The Money Bubble Looms as 77 Players Return

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Welcome to the PokerNews coverage of Day 3 of the World Series of Poker Europe Main Event. Yesterday's field of 230 players saw the combination of runners from Day 1a and Day 1b combine to battle for WSOP glory. At the end of the night only 77 players remained in the hunt for the WSOPE Main Event title. With the top 48 making money, it is almost certain that the field will cash today. The man currently closest to achieving that goal is Sergii Baranov who is sitting on a massive stack of 607,000.

The combination of the two starting fields saw the elimination of many notable names. Among those who were eliminated from Day 2 play were Joe Hachem, Isaac Haxton, Mohsin Charania, Scotty Nguyen, Phil Ivey, Chance Kornuth, Antonio Esfandiari, October Niners Greg Merson, Russell Thomas, and Jacob Balsiger, and start-of-the-day chip leader Michael Mizrachi.

While those saw their WSOPE Main Event come to an end, many of the game's biggest names are still in the hunt. Phil Hellmuth worked up a stack of 364,900 which is good for the fourth biggest stack in the room. Joseph Cheong (328,400) and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier (326,700) were also able to breach the top ten in chips. Also returning for Day 3 are Daniel Negreanu (290,000), Dan Smith (274,500), October Niner Jesse Sylvia (209,000), last year's champion Elio Fox (201,300), Liv Boeree (140,800), Eugene Katchalov (123,900), Steve Dannenmann (65,000), Jean-Robert Bellande (50,300), and many more.

2012 WSOP Europe End-of-Day-2 Top Ten Counts

Place	Player	Count
1	Sergii Baranov	607,000
2	Axel Pergolizzi	419,400
3	Vladimir Troyanovskiy	375,100
4	Phil Hellmuth	364,900
5	Maxime Conte	342,300
6	Lifeng Chen	340,500
7	Huichen Kuo	339,950
8	Max Silver	333,600
9	Joseph Cheong	328,400
10	Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier	326,700