Aleksandr Merzhvinskiy came out on top of 699 entries to be crowned the 2017 PokerStars Festival Sochi Main Event Champion, taking the trophy and first place prize money of 7,700,000 RUB (US$133,951).
The third and final day of the Main Event saw 27 players return to play to a winner and Merzhvinskiy began the day with a commanding chip lead, holding 2,599,000 compared to his nearest rival Serafim Kovalevskiy who had 1,293,000.
Merzhvinskiy was on the front foot all day, constantly driving the action and pressurising his opponents. It was far from an easy ride though, and at one point his small blind shove with ran into the of Kirill Denisenko in the big blind and he had to set about rebuilding his stack.
There was no let-up in the pace of eliminations all day until they reached the unofficial final table of nine where the action did slow down as ranges tightened up as the remaining players desperately tried to make it into the annals of PokerStars history.
Eventually though Vadim Lipovka shoved from late position with and couldn’t improve against the of Valentin Zolotilov.
The elimination from eight to heads-up were again fairly quick with average stacks hovering around the 30 to 40 big blinds and most bust outs were fairly standard flips.
Once Alexsandr Denisov and Merzhvinskiy had reached heads-up they paused the clock to look at ICM numbers but quickly decided they didn’t want to deal.
It didn’t take long for Denisov to equal up the stacks though and it looked like they were settling in for a marathon heads-up battle as at one point Denisov limp-folded to a raise preflop and showed the which had Merzhvinskiy shaking his head.
The small ball looked set to continue until Merzhvinskiy set the trap by limping with and calling the shove from Denisov holding . It was all over by 12:30 a.m and Merzhvinskiy was the champ.
Aleksandr Merzhvinskiy limped as has been happening most hands and Alexsandr Denisov made only the second shove of the heads-up match. Merzhvinskiy nearly beat him to the pot and called.
Denisov:
Merzhvinskiy:
The board ran out
It was all over. Denisov looked like he was settling in for a long grind, showing Merzhvinskiy that he would play it tight for as long as it takes but Merzhvinskiy was patient and was lucky enough to be able to set a trap and have the patience to execute the limp with a monster.
On a flop of Kirill Denisenko led out from the small blind for 600,000 and after some thought Valentin Zolotilov moved all in with Denisenko quickly calling.
Zolotilov:
Denisenko:
Denisenko had flopped top two pair and looked to have a lock on the hand to double up.
The turn was the and the river the to bring a running four-card flush for Zolotilov to gasps of disbelief.
Welcome to the Final Day of the 2017 PokerStars Festival Sochi Main Event.
Aleksandr Merzhvinskiy starts the day with a commanding chip lead but nothing is certain and the winner will be crowned most likely in the early hours of Monday morning.
A total of 699 entries for the Main Event generated a guarantee beating prize pool of RUB 40,681,800. Players from 17 different countries converged on the Sochi Casino and Resort to play in the tournament with Russians naturally the largest contingent with 507 players while the U.K. had two with one apiece from Germany and Argentina.
Play gets underway at 12 p.m. once more where the blinds at level 27 with 12,000/24,000 and an ante of 4,000.
The PokerNews Live Reporting team will bring you all the action and photographs from the event as they play down to a winner and a new PokerStars Festival Main Event Champion.
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ran into the 
of Kirill Denisenko in the big blind and he had to set about rebuilding his stack.
of Valentin Zolotilov.
and calling the shove from Denisov holding 
. It was all over by 12:30 a.m and Merzhvinskiy was the champ.
Kirill Denisenko led out from the small blind for 600,000 and after some thought Valentin Zolotilov moved all in with Denisenko quickly calling.
to bring a running four-card flush for Zolotilov to gasps of disbelief. 
