Moments before the tournament went on a chip-up break, play entered hand-for-hand as the field dropped down to 24 players, which is one spot away from the money bubble.

Constantine Papadakis has the current chip lead, and his 530,000 stack is nearly triple the average. Here are the chips leaders entering level 17:

Name	Chip Count
Constantine Papadakis	530,000
Behrouz Ghaedi	449,000
Benjamin Croteau	414,000
Viken Artinian	365,000
Lorne Wechsler	343,000
Irina Tchkarova	249,000

Photographs from level 16:

Event 8 has been reduced to only 5 tables, and some monster stacks have sprung up in the last few levels. Viken Artinian is sitting atop the leaderboard, as he closes on the 300,000 mark. Randy Khalil is still amongst the leaders, and his bounty stack has grown to 13 bounties.

Name	Chip Count
Vikan Artinian	296,000
Brett Blake	246,500
Constantine Papadakis	239,000
Randy Khalil	206,000
Martin Mc Manus	160,000
Behrouz Ghaedi	159,000
Brian Morgan	158,000
Lorne Wechsler	150,000

Photographs from level 13:

Here is the leaderboard as play enters level 10:

Name	Chip Count
Steen G. Rossow	130,000
Randy Khalil	129,000
Karyn Gemmil	120,000
Todor Petkov	109,000
Martin Mc Manus	97,000
Irina Tchakarova	93,000

Photographs taken during level 9:

Randy Khalil should be renamed “The Bounty Hunter”, as we just witnessed him pickup his 8th and 9th bounties of the night, and it’s only level 9!

With in the hole, he called one player’s all-in for just over 11K, and then committed another ~22K when the player to his left reshoved. His opponents opened up and , which was perfect for Randy as both his cards were live! The board ran out and….. river !

Event 8 is proving to be a very popular tournament, as 214 players have already taken their seats. A few more minutes remain before late registration ends, so anyone wishing to participate could still do so! Registration will close at the end of the upcoming break, roughly at 9:00pm.

Photographs from the first few levels of play: