Eric Vanauken had managed to chip up considerably throughout the day until at one point he was among the leaders, but eventually his stack dwindled after a couple of lost hands along the way and by the deal-making break he was among the short-stacks at the table. On his ultimate hand, it was a standard blind-on-blind hand between Eric (sb) and Nathan Hall (bb) – Eric shoved, Nathan called, the cards were exposed.

Eric:
Nathan:

On the flop most around the table expected a chop, but running small cards – meant the Nathan’s 7 kicker played.

Just a couple of hands later (on the same orbit), Nathan was on the cutoff and shoved into Danny, who made the call.

Nathan:
Danny:

The board runout came and Nathan hit the rail in 5th place. Nathan’s $72,000 prize will get a great boost from the partypoker LIVE $50,000 Last Longer promo that he won last night!

6th place: Eric Vanauken, $52,000

5th place: Nathan Hall, $72,000

There was a regular scheduled break following the impromptu deal break a few minutes ago. We took the time to get updated counts of all 6 of the remaining players.

The last player to be eliminated left the tournament about 85 minutes ago, and the hour plus with no movement at all incited the remaining players to consider a deal. Stacks were counted and provisional payouts were provided – minus $75,000 and the Ring, which must remain for the winner – but after considerable discussion, the players decided to keep playing with no deal in place.

Part of the challenge was that at this point there are 4 relatively small stacks and 2 huge stacks, and the disparity made dealmaking an extra challenge. Both Yuan and Danny are playing stacks of over 40, while the four other players range from 4M to just under 8M.

Canadian poker superstar Mike Leah has been eliminated in 7th place.

Tournament chip leader Danny Freitas raised to 1.2M, which was met by Mike’s all in shove for 8.5M. Danny made the call.

Mike:
Danny: 

The flop had very little for Mike: but the turn was at least better for him (from his point of view) than for Danny. The , however, wasn’t the miracle on the river he needed.

7th place: Mike Leah, $37,000

The first final table pay jump having been achieved, Bahman Ataeianfar – the small stack since almost the beginning today – found a way to get his sub-10bb stack in the middle and again it was Yuan who made the call. When the hole cards were shown, Bahman had decent hope for a double up:

Bahman:
Yuan:

The flop had something different in store, however: to give Yuan a flopped set. The provided no help on the turn or river, and Bahman was out in 8th.

8th place: Bahman Ataeianfar, $27,000

The first casualty of the final table in the Main Event is Maxime Lejeune Hebert. He and Yuan Li were all in preflop and showed down the following hands:

Maxime:
Yuan:

Unlike the early hand in the day when Nathan Hall sent Danny Freitas half of his stack when his Aces lost to Kings, there was no help for Maxime from the board: and he hit the rail in 9th place.

Yuan Li is up over 27M

9th place: Maxime Lejeune Hebert, $21,000