LIVE EVENTS

After David Ghazarian lost a large percentage of his chips to Emile H., he tried his best to work it back up, but the poker god decided it was not his time to make a come-back.

Third place: David Ghazarian, $2,085

Play is now heads-up for the trophy (and an additional $835) between Emile H. and Martin Millette.

Anthony Belanger-Nader was getting super short and decided it was time to put his chips in. Emile H. and David Ghazarian both had hands and made the call. As it would be, the flop was good for both Emile and for Ghazarian and chips were being put into a side pot and on the river Emile shoved his remaining stack. Ghazarian made the call.

Belanger-Nader:
Emile H.:
Ghazarian:

Emile flopped a flush draw and a gutshot straight draw while Ghazarian flopped an open-ended straight draw. Unfortunately for Ghazarian he hit his straight on the turn but Emile hit a higher straight and then hit the nut Broadway straight on the river, while Belanger-Nader was sent packing in fourth place, taking home $1,410.

Fourth place: Anthony Belanger-Nader, $1,410

The next player to hit the rail is:

Fifth place: Frederic Pruneau, $2,160

Since the players have done an ICM chop, the action is now fast paced and there have been two bustouts:

Sixth place: Kosta Papa, $1,950

Seventh place: Hossein Hajisoleimani, $2,176

After losing Jimmy Levesque in eighth place ($570), the final table has been formed. As almost all of the players have identical stacks, and the blinds are starting to get really large, they have also decided to do an ICM chop and then play down to a winner for an additional $835.

Here are the stacks and ICM payouts:

There are now just eight players remaining out of the original 209 and the final table will begin once the field drops to seven. The players still alive are:

• Emile H.
• David Ghazarian
• Anthony Belanger-Nader
• Frederic Pruneau
• Jimmy Levesque
• Hossein Hajisoleimani
• Martin Millette
• Kosta Papa

Once the money bubble had burst, the bustouts happened in rapid succession as the short stacks tried their best to secure badly needed double-ups.

There is a new chip leader; Frederic Pruneau is sitting on a stack of 627,000, equal to just over 52 big blinds, followed by Dave Jeanneau-Cyr, nursing a stack of 546,000 chips.

Here are the top stacks in play:

The tournament went hand-for-hand once there were only 28 players remaining and it only took three hands before the fateful bubble hand was dealt.

On table 31, Hugo Harewicz limped for 8,000 in early position and was met by a min-raise to 16,000 by Chris Provost on the button. Both Sebastien Sigouin in the small blind and Richard Hamelin in the big blind made the call, only to see Harewicz shove for his remaining stack which amounted to only 33,000 chips. Provost snap-called as did both of the blinds.

The flop came and action checked around. The turn brought the :6C and again it was check-check-check. On the river, all three checked again.

Provost opened and Harewicz was holding , and, unfortunately for him, he busted out on the bubble to bring the rest of the field into the money.

Play is approaching the money bubble as the top 27 players will be in the money. There have been some wild swings and along with those swings, a lot of eliminations.

Some of the recent bustouts include: second break chip leaders Stefan Siveski and Christine Park, Franco Sicondolfi, Alberto Scuderi, Hicham Hammoud, Robert Lalonde, Gary Lovell, Maxime Duhamel, Raphael Ohayon, and Adam Cader.

Here are some of the players still fighting it out:

The field has now thinned out considerably as there are only 50 players still left in contention. Across the room there have been many all in shoves by the short stacks as the pressure is now starting to build and the players all know that in order to make the final table, a decent chip stack is required..

With the average stack at just over 100K, two players have managed to now go north of the 200K mark; Stefan Siveski has taken the lead with a commanding 239,000 chip stack, good for 80 big blinds, followed in second by Christine Park, the winner of yesterday’s Playground Women Series Champion Final, who has 218,000 chips, equal to 73 big blinds. Christine had just ran into quads before the break and lost at least 50,000 chips in that hand but she is still obviously in a healthy position.

There remains a lot of poker to be played before the players make it into the money and all eyes of course are on the final table with $4,176 up top and a World Cup of Cards champion trophy.