Mike Lafable has regained the chip lead late in this $500 + $50 Deepstack tournament, and has grown his stack north of 700K. David Bonneau has been hanging on to his spot amongst the leaders, as he sits in second place with roughly 525K. Rounding up the top 6 are Peter Johnson Jr., George Caragiorgas, Shaan Siddiqui and Alex Sauriol, who all hold between 450K and 520K.

Recent eliminations include Linda Huard, Ronald Lei and Andrew Forest.

There will be a short break in 30 minutes, during which we will publish full counts of the remaining players.

Shaan Siddiqui came into Day 2 as the 2nd top stack, however has been slowly sliding down the leaderboard as the night unravelled. He made it into the money with an under-average stack, and eventually dwindled down to 125K – less than half of his Day 2 starting stack. He was sitting in the big blind when faced with a late-position open from Maxime Theroux, and when he peeled his cards he found a sweet looking . He pushed all-in for roughly 15 big blinds, and found a quick call from Maxime who turned over a crushing . Shaan wasn’t too pleased with the spot, however he found a way to double up by flopping the nut flush on a board, leaving Maxime with just a few big blinds behind.

Maxime was eliminated from play moments later by Alex Fiorani, while Shaan caught up to average stack with 2 tables left in the field.

Jean Francois Beaulieu was just eliminated in 25th place from the Deepstack event, and with his elimination the tournament is now in the money!

Jean Francois was crippled 3 hands ago as he 3bet shoved from the small blind facing a button-raise from Co Tran. Co made the call with , and went on to hold versus to double up his 53K stack. Jean Francois was left with just 3K after the hand, and folded the first two hands he was dealt. With the ante priced at 1K, he was automatically all-in on the 3rd hand, and interestingly enough nearly every player on the table limped into the pot in an attempt to bring the tournament into the money. 7 players and Jean Francois went to see the flop, where Alex Fiorani lead for 15K first to act. When action got to Co Tran, he announced all-in for just over 100K, and Alex quickly made the call.

Co tabled for top set, and was up against Alex’s bottom set with , and the of Jean Francois. The turn and river didn’t change the outcome, and Jean Francois was sent home empty handed while Co Tran more than quintupled his 9bb stack in just 4 hands.

Congratulations to the players who have secured a cash!

The $500 + $50 Deepstack is down to just 3 tables, as 27 players remain in the field. The structure pays the top 24 players, so it’s crunch time for the players as the bubble is just around the corner.

Here is a look at the players remaining in the field:

The players have just returned from a short chip-up break, as the tournament staff removed the T500 chips from play. With 29 players remaining in the field, we are but 5 eliminations away from being in the money, and we can expect play to slow down until this milestone has been reached.

David Bonneau currently leads the field with 521,000 chips, but Peter Johnson Jr. and Mark Choy are slowly creeping up on him. Mike Lafable has slid down the leaderboard in the last level, however he still holds a healthy near double average stack. Below is a look at the leaderboard as play enters level 18:

Play is set to resume in the $500 + $50 Deepstack Re-entry with just 57 players involved in the restart competing for one of 24 places on the payout table. This means that just 33 players must be eliminated before the tournament is in the money – a threshold that should be met relatively quickly this evening.

The chip leaders to start the day are well ahead of the field – Mike Lafable, Shaan Siddiqui, and David Bonneau – are all playing more than 300K, while the player in 5th place is a full 100K behind them. This could accelerate the action as players in the mid-leaderboard will have extra motivation to take out shorter stacks and catch up to the lofty heights of the leaders.

In any case, it is guaranteed to be an interesting night of poker – good luck to everyone still playing in the event!