North Macedonia's Ilija Savevski was one of the most accomplished poker players to enter the Main Event with $807,070 in tournament winnings to put him on top of his country's All Time Leaderboard at The Hendon Mob. Defending The Festival Bratislava champion Michel Molenaar advanced to the final day but was one of the early casualties of the day after unsuccessfully three-bet jamming his ducks into Savevski's ace-nine suited and headed to the commentating booth with The Festival Series commentator George Sandford to commentate the end of the event.
Meanwhile, Savavski was one of two players to advance to the final day who earned WSOP hardware after winning a bracelet at the WSOP Europe Event #3: €1,350 Mini Main Event in 2022 for his largest career live tournament cash of €255,669. He has also had some success at Banco Casino as around this time last year he won the €199 The Hendon Mob Championship for €28,742. This is no longer his largest cash at Banco Casino as he just hit the rail in the Main Event on the podium in third place for €36,750 after losing his final hand as follows against Gabriel Rymar.
Savevski limped with A A from the button with blinds at 150,000/300,000 with a 300,000 big blind ante before Rymar checked back his option with the Robbi Jade Lew J 4 . Rymar check-called a min-bet by Savevski after improving to bottom pair on the K 5 4 flop before both players checked the J turn. Savevski led out for 500,000 on the J river. Rymar tanked for about 30 seconds before he jammed with his two pair. Savevski had 3,200,000 behind and tanked for a couple of minutes before he found a call only to get the bad news that his Main Event end was over after his pocket rockets proved to be no good.
Rymar has been putting on a dominating display and holds a massive 7:1 chip advantage over Christoforos Christoforou to start heads-up play.
| Seat | Player | Country | Chips | Big Blinds |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | Gabriel Rymar | Poland | 27,025,000 | 90 |
| 4 | Christoforos Christoforou | Cyprus | 3,700,000 | 12 |
