The curtain has fallen on Day 3 of the Merit Poker Carmen Series $3,300 Main Event here at the Crystal Cove Hotel and Casino in North Cyprus. Only 41 players remain from a field of 664 entrants after 25 levels of play across the first three days.
Felipe Ketzer finished the day with a staggering 8,255,000 chips, worth 165 big blinds going into the final day tomorrow. Ketzer's stack is at least twice the size of any other player left in the field, with his closest competition coming from Jeremie Zouari (3,975,000) Danut Chisu (3,100,000) and Fausto Tantillo (2,870,000). Outside of those three players, Ketzer's chip stack is at least three times the size of every other player left in the field.
Day 3 Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Felipe Ketzer | Brazil | 8,255,000 | 165 |
| 2 | Jeremie Zouari | France | 3,975,000 | 80 |
| 3 | Danut Chisu | Romania | 3,100,000 | 62 |
| 4 | Fausto Tantillo | Italy | 2,870,000 | 57 |
| 5 | Maher Achour | Tunisia | 2,610,000 | 52 |
| 6 | Dinesh Alt | Switzerland | 2,605,000 | 52 |
| 7 | Umutcan Ipekoglu | Turkey | 2,375,000 | 48 |
| 8 | Mateusz Wozniak | Poland | 2,150,000 | 43 |
| 9 | Caner Gunes | Turkey | 2,120,000 | 42 |
| 10 | Yuri Suvorov | Russian Federation | 1,970,000 | 39 |
Day 3 Highlights
The day began with 172 players returning from Day 2. Jovan Kenjic got off to a hot start today after correctly calling his opponent's hand and winning a massive flip. Kenjic would enjoy the chip lead for most of the first half of the day but couldn't keep the momentum going and would ultimately bust a couple levels before the end of the night.
Adria Diaz began the day with the second-largest stack but a bad run of cards would result in his elimination midway through the day after running into Andrey Pateychuk's full house. Pateychuk, who had a very deep run in the WSOP Main Event this past summer, finished the night with 1,175,000 and will be a force to be reckoned with going into the final day.
Fausto Tantillo began the day as chip leader and had a roller coaster session throughout the day. Tantillo found himself short-stacked on the stone bubble but would double up twice to keep himself in contention. Tantillo would never look back from that point and would ultimately finish with the fourth-largest stack in the room.
Anton Markov would become the unfortunate soul to burst the money bubble at the hands of Tomy Greineisen after the latter rivered a straight. From that point on all remaining players were guaranteed at least a min-cash of $4,580.
Ketzer flew under the radar for most of the day today before going on a massive heater in the last two levels. Ketzer first started gaining momentum with the elimination of Nan Zhu and would later win a four-bet pot versus Dmitry Gromov to establish himself as one of the largest chip stacks in the tournament at that time. Ketzer truly separated himself from the rest of the pack in one of the last hands of the night in a major cooler. Ketzer had pocket kings and held against two opponents who respectively had pocket queens and pocket jacks to score a double knockout and seize the largest pot of the tournament so far.
Other players to advance to the final day include Gromov (1,910,000), Bart Lybaert (1,325,000), Simone Andrian (1,155,000), Day 1c chip leader Rabih El-Hachem (760,000) and Day 1b chip leader Alisa Sibgatova (595,000). Others who were not as fortunate to advance to the final day include Vladimir Bozinovic, Boris Kolev, Renan Bruschi, Razvan Belea, Milos Skrbic, Fabio Peluso, Aleksandr Kirichenko, Aylar Lie, Halil Tasyurek, Andrea Dato and Benjamin Hamnett.
Be sure to stay tuned to PokerNews as we bring you all the action for the final day of the event, set to start tomorrow March 26 at 12:00 p.m. local time with blinds starting at 25,000/50,000 and a 50,000 big blind ante.
