Lucian Mariuta won a pot just before the break that put him atop the leaderboard. Genevieve Dsouza opened the action to 33K from the middle position, and Lucian 3bet too 100K from the hijack. Ramnik Singh then moved all-in from the cutoff for 106K, and Stephen Nahm came along for the ride from the button. Genevieve mucked her hand, and Lucian threw in the extra 6K to go 3-way to the flop.

With showing, Lucian fired 200K first-to-act, forcing Stephen out of the hand. With no more action left, players were asked to open their hands – Ramnik tabled a pair of but found himself trailing the of his opponent. The dealer rung out a turn and river, then shipped the pot to Lucian, who climbed above 1-million with that hand, taking over the chip-lead.

Below are the top counts at this second break of the night. 4 more levels remain before players bag their chips onto Day 3.

First Name | Prénom	Last Name | Nom	Stack | Tapis
Lucian	Mariuta	1,047,000
Michael	Malm	963,000
Presten	Cloutier	916,000
Stephen	Nahm	802,000
Lee	Chanwoo	780,000
Benoit	Lord	696,000
Maxime	Cloutier	682,000
Nicholas	Pitre	672,000
Jordan	Saccucci	626,000
Endrit	Geci	606,000
Julian	Villanova	541,000
Steven	Collin	532,000
Naghibollah	Noori	507,000
James	Cooke	497,000
Jaered Daniel	Besse	492,000
Santiago	Plante	484,000

Photographs from level 22:

Patrick Nahm just doubled up his stack to spring up the leaderboard deep in The $250 Frenzy. He turned a queen-high straight versus table-opponent Ramnik Singh, and got three streets of value on the board. On the river, with over 500K already in the middle, he slid forward his final 105K and found a call, tabling to best his opponent’s . He now sits on around 770K, good for second in chips.

The title of chip-leader currently belongs to bracelet-winner Michael Malm, who has chipped his way up to 860K. Another break is scheduled in 20 minutes, at which point we will update the leaderboard.

Photographs from level 21:

 

Daune Fernandez came into Day 2 as the defending The $250 Frenzy champion, having taking down this same event this past November for $50,000. When play was down to 110 players, two spots from the money, he moved all-in for just under 100K from utg, and found a call from shorter-stacked Max Zeppetelli, sitting to his left. Daune started the hand as the underdog, tabling versus , but managed to win the hand by turning a set of nines.

Play then entered hand-for-hand, and from the big blind Daune called an early-position open from Jason Conforti. He checked on the flop, and went into the tank when Jason fired a c-bet of 50K. After a few moments, he announced “raise”, matched the 50K bet, then slid forward the rest of his stack. He was met with a quick call from Jason, and the two players tabled their hands.

Daune found himself trailing in the hand once again, holding for a flush draw and gut-shot to the straight flush, as he was up against a bigger flush draw, . With no help on the turn and river, Daune was eliminated in 109th place, one shy of the money.

The remainder of the field shared a moment of enthusiasm as they secured a cash prize of at least $500.

Congratulations to the in-the-money players!

The first break is here, and through 4 levels of play the 224 player field has been nearly cut in half. With 118 players remaining, we are but 10 eliminations from being in the money – and some players are taking advantage of this strategic point in the tournament to chip up their stacks.

Given the antes are up to 1K, the T500 chips have just been removed from play. We have also began to see some T25,000 chips enter play – these are the light blue chips.

Leading the way into level 19 is Lee Chanwoo, who is sitting on a hair above 500,000. Below is a list of the top stacks in play as we near the bubble.

First Name | Prénom	Last Name | Nom	Stack | Tapis
Lee	Chanwoo	503,000
Jean Allan	Christine	469,000
Gianfranco	Giordano	445,000
Michael	Malm	437,000
Andrew	Boujaoude	434,000
Presten	Cloutier	434,000
Stephen	Nahm	407,000
Ramnik	Singh	381,000
Isaac	Buswell	366,000
Julian	Villanova	362,000
Sandro	Grande	341,000
Daniel	Le	337,000
Pierre-Luc	Gaudreau	336,000
Gaurav	Arora	332,000
Jordan	Saccucci	328,000
Arnold	Yaxley	319,000
Alain	Toledano	318,000
Endrit	Geci	314,000
Patrick	Boisvert	313,000
James	Cooke	301,000
Jason	Conforti	293,000
Colin	Scheckman	284,000
Marco	Caza	272,000
Peter	Zelmer	269,000
Jay	Strinivasan	264,000
Todor	Petkov	262,000
Santiago	Plante	262,000
Steven	Collin	245,000

Photographs from level 18:

Level 18 has just begun, and some bigs stacks are beginning to emerge. Andrew Boujaoude is continuing to separate himself from the field, having now crossed the 500,000 mark. Lee Chanwoo has joined the ranks of the chip-leaders as he has increased his stack from 133,500 up to nearly 400,000. Sandro Grande is nearing that same mark after bagging 107,000 on his starting flight, and Todor Petkov is up above 300,000 after starting the flight with a modest 64,000 stack.

Photographs from levels 16-17:

After strong Day 2 starts from both Andrew Boujaoude and Presten Cloutier, the two players now lead the field here at the start of level 17. Andrew has the biggest of the two stacks as he sits near 425K, while Presten just crossed the 400K mark.

The first break is scheduled less than an hour from now, at which point we will publish a detailed overview of the chip leaders.