2017 PokerStars Championship Bahamas Main Event Day 5: Mercier, Dibella and Riess All Eye Final Table of Six

The PokerStars Championship Bahamas Main Event began with 738 players, but today just 16 will return to action. They're all guaranteed $24,640 in prize money, but each have their eyes set on making the final table to stay in contention for the $480,012 first-place prize.

The man best positioned to make a run at it is Canada's Michael Gentili holds the chip lead with 3,708,000, which is over 150 big blinds. Gentili has $666,302 in live tournament earning, of which $494,797 came when he finished runner-up this past summer in the 2016 World Series of Poker Event 59: $5,000 No-Limit Hold’em.

Gentili holds a healthy lead as his next closest competitor is Russia’s Aleksei Opalikhin, who sits with 2.084 million. Others returning to action are former PokerStars Big Game “Loose Cannon” Nadya Magnus (1.87 million), 2016 WSOP Main Event third-place finisher Cliff Josephy (1.331 million), poker pro Christian Harder (1.305 million), 2012 PCA champ John Dibella (1.294 million), 2013 WSOP Main Event champ Ryan Riess (371,000), and the short-stacked PokerStars Team Pro Jason Mercier (340,000).

Day 5 kicks off at Noon local time with action picking up in Level 23. Here's how things stack up:

Table	Seat	Name	Country	Chip Count	Big Blinds
1	1	Marcin Kapkowski	Poland	950,000	40
1	2	Michael Bartholomew	Canada	877,000	37
1	3	Rodrigo Cordoba	Argentina	1,777,000	74
1	4	Christian Harder	USA	1,305,000	54
1	5	John Dibella	USA	1,294,000	54
1	6	Jason Mercier	USA	340,000	14
1	7	Michael Gentili	Canada	3,708,000	155
1	8	Cliff Josephy	USA	1,331,000	55

2	1	Pedro Cabeca	Portugal	540,000	23
2	2	Aleksei Opalikhin	Russia	2,084,000	86
2	3	Nadya Magnus	USA	1,870,000	78
2	4	Michael Vela	USA	1,811,000	75
2	5	Ryan Riess	USA	371,000	15
2	6	Allon Allison	Canada	1,015,000	42
2	7	Alan Schein	USA	635,000	26
2	8	Rasmus Glæsel	Denmark	1,319,000	55