And after almost 2 hours of heads up poker, Johnny Mazzaferro is the champion of Event 5 $1000 + $100 No Limit Hold’em Deepstack in the Playground Poker Spring Classic!

Second place goes to Geoffrey McNeely, who although he started the final table with the short stack and started the heads up battle as a massive underdog nevertheless managed to notch a terrific result.

The deal the players reached at 5 remaining seemed to accelerate the tournament from 5 to 2, but now that we’re heads up the $10K left up for grabs is very close to the pay jump between 2nd and 1st in the original payout structure. In addition, of course, to the bracelet they’re playing for!

As a consequence this has become a pretty epic heads up battle – the players have played for a solid hour with no quit evident in either one.

Things progressed very quickly following the deal between the final five players and with the eliminations of David Dineen, Kyle Zechner, and Sol Bergren, Geoff McNeely and Johnny Mazzaferro are heads up for the $10,000 left in the prize pool plus the championship bracelet.

After a few hands at the now 5-way table players asked for a pause to discuss a deal. The TD explained that in this event 10% of the official 1st place prize was the minimum they must leave at issue. Players suggested $10K be withheld instead, and they made an ICM chop (based on relative stack sizes).

Eventually the players agreed to the following deal:

• Kyle: $29,300
• David: $30,000
• Geoff: $23,165
• Johnny: $36,000
• Sol: $29,000

Players will continue to play for the bracelet plus $10,000 remaining in the prize pool.

Noy Ung, a well-known fixture on the Montreal poker tournament circuit, has been eliminated in 6th place. Noy was on the small stack for almost all of the night – and even when he did double up early tonight he promptly gave the chips back to the table. Nevertheless he stuck around and outlasted a couple of other players before he left, nurturing his at-time 2BB stack very carefully and getting key double-ups to stay short – but stay in.

6th place: Noy Ung, $11,550

Since the break the tournament is progressing a little more quickly. The most recent elimination was Nandam Subrahmanyam in 7th place, and the hand immediately before that Geoff was all-in for his tournament live although he managed to win and double through David.

7th place: Nandam Subrahmanyam, $9,575

Christopher Annouza has been eliminated in 8th place as his couldn’t improve against Johnny’s .

8th place: Christopher Annouza, $7,675

In a stunning hand in level 25, chip leader to start the day Jason Duval is out of the tournament in 9th place.

There is no question that Jason Duval is one of the rising stars of poker in Quebec. He was the chip leader coming into the final table, the third place finisher in the November edition of this tournament, and a player who has come to be widely respected both in North America and Europe.

His fate was sealed in a massive hand against Johnny Mazzaferro. Johnny opened the action with a raise to 85K in early position. It folded around to Jason in the cutoff who 3-bet to 180K. The blinds got out of the way and Johnny thought for a few moments before declaring, “All in.”

Jason went in the tank. At least two minutes passed before he made his decision. “Call.”

Jason showed at the same moment as Johnny flipped over . The board ran out and just like that Johnny’s stack has grown to over 2M while Jason finishes the tournament in 9th place.

9th place: Jason Duval, $5,750