Event 4 ended at about 5:45 this morning with Marc Lemesle defeating Olivier Courcelles heads up to take the championship.

Normand Ouellette started the final table as one of the chip leaders but a string of tough hands eliminated him in fourth place.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Early action on the final table saw two players eliminated from the tournament, Tyler McKendry on the bubble and Vincent Lam.

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

The PLO8 tournament – otherwise known as Event 4 – is down to 11 players from 73 who started the night at 8pm.

Prize Pool

Event 4 – a $300 + $30 Pot Limit Omaha 8 or Better tournament – is underway. So far in level 1 there are 60 players at the tables, but more will be joining the action between now and the end of the first break after level 5. So there’s still time to get out to Playground Poker and join the fun!

Pot Limit Omaha 8 or Better $300 + $30

One Day Event: April 30, 2013 8:00pm

Starting Stack: 25,000 tournament chips. All players start the tournament with a full stack.

Late Registration: Players may enter the tournament until the first break.