Romain Nardin Leads Sweet Sixteen in Monte Carlo Main Event

Day 4 of the PokerStars Championship Monte Carlo Main Event returned 45 players for five levels of action that trimmed the field to the final two, eight-handed tables. Romain Nardin opened up a large lead on the field, ending the day with 3.9 million in the bag.

PokerStars Team Pro Bertrand Grospellier looks for his first tournament win since 2012 but is one of the short stacks returning with 653,000. Davidi Kitai finished the day inside the top ten and is looking for his second EPT Main Event title since his win in the 2012 Berlin series.

Sergio Aido has several notable final tables but lacks a flagship main event win and Stefan Schillhabel has been on fire since final tabling the WPT Tournament of Champions in April, finished in eighth at the partypoker Millions High Roller in Nottingham and won a Turbo side event on Sunday.

Diego Zeiter of Argentina and Douglas Fierra Souza of Brazil are the only remaining players from outside Europe.

Dan Smith finished the highest among all Americans in 34th place for $16,799. He shoved when had less than ten big blinds with queen-high and Paul Testud called holding ace king. A king came on the turn and sent Smith to the cashier’s cage.

Former champ Jan Bendik was eliminated in 36th place, Remi Castignon (33rd), Hossein Ensan (32nd) and Manig Loeser (28th). 

Thursday’s Day 5 action requires the field to play down to a final table of seven players regardless of how long it takes for the video production crew. 

Top Ten Chip Counts

1. Romain Nardin – 3,956,000
2. Michael Kolkowicz – 2,983,000
3. Diego Zeiter – 1,848,000
4. Alexandru Papzian – 1,759,000
5. Raffaele Sorrentino – 1,622,000
6. Davidi Kitai – 1,536,000
7. Andrey Bondar – 1,283,000
8. Marius-Catalin Pertea – 1,110,000
9. Maxim Panyak – 1,082,000
10. Andreas Klatt – 1,059,000