The final has been one of those strange ones, where periods of heavy action have been separated by relatively long periods where there's been an absence of action.

That seems to have been the case in the last hour. The crowd are muted, watching on quietly as they survey the remaining players duelling it out. Erik Seidel in particular has cut a very silent figure, not becoming involved in the action much, just seemingly waiting like  snake in the grass for an opportunity to present itself.

There has been one event of note however during this period.

Here it is!

Maren-ated (OUT- 5th)

Jon Maren just had his chips allin. A large percentage of them went in preflop versus Casey Kastle and the rest he fired in on a K 8 Q flop.

Kastle was not ecstatic about calling but was committed as it was only an additional $30,000 or so to do so. So call he did and he must have been delighted that his 6-6-5-2 was actually good versus Jon's mere A-J-2-3 which had whiffed the flop.

Jon had a gutshot straight draw and a backdoor low draw and flush draw. The 2 on thr turn put a big hole in any hopes of pulling a low draw out and a blank Q on the river consigned him to the rail whilst Kastle raked in a very useful pot.

Jon Maren is OUT, eliminated in 5th place, winning $56,019.

Here are the chip counts as the race for the bracelet heats up.

The players have spent much of the last hour on a break, and since then there have been a multitude of chopped pots.

Especially involved has been Chad Burum, who is virtually committed to call every time he is in the big blind and there is a raise. He ninja shortstacked and split his way through a variety of pots.

Eventually, however, his luck ran out!

Glum Burum! (OUT - 6th)

After Martin Klaser raised to $40,000 preflop, Chad Burum took yet another shot to build his stack up, calling with A Q 8 3 and putting the rest of his chips in on the favourable flop of J 5 6 with the 3rd nut flush draw and the 2nd nut low draw.

Unfortunately for him Klaser called and had a pretty nice hand himself, A 2 6 5 for the nut low draw and two pair.

The 7 and 4 completed the hand, and no spade or counterfeit card committed Chad to the rail, eliminated in 6th spot, winning $44,226.

Here are the current chip counts, courtesy of worldseriesofpoker.com.

Casey Kastle continues to dominate at this stage, his chip stack giving him the leverage to apply pressure, which so far he is doing well.