This is the beginning of the second-last level of the night, and with just two levels to play, the bubble is certain to hit tonight – and maybe relatively soon. During the recent break we looked around the tournament for stacks of over 1M in chips, and found that Eric Afriat has accumulated even more than when we posted just a half hour ago – in fact, he’s the overall chip leader going into this decisive stretch in the tournament.

Play continues at a fairly steady pace in the Main Event, and there are now just 308 players left in the tournament. The last players will be coming in to the main Tournament Hall before long, and with the bubble just 21 players away, we’re likely to see a slight slowdown in the pace of things – though in fields this large, sometimes people don’t adapt that much to the situation.

There will be a break in about 2 minutes and then the next stint should end up being decisive…

Eric Afriat is one of the most decorated players in the Montreal scene, and he’s known both here and pretty universally these days as a player who can accumulate chips in a hurry – and relentlessly. He’s now up over 1.1M in chips, and we saw him pick up at least 150K in new chips in a hand just moments ago.

We arrived at the table on the turn in a hand that was playing blind on blind between Eric (bb) and Ben Underwood (sb). The board read and Ben had a 35K bet in front of him with a healthy preflop and flop pot already collected. Eric chose to raise to 100K and found a call. The river came and Ben checked, only to face Eric’s bet of 250K. Ben thought for several moments but eventually folded – and Eric collected the pot. It’s these little-danger pots that Eric picks up that makes him such a threat in every tournament he enters.

After 6 levels of play today in Day 2 of the Main Event, the 397 players still in are taking a 45 minute dinner break.

Michael Khan, who had just a little over 500,000 at the last break has amassed an impressive 1,075,000 stack. Ryan Boudreau is hot on his heels with 1,035,000. And rounding off the millionaire club is Danny Freitas with exactly 1,000,000 chips.

With still 4 levels to play before we break for the day, we all know that anything can happen.

Here is the current chip leader board as well as a few photos from level 16.

The players in the Main Event just took their first break since the tournament turned into a freezeout – when late registration closed at the beginning of level 13. During the most recent break following level 14, we surveyed all 60+ tables to try and find all of the players that are playing over 500K stacks at the current time.

The chip leader so far is Alexandru Baron with 800,000 in chips, followed closely by Alon Messica, Eric Afriat, and Noeung Troeung – and every single one of these players is extremely dangerous (to the rest of the field) if he has a stack.

A few other highlights on the leaderboard – Jaered Besse is a recent event champion here at Playground Poker Club, having won a tournament somewhat similar to this one this past winter. Also – there’s Mike Sexton in the 500K and up club as well…