The Money Bubble Will Burst on Day 3 in Sochi
After three live and one online starting days and yesterday's Day 2 of the 2018 partypoker LIVE MILLIONS Russia RUB318,000 Main Event, a field of 916 entries emerged at the Sochi Casino and Resort and 200 hopefuls remain in contention for the top prize of RUB60,000,000 and trophy that comes along with it.
Almost half of the remaining field will be left without anything to show for, as just 119 players will take home a portion of the prize pool. At the top of the counts is Russia's Aleksandr Denisov with an impressive 19,035,000, followed by fellow countrymen Aleksei Istomin with 15,355,000 and Oleg Netaliev with 14,630,000. The top 12 in the counts are all from Russia while 2017 MILLIONS Russia Main Event finalist Michael Sklenicka is the first non-Russian speaking player with a decent stack of 9,335,000.
Two partypoker ambassadors are still in contention on Day 3 in Anatoly Filatov (8,240,000) and Philipp Gruissem (4,280,000), and defending champion Aleksandr Gofman is also in the middle of the pack with 4,800,000. Not even one big blind ahead of Gofman is last year's third-place finisher Aleksandr Merzhvinskiy (4,850,000), Vadim Lipovka (7,600,000), and Anatolii Zyrin (3,790,000) is also looking for back-to-back final tables here in Sochi.
Some other notables still in contention include Andrey Kotelnikov (10,280,000), Denis Pisarev (8,800,000), Andrey Pateychuk (8,725,000), Day 1A chip leader Oleksii Kravchuk (7,980,000), Maxim Lykov (6,750,000), Vladimir Shchemelev (6,740,000), Igor Yaroshevskyy (6,535,000), Ionut-Flavius Voinea (5,975,000), and MILLIONS Nottingham champion Maria Lampropulos (3,800,000).
The action resumes with level 17 and blinds of 40,000/80,000 with a button ante of 80,000. A total of eight levels of one hour each are scheduled for Day 3 and the money bubble is expected to burst today. One table off the money, the 30-second shot clock will be introduced and all players will receive an additional six time banks. The live stream of the two feature tables will be available on a security delay of 30 minutes with hole cards displayed and the PokerNews team will be right there to provide all the action of money day in Sochi.
, facing the 
of his opponent. The board came 
and Zvorygin improved to a full house. Next to Gofman sits Michael Sklenicka, who had also reached the final table of this very event one year ago.
after a button raise by Hadi Khordbin and Maksin Misura in the big blind reshoved with 
and Butba scored the double knockout.
gave Sklenicka a pair of Aces and Gofman was left very short.
brought no miracle and Bueker, who was freerolling the event thanks to the Golden Chip promotion by partypoker, tapped the table with a "good luck everyone" before heading out of the tournament area.
. The 
turn ensured his elimination and that made the 
