The most impressive displays came from Phil Ivey who is the chip leader , Hassan Habib who was second last year and is now third in chips from 300,000 to 3,255,000 , and Sammy Arzoin up to 1,128,000 from 125,000 .

Having had only 10% of the field with 120 left the Europeans are in good shape with 5 of the 17 left .

Here are the chip counts then i'll tell you some key hands .

Phil Ivey 3,884,000

Tuan Le 3,730,000

Hasan Habib 3,255,000

Rob Hollink 1,584,000

Chris Ferguson 1,411,000

Michael Mizrachi 1,334,000

Joe Beevers 1,162,000

Sammy Arzoin 1,128,000

Joseph Cordi 1,069,000

John Phan 1,044,000

Jeff Shulman 759,000

Paul Maxfield 685,000

George Miller 502,000

Juha Helppi 493,000

Tony Ma 287,000

David Slansky 205,000

Paul Testud 80,000

The 2 chip leaders starting today with 1,600,000 busted out in 26th and 20th place.

Dave Colclough lost most of his chips calling an all in with 88 , the all in had 99

Paul Maxfield doubled up early on a K high flop , his opponent had AK but Paul had slow played KK

Juha Helppi had a player go all in on his BB , they had AJ , he had an easy call with AKs

Joe Beevers got really lucky , he got it all in on a flop of 6 7 T with 99 , his opponent called with a set of 6's , Joe rivered a 9 !

Hasan Habib had built his chips steadily when he got a gift from Arnold Spee , both he and George Miller had AJ on an A high flop but Hasan has flopped a set of 3's , when he raised George laid his AJ down but Arnold called for over a million !

Hasan then called a short stack all in with 83 , flop was K Q 3 giving the all in top two , but the river was a 3 !

John Smith had steadily lost his chips and when he paid off Phil Ivey for 500,000 when Phil had flopped trip K's , he looked like he was going to crack , the very next hand he raised to 60,000 , Tuan Le made it 200,000 more and John called , flop was J J 8 , checked by John , Tuan bet him all in with his KK , John called for his last 200,000 with AQ

Rob Hollink had been down to 160,000 , after a double up he raised with Q9s and was pot committed when Dewey Tomko moved in with AK , Rob flopped trip Queens , he had great position on his table with Tony Ma David Slansky and Paul Testud to his left and with 57,000 in dead money each hand continually stole their blinds including on the last hand of the evening when Paul decided to flat call but passed on the flop , Rob showed 82o !

The best hand of the day has to be the one that took us to 17 players , Michael Mizrachi raised 100,000 with 22 , Mark Rose with AK went all in for 300,000 , Bo Sehlstedt found 2 black kings and reraised all in for 450,000 , Tuan Le now started to think and finally deciding they may both have AK called with 99 and Michael passed , flop was J J 9 , turn an A to give both players a little hope but the river a 6 .

Each round tomorrow will cost 90,000 , all players are guaranteed $75,000 and when 2 more are gone that will rise to $94,000 , i predict that either Joe or Rob will make the final and that Phil Ivey will be chip leader with at least 5 million , whatever happens there is no doubt that this event has taken over as the true test of proving who the best player in the world is .