He's been trying consistently this level to double up, first moving all-in under the gun and the re-raising Pinto's open a few hands later. Both times they got through and Chergui joins his tablemates on seven-figure stacks
With levels at 75 minutes now, players are going on a short break. Anthony Rodrigues has managed to surpass Mathieu Selides and is now the chipleader with four players remaining, although the pair are neck and neck with around 100,000 chips separating them. Choukri Chergui is still our short stack, and will have 13 big blinds when he returns
Rodrigues raised to 100,000 UTG and Selides three-bet to 385,000. Rodrigues called. Both players checked a flop and turn of and Rodrigues bet out 350,000 on the river which was called by Selides. Rodrigues tabled and scooped the pot with two-pair. Both Pinto and Chergui have been fairly quiet, and hence their chip counts are slowly blinding down
Four-handed play is a lot less uneventful than five-handed now that the players are a little bit deeper. Joao Pinto Correia has twice shoved over the top of Mathieu Selides' min-raises, getting it through both times. Each player seems to have their own strategy to play back against the chip leader. Only time will tell if they're successful
Shortly after the dinner break Loic Blarez got his remaining 725,000 chips in the middle against Anthony Rodrigues.
Blarez:
Rodrigues:
For the third time at the final table, a player was all-in and at risk with pocket aces. He was ahead...for now. The crowd called for a 5, and there was one in the window. came the flop and the crowd cheered. All sorts of cards were called for, threes, aces, nines...
The turn was the (one person cheered), and the river was the eliminating Blarez and leaving the remaining four to battle it out for the gold ring and the €111,776 first prize
The remaining five players have all taken their seats for the next level, Level 28: 25,000/50,000/5000. Mathieu Selides still leads with just over half the chips in play