These days when the poker world hears the last name "Steinberg", the first person they likely htink of is gold bracelet winner Max Steinberg. Back in 2010 though, it was Danny Steinberg who was the more notable of the twin poker players. Danny final tabled the WSOPE Main Event that year, taking sixth place the last year the series was held in London.
Now Danny, who no longer plays the game full time, is poised to potentially repeat the impressive feat. With just 24 players remaining in this year's WSOPE Main Event field, Steinberg has the second biggest stack and only he and chip leader Adrian Mateos Diaz are over the million chip mark with 1,009,000 and 1,066,000 respectively. However, there is still one more day of action to go before the eight-handed final table is set.
It would be an impressive feat for Steinberg to final table this tournament a second time. It is something few people have done in the WSOPE's seven-year history. One player to accomplish such a feat? Daniel Negreanu. The Canadian was one of 40 players in today's field to make the money after a lengthy money bubble period that finally ended with the exit of James Alexander in 41st place. While Negreanu made the money, he would fail to survive the day.
Negreanu was the last elimination of Day 3 action, busting in 25th place to bring the day to a close. The finish earns Negreanu some much needed points in the 2013 WSOP Player of the Year race, but he needed a third career WSOPE Main Event final table to even have a shot at overtaking current leader Matthew Ashton. Instead, Negreanu will have to hope his run in the €25,000 High Roller event ends with a final table finish. Negreanu immediately hopped into the high buy-in bracelet event shortly after busting. He made the 75th player to enter the event, which has late registration open until midway through the action on Wednesday.
Others who made the money but failed to survive the day in the Main Event included Todd Terry (35th), November Niner Jay Farber (34th), Marc-Andre Ladouceur (29th), bracelet winner Scott Clements (28th), and Sam Holden (26th).
While Negreanu's run at the POY lead has moved on to the High Roller, there is still one player in the Main Event field who could make an impact. Jeremy Ausmus, who is fresh off a bracelet win earlier this series, can also take the lead in the race, but he can only do so by winning the WSOPE Main Event. The Vegas-based poker pro is in the bottom half of the counts heading into Day 4, but as we learned last year in the WSOP Main Event, Ausmus doesn't need a lot of chips to succeed in these tournaments.
Other notable names still in contention in the Main Event include start of day chip leader and bracelet winner Dominik Nitsche (768,000), Ludovic Lacay (383,000), Shannon Shorr (373,000), Benny Spindler (331,000), and Ravi Raghavan (221,000).
Play in the Main Event resumes at 12pm local time on Wednesday and continues until the eight-handed final table is set. Then the final tablists will have a day off before returning on Friday to play down to a new champion. Live updates will be available from the Day 4 action all day on WSOP.com.
Here are the top ten chip counts heading into Day 4 of the 2013 WSOPE Main Event:1. Adrain Mateos Diaz - 1,066,0002. Danny Steinberg - 1,009,0003. Ivan Tikhov - 809,0004. Dominik Nitsche - 768,0005. Fabrice Soulier - 756,0006. Sergio Aido - 721,2007. Ognjen Sekularec - 677,0008. Andrei Konopelko - 585,0009. Jerome Huge - 549,00010. Mark Teltscher - 474,000