Karmatckii Goes For Back to Back on Final Day of the MPP Main Event
It is time for the fourth and final day of the $5,300 Luxon Pay Mediterranean Poker Party Main Event at the Merit Royal Diamond Hotel on the shores of Northern Cyprus. The day will get underway at 12 noon with 21 players still remaining out of a field of 1,032, all of which will be aiming for the $750,000 grand prize victory.
One of the top stories heading into the day is whether Arsenii Karmatckii can do the unthinkable and win two events during the MPP as he already captured the win in the MPP $2,200 Warm Up event which also had over 1,0000 players for $310,000. He enters today third in chips and with a win, would earn himself over $1 million for the series.
There are plenty looking to thwart his attempt, however, including the chip leader Hannes Jeschka who will secure his best-ever live score with any finish eleventh or better which would eclipse his previous best of $44,000.
Kyle Maguire enters the day second in chips as he is looking to continue his hot 2022 with another big score as almost 75% of his total career earnings came in April with a score of $212,000 for 2nd place in the Irish Open.
Erik Cajelais is one of the most accomplished players remaining with almost $4 million in career earnings. The Montreal native enters the day fourth in chips and is a real contender to take home the MPP trophy today as well as Alexander Gofman of Russia who has $3.2 million in career earnings and enters the day sixth in chips.
Top 10 Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hannes Jeschka | Germany | 11,045,000 | 69 |
| 2 | Kyle Maguire | United Kingdom | 9,400,000 | 59 |
| 3 | Arsenii Karmatckii | Russia | 9,100,000 | 57 |
| 4 | Erik Cajelais | Canada | 8,130,000 | 51 |
| 5 | Riccardo Saraniero | Italy | 7,260,000 | 45 |
| 6 | Alexander Gofman | Russia | 7,100,000 | 44 |
| 7 | Koray Korkmaz | Turkey | 6,750,000 | 42 |
| 8 | Manuel Fritz | Austria | 5,800,000 | 36 |
| 9 | Natalya Nikitina | Russia | 5,175,000 | 32 |
| 10 | Steven Warburton | United Kingdom | 4,625,000 | 29 |
Natalya Nikitina is the last woman remaining in the final 21 and she is looking to make another splash on the poker world as her largest career score for ~ $330,000 came way back in 2011.
Other contenders include Steven Warburton, Yiannis Liperis , the lone American remaining James Harvey and Daniel Thaller who will try to claw his way back from being the short stack.
Play will start in Level 29 with blinds at 80,000/160,000 making most of the players fairly short-stacked in what should be a day of jockeying for better chip position and payouts. The plan is to play all the way down to a winner. And there will be a live stream of the action as well.
PokerNews will provide all the updates as the day goes on.