After 3 levels, 1 bubble and almost 200 eliminations, Day 2 players were finally able to take a short break, which allowed them to reassess their strategy. We took the opportunity to bring you a top 5 stacks, which counts 3 millionaires!

Bussières shows the biggest fortune, but Carl Martel, a strong local player, follows. Denis Simard rounds up the three 7-figure stacks:

The Colossus field, after just two hand-for-hand hands, has dropped to 350 players! Short-stackers have been very cautious in the last half-hour or so, conscious of the $1,100 difference between position 351 and position 350.

Isabelle Tremblay, with only a few chips to her name and 4 players to go before the bubble, fearlessly jammed her pocket jacks and managed to double her belongings against 2 over cards. Steve Mansour also went all-in, with ace-queen and 3 players to go before reaching the money, and found a wheel on the river!

On the bubble hand, Andrej Bachynsky was all-in on the small blind with 1K! Two players tagged along, and one of them, Jeffrey Kirton, isolated Bachynsky with 9-high on the flop!

Bachynsky:
Kirton:

Board:

After hitting a 9 on the turn, Kirton watched the river bring Bachynsky a second pair and a min-cash! On a nearby table, Arlindo Bettencourt was also all-in – on the river – and at risk, but it seemed like despite the strength of his hand, he knew that Michel Leblanc had him cooked. All he could hope for is for someone with less chips bust on another table. Bachynsky however, as we know, survived his hand. Here is the bubble hand:

Bettencourt:
Leblanc:

Board:

What a brutal bubble bust! Bettencourt left in 351 place with a heartbreaking story to tell his friends. The rest of the field, as expected, is now shrinking at light speed, with over 60 busts since the bubble burst. Congratulations to everyone in the money!

Jonathan Bussières, who started the day with a clear 250K lead, is applying tremendous pressure on his opponents. Every time we walked by his table, he was involved in a hand. One time, he simply and casually called an ace-high flop bet in position, and fired on the turn to pick up the pot after his opponent checked.

The next time, his pre-flop raise to 12K was 3bet to 36K, and while the action was folded around, he was assessing how much his opponent had behind. Giuseppe Niro had about 95K in the back, and when Bussières announced all-in, he chose to save them.

His stack is evaluated at about 975K, and knowing Bussières’ ability to lean on his table mates when working with a crushing stack, he could already be our first millionnaire.

The Colossus may have a friendly buy-in, but its $1,000,000 guarantee attracted quite a few sharks. Here is a sample, taken during the first level of play today:

The shorter stacks, understandably, are rolling the dice in the hopes of running it up and making it to the later stages of Day 2. As a result, the field is shrinking and closing in on the money rather quickly.

Day 2 of the Colossus is underway Mike Sexton himself has made the introductory announcement and pronounced the famous words: “Shuffle up and deal!” 449 players are at their seat, gunning for the $155,000 first prize and the first WSOP-C Playground ring!

Of the 449 players starting the day, 350 will get paid. Good luck!