Day 3 of the $3,500 BetMGM Poker Championship opened the action with 65 players fighting for the final seven seats for the chance at a $1 million first-place prize. The field played 11 levels to trim the field down to a seven-handed, live-streamed final table with Nguyen Le leading the field.
It’s a tale of the haves vs. the have-nots at the final table. Nguyen, Yaniv Peretz and Asish Ghosh all bagged over 20 million, while Aleksandras Peretz leads the have-nots with 12 million, Hassan el Hakim, Lars Kamphues and Michael Rossitto return with 20 and two stacks of ten big blinds respectively.
“I got lucky to chip up like I did,” said Le. “I binked a bunch of two-outers and three-outers on the turn and river.”
“I’m probably not getting any sleep tonight because I have a big rail with me,” el Hakim said. “I’m very excited to play for a million, I got here on Tuesday to play and told my boss I needed some extra time off.”
All the experience bookends the final table with Le and Rossitto having the most experience. Le chopped the 2024 Borgata Winter Poker Open main event and Rossitto could win his second trophy in the building since April. The other five players lock up their career-best cash when play resumes.
Sub-One Big Blind Spin Up
With three tables remaining, Le lost a massive pot and only had 100,000 towards the 150,000 big blind. Then over the next three hours spun his sub-one big blind stack into the chip lead, drawing head shakes from opponents with how the deck was hitting him.
Joe Serock and Andrew Moreno sat side by side for most of the day and chipped up aggressively, juxtaposed by their laidback, nearly disinterested table images. They have a combined $11.9 million in tournament earnings but neither have a trophy from this ARIA Resort & Casino event.
They played a key pot late in the day that propelled Moreno to the chip lead. On a board of Ks 5d 2s 3s 2c, Moreno put Serock all in and used a few time extensions before folding. Moreno tabled Jd Td to show him the bluff.
Moreno looked to be on cruise control but then ended up on the wrong side of Le’s sun run. Moreno bet huge on the river against Le, only to see him rip his stack all in. Moreno mucked his hand, leaving himself short on chips and bubbled the final table in tenth place.
Serock was next to go in ninth place when he found pocket kings. He got his stack all in on the turn of a ten-high board, Ghosh called and had him bested with two pair that improved a full house on the river.
Early Eliminations
Shannon Shorr was the first player eliminated in 65th place, Joao Simao was out in 39th and Victoria Livschitz was the last woman standing in 41st place.
Action clocks came into play on Thursday and the field started with six time extension chips each. Players were given six more when 24 players remained across three tables and six more when they reached the final table of nine.
Each returning player has $153,280 locked up and they’ll return at 2:00 pm with blinds at 150,000/300,000 to play down to a winner. All the action takes place at the iconic PokerGO Studio and live-streamed on the BetMGM YouTube channel.
Day 3 Final Table Chip Counts
- Nguyen Le – 23,125,000
- Yaniv Peretz – 22,350,000
- Asish Ghosh – 21,575,000
- Aleksandras Rusinovas – 12,125,000
- Hassan el Hakim – 6,875,000
- Lars Kamphues – 3,325,000
- Michael Rossitto – 3,050,000
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