Francois Meloche held a dominating chip lead for most of the afternoon, but he ran out of steam at the final table. Once it came down to the final four players, Meloche lost consecutive pre-flop all ins to Benoit Larochelle Legrand, who is the new chip leader. As the blinds made their way up to the 5K/10K level, it became more and more likely that any eliminations would come as a result of the pre-flop action.

After losing most his chips with to Larochelle’s , Meloche lost the second consecutive pre-flop all in holding to Larochelle’s .

With Mitcheal Ferguson‘s elimination in 6th place, the Mix Max Event is now down to 5 players. These 5 players took a short break, which allowed us to take full finalist counts:

With the elimination of Christian Rho in ninth place, the Mix Max is down to the final two tables with 8 players left in the running.

The last level provided an unfamiliar sight in the tournament hall; three tables playing three-handed. The final nine players approached the short-handed format with caution. Most pots were played out pre-flop or ended on the flop with a continuation-bet. Eventually, two strong hands collided and the players wound up all in before the flop. Christian Rho’s could not improve to beat Claude Amar‘s , sending Rho to the rail in ninth place, earning him $200 in the process.

Only 10 players remain in the Mix Max, as the action continues with four-handed play.

The players achieved consensus on a deal that saw some prize money removed from the top three position in order to pay the eleventh place finisher $130.

Although the action stopped briefly so the players could negotiate, the deal they made-and the short-handed format-ensured that the action would keep moving at a brisk pace. And it didn’t take long for the next player, Lyoubi Salaheddine, to hit the rail, as he busted on the very next hand.

Francois Meloche has to start looking over his shoulder, as Benoit Larochelle Legrand just took down a huge pot to bring his stack up to the heights on Meloche had attained at the last break. Larochelle now rivals Meloche at the top of the leaderboard, and the two big stacks are playing at the same table.

Larochelle scored a big double up shortly before the last break to climb up the leader board, and by eliminating Karl Laliberte in a battle of the blinds he made another big addition to his stack.

Laliberte opened the pre-flop action from the small blind, and Larochelle defended. When the flop fell , Laliberte fired a big continuation-bet of 17,000. Larochelle immediately raised all in, and Laliberte snap called, triumphantly tabling . Larochelle quietly rolled over his , and the players watched the and roll off the deck. Larochelle’s aces-up stood, and Laliberte splashed his stacks across the table in frustration before making his exit.

Larochelle is now playing a stack of slightly more than 200,000 in chips.