Action folded to Anthony Damore on the button, and he shoved for the three big blinds he had left. David Cai called from the small blind, and Thanh dat Tran called in the big. Cai and Tran checked all three streets as the board fell . Cai tabled for sevens and fours, and Tran mucked. Damore tossed his cards as well and said his goodbyes, leaving ten players remaining.
As Damore left to pick up his first WSOP cash, the rest of the players paused to redraw to the unofficial final table.
The bags are out and the pens are at the ready, in anticipation of one more elimination. That means it looks like we'll be stopping for the night as soon as we reach our final nine, with the finale of this event set to take place tomorrow afternoon.
The unofficial final table has kicked off with mostly "raise and take it" hands with Denis Murphy, Greg Pohler and David Cai each moving all in preflop in the first orbit to take down the blinds and antes uncontested.
The short stacks are definitely under pressure from the rising blinds so we're going to see a big collision here sometime very soon.
Blake Kelso opened the action by moving all from early position in seat one. The table folded around to Alexis Belanger Lebel in the small blind who turned to Jeffrey Tebben in the big blind and asked for a count. Tebben shrugged and counted out about 535,000. Lebel then announced, "I'm all in". Tebben quickly folded and Lebel got the shock of his life.
"You didn't realize I was already all in, did you?" laughed Kelso, as Lebel dropped his head in dismay at his huge error.
Perhaps he didn't see the bet from the other side of the dealer, but there was no turning back now as the cards were tabled.
Kelso:
Lebel:
It would be a cruel blow for Kelso if he lost it in this fashion as he turned and ran away from the table, unable to watch. He didn't have to worry as the board ran out missing both players.
Kelso doubles through to 1.2 million in extraordinary circumstances as Lebel is now on the short stack with just 156,000.
After his huge mistake in a very inopportune spot, Alexis Belanger-Lebel was left with 156,000. A few hands later, David Cai raised to 90,000 from middle position, and Belanger-Lebel moved all in from the cutoff. Cai called the extra few chips with , and Alexis was going to need to improve with his . The board wasn't what he needed, and Belanger-Lebel was out in 10th as the final-table bubble boy.
![[user140525]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}
. Cai tabled 
for sevens and fours, and Tran mucked. Damore tossed his cards as well and said his goodbyes, leaving ten players remaining.
missing both players.
. The 
board wasn't what he needed, and Belanger-Lebel was out in 10th as the final-table bubble boy.