At about 1:40 p.m. PT, the bubble burst in the WPT World Championship, and none other than World Poker Tour announcer Tony Dunst was the co-bubble along with Yi “KitKat” Klassen.
With the $10,400 buy in tournament in hand-for-hand play and 371 players remaining, Dunst was all in with a short stack holding 
on a board of 
. Daniel Sepiol, who turned over 
for an open-ended straight, was his opponent in the hand.
The river 
completed the straight draw and sent Vince Van Patten’s co-host to the rails on the stone-cold bubble. He was, however, saved a bit by Klassen, who busted against Freddy Deeb at a nearby table inside the Wynn Las Vegas convention center when her pocket aces were cracked by pocket 10’s.
Due to both players busting in the same hand, they will chop the $17,400 for 370th place, so neither player will go home empty-handed. For Dunst, he technically earns his 26th career World Poker Tour cash. Klassen will also receive credit for what is her first ever WPT cash. According to Hendon Mob, the Minnesota native now has over $190,000 in live tournament earnings.
Who’s In, Who’s Out
With the pressure of surviving the bubble out of the way, the focus for the remaining players is now on moving up the pay ladder. Six players — the final table — will walk away with at least $1 million on Dec. 20, and the champion is set to receive north of $4.1 million.
Day 3 began at just after noon PT on Friday with 399 players out of the original 2,960. It took less than two hours to hit the bubble. Brian Rast and 2022 World Series of Poker bracelet winner David Jackson were among the 29 who have already busted on Day 3 at the time of publishing.
There are still many big name pros left in the field including long-time WPT anchor Lynn Gilmartin, who scored her first World Poker Tour cash. Daniel Negreanu, seated on the televised feature table, is still in the mix and secured his first WPT cash since 2019.
“Kid Poker” is a two-time World Poker Tour champion and was among the tour’s top performers during the poker boom era. At the time of publishing, the blinds were at 10,000/15,000 (15,000 big blind ante) and Sohab Porbandarwala was sitting on the chip lead at 3,200,000.
Among the many other notables still in the hunt for a WPT title include Brad Owen, Andrew Neeme, NFL Hall of Famer Richard Seymour, Kyna England, and Kane Kalas.
We’ll have a full recap of the Day 3 action Friday night after the session concludes. The remaining players will then return on Saturday at noon.
*Images courtesy of WPT.