LIVE EVENTS

Kayden Stacey has gone on the best kind of heater: a final table heater! He keeps picking up hands when others are shoving and either his hands have been holding or he has hit his ace to be ahead.

First he was able to knock out Karim Abdelhamid who collected $1,090 for his sixth place finish.

Then Jean-Luc Desormeaux shoved and he was snap-called by Stacey holding . The board came and Desormeaux picked up $1,450 for finishing in fifth place.

Next it was Etienne Favre who fell victim to Stacey. Favre woke up with and put his chips in only to be called by Stacey holding . One more time, Stacey hits his ace on a board, sending Favre to the cashier to collect $1,940 for finishing in fourth place.

James Bridgeman had moved all in and when Kayden Stacey who was seated on his immediate left looked at his hand he re-shoved over top.

James:
Kayden:

The board ran out and unfortunately for Bridgeman, he was beat by Stacey’s pocket kings.

7th place: James Bridgeman, $820

Karim Abdelhamid had just lost an all in with pocket kings against the ace-jack of Alexandre Paquette-Leduc when there was an ace on the flop.

A few hands later, Bryan Robataille Fequet got his chips into the middle from early position. It then folded around to Jean-Luc Desormeaux who also put his chips in, and it was Abdelhamid next to act, and, he made it a three-way all-in when he also moved his stack forward.

Bryan:
Jean-Luc:
Karim:

Karim was luckier this time around as the flop came , making him a set of sixes. The turn brought the , and the river was the . Abdelhamid won the main pot and more than tripled his stack of 219,000 chips, bringing him to just under 700,000 chips. Desormeaux survived and picked up a side pot from Robataille Fequet for 77,000.

Definitely an action hand.

After the elimination of Norman Gauthier in eighth place ($610), the final table was formed.

From left to right are:

• James Bridgeman
• Alexandre Paquette-Leduc
• Kayden Stacey
• Karim Abdelhamid
• Jean-Luc Desormeaux (hiding in back)
• Etienne Favre
• Bryan Robataille Fequet

Over the last few minutes the tournament has lost four more players.

• 9th place: Youri Parisien, $460
• 10th place: Haile Rafik Kuo, $350
• 11th place: Levon Dedeyon, $350
• 12th place: Frederic Robert, $320

The players have just come back from another break and with the chip average at 259,600 (21.6 big blinds) it is Etienne Favre who has now taken over the lead with an impressive 612,000 chips, good for exactly 51 big blinds.

Here are the current leaders from the break:

Simon Gosselin and Kayden Stacey are both skilled players and both were playing top stacks throughout the evening. Sitting on the same table, both players were involved in a hand heads-up where Gosselin had turned a set of eights, but there was both a possible flush and straight on the river which Stacey had shoved. Gosselin open folded his hand and asked Stacey if it was the right fold. Stacey smiled but didn’t answer.

On the very next hand, David Cadoch limp-called the big blind from under the gun followed by a raise by Stacey to 25,000. Action was now on Gosselin and he decided this time that he did not want to allow Stacey to get the better of him again, so he moved all in. Stacey made the call.

Gosselin:
Stacey:

Gosselin was pretty happy to see that he was ahead, but it all changed when the dealer fanned out on the flop. Gosselin was understandably in disbelief, and the turn and river gave him no help.

On one of the other tables Nabil Nahoul’s tournament life came to an end as well.

• 15th place: Nabil Nahoul, $300
• 16th place, Simon Gosselin, $270

When there were only 18 players left and the tournament was on the bubble, the players decided to remove $200 from the first place payout so that they could pay the “bubble boy”, as, only 17 players were supposed to originally be paid. Once the tournament was in the money a few bustouts happened right away.

• 18th place: Langis De Grand Pre, $200
• 17th place: Yannick Labattaglia, $270

De Grand Pre had been leading early on but mentioned that he was totally card dead in the later stages. In a six-max bounty, even more so than in a 10-handed freeze, if you are card dead, you are in trouble. Labattaglia mentioned that he made a call earlier on that perhaps he should not have made and that it ended up hurting him badly. Both players will certainly be back again to see if the next time they can make the final table and take it down.

On table 31, there was a min-raise to 16,000 by James Bridgeman and when it folded to Nabil Nahoul in the big blind, he looked at his cards and right away announced that he was all in. Bridgeman made the call since Nahoul’s stack was only 47,500.

Nahoul:
Bridgeman:

The board was a clean runout for Nahoul who gladly took in the chips with his badly needed double-up.

With only 19 players remaining the tournament is now two from the money bubble.

On table 30 Simon Gosselin opened the action raising it up from 6,000 to 16,000. Kayden Stacey flat called and when the action was on David Cadoch, he picked up his bounty chip, looked at his cards one more time, then threw in the bounty signalling an all in. Gosselin asked for a count which ended up being 91,500. After thinking it through, Gosselin said “that’s too much” as he folded his hand. Stacey open folded pocket sevens, and Cadoch showed a pair of tens while Gosselin announced that he had king-queen. Good folds for sure.

The players have just returned from their second break of the night and just over 100 players have been eliminated so far, leaving 34 players still in contention.

The average chip stack is just under 100,000 chips right now (33 big blinds) and it is Frederic Robert who has taken a commanding lead with 326,500 chips (and seven bounty chips!), good for 109 big blinds. When we noticed his stack and bounties, he looked up with a smile and said “I got lucky”, but we know that it wasn’t just luck that built that stack, that’s for sure.

Here are the current leaders:

Already 75 players have hit the rail as the players are playing for the bounty chips and trying hard to knock each other out. A break is coming up soon which will give us a chance to count stacks and to update the leaderboard; stay tuned.

Here are some of the players nursing larger stacks in the room: