The tournament has now passed the 160 players remaining mark – that is to say, there are players on just 20 tables – and the money bubble is looming. The clock has been paused for a few minutes to deploy tablets on each table that will be used as a shot clock from now until the end of the tournament.

Each player will have no more than 30 seconds to make decisions, and each player has been given a total of 6 time extension cards to be used for particularly difficult decisions.

Cards are now back in the air, and play will continue until hand-for-hand play arrives, a little closer to the actual money bubble.

The players have just returned from their second break of the day, and there are now 170 players remaining in the MILLIONS Open. The tournament has transitioned to 8-handed play, and the players are taking advantage of the extra room at the tables to accommodate their ever-growing stacks.

The gap between the rich and the poor has increased significantly with the chip leader, Sebastien Drolet-Poitras, playing over 110 big blinds, while many players find themselves clinging to less than 10 big blinds. The chip average still provides around 35 big blinds, but expect the players to use them cautiously as the money bubble approaches.

Here are the top five stacks in play:

As we are getting closer to the second break, the field is getting smaller. Smaller stacks feel pressured and try to seize opportunities to double up. That’s what Martin Jacobson did when he found himself in a perfect spot against Nicola Basile. Basile raised his ladies pre-flop to 900K and Jacobson went all-in with his bullets. The board came in Jacobson’s favor, with nothing on it to threaten his hand.

Jacobson:

Basile:

Board:

As we approach the end of level 18 on Day 2 of the MILLIONS Open, the field is down to less than 200 players and the money bubble now looms on the horizon. The current chip average provides roughly 40 big blinds so there is still lots of room to maneuver but the bubble pressure will begin to mount steadily.

This event easily surpassed its prize pool guarantee thanks to the 1,231 entries which will allow 143 players to qualify for the money, with a massive first-place prize of $210,000 waiting for the winner.

Here are some more photos from level 18:

We are half way through level 17 with 220 players left. Some stacks are getting quite imposing – so is Ken Ransom’s. He just took Albert Nguyen’s entire stack. When I got there, the flop and turn were already out . Nguyen pushed all-in with over 2,000,000 in chips behind and Ransom made the call with his set, holding .

Nguyen showed his straight , but unfortunately the river didn’t go his way when the came and gave Ransom a boat.

Three levels have passed and the players just had their first break. There are 262 players left after 60 minutes of play. We went around during the break and took note of the names and chip count of our current leaders.

Griffin Benger is taking the lead after the first three levels with a stack of 15,725,000 chips.

Here is a top 10 of the biggest stacks so far: