Although it is an 8-max event, the final will be playing 9-handed. The players have just taken their seats following the re-draw, as play begins on the final table.

Here is what they’re playing for:

Graig William Mboule hung on for as long as he could, but eventually the blinds caught up with him. Mboule had been card dead during the last two tables, forcing him to fold down to only a handful of chips. He was finally all in on the small blind for less than a big blind against Remi Bourque.

His elimination brought about the final table, where play now continues.

The bubble hand:

The field is down to the final two tables with 13 players left in contention.

Vincent Trevisonno continues to hold the chip lead. Isham Yamani has reclaimed second place after setting a trap with pocket aces; his limp under the gun provoked a shove from the player on the button who held , allowing Yamani to take down a heads-up pot without much of a sweat.

Here are the top 4 stacks:

Through to level 11 now and the tournament is down to just 20 players remaining. They moved to 3 tables left at 24 and will progress to the final 2 tables at 16 – this being an 8-handed tournament. Finally, the final table will be formed with 9 players remaining.

Here are a few shots of the remaining field.

With 8 levels in the books and just 31 players remaining, Vincent Trevisonno has managed to say out in front of the pack, having put together a huge stack of 76,300 chips. Not far behind are Isham Yamani and Remi Bourque – and there are still a significant number of short-stacked players, so there is still a lot of opportunity for someone new to take a spot on the leaderboard by clearing out some small stacks!

Play in today’s 8-Max tourney has been rapid all day, and with the clock counting down at the end of level 8, there are just 33 players remaining and the tourney is set to break down to 4 tables any minute.

The hand that saw Rejean Menard eliminated by Anderson Frank-Graham is a decent example of several recent hands that saw an extremely small stack sent to the rail. The players got it in preflop and the very short-stacked Menard had to go with any Ace he caught – in this case and ended up being called by a slightly better Ace – held by Frank-Graham.

The board ran out safely – and the “Remaining” tally ticked down by one. In a spell of 5 minutes there were at least 6 such hands between a too-short player on fumes and more moderately stacked player employing a relatively wide calling range. Interestingly, in none of these recent cases was it one of the big stacks collecting the chips…

Play continues in level 8.