Argentina's Damian Salas ended Day 4 of the 2017 WSOP Main Event as the overall chip leader with 297 players remaining. However, all eyes were on Kenny Hallaert. The tournament director and pro from Belgium is making another deep run in the Main Event. He made the November Nine last year and didn't come close to winning, but he's back again this summer. Going into Day 4, Hallaert is third overall. Day 4 began with 1,084 players and when the day ended, only 297 remain.

Three cheers to the Belgian version of Matt Savage! Kenny Hallaert, a tournament director in his waking life, is making another epic run at the World Series of Poker. Sure, it's a stretch to say he's a lock for another final table...but he's definitely in position to pull a Mark Newhouse (who final tabled the November Nine in 2013 and 2014). Kenny Hallaert final tabled last year's Main Event and he has the distinction of being one of the last-ever members of the November Nine. Can he pull off back-to-back final tables? We will find out over the next week.
We will have a new champ because the three remaining former champs -- Joe Cada, Carlos Mortensen, and Scotty Nguyen -- all busted on Day 4.
Only 297 players remain. That's outstanding considering that 1,084 players began Day 4. All of them lock up a min-cash. But the field quickly liquidated itself at the start of Day 4... and the bustouts kept going and going. When it was time to bag up chips, only 297 players were left standing. Kenny Hallaert was third overall with 4.1M.
Argentina's Damian Salas ended Day 4 as the overall chip leader with 4.67M. Sebastian Comel from France was second with 4.2M. Hallaert bagged up 4.1M for third. Rounding out the Top 5 were a pair of Brits: JP Kelly and Richard Gryko. Valentin Messina from France is in the Top 10.
Day 3 chip leader, Pat Lavecchia is currently last in chips. Ah, the brutality of the Main Event reared its ugly head. But he still survived the cut. Anything can happen on Day 5.
Notables still alive in the Main Event include... Ben Lamb, Mickey Craft, Antoine Saout, Matthias De Meulder, Dario Sammartino, Nicolas Cardyn, Charlie Carrel, Chris Wallace, Kyle Bowker, Eoghan O'Dea, Johannes Becker, Ike Haxton, Domink Nitsche, Jesus Blanco, Brandon Myers, Nick Maimone, Greg FBT Mueller, Sam Stein, Randy Lew, Taylor Black, Tom Middleton, Ian Johns, Max Silver, Alenadre Reard, Michael Addamo, Ryan Franklin, Andrey Pateychuk, Vuong Duo, Shawn Daniels, Sung Joo Hyun, Tracy Nguyen, Laurent Patroni, Sam Chartier, Connor Drinan, Zo Karim, Kathy Liebert, Kelly Johnson, Vitaly Lunkin, Davidi Kitai, Georgios Zisimopoulos, Aaron Massey, Chino Rheem, Alex Massman, Minh Ly, Thai Ha, Max Pescatori, Tim Adams, Alistair Hill, Daniel Pearlman, Ben Pollack, and Chip Jett.
Among those who busted on Day 4 (but cashed)... Joe Cada, Carlos Mortensen, Scotty Nguyen, Felipe Ramos, Sofia Lovgren, Cate Hall, Ivan Luca, Melanie Weisner, Alex Queen, Ayaz Mahmood, Jeff Lisandro, Jared Jaffee, Faraz Jaka, Danielle Anderson, Andre Akkari, Mike Gorodinsky, Peter Eichhardt, Julien Ehrhardt, JJ Lui, Steve Billirakis, Chris Vitch, Tony Gregg, Greg Dyer, Bernard Lee, Jared Hamby, Jesse Martin, Perry Friedman, Nick Petrangelo, Remi Castaignon, Matt GLantz, Allan Le, Ryan D'Angelo, Tex Barch, Allen Cunningham, Grayson Rampage, Nick Schulman, Niall Farrell, Nam Le, Natasha Mercier, Kevin Noblat, Garry Gates, Scott Seiver, and Barry Greenstein.
2017 WSOP - Event #73 $10,000 NL MAIN EVENT CHAMPIONSHIP
Entrants: 7,221
Prize Pool: $67,877,400
Payouts: 1,084
Day 4 - Top 10 Chips:
1. Damian Salas 4,678,000
2. Sebastien Comel 4,198,000
3. Kenny Hallaert 4,145,000
4. JP Kelly 3,973,000
5. Richard Gryko 3,559,000
6. Cosmin Joldis 3,500,000
7. Colin Moffatt 3,086,000
8. Jonas Mackoff 3,076,000
9. Eyal Maaravi 3,030,030
10. Valentin Messina 2,979,000