April 22, 2008 -- Not So Rich
• April 23, 2008 -- Day 3 Complete, Late Eliminations
• April 22, 2008 -- End Of Day 2
• June 11, 2008 -- Loaded Field in 5k NL WSOP Event #21

Of the 545 players that entered the WPT Championship only 188 remain after 2 days and 10 levels of play. Players finished up today at the 1k / 2k 300 ante level and tomorrow’s first level will be the first big jump in the blinds, going up to 1,500 / 3,000 with a 400 ante for level 11 play. Robert Mizrachi came out of day 2 as the chip leader and the only player over half a million chips with 523,200.

Bryan Devonshire finished up 4th in the counts with 393,400 and is just ahead of Cory “UGOTPZD” Carroll who has 384,700. The top 13 players in the field all have over 300k chips coming into day 3 play.

Full chip counts and day 3 seating assignments are available here.

Other Chip Counts:
Richard “Lee Nickel” Fohrenbach - 281,900
Joe Sebok - 278,100
Anna Wroblewski - 277,300
Dario Minieri - 186,000
Matt “plattsburgh” Vengrin (pictured) - 172,000
Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis - 156,600
Jared “TheWacoKidd” Hamby - 116,500
Barry Greenstein - 111,100
Steve “Thorladen” Weinstein - 105,300
Jordan “iMsoLucky0″ Morgan - 100,600
Tom “durrrr” Dwan - 98,800
Thayer “THAY3R” Rasmussen - 98,300
Jordan “Octavian_C” Rich - 92,800
David “Nutstr84444″ Redlin - 90,300
Chris “Genius28″ Lee - 89,600
Peter “#1Pen” Neff - 84,000
Tim “Tmay420″ West - 83,400
Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar - 68,200
Eric “Rizen” Lynch - 56,000
Steve “MrTimCaum” O’Dwyer - 35,100

• April 22, 2008 -- Around The Room
• April 22, 2008 -- Not So Rich
• April 23, 2008 -- Day 3 Complete, Late Eliminations
• June 26, 2008 -- Six-Handed Players Making Moves