Big Names Headline the Field Entering Day 3 of the $5,300 Main Event
There will be plenty of familiar names at the top of the leaderboard entering Day 3 of the partypoker MILLIONS North America $5,300 Main Event. The action is slated to resume at 12:00 PM EST inside the Playground Poker Club in Montreal, Canada. Brian Yoon will lead the charge with just 285 players remaining out of a total of 1,954 entries.
Yoon finished at the top of the pack on Day 2A with 24,910,000 chips, which was far and away the overwhelming chip lead at the time. Michael Gathy (19,270,000) bagged the next largest stack when the first of two Day 2s wrapped up. However, there were multiple big stacks at the end of Day 2B that will be hot on Yoon's heels when Day 3 begins. One of those happens to be Antonio Esfandiari (23,685,000) who is the world's number one ranked player on the all-time money list. Esfandiari has over $27 million in live tournament earnings and will be looking to add another seven-figure payday to his resume.
Ubaid Habib sits in second place after bagging an impressive 24,115,000 on Day 2B. Habib might be the least known player in the top five chip counts but he will be looking to make his mark with a deep run into the final days. Kevin Rivest (20,020,000) did what he does best, running up a monster stack towards the end of Day 2B. Rivest made a deep run in this very same tournament last year, and he will be looking to use home soil to vault him one step further to a final table. Rounding out the top five chip counts is Demosthenes Kiriopoulos (19,405,000) from Toronto, Canada. Kiriopoulos came so close to winning his first gold bracelet last summer, finishing in second place for $242,978 in the $1,500 No-Limit Hold'em 6 Handed event.
The blinds will resume on level 17 at 70,000/140,000 with a 140,000 button ante. With 285 players returning to the felt, it will be a mad dash to the money that is only 35 eliminations away. A total of 250 players will make the money with a min-cash being worth $10,000 and the eventual winner taking home $1,400,000.
There are 10 levels on tap for Day 3 which will each be 60-minutes in length. A 30-minute dinner break is scheduled for after level 22 with play wrapping up around 11:00 PM local time. This will be the first time that all players in the Main Event will be under one roof at the same time and the action promised to be exciting.
The PokerNews live reporting team will continue to bring you all of the live updates throughout the tournament.