Nikita Kilinin Going for Back-to-Back MPP High Roller Final Tables on Day 2 of $10,400 Onyx High Roller
One year ago, Nikita Kalinin finished fifth in the High Roller at the Mediterranean Poker Party for his second-best ever score of $95,000. Today, at 1 p.m. local time, he has a chance to improve on that achievement as he is one of 35 players who will return to Merit Royal Diamond Hotel Casino & Spa for the final day of the $10,400 Onyx High Roller.
Kalinin has already reached the top quarter of the field as the High Roller attracted 149 entries, amassing a prize pool of approximately $1,400,000, although the exact figure has yet to be confirmed. The 2,475,000 chips in Kalinin's stack equal 62 big blinds when play resumes, and put him in seventh place on the overall leaderboard.
Leading the field, meanwhile, is Konstantin Voronin, whose stack of 4,625,000 was the biggest of all at the end of Day 1. Maksim Shornikau was the only other player to cross the four-million mark, returning with 4,230,000, while Vedat Yilmaz, Aren Bezhanyan, and Kirill Shcherbakov all bagged more than 75 big blinds.
Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Konstantin Voronin | Russian Federation | 4,625,000 | 116 |
| 2 | Maksim Shornikau | Belarus | 4,230,000 | 106 |
| 3 | Vedat Yilmaz | Turkey | 3,830,000 | 96 |
| 4 | Aren Bezhanyan | Armenia | 3,780,000 | 95 |
| 5 | Kirill Shcherbakov | Russian Federation | 3,000,000 | 75 |
| 6 | Abdullah Alajmi | Kuwait | 2,930,000 | 73 |
| 7 | Nikita Kalinin | Russian Federation | 2,475,000 | 62 |
| 8 | Dzmitry Budai | Belarus | 2,385,000 | 60 |
| 9 | Roman Stoika | Russian Federation | 2,270,000 | 57 |
| 10 | Alessio Isaia | Italy | 2,100,000 | 53 |
Chipleader Voronin is hunting his second major final table of the series, having finished fourth in the $2,200 Grand Final, but he is not the only one in this pursuit. Roman Stoika, David Vinayagamoorthy (1,205,000), Andrey Pateychuk (1,060,000), and Yilu Yuan (630,000) all made the final table of the $1,100 Mystery Bounty and have all booked a seat in Day 2 of the High Roller as they chase their first title of the festival.
Day 2 will get underway at 1 p.m. local time, with blinds at 20,000/40,000 with a 40,000 big blind ante. The High Roller has been confirmed to pay 23 spots, although the exact payouts have yet to be announced. The tournament will play 40-minute levels only, with a break after every three levels, and the day will conclude once a new champion has been announced. A dinner break is scheduled around 6:30 p.m. local time and will take an hour.
PokerNews will be on the tournament floor to report all the High Roller action live, so stay tuned for some of the last action from the 2025 MPP.