Khaled Baalbaki has just eliminated another player. Baalbaki, who had opened the pre-flop action from early position, picked up two callers, the blinds, and they saw a flop of . In standard fashion, the action was checked to Baalbaki who made a c-bet of 12K; fireworks ensued. After the small blind made the call, the big blind, Eric Leblond, went all in for slightly more than 100K. Baalbaki immediately went all in over the top and the small blind quickly got out of the way. Leblond tabled . Baalbaki showed . The turn came a and the river a , to help Baalbaki pad his chip lead.

14 players remain as we play our way down to 10 today.

We are now down to two tables, and a new chip leader has emerged. Khaled Baalbaki just took down a huge pot to eliminate Rong Xu in 19th place. With the blinds at 2K/4K, Baalbaki opened in early position to 8K. Rong Xu went into the tank before scanning the room, checking the tournament board and pushing forward his whole stack. The action quickly folded back to Baalbaki who was faced with a tough decision. After a minute of thought, he made the call. The cards were tabled to reveal a flip; Xu had and Baalbaki had . The flop of were followed by and . The nines stood and Xu was eliminated in 19th place. Baalbaki now has the chip lead with over 200K.

18 players now remain and they are competing for 10 places in tomorrow’s Day 2.

The field has shrunk and the chips have balanced out as we return from the latest break. The average stack now provides roughly 25 big blinds and only our chip leader, Alexandre Douville, holds more than twice the chip average. The 25 remaining players are each fighting for one of ten spots available for tomorrow’s Day 2.