Poker Road’s Players Are Out, While Hansen Holds the Chip Lead

San Jose, Costa Rica, April 25, 2008 --(PR.com)-- Day 3 of the World Poker Tour Championship saw the bubble burst as many of the remaining poker players found themselves with a little extra cash in their pockets. At the beginning of the day, 188 players showed up at the Fontana Lounge, but it would only be the top 100 that would cash in. Jordan Rich had the unfortunate distinction of busting the bubble this year, going all in with pocket aces against Amir Vahedi’s pocket eights, but an eight on the flop sent Rich home with no money.

Among others missing the money were Poker Road’s Barry Greenstein and Doyle Brunson, 2005 World Series of Poker Pot Limit Omaha winner Josh Arieh, Humberto “The Shark” Brenes, the 'Tiger Woods of Poker' Phil Ivey, three time World Series of Poker winner John Juanda, poker legend Scotty Nguyen, Erik Seidel (an eight-time World Series of Poker bracelet winner who is currently in first place for Card Player Player of the Year honors), and Mike “The Mouth” Matusow.

The poker buzz of yesterday was tournament Jack McClelland announcing a change to the rule of “show one, show both,” which meant if a player only showed one card when they mucked a hand, the dealer automatically turned the other card over. Daniel Negreanu has been very vocal against the rule, including writing about it in his poker blog. The rule was originally enforced to prevent needling by the poker players. Negreanu stood by McClelland as he asked the poker players to vote yesterday. The vote to drop the rule was almost overwhelming, although Kenny Tran was among those who wanted it to stand. The new rule, which McClelland admitted might take the dealers a while to get used to, still does not allow players to flash their cards in the middle of a hand. Despite his ruling win, Negreanu was sent home with $39,570 after finishing in 76th place.

Day 2 chip leader Robert Mizrachi found himself holding in 10th place at the end of Day 3, with 701,000 in chips. Day 2 second place leader Jayde Tran was close to the bottom with only 179,000 left in chips. Carlos Mortensen, who was in seventh yesterday, kept his hopes of winning back to back World Poker Tour Championships alive by holding in 40th place with 256,000.

The leader at the end of day three was “The Great Dane” Gus Hansen, who seemingly came from nowhere after crippling Tim Phan. Hansen was holding an ace and king with an ace, four, three flop. Phan was holding an ace and a queen. The turn and river showed an eight and a jack, giving Hansen the pot, worth over 2.4 million chips.

Today, 55 players return to be whittled down to the final 27.

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