WSOP Main Event: Dyer in the lead, Cada in the final six

Michael Dyer will return with a commanding chip lead, while three players have already busted.

The play has kicked off at the final table of the Main Event in the Thunderdome arena, filled with the 9 hopeful finalists and their friends, family on the rail. Alex Lynskey's supporters were the loudest, but they couldn't sweat their buddy for too long, because Alex was one of the first three casualties. In the meantime, Michael Dyer built a massive stack, he will return with 156,500,000 chips for the next day which is more than double of his closest rival's 72 million.

The second biggest stack belongs to Nicolas Manion, who is followed by John Cynn. Cynn sits on 61.5 million. Current 4th is Tony Miles, with a chip stack of 57.5 million and Joe Cada is in the 5th position with 29. The shortest stack with 17 million is Aram Zobian. All of the remaining players are now guaranteed a $1.8 million payday, but the $8.8 first place prize is probably a pretty good reason to stay focused.

Dyer started out rather strong, as he was able to take down a pot against fellow big stack, Manion and was able to extend his lead. Despite the easy ride so far, he praised his opponents: “They all played pretty well. It was a pretty solid final table. I didn’t see any big mistakes,”

The headliner of the final table is still Joe Cada, who can be the first player to take down the Main Event twice in the post-Moneymaker era. “It's been a long time so you kind of forget a lot of those feelings. I'm just happy to be here. It's been a grueling tournament. I've been lucky to even be in the spot that I'm at. I've had low chips the entire tournament so I feel like I've just been hanging in there," said Joe. He also disclosed the slight differences between 2009 and now: “Maybe I'm more disciplined now. My ranges are a little bit better. I just have a lot more data to work with. That's about it. Other than that, I was playing a lot of poker back then too, so I was pretty confident.”

After being at the wrong end of a huge cooler, Antoine Labat started the final table as the shortest stack and the Frenchman wasn't able to recover, he busted at 9th place for a cool $1 million. Even though a score of this caliber can never be a disappointment, the fact that Antoine lost with Kings against Queens this time might make him a little sorrow for a minute or two.

After a successful double-up, Aram Zobian found himself in a big pot again, and managed to win another flip with King-Queen against the pocket fives of Artem Metalidi's to send the Ukranian to the rail. Artem received a consolation prize of $1.25 million.

The next player out was Alex Lynskey, after failing to win a single pot during the day. In his last hand, Alex shoved with pocket sixes over a raise by Dyer and a call by Cynn. The original raiser folded, but Cynn made the call and the to were flipping, as John turned up King-queen. He managed to hit a straight on the river and Lynskey was out at 7th place for $1.5 million.

The players will return to the table at 5.30 pm local time, on Friday, July 13.