LIVE EVENTS

Stacks are building and a few players are now way ahead of the 2.2M average. After having one a huge pot after flopping a set of 9’s and being taken all in by Jonathan Cameron, Dave Hamel is the one sitting in the drivers seat, with a cool 8,000,000.

Grant Ellis, from Whitby, Ont, is a friend of Playground who likes to come in to play all of the large events and is now in second place with a stack of 7,245,000.

With still four levels left to go this evening before the remaining players bag for Day 2, there will certainly be a lot of changes as large swings always take place in the last few levels.

Here are the players now on the leaderboard:

Dave Hamel is the new chip leader:

Grant Ellis is in second place:

Dave Hamel, a very experienced local Playground regular, opened with a bet of 80,000, only to be 3-bet to 280,000 by Jonathan Cameron on his immediate left. Hamel thought it about it for just a little bit before making the call.

The flop came , and Hamel checked. Cameron put in a bet of 150,000, only to be met by a 3-bet 350,000 by Hamel, which Cameron called.

Turn was the and this time Hamel led out for 300,000. Cameron called.

River was the , and after a pause, there was a check by Hamel. Cameron tanked for over a minute, and then announced “all in”, and was snap called by Hamel.

Cameron:
Hamel:     

Hamel had flopped a set of nines and scooped a huge pot, and is now sitting on a very solid stack.  There is a break coming up shortly so we will update the leaderboard and report back in a little bit.

Walking by Niall’s table throughout the evening, you can hear the laughter as he is not just in Montreal to play poker, he is here to also have some fun. The Heineken’s have been flowing and although he started off a bit slow, and had to fire a second bullet early on, he has now been chipping up nicely.

When we arrived at his table, he check called a bet on a J high board, and again check called on the turn. When the board paired with a 10 on the river, he once again checked, only to have a check back by his opponent. Niall laughed as he opened his hand: he had flopped a set of Jacks and then boated up, and was hoping for a bet on the river that he could check raise. Niall kept smiling while listening to a player tell him “buddy, you must bet the river, why did you not bet, you need to bet”!  Niall just smiled and laughed as he pulled in the chips.

The very next hand he opened in early position, and when action folded to Kevin Javier, Javier shoved his stack, only to receive a snap call by Farrell. Javier had a pair of 9’s, and Farrel had Big Slick (AK). The flop came K high, sending Javier to the rail.

The tournament is in level 11 and there are still 111 players fighting away hoping to bag and tag the top stack for Day 2. There is a lot of action going on and some stacks are really starting go skyward, we will try to catch a few hands to bring you in on the action.

Here are a few of the players in the field:

Late registration has now come to a close, and the total number of entries for tonight Day 1D is 187 (including 24 re-entries), bringing the total entries from the first four Day 1 flights to 754 players. With another three Day 1’s still to go (Day 1E Sunday at 12:00pm, Day 1F Sunday at 5:00pm, and Day 1G (Turbo) Monday at 10:00am), it looks like the $1,000,000 cash guarantee (plus 15 MILLIONS North America seats) will be surpassed.

The players just had their second break of the evening and one player, Tomas Larivee Magni, a very skilled local player who has had much success in both tournament and cash games, has literally run away from the rest of the pack; where as the average chip stack is around 1.5M, Tomas has a whopping 7,300,000, almost double the second place runner, Lam Nguyen, who has 3,990,000 chips. Nguyen is closely followed by Yirui Zhang, who took down Event #1 last night for a cool $29,389.

Here are the current leaders from the second break:

There is a nice mix of amateurs and seasoned pros seated at the tables, many of whom have joined us from both the USA as well as from Europe.  The mood is fun yet serious, as the prize pool is quite serious as well.

During the first break, there was the opportunity to count the chip stacks and produce the first leaderboard of the evening. With the average stack hovering just around 1.16M, Kevin Boesel from Rochester, NY is the current chip leader, sitting on a cool 2,800,000 chips. He is followed very closely by Rishi Makkar of Toronto, Ont, who has 2,730,000 in chips. Just behind Rishi is Jan Zeuschner, from Vassenburg, Germany, who is on the same table as our leader, and is playing a stack of 2,600,000.

There certainly will be many changes as the night goes on, we will do our best to keep you up to date and update the leaderboard during the next break.

1st break chip leader: Kevin Boesel

Second and third in chips, Rishi Makkar and Jan Zeuschner

Day 1D is off to an amazing start, there are already 121 entries (including 3 re-entries) and there is still another three hours+ to go in the late registration/re-entry period!  The value of this tournament is outstanding and the structure with the 1 million chip starting stack and 30 minute blind levels allows for players being able to properly pick their spots to get involved in the action.

Here are some of the players who have joined the action: