Shaan Siddiqui may be the most accomplished tournament player in the remaining field. He played a number of high roller events, including a win last year in a $5000 + $300 8-max Event for $81,000. He has been increasing his stack steadily all day, and is now at about 1.4M, good for the lead.

The other tournament beast in the room is Ruben Perceval, but he was only able to stay alive so far, with an under-average stack. If he catches a break and brings up his belongings, he will surely be a force to reckon with.

Recent photographs:

There are now 8 levels behind us in Day 2 of the Frenzy, which means players are now entering the last segment of the night. 36 players are left, but only half that number – if that – will make it to Day 3.

Two players have a good head start in this race to Day 3: Michael Braden and Yonathan Moryoussef. They both have over 1M chips to work with. Here is the top of our leaderboard:

It is in a calm room that Rami Hammoud doubled up against Aaron Roy Parsons. He chose to shove his 150K stack from a late position, and Parsons, knowing the rather large range of possible hands, called with a small pair:

Rami Hammoud:
Aaron Roy Parsons:

Board: :3

There are 5 active tables left, and our players will go on break in a few moments. Stay tuned for the top counts!

When a raise to 27K was placed, Daune Fernandez, 2 hands after making a great play to isolate an all-in stack with a weak pair, went all-in for about 275K. Little did he know, Michael Rea had been dealt the ultimate pair in the small blind.

Daune Fernandez
Michael Rea:

Board:

Fernandez walked away in 44th place, good for $750.

On table 49, Shawn Spiegel, who was leading the event a few levels ago, was taken out. Michael Braden is still digesting his chips, hidden behing a 1.2M stack, which sure looks like the actual chips lead.

After just 2 hands of hand-for-hand play, the bubble has burst. There were a few uncalled all-ins and at least one confrontation before Chris Arvanitis walked on the bubble, eliminated by Mathieu Boulanger-Vaugeois.

Paul Thomas Scott shoved his less-than-100K stack with , but no one called. Then, Rong Xu and Frédéric Gagné, on a nearby table, got it on with aces against aces, and that pot was unsurprisingly chopped. Finally, Arvanitis and Boulanger-Vaugeois got to table their hands:

Mathieu Boulanger-Vaugeois:
Chris Arvanitis:

Board:

Without an ace or a king on the board, players were now in the money. A minimum of $500 will be earned by all remaining players, with $37,500 reserved for the winner.

Two players have managed to bring their stack to over half a million in chips: Shawn Spiegel and Joël Giguère. We prepared a top ten during the player break, and those players are listed below: