Kirill Shcherbakov Bags Lead Heading into Final Table of the $5,300 Main Event

Tyler Foran

Level 29 : Blinds 600,000/1,200,000, 1,200,000 ante

Day 3 of the $5,300 Mediterranean Poker Party Main Event has come to its end after nine hours of play here at the Merit Royal Diamond Hotel on the shores of Northern Cyprus. A day that started with 42 players ended with just nine, who still remain from the total field of 1,260.

It was a day packed with action right from the get-go as Leon Sturm added to his already massive stack in the first 30 minutes when he rivered two pair to eliminate Thomas Mayer. Shortly after that, he was on the right side of a cooler as he made a bigger full house than Selahaddin Bedir, to score another knockout.

Knockouts continued rapidly as just 26 players of the starting 42 were still in their seats by the first break of the day.

Despite making an epic call for all of his chips with 26 remaining against Paul Runcan, Dmitrii couldn��t hang on to the final day as he bowed out in 18th place for $46,000.

Among the final nine, it was Kirill Shcherbakov who ended as the chip leader with an impressive 100,800,000. Shcherbakov proved throughout the day that he wasn��t afraid to get in the mix and battle, including on last hand of the night when he called down Oliver Weis with top pair to score an incredible pot and send Weis to the payout desk to collect his $62,000 for a tenth-place finish.

Following closely is WSOP bracelet winner Sturm (90,100,000), who had an incredible day of his own, sailing to over 80,000,000 chips near the night's end when he made a full house against Damir Gabdullin.

Final Table Chip Counts

Rank	Name	Country	Chip Count	Big Blinds
1	Kirill Shcherbakov	Russian Federation	100,800,000	84
2	Leon Sturm	Germany	90,100,000	75
3	Mihai Niste	Romania	41,800,000	35
4	Iurii Suvorov	Russian Federation	36,500,000	30
5	Azamat Lamkov	Russian Federation	34,400,000	29
6	Assyl Tleuzhanov	Kazakhstan	30,000,000	25
7	Birger Larsen	Norway	20,600,000	17
8	Yuhang Chen	China	13,800,000	12
9	Damir Gabdullin	Russian Federation	10,000,000	8

Iurii Suvorov also had a very eventful day, falling to 3,200,000, which was just four big blinds, and managed to build it back to a little over 10,000,000 before getting another double-up in a blind versus blind battle with Stephen Song, and eliminating him just a few hands later.

Day 4 begins tomorrow at 12 p.m. local time and will pick up on Level 29, with blinds of 600,000/1,200,000 and a 1,200,000 big blind ante. Players are guaranteed a cash prize of $78,300, but all eyes are on the grand prize of $1,000,000 as they battle until a champion has been crowned.