Nick Maimone has remained the chip leader after Day 3 of the inaugural PokerStars Championship Bahamas $5,000 Main Event. The player retained his momentum from the previous day to grow his stack until he had a total of 1,750,000 before him at the time when the final hand for the night was played.
Maimone seems to have a thing about Atlantis Paradise Island Bahamas Casino, where he scooped almost $1 million in prize money for winning the PCA $25,000 High Roller last year.
As it could be seen, the player has been on fire over the past several days, looking to win the first-ever Main Event in PokerStars’ new live tournament era. Maimone cemented his chip lead about halfway through Day 3 play when he eliminated Pascal Lefrancois to collect a huge pot, the largest one of the tournament so far.
A lot of popular poker professionals left the field of the $5,000 Main Event on Day 3 but there are still familiar faces among those to be returning for Day 4 play. PokerStars Team Pro Jason Mercier is still there with 1,333,000 in chips, right behind the chip leader. Jaime Staples, of PokerStars’ team of online players, has, too, survived through Day 3.
The 2013 WSOP Main Event champion, Ryan Riess, former EPT Grand Final champion Adrian Mateos, and 2016 WSOP Main Event November Niner Cliff Josephy will also be seen at the host casino’s tables when Day 4 play kicks off today.
The original field of 738 entries has been slashed to just 32 players. The survivors will be contending for a first-place prize of $480,012 and the honor to be named the first-ever PokerStars Championship Main Event winner. However, players have three more days to battle it out for the tournament trophy and the lion’s share of the $3,376,712 prize pool.
As mentioned above, the Bahamas festival is PokerStars’ first Championship event after the online poker room announced the introduction of the Championship and Festival formats of its live sponsored events last year. The first Festival was held in New Jersey last October and local player Jason Acosta won its $1,100 Main Event for $38,220, after emerging victorious over a field of 208 entries.
