Ari Engel and Eric Afriat have been battling all day, and in a hand just now Eric got the better of the deal as his was well ahead of Ari’s on a board. On the turn, Ari bet 28K, Eric raised to 68K, and Ari 3bet shoved. Eric made the call, and the was no help for Ari.

One hand later, however, Ari was all in for his tournament life and John Krpan to his left had raised all in to isolate. There were no other takers and the cards were flipped:

Ari:
John:

The flop was great for Ari: and then the on the turn and river kept him in the lead.

Ari is now at about 145K (12bb).

Yves Loiselle has just doubled through Levi Stevens ( > ) and as the chips were pushed to him, we all heard an expression that was also heard a couple of times yesterday: “I’m back, baby!”

Yves is now playing about 200K while Levi is still hovering around the 400K mark.

During the recent break we counted each players’ chips to produce a full current leaderboard.

[eztable width=70% colwidth=25%|20%|20% colalign=left|left|center]
Name,Seat,Count
John Krpan,Table 31 – Seat 1,”197,000″
Robert Taylor,Table 31 – Seat 2,”1,020,000″
Eric Afriat,Table 31 – Seat 4,”362,000″
Yves Loiselle,Table 31 – Seat 5,”179,000″
Levi Stevens,Table 31 – Seat 6,”426,000″
William Molson,Table 31 – Seat 8,”327,000″
Ari Engel,Table 31 – Seat 9,”251,000″
Jonathan Karamalikis,Table 35 – Seat 1,”1,108,000″
Jeff Gross,Table 35 – Seat 3,”179,000″
Senthuran Vijayaratnam,Table 35 – Seat 4,”522,000″
Pascal Lefrancois,Table 35 – Seat 5,”344,000″
Noeung Troeung,Table 35 – Seat 7,”225,000″
Dylan Wilkerson,Table 35 – Seat 8,”636,000″
Trevor Delaney,Table 35 – Seat 9,”775,000″
Samuel Bisrat Tsehai,Table 36 – Seat 1,”897,000″
Edmund John Campion,Table 36 – Seat 2,”329,000″
Gary Lucci,Table 36 – Seat 3,”1,537,000″
Lu Zhang,Table 36 – Seat 7,”781,000″
Logan Dunn,Table 36 – Seat 8,”400,000″
Sheraz Nazir,Table 36 – Seat 9,”569,000″
[/eztable]

The event continues to move at a very fast pace. The most recent eliminations are Shaan Siddiqi and Lucas Greenwood in 22nd and 21st places, respectively. The next re-draw is at 18 players remaining, and there are 3 minutes left in the current level after which there will be a 15-minute break. We’ll update all chip counts on the next break.

Robert Taylor just doubled through Eric Afriat to move close to the 1M chip barrier. Meanwhile, on Table 36, Samuel Bisrat Tsehai has increased his holdings to around 670K after eliminating Rene Bourbeau.

There are now 24 players remaining and the pace of the action shows no signs of letting up.

Ari Engel just added over 200K to his stack in a hand with Eric Afriat. We arrived at the table on the flop to a board reading . Ari (utg+1) was thinking about his options after Eric (co) had raised his bet. Ari made the call.

The turn came and this time Ari led out for 95K and Eric called after a few moments of thought. The river was another Jack: and Ari cut out 115K from his stack – leaving only 81K behind. Now Eric went in the tank… but after about 90 seconds, he reluctantly folded.

Ari is now up past 550K in chips.

The tournament is down to 27 players remaining, which precipitated a full seating redraw. Here is the current seating chart:

Table 31

1. John Krpan
2. Robert Taylor
3. Glen Hammers
4. Eric Afriat
5. Yves Loiselle
6. Levi Stevens
7. Edmund John Campion
8. Will Molson
9. Ari Engel

Table 35

1. Jonathan Karamalikis
2. Shaan Siddiqui
3. Jeff Gross
4. Senthuran Vijayaratnam
5. Pascal Lefrancois
6. Tim Reilly
7. Noeung Troeung
8. Dylan Wilkerson
9. Trevor Delaney

Table 36

1. Samual Bisrat Tsehai
2. Kevin Singh
3. Gary Lucci
4. Rene Bourbeau
5. Kevin MacDonald
6. Lucas Greenwood
7. Lu Zhang
8. Logan Dunn
9. Sheraz Nasir

Griffen Benger and Justin Rabba have been eliminated as the tournament draws closer to the redraw at 27 players.

Justin was out in 30th after getting his chips in from middle position. Logan Dunn found the call and the cards were turned over.

Justin:
Logan:

Logan’s pocket pair held up on a board and Justin was sent to the rail.

A few minutes later (on another table) Griffen Benger held and committed his chips on the turn of a board. Current chip leader Lu Zhang made the quick call with top pair , and the on the river didn’t give Griffin either his flush or straight and he left in 29th place.

Players in the partypoker.net WPT Canadian Spring Championship are on their first break of the day and we have some updated chip counts to report. There has been some movement at the top as Ari Engel has lost a good proportion of his stack and is now down to 356K. Here are the current leaders:

1. Jonathan Karamalikis – 1,039,000
2. Lu Zhang – 1,035,000
3. Gary Lucci – 1,018,000
4. Eric Afriat – 890,000

We’ll be moving to counts of the full field for the next count. Also, with just 31 players left in the event, the seating redraw at 27 players is imminent.