Felipe Ketzer raised on the button and Jenya Gavrilovich called in the small blind before Mikhail Zavoloka moved all in for 240,000 from the big blind. Ketzer called before Gavrilovich moved all in for 3,000,000. Ketzer, covering both players, made the call.
Mikhail Zavoloka: Q♦Q♣
Jenya Gavrilovich: J♥J♣
Felipe Ketzer: K♥K♦
All three players had monster hands but Ketzer had the best of it preflop with pocket kings. Zavoloka looked poised to take the main pot after spiking a set of queens on the 6♣10♠Q♥ flop. The 9♦ turn changed nothing but the K♣ river gave Ketzer top set to knock out both players and take down easily the biggest pot of the tournament so far at the very end of the night.
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.
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 uptwice 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.
Fausto Tantillo
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.
