As the players left on their second break of the afternoon, 19 players remained in contention. The tables are now playing 6-handed, and Francois Meloche has found a way to extend his chip lead over the field.

Meloche has held the chip lead since the early stages and has used those chips to pressure his opponents at every opportunity. His nearest rival, Benoit Larochelle Legrand, is playing a respectable stack that is nearly double the current chip average, but he is far behind Meloche’s 103-big blind stack.

The tournament will transition to four-handed play once six more players are eliminated.

With less than 30 players left in the field, the Mix Max has become a 6-max, for now. Francois Meloche has continued his strong play since the last break and remains among the chip leaders, however, the blinds are creeping up and will be making their way around the table a lot faster from here on in so things could change quickly.

Here are some photos of the remaining field:

Now that the late registration and re-entry period has come to a close, the players know what’s at stake. The 75 entries built a prize pool of $5,820, and the top ten players will walk away with some cash from this event.

The field is on the verge of the first format transition of the day, as we begin the eighth level of play and 41 players are still in the running. Once the field is down to 40 players, the tables will be re-balanced for 8-handed play, and they will move to 6-handed play once 30 players remain.

The players in the Mix Max have left on their first break of the afternoon, with 44 of the 75 entries left in contention. Although the action started slowly, things picked up pace as the break approached, with several multi-way all ins that helped bring the number of re-entries up to 17.

Most of the field is still hovering around the chip average, but three players, namely Francois Meloche, Jonathan Brazeau and Felix Noiseux have built up some imposing stacks to find themselves well ahead of the rest of the field. 

The action is heating up in the Mix Max Re-entry. Runners continue to join the field at a steady pace, and the re-entries are beginning to add up, thanks to an increasing number of multi-way all-ins.

The latest of which just played out on table 70, when a short stack’s all in created a bloated main pot and left a significant side pot brewing. The flop action quickly turned into a four-way all in situation with multiple side pots.

It was top set against bottom set against a huge combo draw against top pair. Talk about an action flop!

In the end, the run out was safe for the nuts on the flop, and Jonathan Brazeau‘s set of kings took it down, giving him a huge stack at this early juncture.

The players continue to trickle in to the tournament hall, pushing the number of entries up past 40 as we begin the third level of play. Three players have already hit the rail, and one of them has opted to fire a second bullet to break the ice on the re-entries for this event.

Here’s a look at the field so far: