LIVE EVENTS

The end of level 24 brought about the conclusion of a tough day of work for 25 Day 3 qualifiers. The last stint offered a nice Cinderella story, courtesy of Constantinos Psallidas. Costa, after losing kings to ace-queen, was left with 90K or 3 big blinds, and announced out loud that he would orchestrate a comeback for the books. He first flopped a flush with against a pair a fives and one level later, he is putting away 840,000 chips in a bag, to be re-opened tomorrow at 12:00pm at the start of Day 3, the final day of the Playground 1000.

The chip lead still belongs to Marc-André Yelle, who unsurprisingly gained more chips in the last segment of the day. William Blais, who also displayed impressive consistency today, follows.

Action resumes at 12:00pm. Don’t be late!

Players in Playground 1000 are entering the last level of a grueling Day 2. The battle was fierce all day long, and in the group of 27 remaining runners, many had their tournament life at stake more than once. Some of them will not get to bag chips tonight, but will leave with $3,020 or more. From now on and until the final table, there will be a pay jump every 3 eliminations.

Here are a few recent shots of the field:

Marc-André Yelle, conductor of the Playground 1000 Day 2, is an absolute freight train. Since his quick ascension to the top, he hasn’t let go of the driver’s seat once, and his lead is increasing with every level. The current top 8 shows him at 6 million and change on top of the list, followed by a pack of players working with less than half his chips, all within 800K of each other.

For all 31 remaining players, the secured prize is now $2,640 with more pay jumps to come before the end of the day. Two more levels to go…

After 18 hands of hand-for-hand play, the money bubble finally burst! It was a long-winded affair for all, but none felt it more than Sylvie Belair, who was hanging by a thread the whole time and won not one, but two 3-way all-in hands to survive! In the most memorable of the two, she went all-in from the under-the-gun position with 30K on a 20K big blind, was called twice, and picked up the pot with jack high. She went on to fold a full round and got tens on the big blind, allowing her to triple up with an ace and two queens on board!

Meanwhile, at least 8 players had their tournament life at stake. No more than 2 were actual underdogs, but it was one of the most epic bubble battle, one that lasted almost 2 hours. The tournament staff, although there was another 41 minutes to go before the closest break, decided to send the 58 money earners to a much-deserved 15-minute pause.

In the end, the bubble burst when Rayan Chamas raised from a late position and was called by Allan Puzantian, somewhat short-stacked. When Puzantian saw the flop, he committed the rest of his chips with . Chamas made the call with and held, sending 58 players in the money. Congratulations all!

Marc-André Yelle is still our chip leader, having played aces vs queens wonderfully, according to another player at that table, picking up a 3M+ pot in the process. He is now working with 3,658,000, and his only close follower is none other than William Blais, a relentless force during hand-for-hand play.

Next break will be in an hour, and two more levels will be played after that. Here are more shots of the money bubble period:

Day 2 is now exactly halfway through the day, and the field is 8 eliminations from the money. At the second break, we counted 12 stacks over a million and put them together to update the leaderboard.

Marc-André Yelle is having a great as his leading stack indicates, but William Blais is the player who made the most gain so far, having started the day with 200K!

Day 2 of the Playground 1000 is approaching the money bubble. There are only 18 more eliminations to go before the prizes are reached, at which point we should see another wave of eliminations due to short stacks playing more liberally.

At the first break, 4 players counted a 7-figure stack. Another 4 were pretty close by, hinting at an interesting race for the next leaderboard update. Here’s our current top 8:

The first couple of levels have gone by in Day 2 of the Playground 1000. Many players had bagged small amounts of chips and needed to take a stand early in Day 2, which caused a good number to hit the rail early, and and the starting 182-player field was so reduced to 133 players.

Except for the few very wealthy competitors who are already thinking about the gold, players now have one thing in mind: make it to the money! Here are a few shots taken early in level 15, third of the day:

Event #16 in the World Cup of Cards is the $1000 + $100 Playground 1000, the biggest buy-in of the festival and second biggest guarantee. Players were guaranteed a minimum prize pool of $400,000, but the turnout allowed to boost that number to $450,080.

The event offered 3 starting flights. A total of 186 players went through and will merge today on Day 2. 12 levels of 45 minutes each will be played today, and survivors will bag their chips onto Day 3 at around 9:45pm. The money bubble will burst when 58 players are left, and less than that will come back tomorrow to compete for the bigger shares of the massive prize pool. Click here to view the full prize pool table.

Action resumes at 12:00pm sharp. Good luck to all Day 2 qualifiers!