The teaser for Day 4 of the Merit Poker Retro Series $3,300 Main Event at the Merit Crystal Cove Hotel and Casino is simple: 28 players for a top prize of $567,000.
Out of the 1,223 entrants registered in this event, 215 qualified for Day 3. Only 143 of them reached the first goal of the day: to finish in the money. Following that, the next step was to bag up their chips for Day 4. That's exactly what 28 players did.
And most of all, that’s what Mousa Barakat did. With 10,250,000 chips, I’ll be the chipleader of the final day. However, he was closely followed by David Hu, who bagged 10,000,000 chips, just two blinds behind.
End Of Day 3 Chip Count
| RANK | PLAYER | COUNTRY | CHIP COUNT | BLINDS |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mousa Barakat | 10,250,000 | 85 | |
| 2 | David Hu | Netherlands | 10,000,000 | 83 |
| 3 | Ruslan Volkov | Ukraine | 8,600,000 | 72 |
| 4 | Oleg Netaliev | Russia | 8,375,000 | 70 |
| 5 | Ran Ilani | Israel | 8,025,000 | 67 |
| 6 | Florian Guimond | France | 7,125,000 | 59 |
| 7 | Karo Nuri | Switzerland | 5,350,000 | 45 |
| 8 | Ara Melkisetian | Lebanon | 5,300,000 | 44 |
| 9 | Nenad Dukic | Serbia | 5,250,000 | 44 |
| 10 | Valeriy Pak | Uzbekistan | 4,900,000 | 41 |
Chipleader at the beginning of the day, Florian Guimond is still here with 7,125,000 chips. He leads an experienced French trio, composed of 2023 PSPC finalist Thomas Eychenne (4,550,000) and Rachid El Yaacoubi, who lost big pots at the end of the day to finish with 2,250,000 chips. Like him, Dominik Panka (1,600,000 chips) and Dmitry Gromov (825,000 chips) ended Day 3 with small stacks. But they know, maybe better than others, that there is still a long way to go to win.
The fourth and final day of the $3,300 Main Event will start at 1:00 p.m. on Level 30 (60,000/120,000 with a Big Blind Ante of 120,000) and will continue until a winner is crowned. Like on Day 3, there will be 60-minute levels with a break every two levels.
To follow the outcome of the Main Event, there will be a live stream on the Merit Poker social networks. PokerNews will also follow the action all the way until the end!
