by AlCantHang, Jul 13, 2012 | 11:53 am

It’s finally time for the money day at the WSOP Main Event. 666 players are going to be happy, the 667th player out is going to be disappointed, the 668th player is going to be crushed. It’s become a tradition to easy the pain of the player going out short of the money by giving them a buy-in to next year’s Main. This is all very nice but it really just creates another bubble for the player who bubble’s the bubble. Perhaps there will be some trickle down in the future, give that guy a hearty handshake and a case of Ripple.

All 720 remaining players on Day 4 will be sitting in the Amazon Room and things will go smoothly enough until they approach the magic number. Then the pace of play will grind down to a crawl, media will be banished to the sidelines, and players will still inexplicably stall during hand-for-hand action.

But after the field is in the money, we’ll hear a steady call of “Payout Table XXX” while the shorty survivors dump in their last few chips.

David D’Alesandro will start as the Day 4 chip leader with 1,100,000 followed by Sean Rice, Jacob Balsiger, and Leo Wolpert as the only other players over a million. Other notables near the top include Paul Volpe (820,000), Vanessa Selbst (814,000), Sorel Mizzi (738,000), Vivek Rajkumar (678,000), and Jason Somerville (637,000). WSOP has the rest o the starting Day 4 chip counts.

Interesting side note from yesterday’s action. With Ben Lamb’s elimination from the Main Event, he became the first WSOP Player of the Year to not cash in a WSOP event the year after winning the title. Lamb is a cash game lover and only played in a handful of events this summer.

Link Dump

Tweet of the Day – You just can’t make this stuff up. At least you know the producers of Millionaire aren’t recycling every question on their show.

Turned on TV in Rio room, this was 3rd quest on millionaire #rioallsuites #anyguesses? #willtweetanswersoon lockerz.com/s/223976244

— Scott Augustine (@Mr_Hoes) July 11, 2012

Poker star’s divorce case fuels Nevada Supreme Court arguments – Phil Ivey is back in the news, but this time it’s the Washington Post and has nothing to do with his game at the tables. His messy divorce hit the Nevada Supreme Court this week with talk of improper campaign contributions and free speech.

Ryan Eriquezzo Wins WSOP National Championship – It’s been an interesting week for Eriquezzo, but he finished it off by capturing the WSOP National Championship in front of friends, family, and the ESPN cameras.

Biggest Hands from Week 6 – Chad Holloway takes a look at some of the biggest hands over the last week, spread across different event and various games including Terry Grimes who shipped his chips in on the last hand of the night. Right into Aces.

Nevada Gambling Revenue Sees Sharp Decline In May – Things were not all shiny in Nevada this spring as Nevada’s gaming revenue dropped a huge 10% in May based on year-over-year comparisons. Julio Rodriquez at CardPlayer has the details.

BLUFF Main Event Trivia – I’m only including this BLUFF Trivia video because I was off to the side trying to 1) make WhoJedi laugh and 2) feeding him the answers. Surprised you can’t hear me signing the Jerry Yang song in the background.