The Final Table Begins
Welcome back to the Rio! Our final nine players will be taking their seats shortly here in the Amazon room. Play concluded last night right at the end of Level 26 when [Removed:415] was eliminated in 10th place. Our chipleader to start the final table is Maxim Lykov with 3,875,000 in chips. He has nearly 2 million more chips than the next closest stack which belongs to Dror Michaelo who will start play with 1,980,000.
Lykov has cashed in a number of WSOP events in the past with his best being a 3rd place finish in the $5,000 No-Limit Hold'em Shootout in 2009. He took home $145,062 for his performance in that event but he stands to win a lot more if he can take home the gold today as our eventual champion will recieve not only the prestigious gold bracelet, but also $648,880.
Play will begin promptly at 2:30pm PST so stay tuned!
| Seat | Player | Chips |
| 1 | Ren Ho Zhang | 785,000 |
| 2 | Dror Michaelo | 1,980,000 |
| 3 | Maxim Lykov | 3,875,000 |
| 4 | Sebastien Roy | 1,400,000 |
| 5 | Stanislav Alekhin | 820,000 |
| 6 | Joshua Evans | 1,670,000 |
| 7 | Douglas Mackinnon | 1,020,000 |
| 8 | Harald Olsen | 1,025,000 |
| 9 | Warren Wooldridge | 1,030,000 |