Olivier Brossard has been on a tear in the last 2 levels, and has turned his less-than-average stack into the head of the pack in just a few orbits. He recently eliminated former leader Larry Jr Raymond to take over the chip lead deep in this multi-day event.

With a little over 2 million in chips, Olivier has now surpassed long-time chip-leader Karam Saleh, albeit only by a small margin. Karam is not far behind with around 1,800,000 in chips, and both players are far ahead of the rest of the field. Their combined stacks represent more than 25% of the chips in play.

Karam Saleh began Day 2 as the chip leader, and has maintained a spot amongst the leaders ever since. In fact, with the exception of a few minutes earlier tonight, he has been in the driver seat all night, steadily increasing his stack as the night unfolded. He is now up to 1,701,000 in chips, more than triple the current average stack.

Olivier Brossard is hot in his tracks after a very strong last level, and he now holds 1,543,000 as play enters level 22. The rest of the field falls well below the 1 million chip mark. Below are the top stacks in play:

A few more eliminations have brought the field down to 36 players, evenly split on four 9-handed tables listed below. A cash prize of $475 is now locked in for all the remaining players, although it is only a fraction of the $17,570 waiting for the eventual champion.

Karam Saleh has stepped on the gas in the last few hands, more than doubling his stack up to 1,450,000 – good for the stranglehold chip lead. Most of his newly acquired ammunition came from a big river call versus Chuhang Zhou just moments ago. Holding , Karam fired 125K on the river with the board showing and was faced with a raise to 325K. After some deliberation, he made the call and tabled the winner after Chuhang flashed a second-best .

Olivier Brossard has recently joined the big stacks after finding a big double-up through former chip-leader Larry Jr Raymond, and he now holds a hair above the 7-figure mark, good for second in chips.

A short break will follow level 21, during which we will update the leaderboard once again.

With the field now at 45 players, the Extravaganza is down to just 5 final tables. Roughly half of Day 2 is behind us as we are midway through level 20, and another 3 hours of play separates the players from bagging for Day 3.

The chip lead is now shared by Maxime Blanchard and Karam Saleh, who both hold roughly 770,000 in chips. Not far behind are Chuhang Zhou and Larry Jr Raymond, with stacks upwards of 500,000.

Photographs from level 20:

The players are back from their first break of the night, and action is underway in level 19. We took this time to update the leaderboard, found below. Larry Jr Raymond is in the driver seat with a stack worth 846,000, while Karam Saleh is in a comfortable second place with 725,000.

The field continues to drop at a steady pace, and in 90 minutes of play we’ve lost nearly 1/3 of the field. We are currently in the early stages of level 18, and following this round will be a short break, during which we will bring an update on the leaderboard.

Photographs from level 17: