Luo Takes Overall Chip Lead on Day 1c of MPP Main Event

Day 1c of the Mediterranean Poker Party Main Event, running at the Merit Crystal Cove, attracted the most entries out of all starting flights. Of the 292 total entries, 44 players bagged and tagged to join the rest of the field for Day 2 and play for a slice of the $5 million prize pool.

Shuang Luo topped the counts for the flight with 3,970,000, which also makes her the overall chip leader heading into Day 2. Her biggest score to date came from a second place finish in the 2024 Western Series High Roller here at Merit, and she'll be well positioned to make another deep run when play resumes.

Only slightly behind in second place is Symeon Alexandridis, a serious competitor who is coming off the back of a first place finish in a major tournament earlier in the year, which brought his total live winnings to above $1.5 million.

The mighty Aleksandr Chernikov, who has plenty of big scores to his name, rounds out the top three with 3,875,000, the only other player to bag over 3,000,000 chips in Day 1c.

Top Ten Day 1c Chip Counts

Rank	Player	Country	Chip Count	Big Blinds
1	shuang luo	China	3,970,000	79
2	Symeon Alexandridis	Greece	3,885,000	78
3	Aleksandr Chernikov	Russian Federation	3,875,000	78
4	Hassan Nashar	Guinea-Bissau	2,900,000	58
5	Rahat Babayev	Turkmenistan	2,795,000	56
6	Hao Tian	China	2,790,000	56
7	Rafael Aslanli	Turkey	2,550,000	51
8	Yiwen Yuan	China	2,475,000	50
9	Ruslan Volkov	Ukraine	2,130,000	43
10	Pedram Dadkhah	Iran (Islamic Republic of)	2,090,000	42

Hassan Nashar finished in fourth place, bringing aggression and entertainment to the table in his usual style. He was seen shoving all in blind on Day 1b and bust a few bullets, but now sits with a stack of 2,900,000 to bring back to Day 2.

Manig Loeser is also among the players to bag chips. The two-time bracelet winner, who has over $12 million in live tournament winnings, brings back 1,680,000.

Day 2 of the MPP Main Event begins September 26 at 1 p.m. local time. Blind levels increase to 60-minutes and the tournament will play deep into the money.