Four days ago, Ahmet Canatan was the final player standing in the second-biggest tournament of Kings of Tallinn, the €555 Championship, to win his first Kings of Tallinn trophy. Today, at noon local time, Canatan will return to Olympic Park Casino for Day 3 of the record-breaking €1,100 Main Event as one of the chipleaders, looking to take down the biggest event as well.
The Main Event’s seven-figure guarantee drew a bumper crowd to Estonia, with 1,181 entries on the clock at the end of late registration. Only 113 of them have made it to the third day, with Canatan having the fourth-largest stack in his bag. He will sit down with 951,000 chips, equaling 119 big blinds at the start of play. Canatan is only eight big blinds behind chipleader Mikael Haapaniemi, who gathered the only seven-figure stack of 1,015,000 on Day 2. Aklilu Laitinen and Yaniv Peretz sit in between Canatan and Haapaniemi, while Michael Dwyer rounds out the top five, trailing a bit with his stack of 837,000.
Top Ten Chip Counts
| Rank | Player | Country | Chip Count | Day 3 Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Mikael Haapaniemi | Finland | 1,015,000 | 127 |
| 2 | Aklilu Laitinen | Finland | 976,000 | 122 |
| 3 |  Yaniv Peretz | Latvia | 967,000 | 121 |
| 4 |  Ahmet Canatan | Denmark | 951,000 | 119 |
| 5 |  Michael Dwyer | Ireland | 837,000 | 105 |
| 6 |  Mirco De Martini | Italy | 825,000 | 103 |
| 7 |  Isak Bergstrom | Sweden | 677,000 | 85 |
| 8 |  Piotr Sztenkiel | Poland | 650,000 | 81 |
| 9 |  Jevgeni Voitovits | Estonia | 617,000 | 77 |
| 10 |  Olaf Larssen | Norway | 611,000 | 76 |
Plenty of other notables are still in contention for the €182,000 top prize. Mathias Siljander (511,000), Juha Helppi (511,000), and Kai Lehto (221,000) are still in the race to become the first-ever two-time Kings of Tallinn champion. Among the Estonians looking to keep the trophy on home soil are Igor Pihela Jr. (577,000), Priit Parmasto (297,000), Stanislav Smeljov (167,000), and Mauri Dorbek (144,000).
All of them are guaranteed to walk away with €2,450, but all eyes will be on the five- and six-figure prizes of the final table as the tournament progresses deeper and deeper today.
Remaining Payouts
| Place | Prize | Place | Prize | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | €182,000 | 14-15 | €9,800 | |
| 2 | €115,000 | 16-17 | €8,515 | |
| 3 | €80,000 | 18-20 | €7,500 | |
| 4 | €61,000 | 21-23 | €6,500 | |
| 5 | €47,000 | 24-27 | €5,600 | |
| 6 | €36,500 | 28-31 | €4,850 | |
| 7 | €28,000 | 32-39 | €4,200 | |
| 8 | €21,800 | 40-55 | €3,650 | |
| 9 | €16,800 | 56-71 | €3,200 | |
| 10-11 | €13,500 | 72-95 | €2,800 | |
| 12-13 | €11,400 | 96-113 | €2,450 |
The tournament will resume in Level 20: 4,000/8,000 (8,000). Each level will last for 60 minutes, and a break is scheduled after every two levels. An exact plan for today has not been announced yet, but the expectation is that only one or two tables will remain at the penultimate day’s end.
Stay tuned as the live reporting will continue to provide highlights from the largest-ever Kings of Tallinn Main Event.
