Another long day within the France Poker Series Monaco Main Event PokerStars and Monte-Carlo®Casino EPT Grand Final has come to a close, and after eight full one-hour levels the 57 players who had survived from the 993-player starting field have now played all the way all the way down to a last table after which some.

Pablo Gordillo began the official final table with the chip lead -- some degree hit with about an hour left to play -- and he had it again at night's lead to. fact, the Spaniard's stack of 7,005,000 will put him a bit over 3 million away from anyone else when cards return within the air for Sunday's final day.

Pablo Gordillo

Those 57 returned with the Frenchman Dean-Henri Taibi leading, and within a few hours they were already less 20 players. EPT4 Prague champion Arnaud Mattern (47th) and La Maison Du Bluff star Abou Sy (42nd) among those hitting the rail.

Gordillo had already pushed into the chip lead by then, and would remain at or near the highest of the counts for the remainder of the afternoon and evening.

Meanwhile the pace slowed somewhat, the sector shrinking from 37 to 22 over the following two one-hour levels. That reach saw both the tournament's last woman, Daniela Parotti, and start-of-day-2 chip leader Frederik Treusch being eliminated in 27th and 26th, respectively.

Gilles Silbernagel of France had risen to challenge Gordillo by that point, taking on the chip lead briefly because the field was whittled down further. Freeroll winner Romain Bier went out in 20th, and just a little later Amerigo Santoro had his aces cracked by EPT4 London champion Joseph Mouawad to move out in 19th.

Mouawad earned another knockout soon thereafter, putting off Alexandre Rivero in 16th, and enjoyed the chip lead for a part of the pre-dinner period. Evangelos Kokkalis (15th) and Guillaume Branellec (14th) next fell, with Alessandro Bardaro (13th) and Charles Vidal (12th) following before those remaining took day out for dinner.

After their return, Julien Valentin unfortunately ran kings into Silbernagel's aces to complete 11th. Florian Decamps finally lost the last of his short stack to Taibi to complete 10th. Then start-of-day-3 leader Taibi fell in ninth in a hand against Gordillo.

The final table within the final hour

That one put Gordillo back in front, and instead of a temporary period when Silbernagel jumped prior to him again Gordillo would continue to stick active and accumulate until play concluded. Michael Ferrari will be the just one to fall during that final hour, finishing eighth after his pocket queens did not hold against Mouawad's ace-queen.

Here's how the stacks look and where they'll be seated to begin play tomorrow:

Seat 1: Joseph Mouawad (USA) -- 3,220,000Seat 2: Gilles Silbernagel (France) -- 3,890,000Seat 3: Sergio Braga (Brazil) -- 840,000Seat 4: Pablo Gordillo (Spain) -- 7,005,000Seat 5: emptySeat 6: Luca Moschitta (Italy) -- 1,655,000Seat 7: Manuel Martinez (UK) -- 3,950,000Seat 8: Sebastian Supper (Germany) -- 3,520,000

The next player out will earn €23,500 while a large prize of €177,000 awaits the winner.

Play resumes at 12:30 p.m. local time tomorrow, with cards-up coverage starting on a one-hour delay at 1:30 p.m. over at EPT Live. Come again then to determine with us who will succeed Yury Nesterenko to become the following France Poker Series Monaco Main Event champion.

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Bon soir!

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Martin Harris is Freelance Contributor to the PokerStars Blog.

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