LIVE EVENTS

Marcello Simonetti is known to be a patient and tight player and he has gone deep in many events. He was part of the five way chop that took place in this weekend’s marquee event, the Playground200. He has been super patient on the final table tonight waiting for the right spots, and his chip stack was starting to take a hit and he needed to do something before it was too late..

Lucky for him, he woke up with a pocket pair and moved all in. John Rathbun also woke up with a pair and made the call, hoping that he might be flipping against an Ace or maybe some Broadway cards. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case.

Marcello:

John:

The board stayed clean for Marcello and his 310,000 stack more than doubled.

The pressure was starting to get to Normand Plessis-Belair’s stack and when he saw an ace he decided to go all in. Mathyeu Provost made the call.

Normand:

Mathyeu:

The flop was and Normand stayed in the lead however Mathyeu was open-ended. The turn was the , giving Mathyeu the straight, and the river didn’t help Normand who left the room with his payout slip.

Fourth place: Normand Plessis-Belair, $1,330 plus bounties

As expected, Leo Hackenbroch shoved his last 85,000 and was called by Mathyeu Provost. Leo had and Mathyeu had , when the flop came , Mathyeu had hit his 5 which was good enough for the win (the turn and river were bricks).

Dave Hamel then picked up a premium pair, , and the chips ended up in the middle with John Rathbun who had .

The flop came , giving John a pair of Aces. Dave couldn’t improve on the turn nor on the river, and since John had Dave covered, Dave exited in fifth place.

Fifth place: Dave Hamel, $990 plus bounties

Sixth place: Leo Hackenbroch, $740 plus bounties

John Rathbun has been very active over the last hour, but luck has not gone his way and he has taken a big hit, he is however still the chip leader with 960,000. Dave Hamel follows right behind him with 930,000. Leo Hackenbroch is on life support and will be all in very shortly.

Here are the counts:

John Rathbun:

The tournament is now down to the final table. Here are the players names and their stacks:

• John Rathbun, 1,500,000
• Marcello Simonetti, 390,000
• Dave Hamel, 470,000
• Mathyeu Provost, 450,000
• Leo Hackenbroch, 450,000
• Normand Plessis-Belair, 218,000

Here are the recent bustouts:

7th place: Emile H., $550 plus bounties

8th place: Jean-Francois Stoycheff, $410 plus bounties

9th place: Simon Gosselin, $310 plus bounties

The new chip leader is Dave Hamel, a well known and well accomplished tournament grinder here at Playground. He is on top of the pack with a cool 411,000, but others are right behind him, so it is still anybody’s game.

Recent bustoutrs include: Dan Vigderhous, Daniel Pepin, Ben Menache, Andre Dupuis, Andy “Coach” D’Alessandro, Marc Saddik and Arthur W..

Here are the current leaders:

Dave Hamel:

The bustouts and coolers have been happening left and right over the last 30-40 minutes and once the tournament was down to 20 players, play became hand-for-hand until the bubble finally burst.

On table 38, Gregory Ducharme limped in and when it was Diego Aguilar’s turn to act, he threw in his bounty chip signalling an all in. Ducharme made the call and once the floor staff gave the go ahead to the dealer, the hands were opened.

Diego:

Gregory:

The board ran out and Diego scooped the pot (and the bounty chip) and Gregory became the bubble boy, with the rest of the field now in the money.

Players still in the running include: Ben Menache, Arthur W., Dan Vigderhous, Marcello Simonetti, Andre Dupuis, JF Stoycheff, Simon Gosselin, Marc Saddik, Dave Hamel, Daniel Pepin and Leo Hackenbroch.

Recent bustouts include: Daniel Golea, Steve Cotton, Behrooz Salemi, Shawn S., Jason Clarke, Soterios T., and Hicham Hammoud, just to name a few.

As a break is coming up shortly, we will publish a new leaderbaord after the we count the stacks during the break.

Diego Aguilar:

Gregory Ducharme:

With the blinds at 1,500/3,000, Vera G. opened in mid position for 30,000, and when action came to Normand Plessis-Beliar in the big blind, he went over the top all in for 71,000. Vera didn’t hesitate as she said “I have no choice, I call“.

The hands were tabled:

Normand:

Vera:

The flop came and Normand’s AK out flopped Vera’s pocket Queens, although Vera picked up outs as she now had a gut shot straight draw in addition to the two remaining Queens in the deck. The turn was the which did not change anything, and the on the river was a blank for her.

After losing this critical hand against Normand, Vera shoved her remaining chips a few hands later and ended up busting out.

Normand Plessis-Belair:

Vera G.:

The tournament is heating up as the field keeps thinning out. Simon Gosselin continues to crush and is now the chip leader with 226,500, however Shawn S., who just chopped in the PG200 yesterday is right on his heels sitting on a stack of 221,500.

Simon Gosselin:

Shawn S.:

Play is moving quite fast tonight as players are bounty hunting, some have been successful, and some have now left the tournament room, leaving their bounty chip behind.

Here are some of the faces in the field in level 10:

The official number of entries is 145 in tonight’s tournament, which has created a prize pool of $27,260, half of which goes to the payouts, and the other half is in the form of $100 bounty chips. There is $3,180 up top for the first place finisher, and a min-cash of $170 in 19th position.