Ludovic Lacay came within one pot at the end of the night of being the chip leader heading into Day 5. He'll start the day second in chips.

One of the shortest days in recent World Series of Poker Main Event history was action-packed despite players battling through only three levels of play, including the painfully slow hand-for-hand segment, and after play wrapped up for the night it was little known Matt Affleck sitting pretty atop the leaderboard.

Affleck wrapped up the night with 1,819,000 and he finds himself 211,000 ahead of Frenchman Ludovic Lacay who bagged up 1,608,000. Lacay actually held the chip lead before dropping nearly 280,000 in one of the final hands of the night.

The only other American in the top ten is Blair Hinkle. The 2008 WSOP bracelet winer spent the last half of the day playing at the same table as Lacay and managed to avoid tangling too much with the then chipleader. Hinkle also lost a six figure pot as the night was drawing to a close making a river call only to see his opponent turn over the nuts.

“It was hard for me to put him on the ace. I thought he had a missed flush draw or something. Mistake by me, no big deal. I still have plenty of chips,” said Hinkle, who despite the mistake believes his strong day gives him more than enough chips to be aggressive as play continues . ”Basically, in the second level I went on this huge heater and pretty won nearly every pot. I have plenty of chips.”

But long before the chipleaders took over the spotlight the news of the day was built around the bubble and the inevitable bursting to put 648 players into the money. After the first level of play there were only 659 players remaining and it took nearly a full two hours 11 players to hit the rail. Kia Hamadani was the final player eliminated before everybody else was in the money. As the bubble boy Hamadani was awarded with a free buy-in to the 2010 WSOP Main Event courtesy of sponsor Jack Link’s Beef Jerky.

The pace of eliminations following the bubble was staggering. The night ended with 407 players remaining meaning 241 players were ousted from the tournament in a span of 150 minutes. Not long after the bubble burst Phil Hellmuth was eliminated in 436th place, walking away with yet another WSOP cash but short of his ultimate goal, another Main Event bracelet. The Poker Brat earned $25,027 for his performance.

And while one Phil was walking out the door the other, Phil Ivey, was slowly climbing the leaderboard. When all was said and done Ivey was bagging up 1,276,000 - good enough for 15th place and only one spot ahead of Day 3 chipleader Bertrand Grospellier who finished with 1,253,000.

Other notable players eliminated on Saturday were Mike Sexton, Erik Seidel, Greg Mueller and Kelly Kim. The elimination of Kim means only two members of the 2008 November Nine are still in contention for another final table appearance. Dennis Phillips (414,000) and defending World Champion Peter Eastgate (397,000) are both below the average chip stack of 473,000.

Tournament officials have yet to decide how many levels or eliminations Day 5 (Sunday) will see. Action resumes at 12 pm PT and live updates and chip counts are available at BluffMagazine.com.

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