Shawn McCrory

The chips are flying on Day 2 of the WPTDeepStacks, as less than 200 players remain in contention and every one of them is taking every opportunity to add to their stacks; a hand that just played out between Simon Belzile and Martin Raus shows just how quickly those chips are being put into play.

Raus and Belzile, both seasoned players, tangled in a huge heads up pot that crowned a new table captain. Both players had stacks that were well above the 138K chip average to start the hand. Raus raised the 2.5K big blind to 6K from early position, only to have Belzile, immediately to his left, put out a cold three-bet to 18K. The other players got out of the way, and Raus made the call. The flop fell , and Raus checked to the aggressor, who continued his line with a bet of 15K. Raus made the call and checked once again when the appeared on the turn. This time, Belzile set the price of poker at 60K, sending Raus into the tank. After considering his action for a few seconds and cutting out calling chips, Raus made eye contact with the dealer and quietly said “all in.” Belzile’s expression revealed that he did not want to, but after investing so many chips already, there was no turning back on this hand. Belzile made the call, and hands were tabled. It was for a flopped full house for Raus and for Belzile, who was drawing dead. The river brought out the , giving Raus four of a kind! So the dealer go to work counting down Raus’s 140K stack. The result crippled Belzile, but he still has chips in front of him.

The action continues in level 14, only a few minutes away from a break in the action. Stay tuned for a leaderboard update.

Jonathan Little was able to double up his short stack once but not twice, in the late stages of the Main Event.

On his final hand, Ema Zajmovic opened the action to 125K, and Little took his stand, moving all in with . Ema asked for the count but made the call before the dealer had the chance to finish counting out the 965K stack. Ema tabled her , and they were off to the races. But the race was cut short by the flop, and the results were unaffected by the runout, eliminating Little in eighth place.

Little will earn $105,500 for his Main Event performance.

Santiago Plante was the first of the final nine to make his exit.

Plante had just doubled up Jonathan Little, who was playing the short stack at the table, on the previous hand. Playing from the small blind on his final hand, Plante three-bet shoved over Sorel Mizzi’s 120K under-the-gun raise and Upeshka De Silva’s call from the button.  The raise chased out the big blind and the initial raiser, but De Silva quickly made the 1.35M chip call.

De Silva:

Plante:

Board:

De Silva’s queen kicker was enough to take down the pot, sending Plante to the rail in ninth place. De Silva now leads the way with roughly 8 million in chips.

Plante will take home $83,500 for the deep Main Event run.

The players are off on their first break of the day, not long after the nine finalists completed the seating re-draw.

On the final hand before break, Upeshka De Silva took down a big pot against Jonathan Little. De Silva was able to elicit a call from Little when he made a big river bet on a board of . Little used one time chip before making the 1.3M chip call, and promptly mucked when De Silva tabled for bottom set.

Here are the chip counts for the final nine:

Following Michael O’Sullivan’s elimination in tenth place, only nine players remain in the Main Event.

After a short break for the seating re-draw, the players have taken their new seats, and the action is set to continue.

Sorel Mizzi just made a big call that put his tournament life on the line here on Day 4. And the tough decision was the right one, as he was able to double through Jack Gong.

The two were involved in a heads-up pot, with Gong in position. After the flop, Mizzi checked to Gong on the turn, and Gong put him to the test by moving all in. After using two time extension chips to think through the tough spot, Mizzi eventually made the call with . He was up against Gong’s , providing live pair and straight-draw outs, but the river was not one of them, allowing Mizzi to double up with his pair of tens.