Whether you're Paraguay playing in the World Cup or Joe Schmoe taking a stab at a poker tournament, you’ve got to find every edge you can to give yourself the best chance of success.
Of course, sometimes it can go too far (looking at you, Paraguay).
But it pays to play smart. For example, in our WSOP Main Event Pick 3 contest — where you choose three players to outperform the field in poker’s annual world championship — you want to make sure you pick those with the best chance of success.
So it makes sense to choose three players carrying big stacks into Day 2 on July 6, the deadline to finalize your team.
That’s why we’ve looked through the WSOP Live app’s official overnight chip counts to pull out five players from Saturday’s Day 1C who have spun up their 60K starting stack into something with the potential to do real damage.
Consider these five players for your Pick 3 team and you just might be heading off to Aruba as the winner of a $5K poker package. Get started here.
(Pro tip: we’ve also highlighted some big stacks from Day 1A and Day 1B.)
1. Justin Arnwine (280,600)
Check out Arnwine’s tournament resume, sort by ‘Place’ and start scrolling. Then keep scrolling. The man has more tournament wins in poker than Tiger Woods has in golf.
He has seven cashes at the 2026 WSOP already, and when he took a day off to go play at the Aria he won a $1,100 Mystery Bounty tourney across the street.
But check through those many (many, many) tournament victories and you’ll spot something missing: a WSOP bracelet. The man from Maryland is aiming to put that right this month on the biggest stage of all.
And as well as possibly more tournament wins than anyone else in the world, Arnwine has something else up his sleeve: more than 4.5 starting stacks’ worth of chips.
2. Kassem 'Freddy' Deeb (267,800)
No, no that Deeb. Freddy Deeb has been a force in the game for even longer than his 2025 WSOP Player of the Year namesake. His first recorded results date back to 1986, when Phil Hellmuth merely dreamed of one day achieving WSOP glory and before Shaun Deeb was even born.
The 2007 winner of the precursor to the WSOP Poker Players Championship — the $50K HORSE — Deeb has another bracelet dating back to 1996, won in the $5K NL 2-7 Lowball event. But he's continued to cash, and to win. He's not going anywhere.
Shaun Deeb was one of the most drafted players in this year’s PokerOrg Fantasy Freeroll, and is likely to be popular in the Pick 3 contest too. The question is: is one Deeb enough?
With a big stack heading into Day 2, Freddy could be a great pick.
3. Clemen Deng (209,600)
The Oregon all-time money list is a tough nut to crack, what with Seth Davies sat at the top with more than $46 million in tournament winnings.
But Clemen Deng is doing his best, and has already amassed more than $6M in the past five years. That includes winnings from four first-place finishes in $10K events — most recently in a PokerGO Tour event in January — as well as seven cashes in the 2026 WSOP so far.
They say you can’t win the Main Event on Day 1, but you can lose it. Deng definitely didn’t, and he’ll be hitting Day 2 with a healthy stack.
4. Brian Hastings (178,100)
There’s probably only one reason Brian Hastings is not in the Poker Hall of Fame, and that’s because he’s not yet old enough to be eligible. Life as a Hall of Famer starts at 40, and Hastings still has a few years to go before hitting that landmark.
But with six WSOP bracelets under his belt — or, more accurately, on his wrist — Hastings has established himself as a truly elite 21st century player.
He’s had a relatively quiet series so far with just four cashes, the biggest for less than $7K, but don’t let that put you off.
In full flow there are few out there who can handle the New York-born pro, and he’ll be starting Day 2 of the Main Event with almost three starting stacks.
5. David ‘Chino’ Rheem (171,300)
It is a truth universally acknowledged that every poker pro secretly desires a nickname, and on that front Rheem has already nailed it; we can’t recall the last time we heard Chino described as ‘David’.
The pro from LA has cashed five times at this summer’s series so far, including a runner-up spot in the $2.5K Freezeout for $341K, and a WSOP bracelet is one of the few pieces of poker hardware he’s missing.
Rheem has tournament results going back more than 20 years, in which time he’s cashed for more than $20M.
He plays like he’s not afraid of anyone, nor a gamble, and is sure to be in the mix applying pressure to the scared money as this long tournament progresses.
To take part in our WSOP Main Event Pick 3 contest, sign up as a member of The Org and choose your team by 11am PT on July 6.
It's 100% free to enter and the winner will pick up a $5K live poker package to play the Moneymaker Poker Tour Main Event in Aruba this September. See below for more details.
