When the final level expired Schulman had amassed 768,000 chips while Esfandiari held 632,000.
Esfandiari and Schulman are both in the top 25 all-time cash winners on the World Poker Tour and will look to leap even higher up that list with a possible victory in this year’s World Championship.
No one could catch Curt Kohlberg on Day 3, however, as the Boston poker pro picked up 918,000 chips by the end of the day.
A total of 45 players booked an appearance in Day 4 and the field is still littered with poker pros.
Michael Mizrachi, David Steicke, Jonathan Little, Marvin Rettenmaier, Josh Arieh, Joe Serock, Barry Shulman and Steve O’Dwyer are amongst the numerous well-known pros who bagged up chips at the end of Day 3.
Not everyone was so lucky as Vanessa Rousso, John Juanda, Lee Markholt, Phil Hellmuth, Scott Seiver, Todd Terry, Justin Smith and John Racener all hit the rail.
Canadian Daniel Negreanu was eliminated mid-way through Day 3 but not before making an incredible laydown where he folded a set of jacks to Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy who had flopped a set of aces.
Registration Closes with 152 Players
In an unprecedented move, the WPT left registration in the World Championship open for Day 3.
When registration finally closed towards the end of Day 3 a total of 152 players had paid the $25,000 buy-in to play. It ended up being the second smallest field in WPT World Championship history.
The players combined to create an overall prizepool of $3.6 million with $1.1 million dedicated to first place. The final 18 players will be paid.
It’s a far cry from 2006 when Carlos Mortensen topped a 639-player field to take down a first-place prize worth nearly $4 million.
That 2006 first-place prize alone is worth more than the entire prizepool at this year's World Championship.
Action resumes at 12 p.m. at Bellagio in Las Vegas tomorrow with the final table set to take place later this week. You can follow the action with the WPT live update team.
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