Giancarlo Palleschi found a hand he wanted to go all the way with, and so a few hands ago he shoved preflop with . Unfortunately for him, he ran into the of Richard Alsup.

When the board was dealt , he ended up losing 95% of his stack, forking over more than 2,000,000 in chips to his rival seated on his left. At this point he was down to less than 2 big blinds, and so he found himself shoving a few hands later with a much more marginal . Again, he faced off against Richard. And again, Richard took the pot down – this time with a .

The board was dealt A-J-3-3-Q, and Richard grabbed the last few of Giancarlo’s chips to end his night. Giancarlo had an excellent tournament however, and so congratulations are in order. His 6th place finish brought him a $47,300 prize. Not bad for a weekend trip to Montreal from Toronto!

Because all five players had (relatively) similar chip counts and also because it has been quite a long weekend, there was recent talk of an ICM chop. However, there were a couple of hold-outs, and the deal went bust.

Now at level 32, the blinds stay at 75K/150K and the hands continue to be dealt.

After almost an hour of unremarkable play moving around the table and no major swings, Giancarlo Palleschi just went all in against Said El-Yousfi. Giancarlo was short-stacked at the table, and he got his chips in at the right time.

Giancarlo:

Said:

It was the second time in a row that Said went all in with an A-K. Unfortunately, the board came up , and so it was the second time in a row that Said doubled up one of his opponents while holding Big Slick.

With the win, Giancarlo doubles up to over 4,000,000 chips, and the table shall remain 6-handed … for now!

Said was about to claim another victim, but the poker gods intervened. While we were away from the table calculating the chip count, the players returned to the table and David Quang ended up all in against Said.

Said turned over , and David a much weaker . Fortunately for David, the board came down with two Jacks giving him trips and doubled him up to just over 5,000,000 chips.

The battle rages on!

After eight 60-minute levels, Said El-Yousfi continues his strong play and has now taken the chip lead. He currently sits atop the leaderboard with exactly 10,000,000 in chips, just less than 40% of the total amount of chips in play.

Timothy Ulmer was utg + 1 when he raised it 225,000. Said El-Yousfi called. They both checked the turn and river.

Board:

This was when Said went all in. Timothy used two 30-second time chits thinking about it, and his stack was probably the smallest at the table, around 1,200,000. He decided to call, and that was the last play he would make tonight. He flipped over his pocket 9’s, and Said flipped over an 8-10, making trip-eights.

Timothy had a fantastic tournament though, and congratulations are deserved for a well-played event. He finishes in 7th, taking home $36,300. We’re down to six players!