While the players are enjoying a 45 minute break, we went around the room to see who’s leading the field. Here’s an approximation of the current leaderboard:

1. Noeung Troeung – 1,775,000
2. Yannick Lamarre-Delooz – 985,000
3. Mike Costa – 849,000
4. Pierre Daigle – 820,000
5. Rick Shamshoum – 810,000
6. Dean Murphy – 770,000
7. Alain Jobin – 726,000

Below you’ll find an album of photos taken in the levels leading up to the bubble (17, 18 & 19):

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(47 Photos)

Hand for Hand play on the bubble continued for over 45 minutes but now the bubble has burst and Jonathan Skelly was eliminated in 118th place. The remaining players are all in the money.

Hand-for-hand play featured no shortage of action, with a few all-in and calls (all double-ups) and even more uncalled all-in bets. Finally, though, Jonathan was left with no more than a small blind’s worth in his stack and he was all in whether he wanted to be or not.

Play is now hand for hand as the tournament has wound it’s way down to 118 players remaining.

Here are counts of some of the notable players left in the field:

• Alain Jobin – 399,000
• Alexandre Lavigne – 145,000
• Ami Alibay – 505,000
• Amir Babakhani – 106,000
• Carla Sabini – 252,000
• Derek Lerner – 253,000
• Jeff Cote – 293,000
• Jean-Philippe Piquette – 20,000
• Josue Sauvageau – 262,000
• Nicola Basile – 333,000
• Patrick Braga – 240,000
• Yannick Lamarre-Delooz – 429,000

We’re at the start of level 18 and players have just returned from a break while tournament staff removed the blue T500 chips from play. With just 130 players left and the bubble at 117, the tournament is getting very close to the bubble.

The leaders to start level 18 are…

1. Noeung Troeung – 1,021,000
2. Pierre Daigle – 712,000
3. Mike Costa – 596,000
4. Peter Senecal – 550,000
5. Kalpesh Raichura – 548,000

Michael Mallette has been having a great day, but we just saw a pretty typical hand in which he ended up shipping something north of 150K across the table. When we arrived at the table short-stacked Sylvain Cote was already all in and Michael had shoved over top to isolate. Unfortunately for him, Denis Cyr had a hand – he called to go all in for his tournament life.

The hands:

Sylvain:
Michael:
Denis:

The community cards came out to give no help to either man holding an Ace, and Denis stacked up the chips.

It’s 15 minutes into level 17 and the leaderboard is remaining more or less intact with Noeung Troeung way ahead of the pack – he’s up over 850K now. Michael Mallette has done well since the break with 620K, and after that are a few players all hovering around the 500K mark: HongKong Nguyen, Joakim Beaupré, Rick Shamshoum, Theodore Doukas, and Peter Senecal are all there.

Rick Shamshoum

Peter Senecal

Noeung Troeung

HongKong Nguyen

Joakim Beaupré

The eliminations have continued at a furious pace, so quickly that it can be difficult to keep track. Here is a full list of eliminations in Day 2 up to about 20 minutes ago.

[Read more…]

Players are back from their break and we have an updated leaderboard as level 16 begins.

1. Noeung Troeung – 746K
2. HongKong Nguyen – 490K
3. Alain Jobin – 475K
4. Michael Mallette – 475K
5. Joakim Beaupré – 450K

Note that Michael Mallette and Alain Jobin are sitting side by side in seats 5 and 6 on table 56. Alain has already made one good laydown to a shove by Michael, but being on his left Alain can put pressure on Michael. Fireworks are to be expected.

Players are about to go on their first break of the day as tournament staff removes the black T100 chips from play. Action has slowed down a little bit, but that’s not to say it’s slow by any means – from the 300 who started the day there are just 206 players left after two full levels.