After three days of play the question of who will win this year’s World Poker Finals title is getting fairly close to a resolution, as only 27 players of the original field 353 remain in contention. But trying to pick who the winner will be right now is still a fool’s game, mostly because the field is littered with accomplished players who all have a realistic shot at a WPT title.

Day 3 began with 68 players, but they began to fall by the wayside almost immediately. Among those who didn’t make it to the money were Matt Graham, Alex Bolotin, Rick Fuller, three online qualifiers from subscription site ClubWPT, and last year’s runner-up, Jonathan Jaffe, who busted three spots off the money in 39th place. Meanwhile one table’s worth of players busted out but managed to cash, including Day 2 chip leader Steven Merrifield (28th), Nenad Medic (33rd), and Eric “Sheets” Haber (34th).

Leading the way into Day 4 will be Soheil Shamseddin. He pulled off a giant pot on one of the last hands of the day against 2009 LA Poker Classic champ Cornel Andrew Cimpan, getting all-in behind on the turn with 7 6 against Cimpan’s T 8 on a board of 8 6 5 2 but rivering the 7 to vault himself to a familiar spot at the top of the leaderboard and drop Cimpan to the middle of the pack.

While he does enjoy the chip lead, Shamseddin will have his work cut out for him. The likes of Lee Markholt, Terrence Chan, Matt “All In At 420″ Stout, Steve Brecher, Michael Mizrachi, Adam “Roothlus” Levy, and Christian Harder are still in the top 10, while Eric Froehlich, Jason Mercier, Todd Terry, Cornel Andrew Cimpan, Curt Kohlberg, and Kenna James lurk a little further down the chip count list but are still very much in the hunt.

Play is set to resume at 12:00 p.m. ET on Sunday and continue until the final 10 players remain.

World Poker Finals Day 3 Top 10 Chip Counts

1. Soheil Shamseddin - 945,000
2. Lee Markholt - 790,000
3. Terrence Chan - 710,000
4. Matt Stout - 690,000
5. Steve Brecher - 610,000
6. Michael Mizrachi - 575,000
7. Frank Calo - 569,000
8. Adam Levy - 482,000
9. Alex Lammi - 473,000
10. Christian Harder - 404,500

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