A quick shout-out to our friends at Canada Poker who are here at Playground Poker covering this event. Check out their updates at canadapoker.com!
Update – level 8
2013/05/01 6:00pm by
Event 5 is currently playing at level 8 (blinds 400/800/a100) and from a starting field of 252 total, there are 155 players still in the tournament. For an $1100 tournament the field can be classified as nothing less than “sick”. It’s an overused word in poker, but with 4 past WPT event champions, a WSOP Main Event champion, a ton of very successful online players, and a couple of old-school Canadian legends, this is one of the toughest fields we’ve seen. Word has just come in that Jonathan Duhamel is the current chip leader, playing over 150K (the chip average is just 41.4K).
There are lots
of photos on Facebook. Here is a sample.
From PPSC – Event 5 – Day 1, posted by Playground Poker Club on 5/01/2013 (Showing 12 of 48 items)
Generated by Facebook Photo Fetcher 2
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Cards are in the air!
2013/05/01 12:25pm by
Event 5 is now underway and registration numbers keep on climbing. The most recent figures put 182 players at the tables with 3 hours left to late register.
Event 5 is ready to go!
2013/05/01 12:08pm by
Event 5 of the Playground Poker Spring Classic is ready to start in about 5 minutes and there are around 150 players being seated for this $1000 + $100 No Limit Hold’em Deepstack tournament. The total number of runners will most likely climb well past this figure as late registration is open until the end of the break following 4 45-minute long levels – giving players until after 3pm to jump into the action.
Players who do come out for the event will have the chance to test their skills against most of Montreal’s players of note including Players Club members Christopher McClung, Jean-Philippe Piquette, Philippe Plouffe, as well as WPT Champions Chanracy Khun and Jonathan Roy. Earlier today the most famous local player of them all – Jonathan Duhamel – tweeted that he’ll be joining the action this afternoon as well.
Good luck to everyone!
Event 4, Final Payouts
2013/05/01 11:18am by
| Rank | First Name | Last Name | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Marc | Lemesle | $6825.00 + bracelet |
| 2 | Olivier | Courcelles | $5325.00 |
| 3 | Pablo | Mariz | $3100.00 |
| 4 | Normand | Ouellette | $2000.00 |
| 5 | Jay | K | $1450.00 |
| 6 | Timothy | Vukson | $1150.00 |
| 7 | Markus | Cara | $840.00 |
| 8 | Vincent | Lam | $550.00 |
There is a champion!
2013/05/01 11:14am by
Event 4 ended at about 5:45 this morning with Marc Lemesle defeating Olivier Courcelles heads up to take the championship.
Third and fourth…
2013/05/01 5:15am by
Normand Ouellette started the final table as one of the chip leaders but a string of tough hands eliminated him in fourth place.
4th place: Normad Ouellette, $2000
Pablo Mariz will likely be disappointed with his 3rd place finish, but in a way it was the most remarkable finish of all. Although he got to the final table with a solid stack, he was quickly crippled via two difficult beats and was on life support for most of the final table. He managed his small stack extremely well and bumped himself up several payout levels to exit when he did.
3rd place: Pablo Mariz, $3100
More eliminations
2013/05/01 4:35am by
Action in Event 4 kept up a pretty regular pace as some of the shorter stacks that started the final table were eliminated. First to go was Markus Cara, who started with 150K.
7th place: Markus Cara, $840
Then Timothy Vukson managed to double up immediately before the first break of the final table, but was still relatively short compared with some of the others and departed in 6th place.
6th place: Timothy Vukson, $1150
Following this most of the remaining players had healthy stacks, but the blinds were putting pressure on everyone. It took an amazing hand between two healthy stacks to get to the next elimination.
Preflop action put all of the chips into play between Olivier Courcelles and Jay K. Cards were flipped, and Olivier held 
but was behind Jay’s 
. The flop saw the 
hit the felt – but also saw the case 
to keep Jay well in front. The matter seemed decided when a blank 
came out on the turn… but then came the river. We already saw the case Ace on the flop – and on the river – the 
to give Jay the top boat – but quads to Olivier.
5th place: Jay K, $1450
Two down
2013/05/01 3:52am by
Early action on the final table saw two players eliminated from the tournament, Tyler McKendry on the bubble and Vincent Lam.
8th place: Vincent Lam, $550
9th place: Tyler McKendry
Final table
2013/05/01 2:41am by
Chopped-pot tournaments at critical moments like the bubble aren’t generally known for being speedy affairs, but in under half an hour 11 has fallen to 9 and we have a final table. Players are moving to the Feature Table and action will resume shortly. When it gets going blinds will be 5K/10K.
Final table participants:
- Seat 1: Pablo Mariz
- Seat 2: Normand Ouellette
- Seat 3: Markus Cara
- Seat 4: Timothy Vukson
- Seat 5: Olivier Courcelles
- Seat 6: Tyler McKendry
- Seat 7: Vincent Lam
- Seat 8: Jay K
- Seat 9: Marc Lemesle