Players have been feeling each other out so far, but since the opening few hands there hasn’t been a lot of action. That changed just minutes ago.

Sascha raised UTG and Joey (UTG +1) 3-bets to 800K. Players fold around to Fuyuki, who thinks for a few moments before declaring, “All in.”

Sascha quickly folded. Joey went in the tank… but not for long. After about 30 seconds: “Call”.

Joey tabled … but Fuyuki turned over .

Unfortunately for Joey the flop was nothing but bad news: . The turn didn’t change anything – nor did the on the river. Fuyuki’s flopped set of Kings was good, and he chipped up to about 7.2M – the new chip leader.

Right away there was some action at the final table – relatively short-stacked Stephan Belisle tangled with Fuyuki Ikura and lost, sending him home with $2000 and shipping Fuyuki a very nice pot of over 1.2M chips.

Play continues in level 29 (50K/100K/a10K).

Here are some shots of the 9 left on the final table…

And we have a final table!

Two players busted in quick succession after the break:

• 11th place: Michael Corbin Chabot, $2000
• 12th place: James Danchuk, $2000

Which leaves us with 10 players in the tournament.

Final table participants (with approximate stack sizes at the beginning of the action)

• Seat 1: Nick-Real Seide (2.7M)
• Seat 2: Ricky Tang (4.3M)
• Seat 3: Sascha Pietrowski (2.6M)
• Seat 4: Joey Sauve (4.2M)
• Seat 5: Sylvain Boisvert (2.9M)
• Seat 6: Stephan Belisle (1.2M)
• Seat 7: Yannick Guerin (3M)
• Seat 8: Peter DeSantis (3M)
• Seat 9: Wayal O. (1M)
• Seat 10: Fuyuki Ikura (2.5M)

 

Players are now on break, but since the redraw at 27 there have been a few more players to leave the tournament:

• 27th place: Bakhtiar Bakhshi, $1000
• 26th place: Trishelle Cannatella, $1000
• 25th place: Paul Basi, $1000
• 24th place: Nicholas “BroBro” Belanger, $1000
• 23rd place: François Allard, $1000
• 22nd place: Arthur W., $1000
• 21st place: Stephane Senez, $1000

 

Here are some photographs from the beginning of Day 3. As always, more on Facebook!

The final group has been playing for less than an hour but there have already been a spate of players to bust and 34 has dwindled to 27. There is a full table re-draw at this point in the tournament.

The players who have busted early:

• 34th place: John Eliakis, $800
• 33rd place: Andrei Gongu, $800
• 32nd place: Richard Gagne, $800
• 31st place: Alain Anglehart, $800
• 30th place: Maria A., $800
• 29th place: Marc Andre Brault, $800
• 28th place: Vincent Chung, $800

Congratulations to everyone on their deep run!

Action continues on the final 3 tables in just a few minutes. There are 47 minutes left in level 26 (blinds 25K/50K/a5K), and the chip average is 1M.

The final countdown has begun for Day 3 of Event 1 of the 2013 Playground Poker Spring Classic. The players are at their seat and the clock will start with 27 minutes left to play in level 25. There are 34 players left in contention for what’s left of the $185,032 prize pool including $35,000 for first place!

Here are the final chip counts from Day 2 and seating assignments for Event 1, Day 3. Action gets under way at 3pm! (Click on headings to sort the table using a particular column)