PROFILE

Name: Marc-Etienne McLaughlin
Age: 25
Birthplace: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Current Hometown: Brossard, Quebec, Canada

While he might have been a mystery man prior to the 2013 World Series of Poker Championship Event, McLaughlin has a serious tournament resume backing up his deep run to the “November Nine” this year. He will start the festivities in November in third place with his 26.525 million stack sitting in the Six Seat, but there is trouble around him. Chip leader J. C. Tran is on his immediate left, which could make life a bit difficult for him, and on his immediate right are Ryan Riess (25.875 million) and Amir Lehavot (29.7 million) which could make life in the blinds a nightmare.

It isn’t like McLaughlin doesn’t have some poker chops to be able to battle with these stacks, however. McLaughlin made his first tournament score a huge one, finishing the 2009 WSOP Championship Event in 30th place for a whopping $253,941 payday. He continued on in his tournament poker pursuits and has added six more cashes since then (including the 2013 final table), most notable by his finishes a $1500 NLHE tournament at the WSOP in 2011 (for $292,634) and another deep run in the Championship Event that same year (an 86th place finish for $76,146). Wherever he finishes this year, the cash that he earns will be his biggest tournament score of his career.

HOW HE GOT HERE

Day 1(B): 45,300
Day 2(B): 154,600
Day 3: 560,000
Day 4: 1,223,000
Day 5: 6,695,000
Day 6: 5,415,000

KEY HAND

McLaughlin was in second place after Day 5, but fell to the middle of the pack after the Day 6 play. He wasted little time in getting into action, flopping an Ace and rivering another to take some chips off of Alexander Livingston on one of the first hands of play, then would work a rivered full house against Chris Lindh to crack the ten million chip mark. It wasn’t until another battle against Lindh that McLaughlin would reach a comfort zone on his trek to the final table.

After Lindh had raised the action to 425K, McLaughlin defended his big blind to see a 5-4-4 flop. McLaughlin would check-call another 575K bet out of Lindh to see a seven on the turn which seemed to wake the Canadian up. He placed a 2.1 million chip bet out and, after Lindh made the call, saw a nine come on the river. McLaughlin slid out another big bet, 3.1 million, and after Lindh made a quick call, turned up an A-4 for flopped trips; Lindh could only muck his hand and watch as the stack of chips that put McLaughlin over the 20 million mark were pushed to him.

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