The World Series of Poker Main Event reached the final 27 players this afternoon, and several of the world’s best are still in contention for the $12 million first prize.

Four-time bracelet winner Allen Cunningham, European cash game pro Jeffrey Lisandro, bracelet winner and online powerhouse Prahlad Freidman (pictured), and online tournament pro Eric “Rizen” Lynch are all still in the hunt.

The tournament began on July 28th with 8,773 players, and the action has been much faster and wilder than many people expected. Many poker insiders predicted the days would be long and the action would be slow, but the event is an entire day ahead of schedule, thanks to many players’ willingness to gamble. The play has been so crazy, in fact, that somewhere in the neighborhood of 140 players were eliminated in the fifteen minutes after the pay bubble burst.

One of the biggest stories of the Main Event in the past two days has been Jamie Gold, a TV Producer from Malibu, California, who has managed to accumulate almost 15% of the chips in play. Gold had a great day today, almost doubling his stack to 13 million, which gives him a huge lead over the average stack of 3.2 million and the second place stack of Sweden’s Erik Friberg, who is sitting on 7.7 million.

Every player who busts from now on will recieve a prize just shy of half a million bucks, and it gets completely out of hand from there. The top 12 will become millionaires, the sixth place finisher will get more than Chris Moneymaker did for winning the event just three years ago, and the winner will get an awe-inspiring 12 million bucks (plus endorsements).

Here’s the payout structure for what’s left of the tournament.

1. $12,000,000
2. $6,102,499
3. $4,123,310
4. $3,628,513
5. $3,216,182
6. $2,803,851
7. $2,391,520
8. $1,979,189
9. $1,566,858
10 - 12. $1,154,527
13 - 15. $907,128
16 - 18. $659,730
19 - 27. $494,797

Remember everyone, you can listen to Bluff’s LIVE coverage of the WSOP Main Event on Sirius Satellite Radio Channel 125. It’s the only place you’ll find live coverage, and it’s going to be amazing over the next few days. We are set up 15 feet away from the remaining 3 tables, and we’re going to bring you play-by-play action as these guys battle it out for the biggest prize in sports.

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