The original plan for Friday at the $5,000 buy-in Card Player Poker Tour Venetian main event was to play down to a winner, but thanks to a huge turnout of 688 and one of the most generous blind structures ever implemented, an extra day has been added to the schedule.
After four long days of grueling poker action, just 10 players remain to battle it out for the title, the trophy and the $655,847 first-place prize.
Leading the way is Javier Gomez, who came into the day with just 442,000 but managed to bag up more than double the average stack size with 3,645,000.
Also in the hunt is 2014 WSOP main event winner Martin Jacobson, and high-stakes tournament regulars Dimitar Danchev, Paul Volpe and Ankush Mandavia.
A total of 34 players gathered for day 4 with the hopes of making the final table. As the field whittled down to the final table, a number of notable pros hit the rail along the way including Dylan Wilkerson (34th), Ravi Raghavan (33rd), Matt Giannetti (31st), Chino Rheem (30th), Barry Hutter (28th), Dylan Linde (27th), Brett Richey (24th), Ben Palmer (19th), David Sands (18th), Sergio Aido (16th), and Chris Tryba (15th).
The players will return to the Venetian on Saturday at 12 p.m. to play down to a winner.
Here’s a look at the overnight chip counts.
| Seat | Player Name | Chip Count |
| 1 | Bobby Suer | 1,300,000 |
| 2 | Paul Hoefer | 2,385,000 |
| 3 | Ankush Mandavia | 1,620,000 |
| 4 | Javier Gomez | 3,645,000 |
| 5 | Dimitar Danchev | 945,000 |
| 6 | Paul Volpe | 1,195,000 |
| 7 | Samuel Bernabeu | 2,360,000 |
| 8 | Yan Shing Tsang | 750,000 |
| 9 | Renick Patterson | 2,085,000 |
| 10 | Martin Jacobson | 780,000 |
