Stephen Chidwick Takes Slight Lead Over Thomas Boivin Into U.S. Poker Open Event #7 Final Table

Stephen Chidwick accumulated a large stack early, and at various points in the day, held over double the amount of chips as the second stack. He lost some chips near the bubble when Dan Smith doubled through him multiple times, but still ran up his stack to become the chip leader heading into the final day.

Belgian Thomas Boivin is not far behind, and will only have one less big blind as the six remaining players battle it out on the felt at the Event #7 final table, which is set to air exclusively on PokerGO at 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday, March 23.

Alex Foxen and Dan Smith will be in the middle of the pack, while Joseph Cheong and Chino Rheem will be the shorter stacks at the beginning of the stream, although even they will have fairly comfortable stacks of over 30 big blinds.

When play resumes, Level 13 will continue with 2:55 remaining and the button will be on Joseph Cheong. There will be a dead small blind and Chino Rheem will be in the big blind.

Event #7: $15,000 No-Limit Hold’em of the 2022 U.S. Poker Open kicked off at the PokerGO Studio at ARIA Resort & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, and the 70-entrant field created a prize pool of $1,050,000.

Ten players earned themselves a piece of the prize pool, and Shannon Shorr, Dylan DeStefano, and Andrew Lichtenberger made deep runs but were knocked out as the bubble approached. Shorr fell to Boivin’s two pair, DeStefano was on the wrong end of a bad beat against Joe McKeehen, and Lichtenberger found help on the flop, but the river eliminated him and gave his chips to Foxen. Boivin then won a large pot against McKeehen that gave him much of his stack and allowed him to apply pressure on the bubble.

There were multiple double-ups with one elimination away from the money, and eventually, it was Ren Lin who was eliminated on the bubble after his pocket jacks were defeated as Foxen found an ace on the flop. From there, McKeehen was soon knocked out in tenth as he couldn’t improve against Rheem, and Bill Klein was gone in ninth when his nines ran into Cheong’s queens. Adam Hendrix was next to make his exit in eighth place.

Foxen doubled through Boivin with pocket kings near the end of the day which secured him a healthy stack going into the final day, and shortly after, Vikenty Shegal would be the final player eliminated during the day in seventh place, as his short stack went in preflop and his cards were no good as Smith improved to the nut flush.

The remaining players have locked up $63,000, but all eyes are on the $283,500 first-place prize. Foxen, Cheong, and Chidwick all have the opportunity to move up to the second spot on the 2022 U.S. Poker Open leaderboard if they end up victorious on the felt, although Japan’s Tamon Nakamura will stay on top for now after he won both Event #4 and #6. The player with the most points on that leaderboard at the end of the series will earn a $50,000 championship bonus and the Golden Eagle trophy.

The final six players will return to the PokerGO Studio on Wednesday, March 23, at 12 p.m. PT with the final table airing on PokerGO.com and the PokerGO YouTube channel at 1 p.m. PT.

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