LIVE EVENTS

In total there were 95 players who battled through 14 levels of 30 minutes, starting with a stack of 25k. The early stages played out very calm, and throughout the evening, there weren’t many major battlers or upsets as the pace remained pretty steady. Just as we normally see in the multi day events, players with medium to low stacks aren’t always too keen to come back on Day 2 with a stack of 5-12 BB’s, therefore, in the last 30-40 minutes of play, action heated up and there were plenty of stacks going into the middle of the felt. Some were successful, and some were not.

In the end, 21 players bagged, with the chip leader being Josef Ares, sitting on 281,500, followed by local player Rodney Ramalho (273,000), who has a list of top scores in both Canada and Europe over the last few years.

Players come back for Day 2 on Saturday @ 1 PM.

For those looking to jump into the action, Day 1B starts @ 11 AM Friday morning, and the final flight, Day 1C is at 7 PM on Friday.

Here are the chip counts along with photos of a few of the players who are coming back, hoping for that big payday:

Chip leaders Josef Ares and Rodney Ramalho:

A few of the other players who will play Day 2:

As to be expected, stacks have increased since players have been hitting the rail over the last few levels, and, 5 players have now taken a clear lead. The race however is tight, with a handful of players neck & neck and within reach of each other. The chip leader is local player Robert Dagenais, who has kept on building his stack since winning that large pot earlier on flopping a boat with JJ vs KK.

As they say, “it ain’t over until it’s over”, and past experience tells us that in multi-day tournaments, during the last 2 levels of play, there are often some big battles along with a few coolers, so, stay tuned for the final leaderboard.

Here is the list of the top 5 stacks in play:

Kevin Daily is a friend of Playground who comes in often from Vermont to play the weekend tournaments. He may be older than many of the young guns who grind tournaments, but he has every bit as much energy as they do and he certainly loves to play hands. Looking around the room during the 2nd break, his stack has grown to almost 100K, clearly ahead of the rest of the field. Mathieu Fontaine Raposo also is maintaining his momentum and is 2nd in chips.

As level 10 approaches, action should heat up as players have 5 more levels to play before bagging & tagging.

After late registration came to a close, Day 1A has a total of 95 entries (including 8 re-entries), with still 69 players remaining in their seats. That means there is a total of 2,375,000 chips in play, so the potential is there to see some healthy stacks bagged at the end of level 14 when the day comes to a close.

Here are a few more photos of some of the players still in contention:

Play has just resumed in level 5 and the field has now grown to 93 players, including 7 re-entries. With still another full 30 minute level to play before late registration closes, it’s quite possible that there were be 100+ players in tonight’s flight, and, what often happens in a re-entry event like this is that the really short stacks may decide to take a chance and shove their stack, hoping for either a badly needed double up, or, the opportunity to re-enter and start fresh with a full starting stack.

Looking around the tournament room the race is close, and 5 players managed to amass stacks close to double the average, but no player has run away from the pack as of yet. The front runner is Mathieu Fontaine Raposo, leading with 62,700, but with 4 other players all sitting in the 50K-60K range, so of course it is still anybody’s game.

The tables keep filling up and there are now 72 entries, and, with almost 2 more hours of late registration available, it looks like there will be quite a few chips in play tonight.

Here are a few of the players currently battling it out:

Welcome to Day 1A of Event #2 of the May Power Weekend, “Strangers in the Night”, Playground’s signature $150 + $25 multi day event, where the entire rake is donated to charity. The Strangers in the Night charity initiative supports the Miriam Foundation, Lymphoma Canada, and The West Island Women’s Shelter.

Players start with 25K in chips, blind levels are 30 minutes in length, and there is also unlimited re-entry available right up to the close of late registration, after level 6. The prize pool is a GTD $50,000, although based on past events, this most likely will end up growing way beyond that, making for a reasonably low priced buy-in offering a great prize pool.

If you can’t make it in to play tonight, Day 1B takes place tomorrow at 11:00am, and Day 1C at 7:00pm.