From a field of 564 entries, the Card Player Poker Tour Venetian main event is down to its final 12 players with one of the best players on the planet near the top of the counts.

Stephen Chidwick finished the day with 2,440,000, good for second in chips behind Yake Wu heading into the tournament’s final day. Wu bagged up 2,808,000 at the end of play.

After spending most of the day in the middle of the pack, Chidwick used the final few levels to surge to the top of the leaderboard, including knockouts of Joe Kuether in 18th place and Nadya Magnus in 15th. Chidwick is looking to put an exclamation mark on a strong summer that included the birth of his child and his first World Series of Poker bracelet.

Joining Wu and Chidwick at the top of the counts are Jerry Robinson (1,641,000), Fabian Gumz (1,573,000), and Marton Czuczor (1,444,000).

Top pros Jeremy Ausmus and Chris Klodnicki will also be moving on to the final day with 1,171,000 and 275,000, respectively. Ausmus has already cashed for seven figures this summer and is looking to improve on his third-place spot in the Card Player Player of the Year rankings, while Klodnicki made two WSOP final tables.

Robert Heidorn is just days removed from a 10th place finish in the WSOP main event for $800,000 and still alive in the CPPT Venetian main. He will start Day 4 with 790,000.

The day started with 68 players fighting for the top 63 in-the-money spots. Tony Utnage, Will Kassouf, and Markus Prinz were eliminated to start hand-for-hand. David Peters then had his aces cracked on the bubble to secure everybody remaining a payday of at least $9,912.

Brian Yoon, Aaron Mermelstein, John Phan, Hafiz Khan, Shannon Shorr, Michael Tureniec, Alex Lynskey, Eddy Sabat, Trung Pham, JC Tran, Justin Zaki, Manig Loeser, Zachary Donovan, Joe Kuether, and Ben Palmer were among the notable finishers in the money. Palmer finished 13th for $31,302 and has had considerable success at the property. He won the first-ever World Poker Tour event at Venetian last March when he took home $431,655 for his efforts.

When play resumes on Saturday at 1 p.m., everybody will have locked up a payday of at least $39,128, but all will have their sights set on the $547,777 first-place money. Levels will be 75 minutes in length until they reach heads-up play, at which point they will be reduced to 30 minutes. Blinds will start at 12,000-24,000 with a 24,000 big blind ante.

The main event wraps up on Saturday, but the Venetian’s Deepstack Extravaganza series continues until July 28. You can check out the full Venetian schedule here.

Day 4 Chip Counts: