In a stunning turn of events, Patrice Sitbon -- chip leader at the beginning of the day -- has been eliminated from the Cannes Main Event.
Bleeding chips throughout the day, Sitbon dropped all the way down to 43,000 before moving all in from the big blind after his opponent completed the small. The small blind called and Sitbon tabled a dismal king-eight; his opponent had him dominated with king-ten.
Failing to catch an eight, Sitbon was sent home in 34th place with $19,260 in prize money.
Gus Hansen has just skyrocketed into the top five with the recent elimination of Stebastien Austy. All of the money went in on a nine-high flop, Austy's with top pair, top kicker and Gus' with a pocket pair of kings.
Bricks on the turn and river spelled the end for Austy who will take home $19,260 in prize money for his 35th place finish.
Meanwhile, Gus Hansen now sits with close to 700,000 in chips and has his table mates terrified due to the fact that he's been picking up premium hands as of late.
Patryk Hildebranski has been particularly active this evening, and once again we find him coming in raising. From middle position, he makes it 20,000 to go. Action passes around to Claudio Renaldi, and he re-raises to 66,000.
"It's so sick how I open so many pots, and nobody believes me," says Hildbranski. Immediately after saying that, he moves all in, and gets called just as quickly.
Renaldi shows down a big pair: . Hildebranski again mumbles, "So sick," as he opens up his . The board comes out , providing no help for Hildebranski. When the chips are counted down, he learns that he owes a total of 375,500, leaving him with just 85,000 chips.
Noah Schwartz has just been crippled in a big three-way pot. We pick up the action on the turn with the board showing . A betting and raising war breaks out between Alain Roy, Noah Schwartz, and Fabrice Nkoa. In the end, Roy is all in against Nkoa, with Schwartz saying he has two pair as he folds.
Nkoa shows but is already drawing dead versus Roy, who flopped a set with .
After the hand, Schwartz walked over to the adjacent table where he found his friend Patryk Hildebranski. "Cooler city over here bro. Cooler city." He recited the story for Patryk, looking for a little sympathy. After folding with most of his chips in the pot, Schwartz is left with just 40,000 to play with.
Christophe Drahe opens with a raise to 16,500, and Patryk Hildebranski reraises to 55,000 from the cutoff. Not to be outdone, the player on the button moves all in for a total of 155,900. Drahe asks for a count, then folds.
Hildebranski is not so quick to back down though. "Ohhh, what did I get myself into? F**k!" he mumbles, letting out a big sigh. "You have pockets? If you have pockets, I call you," he says, trying to draw a reaction from his stone-faced opponent. Hildebranski waves his hand in front of his opponent's eyes, earning just a slight smile. "Hello? You have the nuts?" he asks. Finally, he does indeed fold, sending a nice pot over to the other player without ever seeing a flop.
"I had ace-king," said Hildebranski after the hand, trying to bluff the table.
"Come on, you're not folding ace-king there ever," someone said from the other end of the table.
"You're right. I had a good ace though. Ace-ten. Going crazy with ace-ten."
Poker Pro Arnaud Mattern has just been eliminated from the main event -- the result of back-to-back hands, each involving pocket jacks.
The first of which saw Mattern lose a race holding ace-king against the pocket jacks of Pierre Ayme. All of the money went in preflop and the board ran out giving Ayme two pair and the win. That hand left Mattern with just 30,000 in chips.
Moments later, Arnaud moved all in from the small blind holding six-seven offsuit and was called by Sebastian Austy who held -- you guessed it -- pocket jacks. Unable to draw out on Austy's superior hand, Mattern ended up our 37th place finisher.