Below are photos of the final table for the $200 + $20 Re-entry. Congratulations to all for making it this far!

When the group was on the bubble, two separate players had their day saved by pocket 9s. As we move now to our final 17 players, the 9s are still running strong, this time taking a healthy quarter-million chip bite out of Jamie Baker’s stack.

Jonathan Robinette was the player who had the good fortune of 9s this time around. Jamie had jammed for 400,000 preflop, without a care in the world. He was called by Jonathan, and when Jamie showed his Jonathan must have thought his night was over. And it almost was.

The board was dealt and Jonathan collected his coat. However, when the last card dropped, a , he made a straight, much to Jamie’s disbelief. Jamie had him covered, however, and so play continues…

The players were on the edge of their seats as each of the three last tables had all ins, and right on the bubble too! While 29 remained, only 27 would be paid. And so the action stopped while all the hands were played out. Only once the five community cards had been dealt on each board were the players allowed to flip over their cards to see who won at each individual table.

In the end, the unlucky two players to be bounced on the bubble were Eric Benhamron and Joey Cournoyer, missing out on the $320 prize given out to the player in 27th. But it could have been any one of a number of players that didn’t quite make the cut.

Perhaps the luckiest player of them all was Rabih Aboudib. With the blinds at 5,000/10,000, Rabih only had 4,000. Total.

His shove, in which his pocket 9s beat someone else’s paired 8s, doubled him up just in time. Adding the 25,000 he picked up on the blinds, he now had just over 30,000. Add that to the fact that the button had just passed him the hand before, and he was able to quietly fold the next few hands in peace, waiting for another player to take an early exit in his place.

Another close call belonged to Lynn Phan. She saved herself with the same hand as Rabih. Her pocket 9s helped her triple up on a three-way battle, turning her 33,000 into more than 100,000. And just in the nick of time!

While we were writing up this post, six more players were eliminated in rapid succession, leaving only 21 still alive. Rabih was one of the eliminated players – but Lynn wasn’t!

Good luck to all the final 21 as they battle it out for the $8,860 prize for 1st.

Christopher Taylor was the chip leader earlier in the day, but over the course of the last few hours his chip stack began to dwindle. Now with only 120,000 left, well below the average, he needed to make a play if he wanted to stay in the money. With 30 players left and only the top 27 getting paid, the pressure was on.

He ended up picking his spot pretty well. He shoved with one caller, Lynn Phan. She flipped over a , he an .

Christopher made his Ace-high straight on the flop, but improved as he went along, eventually beating Lynn with a flush as the board was dealt . Now back up above the chip average, he’s well positioned to make the money and go deep.

The 215 total entries (including 47 re-entries) in the $200 + $20 Re-entry has been reduced to just 43 players. Now spread over just five tables, the group is battling it out for a top prize of $8,860, with the top 27 players taking home some cash from this event, a minimum of $320.

The players have just gone on their third break of the evening, stretching their legs for what is sure to be another few hours of intense poker. With the big blind up at 8,000, the pressure on short stacks can add up quickly.

On top of the leaderboard is a new player, Joshua Brueckner. But at this late stage, anything can happen. Good luck to all of our remaining players.

Joshua Brueckner has an unusually large amount of pink chips in front of him, piled three levels high. At the moment they are the lowest denomination chip, worth only 500, and usually they have disappeared at this point, chipped up at a previous break. But one can sometimes accidentally come into possession of a plethora of pink under the right circumstances.

Either way, his tower of pink chips were put to good use in the last hand, and it might have been the sheer size of his pink pile that gave him a psychological advantage, forcing his opponents to fold.

It began with a 9,000 raise from Joshua UTG+1. Only the blinds called, Jamie Baker and Catherine Graves.

Flop:

The blinds checked the flop to Joshua who made it 14,000 to go, tossing in a couple of white chips worth 5,000 apiece. This time only Catherine wanted to see the turn. A dropped, and Catherine checked over to Joshua again.

This time Joshua carefully dismantled his tower of pink, putting a precious 22,000 of them on the line. After two minutes studying the board Catherine folded. It might have been the well-chosen bet sizes that did it.

Or it could have simply been the power of the pink.

The remaining 94 players from the $200 + $20 Re-entry have just gone on their second break of the evening. After a quick tour of the tables we found a number of players that had grown their chip stacks to double the average.

A list of them is below. But up top remains Christopher Taylor, still coasting from his early table-gamble that helped him multiply his starting stack by 6 in one hand.

Ivan Driard decided that he was willing to risk it all on a . Usually that would not be a great move, but this was probably one of the only exceptions. Ivan ended up almost tripling up and gave himself some breathing room as the blinds start to rise and the list of players starts to fall.

We first joined the hand with the flop already on the board . The first shove came from short stack Jacques Bigonesse, for only 7,300. It was called by two other players before Kristina Litmola shoved for 45,000. Now it was Ivan’s turn. He must have loved what he saw, having top two pair. He shoved as well, which pushed the two early callers out. The three left in the hand flipped their cards.

Ivan:

Kristina:

Jacques:

The turn and river were a and an , no help to Kristina or Jacques. Kristina paid up and Jacques said goodbye.

Play continues…