Phil Laak has been eliminated from the tourney. He started the day as one of the short stacks, but couldn’t double.

A few more players must be eliminated before we reach today’s goal of 18 remaining.

22nd place: Robert Brown, $15,424

23rd place: Michael Malm, $15,424

24th place: Eddie Bangash, $15,424

25th place: Richard Hubbard, $13,522

Bruce Buffer is just one of the 28 players who are about to get started with Day 2 of Event 8 in the Playground Poker Spring Classic, A $5000 + $300 No Limit Hold’em High Roller tourney that started last night.

Along with Bruce we’ll see Phil Laak, Gavin Smith, Jeff Gross and some other great players in this, the highest buy-in tourney in this year’s festival.

Players Club member Derek Lerner had survived a couple of hands that many players wouldn’t have gotten past earlier in the day and chipped down to under 400K. On his last hand he was all in holding while his opponent – Daniel Suied – held . The flop of wasn’t great for Derek as it put Daniel firmly out front with two pair, though he did have outs to the straight as well as a King. It was not to be, however, as a meaningless came on the turn and the on the river.

Derek was clearly disappointed in his 26th place finish but he was gracious as he left the table, wishing no hard feelings to a player who had been somewhat upset with him the previous day.

The hand to the turn. The 5d came on the river.

26th place: Derek Lerner, $13,522

Bradley Smith is out in 27th place.

27th place: Bradley Smith, $13,522

Ronnie Bardah was getting a little short and when it folded to him in the cutoff he went all-in for 361K. The BB called and when the cards were turned over it was a race – Ronnie’s against Jonathan Bardier’s .

The flop put Ronnie in the lead and the turn and river kept him there. Ronnie builds to just about 760K. Jonathan is still over 1M.

There’s a full seating re-draw at 27 players… which is where the tournament has arrived.

The latest to exit were Michael Linster, David Quang, Andrew St-Jean, Ricky Tang, and Mike Vesia.

Christian Harder has just doubled (effectively), eliminating Wil Ma.

Christian opened the action in early position, and Wil raised, Christian responded with a 4-bet. Wil thought for a couple of seconds but then shoved (5-bet) and Christian snap called. Christian turned over and Wil flipped over AK (suits unknown) for the classic confrontation. Christian clearly expected the worst, but he avoided problems on the flop. The turn wasn’t a good sign… but it all turned around when the came on the river.

Christian grew his stack to over 1.1M while Wil Ma went to the tournament desk for his prize voucher.

Some more eliminations from Day 3:

• 33rd place: Wil Ma, $11,832.00
• 34th place: Benjamin Hamnett, $11,832.00
• 35th place: Sasa Stancic, $11,832.00
• 36th place: Michael G Smith, $11,832.00
• 37th place: Francis Labonte, $10,142.00
• 38th place: Doris Charlebois, $10,142.00
• 39th place: Luciano Iacovella, $10,142.00
• 40th place: Jason Hallee, $10,142.00
• 41st place: Jason James, $10,142.00

Right away the three short stacks found a way to get it in – and we have the first three eliminations of the day.

• 42nd place: Ralph El Ammar, $10,142.00
• 43rd place: Vincent Cheung, $10,142.00
• 44th place: Yves Loiselle, $10,142.00