Aleksei Petrov Dominates Day 1a of the Merit Poker Gangster Series $3,300 Main Event
Play has reached a conclusion for Day 1a of the 2023 Merit Poker Gangster Series $3,300 Main Event here at the Merit Crystal Cove Hotel and Casino. A total of 155 player entered the first flight with 68 of them making it through to Day 2. After the dust had settled, Aleksei Petrov finished at the top of the counts, ending the night with 766,000 chips, worth 255 big blinds going into Day 2.
Petrov has just over $288,000 in career tournament earnings to his name, with his best score coming from a first-place finish in Sochi for $87,612.
Day 1a Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chips | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aleksei Petrov | Russia | 766,000 | 255 |
| 2 | Adem Marjanovic | Austria | 525,000 | 175 |
| 3 | Christos Leantzis | Cyprus | 470,000 | 157 |
| 4 | Sinead Priestley | United Kingdom | 432,000 | 144 |
| 5 | Selahaddin Bedir | Turkey | 430,500 | 144 |
| 6 | Maximilian Wieser | Austria | 428,500 | 143 |
| 7 | Mantas Bagocius | Lithuania | 402,000 | 134 |
| 8 | Milen Bakardjiev | Bulgaria | 400,500 | 134 |
| 9 | Adi Rajkovic | Austria | 379,000 | 126 |
| 10 | Mehmet Dalkilic | Turkey | 376,000 | 125 |
Petrov is most closely followed by Austria's Adem Marjanovic (525,000), Cyprus' Christos Leantzis (470,000), and the United Kingdom's Sinead Priestley (432,000). Petrov was among the bigger stacks throughout the second half of the day while Leantzis was mostly under the radar, hovering around the middle of the pack until the penultimate level of the day when he made a hero call against Ankit Ahuja to surge up the counts.
Other notables to survive the nine 60-minute levels of today include Selahaddin Bedir (430,500), Victor Yugay (279,000), Yunsheng Sun (267,500) and Matthew Davenport (255,500), as well as Merit Poker regulars Anton Markov (170,000) and Koray Korkmaz (154,000).
Players who entered Day 1a but were unable to find a bag at the end of the night inlclude Bakhos Joumaa, Shuang Luo, Ahuja and Oleg Netaliev.
Three starting flights remain for this event, Day 1b starts at noon local time tomorrow, November 29. There are two starting flights the next day on November 30: Day 1c begins at noon local time, while a turbo Day 1d flight begins at 7 p.m. The fields will combine at noon on December 1. Late registration and reentries will remain open until the end of Level 14, midway through Day 2, and a winner will be crowned on the final day, taking place on December 3.
Stay tuned for more coverage as PokerNews brings you all the action from the remainder of the festival along the shores of the Mediterranean in North Cyprus.