Day 3: Comfortable Chiplead For Nicolas Chouity
After a long Day 3, there are only 25 players left in the 2023 Merit Poker Retro Series $2,200 Warm-Up at the Merit Crystal Cove Hotel and Casino. They are the last players out of a field of 809 entrants, the last ones who can still win the $264,400 prize that will be offered to the winner.
Thanks to a massive pot win in the last levels, it is Nicolas Chouity who ended the day as the chipleader with 8,735,000 chips. The 2010 EPT Monte-Carlo champion is followed by Afshin Taher (6,360,000) and Or Nezer (6,150,000), the other two players with over six million chips.
End of Day 3 Chip Count
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip count | Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Nicolas Chouity | Lebanon | 8,735,000 | 87 |
| 2 | Afshin Taheri | Iran | 6,360,000 | 64 |
| 3 | Or Nezer | Israel | 6,150,000 | 62 |
| 4 | Orestis Kanakopoulos | Greece | 5,975,000 | 60 |
| 5 | Bogdan Jontulovic | Serbia | 5,390,000 | 54 |
| 6 | Alain Hajj | Lebanon | 4,865,000 | 49 |
| 7 | Oleg Ustinovich | Russia | 4,500,000 | 45 |
| 8 | Giorgiy Skhulukhiya | Georgia | 4,105,000 | 41 |
| 9 | Hadi Khadra | Lebanon | 3,385,000 | 34 |
| 10 | Mikhail Zamiatin | Russia | 3,125,000 | 31 |
Orestis Kanakopoulos will not be far behind with 5,975,000 chips. In the second position of the chipcount at the beginning of Day 3, Giorgiy Skhulukhiya is also qualified for Day 3, with a stack of 4,105,000 chips. Holding the largest stack in the field just before the bubble, Wael Sarkis didn't keep his stack of 3 million chips. However, he still had half of it at the end of the day and is still in cthe race for victory with 1,575,000 chips.
Finally, in the last positions, WSOP champion Ran Koller bagged 1,380,000 chips, while Ercan Gundogan will come back on Day 4 with the smallest stack of 985,000 chips.
Play will resume at noon local time tomorrow, Friday, August 11th. Blinds will pick up in Level 27, at 50,000-100,000 and a 100,000 big blind ante. Then, Day 4 will continue until a winner is crowned.
PokerNews will follow the action all the way until the end!