There is just over a level left to play in Day 2 of Event 1, and we are down to our final 21 players.

Below is a gallery of the players who made the final 3 tables:

Pascal Sirois

Yannick Grondin

Christophe Fracheboud

Jessie Wheatley

Dave Bond

Michael Moussis

Marcel Basset

Martin Giguere

Catherine Graves

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(26 Photos)

The players are enjoying their last break of the day, and Day 2 will conclude after the completion of 3 more 40-minute levels. Only 28 players remain, and these are their approximate chip counts:

Table 57

1. Pascal Sirois – 545K
2. Alexandre Bedard – 445K
3. empty seat
4. Shawn Martell – 375K
5. Nicolas Couture – 1.025M
6. Elaine Rawn – 865K
7. Arjade Gregorio – 1.650M
8. Patrick Pilotte-Renaud – 885K
9. Dany Giguere – 960K

Table 60

1. Michael Moussis – 725K
2. Angelo Simard – 1.760M
3. Andre Vezina – 1.050M
4. Catherine Graves – 1.070M
5. empty seat
6. Joakim Beaupre – 400K
7. Edward Hakim – 500K
8. empty seat
9. Jamie Marciano-Pegoretti – 920K

Table 61

1. Alain Couture – 575K
2. empty seat
3. Derek Watanabe – 600K
4. Guy Yvan Bourgouin – 680K
5. Martin Giguere – 780K
6. Alexandre Morel – 1.175M
7. empty seat
8. Yannick Grondin – 2.175M
9. Brian Bond – 1.610M

Table 64

1. Marcel Basset – 2.565M
2. Ghislain Bissonnette – 960K
3. Jessie Wheatley – 1.710M
4. Andrew Hum – 590K
5. empty seat
6. Christopher Fracheboud – 1.075M
7. empty seat
8. Andrej Bachynsky – 600K
9. empty seat

There will be a full seating redraw at 27 players.

We are back from break here in Day 2 of Event 1, and 8 players have managed to climb over to 1 million chip mark, with Yannick Grondin still leading the field. Here are the top players on the leaderboard, along with their approximate chip counts:

1. Yannick Grondin – 2.17M
2. Marcel Basset – 1.96M
3. Joakim Beaupre – 1.70M
4. Elaine Rawn – 1.52M
5. Jessie Wheatley – 1.30M
6. Dany Giguere – 1.15M
7. Brian Bond – 1.12M
8. Guy Yvan Bourgouin – 1.10M

Interestingly enough, 3 of the 4 chip leaders are seated at the same table (Yannick Grondin, Marcel Basset and Elaine Rawn), which could make for some interesting dynamics in the levels to come.

Below are a few photos taken prior to the break:

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(15 Photos)

We arrived as a huge hand was starting to brew between Michael Pitcher, in the Small Blind, and Marcel Basset, sitting in Seat 1 in the UTG +1 position.

Marcel had raised to 52K and Michael re-raised to 162K. Marcel didn’t tank for long at all before he 4-bet to 462K, and Michael responded immediately: “All In”. Marcel didn’t even ask for a count before he called and flipped over – which he knew were being met with . Marcel covered Michael by at least 300K, and he seemed resigned to his fate.

The board didn’t agree, though, and on the flop Michael was in trouble as it came out to give Marcel the set, and the and that made up the rest of the board were no help to Michael, who left the tournament in 47th place.

Marcel, on the other hand, is the clear chip leader in the tournament with 2.1M in chips.

Event 1 has just come back from a short break, and a few stacks are now over the 1 million chip mark, with the following players currently leading the field:

1. Yannick Grondin – 1.3M
2. Jessie Wheatly – 1.12M
3. Guy Yvan Bourgouin – 1.1M
4. Nicolas Couture – 975K
5. Michael Pitcher – 925K
6. Samuel Gismondi – 900K

Just before the break there was a typical hand for this stage in the event – though the result wasn’t as standard. The small stack (we didn’t get his name) shoved and Angelo Amato, which only slightly more chips, shoved over the top. Everyone else folded and the players revealed their hands.

Player 1:
Angelo:

The flop was almost perfect for the first player: . The turn gave Angelo some chop outs – and some outs for the win. It was revealed to be the – which meant something different to everyone at the table (at least based on snap reactions). For Angelo, he made his flush. For the very frustrated other player it initially looked like a card that had brought the chop. For much of the table, it looked a lot like Angelo had actually made a straight flush…

In any case, his one-card flush was good enough, and his frustrated opponent made his way to the tournament desk for his payout slip.

We are now mid-way through level 21, and the field has been reduced to just 88 players on 10 tables. The million chip mark has already been breached, but for the moment only by one player – Yannick Grondin.

Here are a few photos from the last levels:

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(24 Photos)

The players are back from their third break of the day and there has been some amazing movement now that the bubble has passed. The top stacks in the event are approaching 1M chips and there are at least 20 players with double the chip average at this point.

1. Yannick Grondin – 945K
2. Joel Moreau – 880K
3. Michael Mousis – 720K
4. Michael Pitcher – 635K
5. Glenn Sauve – 620K

The Tournament Director and Staff were all ready to move the tournament to hand-for-hand action when there were a flurry of green lights (indicating seat open) and 3 players were eliminated in the same hand… players in position 166 to 163. Little bubble action is common in big-field low-buy-in events but it must be said that this was even quicker than usual.

In any case, the remaining 162 players are all in the money! Congratulations!

As you might imagine with the rate of players being eliminated today, quite a few players have managed to build huge stacks. There are now at least 15 players hovering around the 300K mark and the following chip leaders have surpassed that number.

1. Saad Lakhasassie – 365K
2. Chheng Bun – 360K
3. Carmela De Ciantis – 355K
4. Patrick Tardif – 350K
5. Jonathan Poissant – 335K
6. Andrej Bachynsky – 330K

Andrej Bachynsky

Carmela De Ciantis

Saad Lakhasassie

Jonathan Poissant

Patrick Tardif

Chheng Bun