Action has all of a sudden heated up considerably – in the three hands since Normand busted there have been two all-ins that have been called, and in both cases the smaller stack has doubled. First it was Peter Badel’s turn to double and then Dimitri Feoktistovs.

Normand Gauthier is out in 8th place for $4500.

Playing from late position Norm open shoved and Philippe Plouffe, immediately to his left, shoved over the top. Everyone else folded and card were turned on their backs.

Normand held and Philippe flipped over . The board ran out for no help to Normand, nor did the turn or river offer any assistance.

8th place: Normand Gauthier, $4500

The remaining 8 players are on a 15 minute break and the yellow 1K chips are being coloured up and raced off. When players return blinds will be 30K/60K/a5K.

There have been two players who have left already but otherwise players are very much testing one another out and trying to find the rhythm of the table.

A hand just occurred between Normand and Thanh which is representative of a lot of the action so far.

Normand (UTG +1) min-raises to 100K, it folds around to Thanh on the small blind who calls. The big blind gets out of the way and the flop is dealt. The flop is . Thanh checks and Normand checks behind. The turn comes , and both players check. The river is the . Thanh checks once again and Normand shoves – getting a snap fold from Thanh.

We have our first two players down on the final table.

First, Christian Soucy raised all-in holding and was quickly called by Allan Puzantian, who had . The board ran out to give no help to Christian who leaves in 10th place ($3000).

10th place: Christian Soucy, $3000

Just a few minutes later Andrew Graham got it in holding and was snap called by Thanh, who had . Again the board gave no help to the small-stacked player and Andrew is out in 9th place ($3600).

9th place: Andrew Graham, $3600

And they’re off. Blinds are 20K/40K/a4K and there are 8 minutes left in this level. The average chip count is 1.1M.

The players are getting organized at their seats for the final table, chips have been unbagged and re-stacked, and we’ll be underway in a few minutes.

Here is the seating for the final table, from Seat 1 to 10:

• Dimitri Feoktistovs
• Normand Gauthier
• Philippe Plouffe
• Christian Soucy
• Allan Puzantian
• Peter Badel
• Nicolas Aubin
• Thanh Phong Trieu
• Gabriel Alarie
• Andrew Graham

Just 20 minutes remain before the final table of Playground Poker Spring Classic’s Event 2, $500 + $50 No Limit Hold’em Deepstack gets underway on the feature table here at Playground Poker Club. The players’ chip bags are on the table up on stage and dealers are getting in place ready to welcome the players, who should be joining us any minute.

Good luck to each of the 10 players who remain in the tournament!