Stacks are all small relative to the blinds, and Yves Deschamps and Phannosophea Muong tangled in a classic short-stack hand that saw Phannasophea eliminated in 5th place.

Yves was in the cutoff when he open-shoved and Phannasophea was to his left in the button position. He called very quickly.

Both players showed a lot of paint:

Yves:
Phannasophea:

The board ran out safely for King-high and when they counted down the stacks, they found that Yves covered his opponent by a single 1K chip.

5th place: Phannasophea Muong, $380

Sarabdeep Ahluwalia has been eliminated in 6th place after an ill-timed attempt at a steal from the small blind. Holding less than 100K in tournament chips, action folded around to Sarabdeep in the small blind and he raised all-in – only to be instantly called by Luc Fournier in the big blind.

Sarabdeep:
Luc:

That Luc’s pair included the ended up being very significant as the board ran out giving him a Queen-high flush to beat Sarabdeep’s Jack-high flush.

Players are now on break while tournament staff removes the blue T500 chips from play.

6th place: Sarabdeep Ahluwalia, $270

There were two eliminations on (effectively) the same hand as play moved from 11 players to a final table, so the final table came together with only 9 players remaining in the event. Even so, stacks are so widely varied and the small stacks are so small that play didn’t slow down for a second, and 3 more players have been eliminated, including Mickael Trottier in 7th place ($190.00).

Just prior to Mickael’s elimination, Joshua Campbell won another huge hand against the player 2nd in chips at the time, eliminating him on the bubble while adding another 170K to his stack. Josh remains the overwhelming chip leader with over 20% of the chips in play.

Play has moved extremely quickly, and that has benefited some players who have grown huge chip stacks – while others are getting so short compared to the blinds that they have very few alternatives.

Here are some photos showing some of the range of stacks in the tournament with about 13 players left. Since these photos were taken there were a couple more eliminations and the final 10 players have come together on the final table.

Joshua Campbell has made a huge move now that play has consolidated on two tables. As the number of players hit the 20 mark, Josh has taken out three players at the his new table and grown his stack to among the leaders in the tournament.

The first positive hand for Josh in this passage of play was when his flopped top pair and took out Pierre Derome holding pocket Kings and Eric Schanck who was all-in for about 30K holding . This took him from 40K (and officially short) to over 100K.

About two hands later, he took out Gerard Dubuc when his held against Gerard’s on a board.

At this point there are just 16 players remaining and the pace continues to be relatively quick.

Edit: took out another player…

Add Robert Francis Cartagena to the list of players Josh has taken out when his outdrew Robert’s on the board.

With the third break comes the removal of the black T100 chips from play… and an updated leaderboard in Event 7!

1. Minh Hai D’an Huynh – 106K
2. Kenneth Lowry – 96K
3. Kyle Hewitt – 90K

Players in Event 7 have just returned from a break and we took advantage of the break to put together the leaderboard for the event.

1. Felix Sides – 71K
2. Mikael D’Amico – 70K
3. Sean Windover – 66K
4. Kyle Hewitt – 63K
5. Shane Flewelling – 62K

Three of the leaders:

Felix Sides

Mikael D’Amico

Sean Windover

The rebuy period is now over in Event 7 of the Playground Winter Festival, and the final tally is 68 players and 16 rebuys. Tournament staff is finalizing the prize pool and payout structures and we’ll publish this information shortly.

There are 50 players left in the tournament and since play is 10-handed in this event, that means that a table is breaking right now and play will continue on 5 tables.