The Race to the Final Table on Day 3 of the 2021 WPT Russia Main Event

Andrey Kotelnikov is one of two former champions still in contention

After a marathon Day 2 of nearly 14 hours and a couple of hours of sleep, the remaining 32 players out of 251 entries in the 2021 WPT Russia Main Event will return to their seats at noon in the stunning Casino Sochi. The event came with a price tag of₽245,000/$3,328 and all survivors are guaranteed at least ₽429,800/$5,757. All eyes are set on making it through another day to have a chance at becoming the next WPT Champion and two former winners will be among them.

The 2013 WPT Baden champion Vladimir Bozinovic returns as the biggest stack with 890,000 in chips while Andrey Kotelnikov is among the shorter stacks with 122,000. Second in chips is Maksim Sekretarev (878,000), who dominated the mid and late stages of the previous day.

Other notables with big stacks are Alexandr Stepanyuk (761,000), Maksim Pisarenko (731,000), Sergey Pichugin (563,000), Aleksandr Merzhvinskiy (514,000), Aleksey Savenkov (484,000), and Sergey Konovalov (435,000). Let’s not rule out familiar names such as Dmitry Vitkind, Roman Gadzhiev, Mikhail Pokrepa, Andrey Volkov, Garik Tamasyan, and Siarhei Chudapal either as they will be among the contenders today.

The action for Day 3 is set to resume at noon with the remaining 36:46 minutes of level 20 to be played, which features blinds of 4,000-8,000 and a big blind ante of 8,000. The penultimate tournament day is scheduled to play down all the way to the final six for tomorrow’s live-streamed final table, it might be another long session at the tables.

With several players in the danger zone, it won’t take long for the first pay jump to take place at 24 contenders remaining. These jumps will then take place more frequently and the penultimate day is all about surviving and staying in contention to become the next name engraved on the Mike Sexton WPT Champion’s Cup.

Main Event Payouts