LIVE EVENTS

Day 2 of the Playground 200 has just come to an end. There were a total of 152 players out of the 697 entries who returned today with the top 88 making it into the money. As soon as the first hand was dealt, the room saw the first elimination. By the end of the first level of play, 17 players had already been sent to the rail.

At the first break, Adam Strulovitch had bolted into the lead with an outstanding 702,000 chips. At the second break Roberto Parent lead the field with 966,000 chips while Strulovitch stayed on the leaderboard, although his stack remained constant for the next few levels. Steve Cordeiro had a well timed triple-up while he was still short stacked and was able to survive to the end, bagging 915,000 chips. Sebastien Proulx then took the top spot and stayed there for many levels but lost steam late in the day and was only able to bag 335,000 chips.

The chip leader going into Day 3 is Jean-Pascal Gauthier, bagging 1,365,000 chips (57 big blinds), followed by Roberto Parent with 1,260,000 chips (52 big blinds) and in third is Benoit Martineau with 1,235,000 chips (51 big blinds).

Play will resume for Day 3 action tomorrow night at 7:00pm, with 10 minutes left in level 23 with the blinds at 12,000/24,000. Day 3 will play down to a winner.

All players have now secured a payout of $940 but are of course looking for the top prize of $24,500 and the Power Weekend Champion ring.

Click here to see the Day 3 seating draw with chip counts.

Good luck to all players!

Play is in the last level and there was just a seating re-draw as only 24 players remain in contention. There have been some large swings and chips are moving back and forth across the tables.

Some of the recent eliminations include: Shailesh Patel, Behrooz Salemi, Ian Armorer, Julien Lemay, Maxime Theroux, Dominic Tossings and Danick Morin.

It’s become a tight race at the top as there now five millionaires in the field. It is Sebastien Prouxl in the top spot, playing a stack of 1,400,000 chips, good for 70 big blinds.

There are two more levels left to play tonight before the remaining players bag their chips to move on to Day 3.

Here is the latest leaderboard as the tournament heads into the final stretch:

The action has been slowing down, now that there are only 36 players left in contention. The current payout is now $640, still far away though from the $24,500 up top.

Alexandre Patry now has the biggest stack in play, close to 1.25M chips.

Recent eliminations include: Leo Hackenbroch, Ray Mahomed, Nicolas Laliberte, Joey Silver, Nicholas Gardam, Brian Tock, Daniel Mackay and Philippe Belley.

Steve Cordeiro just found himself a nice triple-up which he desperately had needed. Ray Mahomed had moved all in, followed by Nicolas Laliberte who had also moved all in, and Cordeiro decided to join the party.

Mahomed:
Laliberte:
Cordeiro:

It was looking good from the start for Cordeiro and it got even better on the board when he completed a straight. Cordeiro went from 130,000 to 420,000 and is now back in the running with 35 big blinds.

Only 48 players are still left in contention. There is a lot of poker left to be played over the course of the next four levels, so expect the swings to continue.

With the average stack sitting at 363,000 chips (30 big blinds), Roberto Parent is approaching the 1M mark, playing a stack of 966,000 chips, good for 80 big blinds.

Here are the top stacks in level 21:

John Pisani played a great game from start to finish. He was the overall chip leader coming into Day 2, but he has just exited the tournament room in 59th place.

On his final hand, he raised it up preflop with Big Slick (AK) and picked up one caller. He was delighted to have flopped an ace, however, his opponent turned a set, which brought Pisani’s tournament run to an end. He will collect $450 for his efforts.

With the blinds at 4,000/8,000, the action folded to Natalia Nogina, in the small blind, who completed her action. Christian Portmann, in the big blind, checked his option. The dealer fanned out a flop. Both players checked. The turn brought the . Nogina checked again, which was followed by a bet of 16,000 from Portmann. Nogina called. The river was the , and one miore time, Nogina checked. Without hesitation, Portmann moved all in. Before he could finish moving his stack forward, Nogina announced “call” and opened up her hand: for quad kings!

Nogina was all smiles as she doubled-up her stack. Her table mates all said: “Well played!”

Hand-for-hand play only lasted for three hands before the bubble burst. All players are now in the money!

The players just took their first break of the day, and Adam Strulovitch is in the top spot. He is in command with a stack of 702,000, effectively 117 big blinds. It appears that most of the chip leaders from each of the starting flights have been able to keep on building up their stacks as they also sit on the leaderbaord.

Here is the first leaderboard of Day 2:

Play is now hand-for-hand as the tournament is on the money-bubble!

Adam Strulovitch is a well known local player who has had some deep runs during Playground events. He started the day with 235,500 chips, and is now sitting on close to 870,00! He tells us that he simply could not miss on any hand that he has played. His table mates laughed and all said: “yup, that’s true!”

Jean-Paul Zeidan started the day with only 40,500 chips. When he picked up he knew that it was the time to move all in. Alberto Scuderi (209,000) had pocket nines and made the easy call. The board ran out , doubling-up Zeidan to a more comfortable 91,000 chips. He has some breathing room as he is sitting on almost 23 big blinds.