LIVE EVENTS

The Playground 200, staple of the club’s Power Weekends, has dwindled down to its last 14 players. These players have bagged and tagged their chips and will only see them again tomorrow afternoon at 1:00pm at the start of Day 3, the conclusion of this 3-day event.

Today’s Day 2 started with 117 players, led by Ami Alibay, a local shark who is having an amazing poker year, having collected handsome amounts in Hollywood and Las Vegas. Alibay suffered a brutal beat mid-day and had to relinquish the driver’s seat, but his stack was still about average after the ordeal and he went right back to work, climbing the leaderboard inexorably. He finishes the day once again on top with 2,150,000 chips.

It was a close call however, because Noy U made a run for it, coming back from just a few blind to the astonishing stack of 2,085,000. His last-level ascent was fast and furious, and he will bring his vast deep-run experience to tomorrow’s grand finale.

These two players fully deserve their spot in the final day lineup. Their nearest rival has about 1.4M, with the average stack at just over a million chips.

Will we see a Noy-Ami showdown? Tune in tomorrow to find out! 1:00pm sharp. Here are the Day 3 qualifiers:

The Playground 200 has shrunk to just 2 tables with a half-hour left of play in the day. Here is the seating chart:

Only two levels are left to play in Day 2 of the Playground 200. With blinds 10K/20K/20K and an average stack of 702K, we expect to lose about half the remaining field and closing in on the final table before the end of the day.

The leading pack has tightened up greatly, as you can from the list of all 5 millionaires below, with many more knocking on their club’s door.

Bill Kontaratos opened from the cut-off, and Philip Diamond, sitting on his left, 3-bet to 120K. Kontaratos called, and the flop was revealed.

Flop:

After a check, Diamond casually announced all-in, looking confident. So much that Kontaratos stood and uttered: aces or kings. After just a few seconds though, he made the 300K+ call.

Kontaratos:
Diamond:

The runout came , and Diamond was eliminated, leaving Kontaratos with a 7-figure stack and 22 players in the field, with the last break of the day just minutes away.

Santiago Plante has been inflicting serious damage on his opponents with relentless blows. He stands on top of the leaderboard with 1,826,000 chips.

The only other millionaire is Soomnath Datta, who orchestrated Ami Alibay’s downfall. It was reported to us that Alibay, after climbing to about 1.5M, called off Datta’s stack with kings on a ragged board, only to see Datta’s queens find a lady friend on the river. Alibay still has just over 500K.

Day 2 action now unfolds on four tables, with four more levels to go before the bags come out.

Here is the updated top 5:

We came came across a pre-flop 3-way all-in hand that provided an interesting twist. Here are the hole cards:

Pierre Ouellette:
Denis Roy:
Sourasay Souvanh:

Roy was drawing to one out – apart from the even more improbable spade flush or chopping straights.

Flop:

Bam, queens were suddenly in 3rd place, and Roy was looking good… but that was short-lived.

Runout:

Souvanh pretty much tripled up, knocking out Ouellette and crippling Roy in the process. Roy left shortly after.

Day 2 of the Playground 200 is almost at the half-way mark, and the field is down to 44 players, scattered on five 9-handed tables. All are slowly moving up the payout table, which has $20,818 reserved for the winner of the event.

In case you missed it, here’s a peek at the prizes:

A few recent shots of the field. The first photo is from Brigitte Métivier, a player who was recently featured in an interview that was published on our Playground Poker Club Facebook page. If she failed to make today’s Playground 200 Day 2, she would surely be playing in the Women’s Event right now, but instead she’s in the money of the weekend’s biggest event with a slightly-below-average stack!

Players are now back at the tables after a short break, and we can now update the top of the leaderboard.

Ami Alibay, who started the day the only player above the 400K mark, kept accreting chips during the first 3 levels of play. He managed to nearly double the bagged amount and is now comfortably sitting in the driver’s seat with 791K. Here’s our current top 5:

A few moments before hand-for-hand play, Pierre-Hugues Faulkner bumped the big blind to 10K from the cut-off position. After 2 calls, Jean-Christophe Binette committed his 78K stack from the big blind. Faulkner immediately went all-in himself. After the other 2 players folded, Faulkner showed an offsuit ace-king and Binette revealed the . The flop came . Faulkner’s reaction was candid. He was left with about 60K in chips.

A few minutes later, one elimination from the money, table 23 saw Dardan Elbasan and Santiago Plante go all-in pre-flop. When all other tables finished their hand, the cards were tabled:

Elbasan:
Plante:

The board ran:

Ouch! A terrible way to go on the bubble, but Elbasan took it rather well. As all players were now in the money, the whole field clapped, and the motion was led by none other than Pierre-Hugues Faulkner.

The first level of the day is now passed, and 20 players have left the room so far. There are now just under 97 players left in the field, playing 2K/4K/4K.

Here are a few shots from the first level of the day:

Day 2 qualifiers have invaded the tournament hall and are heading toward their respective tables. From the 117 that start the day, only a handful will go through the ten 40-minute levels that are on Day 2’s schedule and bag their chips onto tomorrow’s Day 3. The bags will come out at approximately 9:30pm.

The field is currently led by Ami Alibay, a local player who cannot count his Playground final table appearances anymore. He plays the whole spectrum of buy-ins, and even if the Playground 200 is at the lower end of that spectrum, he will do all that he can to qualify for Day 3, as the true competitor that he is.

The tournament director is now announcing the start of Day 2. Blinds start at 1,5K/3K/3K. Good luck to all players!

After one online and four live starting flights, 562 entries were accounted for in this month’s Playground 200. 117 players managed to earn a spot in today’s Day 2, and are represented in the seating draw table below. Action starts at 2:00pm sharp.