LIVE EVENTS

Tonight was Day 1B of the $200 + $20 Grand Prix Canada, the marquee event of the Playground 9-Year Anniversary Series which offers an outstanding $500,000 guaranteed prize pool. There were so far 214 entries into Day 1A of which 31 bagged to advance to day 2, plus 78 entries tonight in day 1B with 11 more players bagging their Day 2 stacks. There was also an online starting flight on partypoker and those numbers will be added to the totals once they are confirmed.

Pierre “Pepe” Daigle was able to hold on to his stack and bag the lead in Day 1B with 1,418,000 chips. Here are the top five stacks from Day 1B:

• Pierre “Pepe” Daigle: 1,418,000
• Ghita Acordunencei: 1,128,000
• Bill Kontaratos: 1,030,000
• Tu Kham Tran: 846,000
• Brian Tock: 692,000

There are more Day 1 starting flights playing out every day this week. To see all of the remaining Day 1 flights, please see the tournament structure sheet by clicking here.

A player may play additional Day 1s even if they have survived a previous Day 1 with chips. Players who qualify for Day 2 more than once will resume play on Day 2 with their largest qualifying stack; all other qualifying stacks will be forfeited. Players would, however, retain the associated cash prize for every forfeited stack.

Day 2 plays out this coming Sunday, December 15th at 1:00pm.

Good luck to all of the competitors!

Shailesh Patel opened the action raising it up from 20,000 to 60,000 and it folder around to Bill Kontaratos in the big blind who decided to protect his blind and make the call. The flop came and Kontaratos checked, followed by a continuation bet of 80,000 by Patel. Kontaratos gave it some thought before min-raising to 160,000. Patel right away moved all in and Kontaratos instantly called. The hands were opened:

Patel:
Kontaratos:

Patel had the goods pre-flop but Kontaratos smashed the flop making trip sevens. The turn was the and the river was the and Patel was eliminated, bringing the tournament to hand-for-hand play as only 12 players remain.

The tournament is now in the final stretch with only 17 players currently seated and playing until only 11 players remain. One player has now joined the millionaire club; Pierre “Pepe” Daigle is leading with 1,235,000 chips. The top four stacks are all on the same table so it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

Here are the current leaders:

There are only 19 players left in contention from the original 78 entries. All ins are happening like crazy now as the short stacks are trying hard to get a badly needed double-up. The top 11 players will bag for Day 2 so play will continue to be aggressive until the tournament is 2 or 3 away from the final 11, at which point we usually see the short stacks hanging on tight and hoping to at least bag for Day 2 and be assured of a min-cash.

A break is coming up shortly and there will be a leaderboard update. Here are the three biggest stacks in play at the moment:

The late registration/re-entry period has finally come to a close, and the total number of entries in Day 1B came to 78 (including 22 re-entries). This is in addition to the 214 entries from day 1A as well as the entries from the online Day 1A on partypoker this evening.

The top 11 players will bag for Day 2 and will be in the money.  The chip average right now is 210,000 (44 BB’s) and the chip lead is still with Frederic Breton who is playing a stack of 569,000 (113 Big Blinds). Hot on his tail and sitting on the same table is Tu Kham Tran with 555,000 (111 Big Blinds).

Here are the current leaders:

Although we didn’t see the initial action, when we arrived at table 34 there were already a lot of chips in the middle. Tu Kham Tran, a well known local cash and tournament grinder, had 16,000 chips out in front of him and when the action folded back to William Johnston, he raised it up to 82,000. Tran didn’t hesitate too long before he announced that he was all in, sending Johnston deep into the tank as the decision was basically for Johnston’s tournament life. After a long tank, a player called the clock on him and as much as he looked like wanted to make the call, the clock ticked down to zero and his hand was rendered dead. Tran was happy that he was able to add a lot of chips to his stack without having to see a flop.

The players have just returned from the first break of the evening and with the chip average sitting at just over 150,000, one player has managed to go north of 400K. Frederic Breton is leading the field with a stack of 407.000 chips, good for 254 big blinds.

The room keeps filling up and late registration will remain open until the start of level at 10:50pm.

Looking around the room we were able to take a few photos of some of the players in Day 1B:

Welcome to the second live Day 1 of the $200 + $20 Grand Prix Canada, the marquee event of the Playground’s 9-Year Anniversary series. This event offers incredible value with it’s $500,000 guaranteed prize pool. Players have 19 Day 1s from which to choose, both live and online.

Players start the Grand Prix Canada with 100,000 chips. As tonight’s Day 1B is a turbo flight, the blind levels are 20 minutes long. The play is 10-handed on Day 1. Day 2 starts 9-handed and moves to 8-handed as soon as possible.

This is a re-entry event with unlimited re-entries permitted until the end of the late registration period on each Day 1 , which will be at 10:50pm. Re-entry is permitted for any player that loses all their chips or chooses to forfeit their stack (online flights do not offer the forfeit option). A player may play additional Day 1s even if they have survived a previous Day 1 with chips. Players who qualify for Day 2 more than once will resume play on Day 2 with their largest qualifying stack; all other qualifying stacks will be forfeited. Players would, however, retain the associated cash prize for every forfeited stack.

The starting flights will play down to when one in seven players remain, at which point the players will be in the money and bag their chips for Day 2.

There were 214 players in today’s Day 1A. Day 1B is off to a strong start, with 33 players seated and grinding away.

Good luck to all competitors!