A few hands after Stephane’s elimination, Ayana Massa followed him to the Tournament Desk to pick up her own payout voucher as she ran into Guillaume Tremblay’s pocket Aces.

Play then moved to heads up action with Guillaume starting with about a 3:2 chip advantage over Minh Chi Nguyen.

Leo Hachenbroch was eliminated in a hand we missed while writing up the previous elimination, and then after about 6-7 short-handed orbits, Stephane Dulmaine was eliminated in 4th place for $910.

According to reports, Stephane had been shorthanded for the entire tournament, or close, so it was an accomplishment just to reach the money – and then the final table – and then to ladder up to 4th place. In his final hand, he got it in very good, raising all-in from the button and finding a call from Minh Chi Nguyen in the bb.

Stephane:
Minh Chi:

The flop went the wrong way for Stephane, unfortunately: and then the turn/river of brought no relief. The flopped pair of 6s was good.

4th place: Stephane Dulmaine, $910

Ayana Massa has eliminated Matthew Bellemare in a two-step process separated by about 5 hands. First up, they both got it in preflop with Ayana holding and Matthew holding ≥ The board ran out clean for the Ace-high: and Matthew was left with just 55K oil his stack.

Matthew was able to fold for a few hands, but before long he was in the bb, and 25K of his remaining stack was given over to the ante and he had just 30K of the 50K bb. Ayana raised utg to 150K, action folded around and that was the end of the action – cards were exposed:

Matthew:
Ayana:

Community cards:

The board again ran out clean for Ace-high and Ayana secured the rest of Matthew’s chips.

6th place: Matthew Bellemare, $530

Jay X finished in 7th tonight, earning himself $410 in the process. Congrats!

Guillaume Tremblay has busted the Bird, aka Zee Birdman, aka Joey, aka “Ca-caw!”

After calling a 70,000 raise the flop was dealt . Guillaume checked utg, Birdman shoved and – after a short period of contemplation – Guillaume called.

It was quite a showdown, with Guillaume holding A-Q, and the Bird holding K-Q. The turn and river were of no help, and the crowd shrank by 1.

7 players left!

The final table for the Megastack Turbo is finally here. We are presently in level 22, with blinds at 10K/20K, and while writing this post we have already lost 2 players and are down to 8!

The 10th place finisher was Maxime Coderre-Bernier, taking home $180.

The 9th place finisher was David Bonneau, taking home $240. Congrats to both for making the final table, and good luck to the last 8 players making a push for the 1st place prize!

The magnanimity of the 12 final players was on full display at the Megastack Turbo event just now. With 12 players left, they were all cognizant that one of them would be leaving empty handed (only 11 were slated to be paid). This didn’t sit well with the group, who didn’t want anyone to feel excluded.

It is unclear who’s idea it was, but in the end they decided that they would all agree to a deal in which the eventual 1st, 2nd and 3rd place players would sacrifice $50, $35 and $20 respectively to allow for the 12th place finisher to collect $110. This was the same amount that 11th place would make.

Only two hands later someone was eliminated, collecting the (newly created) 12th place prize. What a nice group filled with holiday spirit!