Day 5 at the World Series of Poker main event saw 237 survivors from an original field of 6,420 take their seats, but by the end of the day just 69 remained, with the big money cashes now starting.
The final elimination of the day, David Fuhs, collected a check for $96,445.
A slew of notable names headed for the exit, their main event hopes dashed, among them Matt Glantz, Antonio Esfandiari, John Racener, Matt Waxman, Dan O’Brien, Christian Harder, Ryan D’Angelo, 7-bracelet Men “The Master” Nguyen, Brandon Adams, Declan Connolly, Jake Cody, and Farzad Bonyadi.
The last of the former WSOP champs, Jim Bechtel, is out, along with the 2011 WSOP Europe main event winner Elio Fox (out at 163rd), Vivek Rajkumar and Vitali Lunkin.
By the end of the first level almost twenty percent of the field had been eliminated. Down to 192 players, the prizes were getting bigger, with each busted player earning $40,433. Later Sunday night, that had more than doubled as the survivor numbers dipped below 100.
The Rio environment also changed dramatically from crowded corridors, rails, vendors and rooms to just the Amazon room as the Brasilia and Pavilion venues were packed up
On the positive side, there are still some formidable players in the mix, with Brian Hastings still strong on 4.74 million, Andrew Moreno on 5.32 million, Max Steinberg (4.28 million), Joe McKeehen (3.66 million), Daniel Negreanu (3.62 million), Justin Schwartz (3.49 million), Mark Kroon (3.25 million) and Toby Lewis (2.64 million).
One of the highlights of the day was an unannounced appearance by the internationally famous soccer star Neymar Jnr., who arrived with a suitably large entourage of security and hangers on to show support for his friend Felipe “Mojave” Ramos. Whilst there he signed autographs and posed for photographs, including one with the ubiquitous Phil Hellmuth, still present despite his elimination in Day 3.
The often controversial Brian Hastings has been doing well and has an impressive chip stack of 4.74 million, among the top ten counts for the third day running.
Towards the end of the day one of the only two women still playing, Diana Svensk was eliminated, leaving just Kelly Minkin still in action but with a small stack.
Day 5 chip leader is Pierre Neuville on 7.10 million, pursued by nearest rivals David Stefanski on 6.48 million and David Peters on 6.13 million.