Of the three smaller stacks in play, Omid Shahbazian is the first to fall. All three players have been all-in at lest 4-5 times this level and as we wrote earlier the chips have been moving – but more among all of the short-stacks than between the big stacks and the shorter stacked players.

Omid finally got it in with a decent hand: and Michailidis, who called, found himself dominated, playing the . Fate was on Said’s side this time, however, as the board ran out to give the flush.

5th place: Omid Shahbazian, $25,950.00

Since the break, the distinction between the two groups has settled into the pattern of play as the short stacks scramble to put up chips. Perceval and Michailidis, however, have so far resisted calling off with too wide a range and therefore neither one of them has added a ton of chips to the “have-not” stacks – so a lot of this action results in the three shorter-stacked players effectively running on the spot. Chips are moving around the table, but not in such a way that the conditions of the tournament have changed.

The last levels of play has seen the elimination of David Bertrand, but also the emergence of Said Michailidis as the tournament chip leader and more recently the re-emergence of Ruben Perceval as his chief rival. The divide between the rich and poor with 5 left is very clear – both Ruben and Said are comfortably sitting on over 40bb each – while even the strongest of the remaining 3 players – Jaered – is only playing 15bb.

With these dynamics in play, there’s a good chance the tournament takes a significant step forward in the next level of play.

First Name | Prénom	Last Name | Nom	Seat | Siège	Stack | Tapis
Ruben	Perceval	Table 66 - Seat 1	17,450,000
Omid	Shahbazian	Table 66 - Seat 3	4,100,000
Eric	Schanck	Table 66 - Seat 4	2,525,000
Said	Michailidis	Table 66 - Seat 5	19,700,000
Jaered Daniel	Besse	Table 66 - Seat 6	6,150,000

After the recent hand against Ruben Perceval, David Bertrand was left with just under 2M, and then after the blinds and ante he was playing just about 1.4M – a very short stack. He elected to open shove from the cutoff – and found a quick call from Omid Shahbazarian.

Omid:
David:

Board:

6th place, David Bertrand, $19,785.00

Ruben Perceval started the day on the upswing – and starting from the lead, that’s a pretty good situation to be in – but as play has continued he has had some rough patches to the point that he was among the smaller stacks at the table, playing under 6M in chips. On the other hand, David Bertrand has been relatively inactive through the first 3 levels of the day, a situation that just changed in the last portion of the last level.

In a recent hand they found themselves in a middle position raising war – that quickly found it’s way to a called all-in. Ruben was in jeopardy but flipped the to establish the lead preflop against David Bertrand’s – a lead he kept through the run-out. Ruben vaulted into 2nd place overall with around 12M in chips.

Eric Schanck has been by far the most active player on the table so far, and for most of the time that served him well… until it didn’t. By the most recent break, he was near the bottom of the standings. Being smaller-stacked hasn’t held him up much, though, and he recently won a hand against Ruben Perceval to put himself back in a healthy position with around 8.5M in his stack.

In the hand in question, there was standard preflop action which put the pot at around 1.2M and the flop was dealt . Ruben laid out a bet of 850K, and Eric called. The turn saw the dealer up out the and the action went check-check. The river was the , and Ruben bet 1.6M. Eric took some time and eventually made a bit of a hero call – but was correct! He showed down for 2nd pair while Ruben showed for high card Ace.