It didn’t take more than 5 hands of hand-for-hand play before we eliminated the final player. Now down to 17, spread over two tables, every player is in the money.

The player to make the ignominious exit was Guillaume Tremblay, whose was defeated by Christine Park’s .

The board came down a , and while Guillaume would usually be ecstatic to have made trip aces, that third ace sealed his fate, completing Christine’s full house.

Congratulations to all the players still left, and good luck on the last push to glory.

Joon Park is on the top of the heap heading into the final stretch of tonight’s $300 + $30 Deepstacks tourney, holding almost twice as much as his closest competitor and quadruple the average. Can he keep up the pace?

We were down to 20 players, the final two tables. But in the last few seconds we’ve gone down even further, to 19.

The shortest stack at the table found himself with a pocket pair, and rightly shoved for his remaining stack of 29,000. Considering the fact that the blinds are 3K/6K, it was a timely decision.

Unfortunately for Sylvain Lessard, his pocket 9’s ran into Marc Petit’s .

When the board came down , Sylvain’s night was over.

He almost made it! The top 17 of this tournament are paid, and so finishing in 19th will only garner him the personal satisfaction one can derive from lasting almost to the end of a tournament – but not quite.

On table 31 just now we saw a player in deep contemplation and stopped to investigate.

With only the blinds in the middle (equaling 10,000) and Pietro Di Alessandro’s bet of 11,500 Guillaume Tremblay had shoved all in for 67,000. Pietro had to think long and hard about it, and eventually his curiosity got the best of him. It was a fateful decision.

Pietro:

Guillaume:

The board was dealt , and with no clubs in his hand Pietro was also dealt a death-blow. A few hands later his tournament was over.

On table 31 there were four players involved in a hand as we walked by. There was about 15,000 in the pot, and the flop had already been dealt.

Flop:

The table checked revealing a on the turn.

At this point the player utg checked, followed by Pierre Marquette. Douglas Best chose this moment to shove for 93,000. Two of the remaining players got out of the way, but Pierre check-called the all in, confidently flipping his cards.

Pierre:

Doug:

Pierre had been slow-playing the ace-high stright from the turn. Unfortunately for him, a floated down the river, sinking his chances of winning the hand. Indeed, only a few minutes later Pierre busted out in 45th, most likely because of the damage Doug did to his chip stack.

At table 30 just now Joon Park just ended another player’s night, adding to his significant pile of chips.

Hi opponent, Matthew Pascarella, whoved with a 10-9 suited.  But he ran into Joon’s A-9, which was enough to take Dylan out as a pair of nines, ace kicker. With only 38 players left and the chip average around 100,000 every chip counts as the players slowly make their way to the final table.

At the first break he was at the top. At the second he slipped to 3rd. And now after 12 rounds Luigi Fantigrossi is back on top with an impressive 226,300 chips, the only player above 200,000 so far tonight.

Congrats, and good luck to all our players as we work towards tonight’s big winner, slated to collect $8,809 for first place.

Ben Menache was happy to see the flop. His pocket queens matched up and he had made trip queens right off the bat. Anyone who knows how to do math would be happy to shove, which he did.

Unfortunately for him, not only did he find himself up against Christian Rho’s pocket Aces, but those aces also matched up as well!

As the dealer dealt the turn and river cards and the third ace came up, Ben couldn’t do anything but pay his opponent, doubling him up. It’s cab be frustrating, but that’s poker.

Jason Motterhead got all his chips in preflop against Joon Park just now on table 30. Once the players flipped over their cards Jason must have been happy. He had a fantastic matchup, AK v AQ. The good vibes didn’t last long.

Joon matched up his Queens and took down the pot with trips, ending Jason’s night. He finished the night in 64th place.

We have a new chip leader after eight 30-minute levels in Miguel Goncalo, collecting an impressive number of chips through the second break.

Close behind him is Mr. Tu Kham Tran. His chip stack is thanks no doubt to the preponderance of bustouts coming from his table (5 players have busted from that table alone in the last hour).

Finally, our chip leader after four levels (Luigi Fantigrossi) is still in the hunt and near the top as well.