The final break of Day 1B will take place in a few minutes, once the clock strikes zero in this 12th level of play. Another 4 levels will remain following the break, after which the surviving players will bag their chips onto Day 2.
Photographs from level 11:
When registration closed today just after 11:30 pm, there were 176 official buy ins and 5,280,000 chips in play. As round 11 of 16 began, the average chip stack stood at approximately 64,000, with 82 players still in the hunt.
The expression on Giuseppe Niro’s face says it all. He’s a happy camper, and with good reason!
As the registration period draws to a close, Giuseppe had the good fortune to bust one of his competitors, further increasing he stack. But at the point when both he and his opponent initially flipped their cards after the all in, the result was far from assured – despite the fact that Giuseppe’s Kings dominated his opponent’s Jack Queen off-suit.
When we joined the action, Giuseppe and Nadir Lalji were just squaring up to each other preflop. Nadir limped in for 1000, and Giuseppe re-raised him 2200 on the button. Nadir called, and they saw the flop.
Flop: 
Nadir was utg and checked, and Giuseppe raised to 3200. After a short pause Nadir re-raised all in with a relatively short stack, for approximately 30,000. Giuseppe called, showing his pocket kings.
Giuseppe: 
Nadir: 
Giuseppe was comfortably in control for all of two seconds, until the turn was dealt a queen, giving Nadir two pairs. Luckily for Giuseppe, the river was a very friendly 10, giving him a higher two pairs and squeezing Nadir out of the tournament just under the wire.
Level 10 is now underway, and registration is set to close upon the completion of this level, at 11:35pm. Play seems to have loosened up since the last break, and a slew of recent eliminations has brought the remaining field down below 100 players.
Photographs from level 9:
The second break of the night has just passed us in the WPT500 Day 1B, and Stefano Parise is our current chip leader, sitting on a stack north of 140,000. He was left with under 8,000 chips prior to the first break, but has managed to pummel his way to the top of the leaderboard in just a few short levels. Below are the top counts heading into level 9:
| First Name | Prénom | Last Name | Nom | Stack | Tapis |
|---|---|---|
| Stefano | Parise | 141,300 |
| Jose | Rodriguez Zurita | 139,100 |
| Ramsey | Belmaaza | 135,600 |
| Giuseppe | Niro | 111,700 |
| Kieu Hoa | Lam | 104,500 |
| Fernando | Morgado | 71,200 |
After four hours of play we have arrived midway through level 8, with the blinds sitting at 300 / 600. There have been a total of 167 entries so far (including 25 re-entries) there is still time to join the action, which closes at 11:30 pm.
The latest action was at Table 82, which saw the elimination of Francois Roy at the hands of Mike Lafable. When we joined the play betting had already begun, and it would cost 1300 to see the flop. Three players were interested.
Flop: 
The player utg in seat 2 (Francois Roy) shoved all in. The player in seat 6 folded, and Mike Lafable in seat 8 decided he would risk it, calling the all in with his larger stack. Both players flipped over their hole cards.
Francois: 
Mike: 
Francois had middle pair and a gut-shot straight draw, but unfortunately Mike had top pair and the same gut-shot straight draw. The final two cards were dealt 
, with Mike cleaning up the chips with a pair of 9s.
