As we arrived at table 22, the all in was already in progress. In the heads up battle were Mohammed Alemelhuda and Giancarlo Palleschi. Giancarlo was holding the pocket , and Mohammed had an .

The board came down , and Mohammed was already out of his seat putting his coat on. The last two cards didn’t help (we missed them), and Mohammed’s night was over. He still took home $4,000 for his trouble, finishing in 60th place.

As we find ourselves fresh into level 20 (the eighth of ten 60-minute levels), there remain only 64 players at the tables vying for the $1,000,000+ prize pool. Here are some photos of the warriors that have lasted this far.

After the devastating blow to his chip stack very early in the day, the odds were that Trevor Argue would be bowing out of the WPTDeepStacks tournament early. However, that was not the case!

Trevor has battled back after losing 90% of his 300,000 chips, and his success is due in part to the fact that he (allegedly) shoved all in up to 25 times today. While there is no way to verify the exact number, the odds are that it is true, given the fact that he shoved twice on the bubble, a time in which the vast majority of players opt to do nothing but fold until the danger passes.

There is no telling where Trevor will end up at the end of the day, but if he keeps up his solid play, he could very well go deep in this event. Either way, he’s in the money, and that is a win all in itself.

After six levels and three breaks, we have a new chip leader: Muhammad Abdel-Rahim, with 912,000 chips. At this point there are only 75 players left, and based on the speed at which the blinds keep rising, we expect to be down to less than 40 by the end of the night. The top five chip leaders are below, all at 650,000 or above.

To all those still at the tables, keep it up! You’re almost there!

As the end of level 18 approaches (the 6th of 10 levels today), we heard an all in from table 29 and walked over to investigate. When we arrived the board was already showing .

It was at this point that Raphael jammed, followed by an insta-call by Said.

Raphael:

Said:

The turn and river were dealt , and with his Queens Said El-Yousfi  ended Raphael Duval’s night in 80th place. Duval will collect his prize money and Said will keep playing, moving ever closer to the final table.

After almost an hour of hand-for-hand play, the WPTDeepStacks event has finally reached the “In the Money” stage, which caps out at 111 players. The unlucky 112th player, Brian Beggs, ended up busting out at the hands of Thomas Facette, over on table 22.

When we joined the hand (along with about 25 interested onlookers), the flop had been dealt . Brian had shoved for his remaining 55,000 chips, called by a much larger stack in Thomas Facette. Both players flipped over their cards.

Brian:

Thomas:

The turn and river came down , no help to Brian, with the flush adding a little to Thomas’s stack.

Brian will leave the tournament empty-handed, and the rest of our players now battle it out for the prize pool. In fact, in the time it took to write this post and upload the pictures, there have been 14 other busts occur in rapid succession, and we are now down to 97 competitors.

Good luck to all those still at the tables!