Shirshikov Soars to the Top on Day 3; ElkY, Moneymaker and Troyanovskiy All Through
Day 3 of the 2017 PokerStars Championship Sochi RUB 318,000 Main Event saw 82 players out of a 387-entry strong field return to the tables of the Sochi Casino and Resort, Krasnaya Polyana, and the money bubble burst during the four levels before the field was thinned out further. At the end of level 17, only 30 players remained and Pavel Shirshikov claimed the lead after pipping 2017 WPT Amsterdam Daniyar Aubakirov champion for the top spot just when the last hands of the day were announced.
Shirshikov bagged up 1,604,000 with Aubakirov as the next best (1,018,000) in second, and they are the only two players above one million in chips, while High Roller regular Vladimir Troyanovskiy follows in third place (807,000). The 30-year-old Shirshikov is mainly a cash game player only has two live results thus far, both coming from the partypoker Million festival here in Sochi back in March 2017, and he is guaranteed to crush his best live cash of $1,874.
Both PokerStars Team pros made it through and are still in contention for the lion's share of the 150,000,000 RUB prize pool. Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier bagged up a big stack with (763,000) and Chris Moneymaker scored a late double with aces versus nines to claim 289,000 for Day 4.
Other notables and big stacks that bagged up today include Timur Bubnov (734,000), Alexander Lakhov (572,000), Seyed Ghavam (538,000), Dmitry Vitkind (430,000), Jonas Lauck (334,000), Dmitry Chop (300,000), and Mikhail Rudoy (197,000).
When action resumed in two different tournament areas, the early eliminations came at a quick pace. Among those to run out of chips in the first level were Mikhail Soltanov, Dmitriy Motorov and Abraham Passet. The latter lost a race with ace-king against the pocket queens of Gaby Livshitz.
Others that missed out on the money were Konstantin Tolokno, Vladimir Demenkov, Vladimir Dobrovolskiy, Daniil Kiselev and Nacho Barbero. As for Barbero, he was gone two spots shy of a cash in Sochi when his ace-king suited faced the pocket jacks of Daniyar Aubakirov and another jack appeared right in the window. The bubble burst soon after and it was Roman Seleznev who ran out of chips on the feature table to become the bubble boy. Down to just over three big blinds, he shoved with ace-king and initial raiser Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier called with eight-nine to spike a nine on the flop.
Among those to share the min-cash of 735,000 RUB were Aram Vartevanyan, Day 1a chip leader Andrei Shkerin, Vahe Martirosyan, Maxim Lykov and PokerStars qualifier J?rg B?hme. Lykov busted in a massive setup with kings against the aces of eventual end-of-day chip leader Pavel Shirshikov. B?hme's top pair with king-queen suited on a king-high flop failed to hold up against ElkY's bottom pair and flush draw, as another spade immediately hit on the turn.
A big surprise was the elimination of 1b chip leader and American poker pro Jason Wheeler in 33rd place for 885,000 RUB. Wheeler was cruising through the day and even claimed the stacks of three opponents in a row before it all came to a crashing end in the last level of the night. On a king-high turn, he got it in with ace-king for top pair and top kicker only to see Pavel Shirshikov snap-call with pocket jacks for middle set. Wheeler was drawing dead and quickly left the tournament area.
Gaby Livshitz and Dmitry Nikitin followed him to the rail during the last five hands and that wrapped up Day 3 with just 30 hopefuls still in contention. They will return tomorrow at 12 p.m. local time for level 18 and blinds of 4,000/8,000 with a running ante of 1,000. The goal of Day 4 is to either play five levels of 90 minutes each or until the last 16 players and two tables remain, the latter scenario is far more likely.
Main Event Day 4 Seat Draw
| Table | Seat | Player | Country | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Jonas Lauck | Germany | 334,000 |
| 1 | 2 | Yehor Filipenko | Ukraine | 101,000 |
| 1 | 3 | Yurii Zdanovskyi | Ukraine | 160,000 |
| 1 | 4 | Dmitry Vitkind | Russian Federation | 430,000 |
| 1 | 5 | Dmitry Chop | Russian Federation | 300,000 |
| 1 | 6 | Anton Gililov | Russian Federation | 421,000 |
| 1 | 7 | Mikhail Rudoy | Russian Federation | 197,000 |
| 1 | 8 | Lavrentiy Ni | Kazakhstan | 107,000 |
| 2 | 1 | Alexander Lakhov | Russian Federation | 572,000 |
| 2 | 2 | Vitaliy Li | Russian Federation | 303,000 |
| 2 | 3 | Artsiom Zhadinsky | Belarus | 205,000 |
| 2 | 5 | Timur Bubnov | Russian Federation | 734,000 |
| 2 | 6 | Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier | France | 763,000 |
| 2 | 7 | Denis Pavlenko | Uzbekistan | 188,000 |
| 2 | 8 | Mikalai Vaskaboinikau | Belarus | 58,000 |
| 3 | 1 | Oleg Chebotarev | Russian Federation | 435,000 |
| 3 | 2 | Artem Savchenko | Russian Federation | 246,000 |
| 3 | 3 | Nadar Kakhmazov | Russian Federation | 500,000 |
| 3 | 4 | Seyed Ghavam | Iran | 538,000 |
| 3 | 5 | Ruslan Voitovich | Russian Federation | 135,000 |
| 3 | 6 | Junya Yamada | Japan | 306,000 |
| 3 | 7 | Vladimir Troyanovskiy | Russian Federation | 807,000 |
| 3 | 8 | Chris Moneymaker | USA | 289,000 |
| 4 | 1 | Said Butba | Russian Federation | 141,000 |
| 4 | 2 | Daniyar Aubakirov | Kazakhstan | 1,018,000 |
| 4 | 3 | Oleg Lipkin | Russian Federation | 155,000 |
| 4 | 5 | Mikhail Galitski | Russian Federation | 171,000 |
| 4 | 6 | Ulrich Jungen | Switzerland | 170,000 |
| 4 | 7 | Dmitrii Grinenko | Russian Federation | 159,000 |
| 4 | 8 | Pavel Shirshikov | Russian Federation | 1,604,000 |
The PokerNews live reporting team will be there to cover all the action, as three days remain to crown the first-ever PokerStars Championship Main Event winner on Russian soil.