The MSPT $3,500, $3.5 million Guarantee Venetian Main Event, after almost eight hours of play, whittled the starting field of 54 Day 3 hopefuls down to the final table of ten. Leading the way with 5,270,000 is Pavel Plesuv, who also final tabled the MSPT $5,000 Venetian Main Event. Plesuv, Moldova’s all-time tournament earnings leader with over $2.4 million in earnings finished runner-up in February at the partypoker Millions Germany event for $924,841.

Coming to the final table sixth in chips is Justin Bonomo with 2,410,000. Bonomo’s heater this year continues, as he already holds a WSOP Bracelet in the $10,000 Heads Up NLHE event, wins at both the Super High Roller Bowl and the Super High Roller Bowl China, and a win at the US Poker Open Event #1, with all of his cashes from all over the world combining for $14,765,934 in just half of the calendar year. Bonomo will be looking to book his tenth first place finish of the year on Hendon Mob with a win in this event.

Others that made it to the final table include Karim Rebei (4,385,000), Team partypoker Pro Joni Jouhkimainen (3,650,000), James Romero (3,275,000), Yat Cheng (2,790,000), Christian Rudolph (2,375,000), Michael Sklenicka (1,360,000), Season 7 MSPT Venetian champ Thomas Boivin (930,000), and Mohammed Jaafar (565,000).

44 players left today’s Day 3 with cash instead of a date with the final table, and they included final table bubble boy Jack O’Neill (11th - $49,101), WSOP $100,000 High Roller Bracelet winner Nick Petrangelo (13th - $38,579), Aussie Pro Jonathan Karamalikis (14th - $38,579), Jared Jaffee (15th - $38,579), Tristan “Cre8ive” Wade (16th - $34,371), Joe Kuether (18th - $34,371), Upeshka De Silva (22nd - $23,849), Josh Turner (25th - $19,991), Thomas Peebles (27th - $19,991), Day 3 starting chip leader Jonathan Concepcion (29th - $15,081), 2015 WSOP Main Event Champ Joe McKeehen (42nd - $11,574), Team PokerStars Pro Jeff Gross (44th - $11,574), and CSOP founder Matt Stout (47th - $10,522).

Day 4 kicks off Saturday at 2 P.M. local time, and will be streamed live on Twitch and MSPTpoker.com live (30-minute delay) with hole cards and commentary. We’ll also continue our live reporting of the event as we play down to a winner. Be sure to catch all the action as we conclude our summer tournament series with The Venetian during the Deepstacks Championship Poker Series.