There are now 53 players left.  To put things in perspective, this means that there is approximately one elimination every two minutes.  To say that the action is in full throttle would be putting it mildly.  One cannot walk around the tables without hearing a dealer saying “all-in” at every corner.

Steven Tran was just involved in particularly important hand for him.  When we arrived at the table, he had just shoved all-in and the dealer was counting his stack, at the request of Pascal Gauthier.  Stephen Langlois was already all-in for 30,000.  Tran’s all-in amount was announced: 182,000, and Gauthier made the call.  The three players then tabled their hands:

Langlois:

Tran:

Gauthier:

Tran didn’t like Langlois’ jack but seemed confident, holding the best hand.  The board was an uneventful affair: and Tran’s pair held up.  This effectively eliminated Stephen Langlois and made a big dent in Gauthier’s stack.  A few hands prior, Gauthier had lost a chunk of his stack when he isolated the action holding pocket three’s and came up short against his opponent’s pair of queens, so this latest loss put him in a bad spot.

So Tran more than doubles up, with a welcome win which propels him above the average.