Sam El Sayed Leads WPT Championship Late in Day Four

Day Three of the 2011 WPT Championship saw the field – which started with 220 players – cut down to just 52 contestants still vying for the $1.6 million first place prize.

The leader heading into the 4^th day of play was Sam El Sayed, who won his seat in the $25,000 buy-in event by winning the World Poker Tour Amneville tournament earlier in the season. El Sayed played aggressively to move up the standings, and found himself holding just over 1.1 million chips.

In total, three players had eclipsed the one million chip mark heading into Day 4. Nenad Medic was just under 1.1 million, while Steven Kelly was sitting on a stack of almost exactly 1 million chips.

While the top of the leaderboard may not have featured many household names familiar to casual poker fans, several superstars could be found just a little further down the list. David Chiu entered Day 4 in great position, holding 772,000 chips, good enough for 7^th place. David “Devil Fish” Ulliott had 500,000 chips (16^th place), while David Williams was in 19^th with 480,000. Joseph Cheong, Doyle Brunson, and Stephen O’Dwyer were also still in contention, with O’Dwyer holding the shortest stack remaining in the field – just 70,000 chips.

Three former champions of the WPT Championship remained alive at the end of Day 3. Along with Chiu and Williams, Yevgeniy Timoshenko was also still battling, holding 166,500 chips.

At the time of this writing, Day 4 action was still ongoing. El Sayed remains the chip leader, now holding 2.2 million, with Scott Seiver and Galen Hall not far behind. Doyal Brunson, Dave Ulliott and Kenny Tran all busted but finished in the top 27, making the money and taking home $37,167 each. With 20 players left in contention, David Williams is still alive, but is sitting on just 430,000 chips, making him the second-shortest stack in play – with only Will Failla trailing him.