We just witnessed a monster hand between two players who have been among the leaders all day and one who, while he was strong earlier in the day had recently recovered from just 10K (2 antes) to a respectable, if under average, stack.

With the button on Seat 1, Daniel Charette (the player who had made the big recovery) was in the BB. Shawn Martell in seat 6 (UTG+2) raised preflop to 150K and was quickly called by Stephan Belisle in seat 9. Action folded around to Daniel who went all-in with his 600K stack.

Shawn took some time – and spent some time staring down Stephan – before 4-betting to a cool million chips – though this was almost exactly a min-raise on the all-in. Stephan called and the dealer laid out the flop: . As Daniel (who was already all-in) looked on, Shawn checked and Stephan quickly declared that he was all-in. Action was back on Shawn who tanked for about 45 seconds before making the call.

All three players’ cards were turned over. First was Stephan, who held for middle set on the flop. Shawn held for a pair and the flush draw, while Daniel had for a better pair and a better flush draw.

The turn was an insignificant , but the river was anything BUT insignificant – the gave both Daniel and Shawn their flush. Daniel more than tripled up to 1.9M, while Shawn took the side pot to finish the hand ahead – though not as much as he might have liked. And Stephan who flopped a monster? Eliminated in 23rd place for $1,035.

Event 1 has dropped to 26 players remaining which means that the tournament is now down to 3 tables. Play today is scheduled for 16 levels, which means play should continue through the end of level 29, but Tournament Director Martin Roy has said that if the field reaches 10 players (the number who will start the final table, and the final scheduled seating redraw) early, play will end for the evening.

Players will take a short break in 5 minutes and we’ll publish full chip counts after the break.

Event 1 is now down to 4 tables and just 33 players remain in contention for the top prizes.

For much of the day Table 61 has had massive stacks in several seats, and this has led to some pretty amazing hands. Two of the players who have witnessed most of the action are local player Kevin Blais and frequent festival visitor Michael Malm – who has also been among the chip leaders for most of the tournament.

In this hand, Michael raised preflop to 65K and Kevin quickly put his 435K stack in the middle. Action folded back to Michael, who eventually called. Kevin turned over while Michael held .

The flop came which didn’t settle anything, but the on the turn put Michael in the lead while leaving Kevin with outs. One of those outs fell on the river – the gave Kevin Broadway and the double up.

The action continues to move very quickly and in the course of two hands on what was perhaps the most stacked table left in the event a new chip leader has emerged with a truly massive stack of over 1.5M.

In the first hand, Luigi Fantigrossi lost one of the leading stacks in the tournament to Yannick Lamarre-Delooz in a nightmarish (for Luigi) board runout. Preflop, Yannick raised from UTG to 32K (a min raise) and it folded around to Luigi in the Big Blind, who called. The flop came and with Luigi holding and Yannick holding what followed was inevitable. Luigi checked, Yannick bet 25K and then Luigi shoved his big 720K chip stack over the top. Yannick called holding the set and even managed to improve to quads when the King came on the turn.

The table was still settling down from that excitement when Yannick got involved in another hand with another player with an above-average stack – this time, Ryan Levine was the victim.

On the hand there was a min-raise and a call pre flop, which came . Ryan made a small c-bet that Yannick called. The turn fell – and with Ryan holding , he quickly shoved holding a turned full house. Yannick called immediately – unfortunately for Ryan, the boat wasn’t good against Yannick’s flopped quad Queens!

Yannick has moved into the clear chip lead with over 1.5M.

As is often the case in low-buy-in, high-participation events like Event 1, the money bubble wasn’t much to write home about. When the field was whittled down to 170 players things slowed down a little bit… But then picked right back up and at the beginning of Level 20 player #163 was eliminated and the remaining 162 were in the money.

Play continues in Level 20 with a raft of post-bubble eliminations.

Payout information will be available in small batches as players are eliminated and can be accessed by the link in the right-hand sidebar.