Kenar and Tarzan Lead Final 13 at Merit Poker Main Event
The $5,500 NOIR Poker Series event drew 769 entries and a $3.6 million prize pool, with Fahredin Mustafov bringing up the rear.
The 2026 NOIR Poker Series $5,500 Merit Poker Main Event is down to its final 13 players, with Kenar and Tarzan returning as the chip leaders. The event drew 769 entries at Merit Royal Diamond Hotel Casino & Spa, built a $3,608,148 prize pool and left $525,000 for the winner.
PokerNews said Day 1c drew 185 players and Day 1d added another 140 after late registration closed, pushing the field to 769. Day 2 began with 113 players and ran for ten levels before only 13 remained.
Kenar ended the day with 15,050,000, while Tarzan bagged 12,800,000. Manuel Fritz sits third with 8,775,000, and the rest of the top group includes Fabian Gumz on 5,700,000, Selahaddin Bedir on 3,475,000, Xiaosheng Zheng on 3,375,000, Leonid Orman on 3,125,000 and Konstantin Voronin on 2,500,000.
Fahredin Mustafov comes back with 1,800,000 at the bottom of the leaderboard. He is also second on Bulgaria’s all-time money list with just over $12 million in live earnings, while Gumz is a WPT Prime champion with more than $4 million in career cashes and Fritz is close to $7 million.
The 13 return at 1 p.m. local time on Thursday, August 6, and play restarts at Level 27 with blinds of 100,000/200,000 and a 200,000 big blind ante. Everyone is locked for at least $46,200, with 12 eliminations left before the Main Event trophy is decided.
The Day 2 exit list also wiped out all four Day 1 starting-flight chip leaders. Timur Margolin went out in 68th, Ehsan Amiri in 58th, Dmitrii Nazarov in 30th and Haydar Issa also fell short, while the day also sent out EPT Main Event champions Nicolas Chouity, Arsenii Karmatckii and Gilles Simon, high-stakes regulars Aren Bezhanyan, Felipe Ketzer and Joris Ruijs, WSOP bracelet winners Ravid Garbi and Dietrich Fast, and GGPoker Pro Yuxi Huang.
