Marc-Andre Ladouceur opened his button, and Kristen Bicknell moved all-in from the small blind with roughly 15 big blinds, finding an instant call from the original raiser.
Marc-Andre: 
Kristen: 
Kristen’s premium pair was outmatched, and with no help on the 
board she was eliminated in 6th place. Marc-Andre climbed up above 400,000 with that pot after spending the last couple of levels nursing a short stack.
6th place: Kristen Bicknell – $48,000
After four 60-minute levels the players have now reached their second break of the evening. After a quick chip count, we found that the chip stacks have democratized a little bit, and now we only have two players with stacks that stand out among the rest.
Those two players are David Quang with 5,950,000 chips and Daniel Dubeau with 3,740,000 chips. Level 27 will start shortly, with blinds up to 25K/50K.
We’ve seen this scenario play out a few times today: action folds around to Joey Weissman in the small blind, and he moves all-in on short-stacked Marc-Andre Ladouceur.
Marc-Andre folded every time so far, but in the most recent instance he was holding a strong enough hand to commit his stack.
Joey: 
Marc-Andre: 
Marc-Andre faded all of Joey’s draws on the 
board to double his 135,000 stack.
Ajay Chabra limped in for 10,000 from the cutoff, and Tommy Nguyen went in with a raise to 30,000 from the button. Edward Lin 3-bet all-in from the small blind for 186,000, and after asking for a count, Ajay isolated by raising all-in himself. Tommy mucked his cards and hands were opened.
Ajay: 
Edward: 
Board: 
7th place: Edward Lin – $38,000
Steven Martin had a good run, but he finished his day in 14th place, collecting $14,500.
However, while busting out is always a disappointment – particularly this late in a tournament – Steven had been extremely short-stacked for the last 20+ bust-outs. So in a way, placing 14th was quite a victory!
In fact, he told us that last night, just before the end of the night with about 35 players remaining, he was dealt his favorite marginal hand (10-9 suited) when there ended up being a three-way all in preflop at his table. He resisted the urge to play his favorite marginal hand, and it ended up being a great choice! (Pocket Aces ended up defeating both of the all in challengers at the time, and would have certainly crushed his 10-9).
Today, the hand that beat him was a set of 7’s. The man holding the pocket 7’s was none other than Muhammad Abdel-Rahim. Although we missed the hand entirely, it was reported to us that Steven had a , not enough to beat Muhammad.
Congrats on a great tournament Steven, we’ll see you again soon.
Here are the updated chip counts of the 7 finalists as they enter level 21:
| First Name | Prénom | Last Name | Nom | Stack | Tapis |
|---|---|---|
| Tommy | Nguyen | 859,000 |
| Joey | Weissman | 395,000 |
| Ajay | Chabra | 364,000 |
| Pascal | Lefrancois | 490,000 |
| Kristen | Bicknell | 254,000 |
| Edward | Lin | 282,000 |
| Marc-Andre | Ladouceur | 141,000 |
