World Poker Tour's Festa al Lago Closes in on the Cash

Day 3 of the WPT $15,000 Main Event at the annual Festa al Lago began with 98 players, and after five levels of play, 37 remained. The deep structure and small antes didn't slow the action much, and the many short stacks kept things interesting. The field is now ten eliminations from the money. Click here for photos from the felt.

Poker icons Phil Ivey and Mike Matusow certainly won't be earning any of the cash, as they busted early in the day. Todd Brunson, Chino Rheem, Josh Arieh, Barry Greenstein, Kathy Liebert, and Justin Bonomo failed to make Day 4 as well.

Scott Clements won a big pot with a straight flush, but wasn't able to hold onto his chips and busted during the last level of play. Jonathan Little made a valiant comeback, building his stack from five big blinds to more than 50. Eventually, however, he got unlucky with pocket Tens against Chad Batista's JT.

Corwin Cole was the first to cross the one-million chip mark, and though he slipped a little below a million before the day's end, Cole is the overnight chip leader. Jonas Entin is only a few chips behind, followed by Jason Lavallee. Click here for complete chip counts.

Dee Friedman, formerly Dee Luong, occupies the fourth spot. Dee, now the only woman remaining, busted Poorya Nazari when her pocket Aces held up against his AK, moving her close to the top of the leader board. Not long after, she won a race with AK against Adam Geyer's Queens to eliminate Geyer and bolster her already impressive stack. Dee's husband, Prahlad Friedman, is one of the shortest stacks going into Day 4.

Action resumes at 12:00 pm PDT as the final 37 hit the money.

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