Aoki Returns with Huge Lead for Final Table
![[user263659]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
Nine ladies will return at 1 p.m. to battle it out with cards and chips until one of them is crowned a champion in Event #53: $10,000 Ladies No-Limit Hold'em Championship. All final-tablists will make at least $11,504, but each of them has their eye on that top prize of $153,470 and the special ladies WSOP bracelet.
Mikiyo Aoki comes into Day 3 as the clear chip leader. Aoki was running over the table on Day 2 and was also the player to knock out the 10th-place finisher, giving her an extra boost to her stack at the end of play. She has a tower of chips numbering 742,000, or just under one third of the total chips in play. The next largest stack at the table has almost 300,000 less — Meikat Siu with 460,000.
Here are the players stacks at the start of play and how they will be seated for the final table:
| Seat | Player | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Persia Bonella | 128,000 |
| 2 | Meikat Siu | 460,000 |
| 3 | Elizabeth Montizanti | 184,000 |
| 4 | Stacey Sullivan | 64,000 |
| 5 | Pat Landis | 219,000 |
| 6 | Haixia Zhang | 311,000 |
| 7 | Patricia Cahill | 66,000 |
| 8 | Mikiyo Aoki | 742,000 |
| 9 | Kendra Wray | 214,000 |
Make sure you follow along here on the PokerNews live update blog for our coverage every step of the way. We will have hand-by-hand reporting until one of these ladies is holding a new bracelet.