Jean Francois Bouchard has been among the least active players during the past 2-3 levels, but when he has entered pots he has made them count. He just doubled through Eric Afriat to take the overall chip lead.
Eric opened the action to 200K utg and Ema flat called. Jean Francois chose to shove, Tam Ho folded, and Eric went all in himself to isolate.
Eric: 
Jean Francois: 
The flop settled things: 
and a pair of Queens (
) on the turn and river were no help for Eric.
With just 4 players remaining and the average stack size going down relative to the blinds, the pace of the action has sped up considerably. Eric Afriat is now over 5.2M in chips – even after shipping a huge 1M+ chip pot to Tam Ho, his neighbour to the right.
The four remaining players are on a break and we managed to refresh the chip counts for all four as they prepare to resume play in level 30 with blinds at 50K/100K/a15K.
| First Name | Prénom | Last Name | Nom | Seat | Siège | Stack | Tapis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tam | Ho | Seat 01 | 2,310,000 |
| Eric | Afriat | Seat 02 | 3,335,000 |
| Ema | Zajmovic | Seat 05 | 3,925,000 |
| Jean Francois | Bouchard | Seat 06 | 1,935,000 |
Mekhail Mekhail has been laddering up throughout the day, always playing with one of the smaller stacks in the tournament but finding good spots to double up and otherwise using his patience to successfully endure through several pay jumps.
Finally, almost all the way through level 29, in a blind-on-blind situation between he and Ema Zajmovic on his left, Mekhail open raised to 250K and Ema shoved over the top. Mekhail expressed that he had little choice in the matter and made the call.
Mekhail: 
Ema:
The board ran out super smoothly for the Kings: 
and Mekhail was sent for his payout coupon. Ema, for her part, is now up to around 5,200,000 in chips and is the chip leader by a large margin.
5th place: Mekhail Mekhail, $55,200.00
Play during the last level and a half seems to have settled in with lots of action and lots of chips circulating around the table – but with no eliminations and at least one double up by short-stacked Mekhail Mekhail, the tournament seems more static than it actually is. In fact, Eric Afriat – who has been among the most active players – has chipped up to one 4M in chips, the first player to reach this threshold.
Update – the second most active player at the table as been Ema Zajmovic, and she just managed to double up through Eric when her 
outflopped Eric’s 
on a 
board.
The players in the WPT event have taken a break before play resumes in level 28 with Tam Ho in the lead but with Ema Zajmovic following closely behind and the whole remaining field in decent shape.
| First Name | Prénom | Last Name | Nom | Seat | Siège | Stack | Tapis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tam | Ho | Seat 01 | 3,000,000 |
| Eric | Afriat | Seat 02 | 1,435,000 |
| Mekhail | Mekhail | Seat 03 | 1,330,000 |
| Ema | Zajmovic | Seat 05 | 2,840,000 |
| Jean Francois | Bouchard | Seat 06 | 2,775,000 |
