The 2015 World Series of Poker Main Event began with 6,420 players – which created a prize pool of $60,348,000 – but on Friday just 1,796 returned for Day 3 action. Of those, just 1,000 would get paid, meaning 796 were destined to leave disappointed and empty handed. Amar Anand, who began the day as the chip leader, was not one of them; in fact, he once again managed to finish five levels of play as the chip leader, this time among the 661 surviving players with a hefty stack of 1,139,500.

Others who bagged big stacks included Joseph McKeehen (1,052,000), Brian Hastings (1,034,500), and the wunderkind Fedor Holz (994,000), who is playing in his first-ever WSOP Main Event.

"I guess a little better [than I imagined my first main event would be]," Holz told PokerNews after bagging and tagging. "I don't have too high of expectations, I know that it can end every day, but that was a pretty good day. I just had a pretty good run overall."

Holz continued: "I didn't get into any trouble spots. Every time I had something, people paid me off with worse hands. I just really enjoy playing poker right now. I've worked a lot on my game. When you have a lot of fun doing something and you dedicate a lot of time into it, you have success at some points. I'm really happy with how I'm performing right now."

Top 10 Chip Counts

Among those to fall short of the money on Day 3 were 2004 champ Greg Raymer; former November Niner Antoine Saout; German high roller Fabian Quoss; Big One for ONE DROP winner Daniel Colman; last year's fifth-place finisher Billy Pappas; 2014 WSOP Player of the Year runner-up Brandon Shack-Harris; online poker's most accomplished tournament player Chris Moorman; and TV star Brad Garrett.

The money bubble – always an exciting time during the Main Event – actually saw two players fall in Jonas Lauck and Roy Daoud.

With blinds of 1,500/3,000/500, Lauck's opponent fired 16,500 on the flop, 37,000 on the turn, and 70,000 on the river. Lauck had gone into hero mode and called down with the , but his opponent ran a straight with the .

Daoud, meanwhile, had already paid the big blind and watched as his opponent in the small blind put him all in for 21,500 without looking at his cards. Daoud called it off with the and dominated his foe's . The board ran out , counterfeiting Daoud's pair and leaving him with a losing five-high.

"It's the sickest way to go out," a disappointed Daoud said. "Small [blind] against big [blind], I see pocket fives, and I put it in. There's nothing I can do."

Daoud, a 31-year-old real estate worker who was playing in his first Main Event, may have been the recipient of a bad beat, but he was able to come out on the right end of a coin flip in the moments afterward. He and Lauck high-carded for a seat in next year's Main Event, and Daoud's jack bested Lauck's seven.

After the money bubble burst the eliminations came fast and furious, especially considering the flat payout of $15,000 from 1,000th through 649th place. Among those to visit the payout desk were Cliff Josephy (956th), Charlie Carrel (940th), Hoyt Corkins (911th), Allen Cunningham (825th), Ola "Odd_Oddsen" Amundsgard (809th), Faraz Jaka (785th), and Craig Varnell (784th), who was featured in a standalone PokerNews article earlier in the day.

Before the night was done a few other notables joined them on the rail including 2013 WSOP Europe champ and reigning EPT Grand Final winner Adrian Mateos (750th - $15,000), who was playing in his first-ever WSOP Main Event; 1998 WSOP champ Scotty Nguyen (713th - $15,000); and 2012 eighth-place finisher Rob Salaburu (666th - $15,000).

While more than a thousand fell on Day 3, a long list of notables punched their ticket to Day 4 including five former Main Event champs: Jim Bechtel (575,000), Joe Hachem (414,500), Phil Hellmuth (170,500), Ryan Riess (143,500), and Jonathan Duhamel (53,000). Bechtel also spoke with PokerNews on Day 3, which you can read by clicking here.

Others coming back for Day 4 include Mark "P0ker H0" Kroon (807,000), Matt Glantz (581,000), Men "The Master" Nguyen (503,500), Vivek Rajkumar (465,000), Daniel Negreanu (444,000), Andre Akkari (422,000), Blake Bohn (408,000), and Antonio Esfandiari (392,000).

Day 4 will kick off at Noon local time on Saturday with the plan of playing five more two-hour levels.

Tags: Amar Anand