Ivan Govorov has been enjoying a stellar showing at the 2023 Merit Poker Gangster Series at the Crystal Cove Hotel and Casino. Just three days ago he took down the $770 Hyper Turbo Deepstack for $11,136. Today, he emerged victorious over a 453-entrant field to capture a second Merit Poker Gangster Series title in the $2,200 Warm up, last defeating Day 2 chip leader Andrei Daniliuk to capture the title and $167,500 for a career-best tournament cash.
Govorov started the day near the middle of the pack but quickly picked up momentum in the first half of the day, entering the final table with the second-largest stack. The Russian player had $92,019 in career tournament earnings, a number that is nearly tripled after winning the top prize in today's event, which is nearly four times as large as his next best tournament cash of $44,440.
Gangster Series $2,200 Warm Up Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ivan Govorov | Russian Federation | $167,500 |
| 2 | Andrei Daniliuk | Russian Federation | $123,300 |
| 3 | Ankit Ahuja | India | $75,500 |
| 4 | Yunsheng Sun | China | $55,850 |
| 5 | Martynas Vitkauskas | Lithuania | $41,900 |
| 6 | Bernard Boutboul | France | $33,600 |
| 7 | Tugce Hursoz | Turkey | $28,000 |
| 8 | Feyzullah Karaarslan | Turkey | $22,350 |
| 9 | Hadi Khadra | Lebanon | $16,760 |
Action of the Day
There were 16 players left in the field to start the day's event. Yunsheng Sun began the day as the chip leader but lost 80% of his stack in the first level after running into the pocket queens of Hadi Khadra, who enjoyed the chip lead for much of the early parts of the day. Comparatively, Leonid Sidelkovskiy, Giorgiy Skhulukhiya and Day 1b chip leader Dmitry Yurasov were unable to find any momentum early on and would ultimately become the first three to be eliminated today.
Govorov began accumulating chips towards the end of the second level of play today, beginning with the elimination of Sultan Meirbekov who ran his top pair into Govorov's pocket aces. Immediately after, he picked off a bluff from Khadra to put himself among the chip leaders.
Harout Ghazarian, Bakhos Joumaa and Damir Gabdullin were next to fall, with two of those three eliminations coming at the hands of Ankit Ahuja who came into the final table with the third-largest stack. Ahuja would also claim the first final table knockout by eliminating Khadra with pocket kings.
Feyzullah Karaarslan was next to hit the rail at the hands of Sun, who had begun to make a remarkable comeback after losing most of his stack in the first few hands of the day. Not long after, Tugce Hursoz ran her top pair into Govorov's two pair and bowed out in seventh place.
France's Bernard Boutboul and Lithuania's Martynas Vitkauskas were the next players to exit the tournament area which would set up a lengthy four-handed battle between Govorov, Daniliuk, Ahuja and Sun that would last more than two and a half hours, with Ahuja, Govorov and Daniliuk swapping the chip lead multiple times during this period. Sun's run would finally come to an end in fourth place after running pocket sixes into Govorov's pocket tens to set up three-handed play.
Govorov entered the three-handed battle with nearly half the chips in play, and after eliminating Ahuja with two pair he then entered heads up play with roughly two thirds of the total chips.
The heads up duel between Govorov and Daniliuk was short but action-packed. Daniliuk quickly took the chip lead after making a flush to crack Govorov's two pair but Govorov would soon return the favor, rivering a flush to crack Daniliuk's two pair to reclaim all the chips he had lost.
The final hand of the night saw Daniliuk flop top pair only for Govorov to flop two pair. The two got all the chips in on the turn and Daniliuk was forced to settle for second place after failing to improve.
That concludes the PokerNews coverage for this event but make sure to stay tuned for our continuing coverage of the $5,300 Gangster Series High Roller as well as the $3,300 main event set to begin on November 28.
