The first Main Event of the World Poker Tour (WPT) Season XII is winding down as just fourteen players remain after Day 3 of the bwin WPT Merit Cyprus Classic. Alexey Rybin leads the charge to the final table with 1,736,000 chips, more than half a million more than the closest competitor. With blinds and antes about to increase to 5,000/10,000/1,000, that is as sizable a lead as it sounds.
This is the third year for the Merit Cyprus Classic, which added the bwin sponsorship to its name this season. The tour stop debuted in Season VIII, went on hiatus for the next two seasons, and returned in Season XI, when it took its place as the opener for the WPT season. The Merit Cyprus Classic holds a special spot in WPT history, as it marked the second of back-to-back titles for Marvin Rettenmaier last year (he had previously won the Season X WPT Championship), the first time that feat had ever been accomplished.
A total of 262 players entered the $4,400 Main Event on the Mediterranean island nation, producing a prize pool of $965,740. Payouts go down to 27th place and the winner will cash for $250,000.
The chip leader, Moscow’s Alexey Rybin, is an oddity in tournament poker, as he also led the field after Day 1A and Day 2, something that rarely happens. Oftentimes, the chip leader after the first day is nowhere to be found after the second day, let alone still reigning above all. If he should go on to claim first prize, he will have made one of the most dominant tournament runs in recent memory.
Rybin is still looking for his first live tournament win, though. He has six cashes on his resume (credit to TheHendonMob.com), the most impressive of which was his first: €270,000 ($366,833) for a fifth place finish in the 2010 European Poker Tour (EPT) San Remo Main Event. None of his other cashes have eclipsed $42,000. One of those, however, was a thirteenth place run in this summer’s $10,000 Pot-Limit Omaha Event at the World Series of Poker (WSOP), so even without a long list of cashes, Rybin does have experience with pressure deep in tournaments.
The bwin WPT Merit Cyprus Classic will pick up again on Tuesday at 1:00pm local time as the players aim for the final table. Once that final table of six is determined, the tournament will break until Wednesday, when a champion will be crowned.
2013 bwin WPT Merit Cyprus Classic – Day 3 Chip Counts
1. Alexey Rybin – 1,736,000
2. Kayhan Tuğrul – 1,200,000
3. Sergey Rybachenko – 1,006,000
4. Andrei Nikonov – 959,000
5. Bernard Samaha – 741,000
6. Maximilian Droege – 618,000
7. Jerfi Firatli – 422,000
8. Albert Daher – 354,000
9. Kfir Yamin – 310,000
10. Alexandr Lahkov – 287,000
11. Pierre Sayegh – 270,000
12. Bariş Topkaya – 122,000
13. Oleg Suntsov – 120,000
14. Natalya Nikitina – 114,000
