The blinds are mounting, the field is shrinking, and there is a tight race at the top of the leaderboard on Day 1C.

Only 45 players remain in this flight. They are playing down to the top 14 this afternoon, so the tension will only mount from here. The current chip leader, Christina Gaulin, holds a narrow lead over her rivals thanks to her 76-big-blind stack. But, as everyone knows, things can change quickly in tournament poker so she will have to stay sharp if she hopes to stay ahead of the field.

An average stack gets players nearly 36 big blinds in level 12, which is enough to take most lines but the margin for error remains thin.