button in SafariNOIR Poker Series Main Event Champion Set to Be Crowned, as 13 Return for Final Day
The 2026 NOIR Poker Series is set to reach its climax with the crowning of the $5,500 Merit Poker Main Event champion.
An event that began with 769 players taking their seats inside the Merit Royal Diamond Hotel Casino & Spa, creating a $3,608,148 prize pool, will now resume at 1:00 p.m. local time with just 13 players still in contention for the title and the $525,000 first-place prize.
Entering the day atop the leaderboard are two mystery players. Both 'Kenar' and 'Tarzan' will sit down with eight-figure stacks in front of them after pulling clear of the field on Day 2.
Returning at the bottom of the pack with a stack of 1,800,000, Bulgarian Fahredin Mustafov is looking to close the gap on the one player in front of him on his country's all-time money list, where he currently sits in second place with just north of $12,000,000 in live tournament earnings, according to The Hendon Mob.
Main Event Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Kenar | Turkey | 15,050,000 | 75 |
| 2 | Tarzan | San Marino | 12,800,000 | 64 |
| 3 | Manuel Fritz | Austria | 8,775,000 | 44 |
| 4 | Miroslav Rizov | Bulgaria | 7,050,000 | 35 |
| 5 | Anton Danilov | Russian Federation | 6,200,000 | 31 |
| 6 | Fabian Gumz | Germany | 5,700,000 | 29 |
| 7 | Aleksei Gortikov | Russian Federation | 4,925,000 | 25 |
| 8 | Selahaddin Bedir | Turkey | 3,475,000 | 17 |
| 9 | Xiaosheng Zheng | China | 3,375,000 | 17 |
| 10 | Viktor Siegle | Germany | 3,300,000 | 17 |
In between the chip leaders and Mustafov, a wealth of poker experience remains in the pack. Returning inside the top five with 5,700,000 chips, Fabian Gumz is a WPT Prime champion who boasts more than $4,000,000 in career earnings, according to The Hendon Mob.
Selahaddin Bedir (3,475,000), Xiaosheng Zheng (3,375,000), Leonid Orman (3,125,000), and Konstantin Voronin (2,500,000) are also among those in the chasing pack.
The remaining 13 players will return at 1 p.m. local time for Day 3, picking up the action at Level 27 with blinds of 100,000/200,000 and a 200,000 big blind ante. The schedule for the day remains unconfirmed and is expected to take shape once play gets underway.
All returning players have locked up at least $46,200, but with just 12 eliminations separating them from the title, the focus now shifts firmly towards the $525,000 first-place prize and the NOIR Poker Series Main Event trophy.
Main Event Remaining Payouts
| Place | Prize |
|---|---|
| 1 | $525,000 |
| 2 | $375,000 |
| 3 | $257,000 |
| 4 | $181,000 |
| 5 | $129,000 |
| 6 | $100,000 |
| 7 | $81,000 |
| 8 | $66,700 |
| 9 | $57,048 |
| 10-11 | $51,000 |
| 12-13 | $46,200 |
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