A busy and topsy-turvy Day 4 in the 2021 World Series of Poker Main Event found a thousand World Champion hopefuls heading to the Amazon Room to play deep into the money. By Friday night's end of play, just 292 players remained, with Spain's Ramon Colillas holding a narrow lead over a tightly bunched pack.
Colillas powered to the top in the final two levels of Friday's play, finishing with exactly 5,000,000 in chips. That put him just ahead of Canada's Demosthenes Kiriopoulos, who ended Day 4 with 4,500,000. Three other players topped the 4,000,000 mark as Day 4 ended. American pro Stephen Song landed just behind Kiripoulos with 4,417,000. British superstar Stephen Chidwick surged to the top of the leaderboard early in the day and still held fourth as action ended, with 4,376,000. Canada's Zachary McDiarmid, with 4,093,000, rounded out the day's top five.
The day was notable for the turnover among the top spots. Song, who was seventh as the day began, was the only player in Day 3's top 10 to stay near the top of the board through Day 4's five hours of play.
Early leader Jessica Cai eliminated
With over 70% of the remaining field eliminated in Day 4 play, plenty of big names and top stacks hit the exits. Day 3 leader Jessica Rosado Cai had little go right for her on Day 4, and she went from the lead to the rail by early evening, finishing in 437th place for $26,700.
Cai wasn't alone. The Who's Who of Day 4 casualties included Mustapha Kanit, Kathy Liebert, Ivan Demidov, Will Givens, Johnnie Moreno, Samantha Abernathy, Martin Jacobson, Eric Mizrachi, Randy Ohel, Ben Keeline, Billy Baxter, Dietrich Fast, Garry Gates, Yueqi Zhu, Craig Varnell, Kevin Gerhart, Ronnie Bardah, Bart Lybaert, Harrison Gimnel, David Pham, Brian Yoon, Victor Ramdin, Marco Guibert, Scott Davies, Mike Matusow, Leo Margets, Chris Moorman, David Tuchman, Josh Arieh, Kitty Kuo, Barry Greenstein, Frank Funaro, Alex Livingston, Anton Wigg, JJ Liu, and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier.
Those who busted early on Day 4, such as Kanit and Liebert, received a $15,000 min-cash for their work. Grospellier, one of the last to bust on Day 4, earned $33,900.
Moneymaker struggles but survives into Day 5
Much of Day 4's spotlight was focused on 2003 Main Event champion Chris Moneymaker. The Tennessee accountant-turned-poker-pro and "Moneymaker Effect" namesake was originally going to sit out the entire WSOP due to COVID exposure concerns for his unvaccinated son, but finally relented. Moneymaker eventually arrived for the Main Event's final opening flight, surged on Days 2 and 3, and began Day 4 in 12th place.
As on preceding days, Moneymaker spent much of his time on the high-intensity PokerGO feature table, and though he started strong on Day 4, he fell back some in the nighttime levels.
Moneymaker actually bagged 621,000, good for 227th spot among Saturday's 292 returning Day 5 players.
One other former Main Event winner remains in the hunt as well. Qui Nguyen, the 2016 champion, endured his own up-and-down day. As action concluded, Nguyen had a mid-pack 1,146,000 in chips.
Here are the top 10 in chips entering Saturday's Day 5, which begins at noon:
- Ramon Colillas (Spain) 5,000,000
- Demosthenes Kiriopoulos (Canada) - 4,500,000
- Stephen Song (United States) - 4,417,000
- Stephen Chidwick (United Kingdom) - 4,376,000
- Zachary McDiarmid (Canada) - 4,093,000
- Jonathan Dwek (Canada) - 3,955,000
- Jason Osser (United States) - 3,900,700
- Dragana Lim (United States) - 3,801,000
- Fernando Rodriguez (United States) - 3,442,000
- Matthew Jewett (United States) - 3,398,000
Featured image source: PokerGO / Antonio Abrego
