Gus Hansen is the most notable poker pro to make the final eight of the $25,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold'em Championship. The final eight players are guaranteed a $138,852 payday but all are chasing the $851k first place prize and WSOP bracelet.

The eight player will continue play Thursday at 3 p.m. Pacific at the Rio in Las Vegas, Nevada.

With 32 players left on Wednesday there was hope some big name players like Tom Dwan, John Juanda, David Benyamine, Isaac Haxton and Ashton Griffin would make the star-studded final eight. But all of those players were eliminated, including Dwan falling to Hansen in the longest match of the round of 16. Other than Hansen, the most notable players left are Eric Froehlich (two-time bracelet winner) and Yevgeniy “jovial gent” Timoshenko (WPT winner).

Here are the quarter-final matches scheduled for Thursday:

Anthony Guetti vs. Jake Cody
Gus Hansen vs. Matt Marafioti
Eric Froehlich vs. Nikolay Endakov
Yevgeniy Timoshenko vs. David Paredes

There were 128 entrants who created a prizepool of over $3 million.

Changes in the event from last year included moving it up to the beginning of the series, raising the buy-in from $10,000 to $25,000, giving players a triple starting stack of 75,000 chips and giving each player two clear add-on buttons.

The prizes for the final eight:

1. $851,192
2. $525,980
3. $283,966
4. $283,966
5. $138,852
6. $138,852
7. $138,852
8. $138,852

Gus Hansen makes final 8 of $25k Heads-Up Championship