The Grand Prix Canada field has been whittled down to 125 players from a total of 2,570 total entries, and therefore only the top 5% of the field remains in play. Nearly 8 levels have already been completed today in Day 2, and another 6 full levels lie ahead. Once completed, the tournament will go on break until tomorrow evening at 7pm, where action will play down until we have our event champion.
Photographs from level 20:
Players are back from a short chip-up break, where the tournament staff raced off the T100 chips. Francois Allard continues to hold the biggest stack as the board indicates 153 players remaining. A number of new faces have recently joined the leaderboard, which can be found in the table below.
8 levels separate players from the end of Day 2, and once the clock runs out the survivors will bag and tag their chips onto tomorrow’s Day 3, where they will play down to a winner.
| First Name | Prénom | Last Name | Nom | Stack | Tapis |
|---|---|---|
| Francois | Allard | 1,707,500 |
| Victor | Artemenko | 1,465,500 |
| Tyler | St Clair | 1,440,000 |
| Mathieu | Ducharme | 1,446,000 |
| Robert | Leboeuf | 1,411,000 |
| Shahar | Ohaion | 1,244,500 |
| Mike | Mirfaizy | 1,162,000 |
| Leandre | St-Laurent | 1,135,500 |
| Claude | Savard | 1,115,000 |
| Christopher | Taylor | 1,060,000 |
| Mike | Leah | 1,040,00 |
| Mike | Vesia | 1,026,000 |
| Michael | Moussis | 993,000 |
| Lyle | Henderson | 989,000 |
| Steve | Cotton | 984,500 |
| Kyle | Chang | 972,000 |
| Michael | Pitcher | 962,500 |
| Jean Michel | Mazingarbe | 950,000 |
| Daniel | Leduc | 935,000 |
| Eric | Afriat | 933,500 |
| Micheline | Roberge | 911,000 |
Photographs from levels 17-18:
The pace is picking up here in Day 2 of the Grand Prix Canada, and the average stack is slowly dipping as the levels climb. With the set-back in blinds for the start of Day 2, players were treated to a very deep beginning to the re-start of the event, with the average stack near 100bb deep during the first level of the day. The average is now closer to 50bb, which is still very reasonable at this late stage of the tournament.
We are now mid-way through level 17, and another break is scheduled after level 18, at which point we will publish another update to the leaderboard.
Photographs from levels 16-17:
This event has an innovative format that sees 10% of each Day 1 field move to Day 2, and pays 10% of the field, meaning that everyone who qualifies for Day 2 was paid – this is the minimum $400 that each player received as they finished their Day 1 (or shortly thereafter).
Nevertheless, any time there’s a pay jump there’s a potential bubble, and it wasn’t clear if this tournament would continue as if the first pay jump was the money bubble or not. The answer is in – the tournament just sailed along, and payouts have made their first jump of the tournament from 0 additional dollars to $100. The next pay jump will come with 172 players remaining.
The first break of Day 2 has just passed us here in the Grand Prix Canada, and Francois Allard (pictured right), the chip leader to start the day, has managed to maintain the lead with 218 players remaining. He has chipped up to 1,562,200, but is closely followed by Victor Artemenko who now holds 1,394,500.
A few other players have joined them in the millionaires club, and below you will find a list of the top 10 counts entering level 16 as well as some photos from the last level before the break:
| First Name | Prénom | Last Name | Nom | Stack | Tapis |
|---|---|---|
| Francois | Allard | 1,562,000 |
| Victor | Artemenko | 1,394,500 |
| Tyler | St Clair | 1,272,000 |
| Claude | Savard | 1,203,000 |
| Jimmy | Ramsay | 986,000 |
| Steve | Cotton | 984,500 |
| Michael | Moussis | 933,000 |
| Jean Michel | Mazingarbe | 890,000 |
| Mathieu | Ducharme | 870,000 |
| Karim | Abdelhamid | 835,000 |
Photographs from level 15:
241 players remain in the Grand Prix Canada as we enter the third level of Day 2. Since the start of the day we’ve seen less than 30 casualties, however the pressure of the rising blinds should result in some big chip movements in the levels to come. Level 15 has just begun, after which is a short-scheduled break during which we will publish an update on the leaderboard.
Photographs from level 14:
