Day 4 Concludes; Ly Leads Final Nine

A long, long, long day and night of poker has concluded, with nine players still remaining with chips in Event No. 55, the $50,000 Poker Player's Championship. Seven 100-minute levels today saw the field cut from 29 to the final nine, with Minh Ly ending the day with the most chips.

It took about five hours of Day 4 for the field to be trimmed to 16 and the money bubble to burst. Among those going out prior to making the cash were Phil Galfond, David Oppenheim, David "ODB" Baker, Gus Hansen, Shaun Deeb, and Jon Turner. Robert Mizrachi -- hoping to match his brother Michael's victory in this same event last year -- saw his tourney journey come to an end in 17th, just one spot shy of the cash.

Meanwhile, Brian Rast, Scott Seiver, and Matt Glantz began to push forward to the top of the counts as the first players to make the money were eliminated. Sebastian Ruthenberg (16th), Barry Greenstein (15th), and Michael Binger (14th) went out in relatively rapid succession, followed by start-of-Day-4 leader Josh Arieh in 13th. Then, after Yan Chen went out in 12th, it would be more than three hours before Jeffrey Lisandro (11th) and Vladimir Shchemelev (10th) hit the rail.

Play continued past 5 a.m. as the remaining nine gathered around a single table. During the latter stages of play, Minh Ly emerged as the big chip leader with more than 5.2 million -- about twice that of his nearest challengers Rast and Glantz. Those three will be joined by George Lind, Phil Hellmuth, Owais Ahmed, Ben Lamb, Jason Lester, and Scott Seiver when play resumes on tomorrow (or, really, later today). Here's where they'll be sitting, and how many chips each will have for tomorrow's first hand:

Seat	Player	Chips
1	Brian Rast	2,660,000
2	George Lind	2,315,000
3	Phil Hellmuth	2,245,000
4	Owais Ahmed	1,425,000
5	Scott Seiver	725,000
6	Minh Ly	5,215,000
7	Ben Lamb	1,180,000
8	Jason Lester	920,000
9	Matt Glantz	2,535,000