Jason Duval was a man on a mission. Well, two missions. One: to win the tournament. Two (and seemingly more immediately relevant) to see the Habs playoff game tonight at the Bell Centre.

Whether it was one motivation or the other, Jason has personally eliminated three of the last four players to leave the tournament, which fulfills both of his missions – he’ll be the chip leader going into the final table and he’s in time to go see the game tonight.

Chip counts and seat assignments for tomorrow’s final table will be posted soon. Action resumes at 3pm tomorrow.

Congratulations to everyone who made the final table!

The tournament continues to move super quickly as Ben Leblond and Jonathan Duhamel have been eliminated in 14th and 13th place respectively.

Ben got short after doubling up Jason Duval in a huge pot (AQ>KK), and just one or two hands later shoved his pocket 99 and was called, again by Jason who held AK. The nines didn’t hold and Ben is out of the tournament.

Just a few minutes later Jonathan got his below-average stack in the middle with and was called, and once more Jason was playing for an opponent’s stack holding . The flop came all hearts: giving Jonathan some extra outs, but the turn and river were brutal – to put two higher pairs on the board leaving Jason’s Ace kicker the best hand.

Again just a few minutes later Thomas Lefort got it in and lost leaving the tournament in12th place.

Eliminations:

• 12th place: Thomas Lefort, $4,200
• 13th place: Jonathan Duhamel, $3,450
• 14th place: Ben Leblond, $3,450

One more elimination and we’ll have a final table.

We’re playing down to 10 today (in all likelihood – if players wish to play through to the end they will have that option) and since the money bubble at 28th the pace has moved quickly.

Here are the eliminations since the bubble:

• 15th place: David Ormsby, $3,450
• 16th place: Vlad Faubert, $2,925
• 17th place: Edin Cekic, $2,925
• 18th place: Mark Epstein, $2,925
• 19th place: Hugo Dumoulin, $2,575
• 20th place: Daniel Noel Noseworthy, $2,575
• 21st place: Alexander Hartung, $2,575
• 22nd place: Ryan Smith, $2,300
• 23rd place: Thomas Keeper, $2,300
• 24th place: Ryan Higgins, $2,300
• 25th place: Josue Sauvageau, $2,025
• 26th place: Ron Farber, $2,025
• 27th place: Michael Korovine, $2,025

 

With 27 players remaining, Event 5 is down to three tables.

Table 26

1. Christopher Annouza
2. Geoffrey Robert McNeely
3. Thomas Keeper
4. Vlad Faubert
5. David Dineen
6. Levon Demirdjian
7. Ryan Higgins
8. Josue Sauvageau
9. Thomas Lefort

Table 27

1. Nandam Subrahmanyam
2. Johnny Mazzaferro
3. Michael Korovine
4. Daniel Noel Noseworthy
5. Sol Bergren
6. Edin Cekic
7. Ryan Smith
8. Jonathan Duhamel
9. Samuel Louis Gagnon

Table 30

1. David Ormsby
2. Ron Farber
3. Ben Leblond
4. Alexander Hartung
5. Hugo Dumoulin
6. Mark Epstein
7. Noy Ung
8. Kyle Zechner
9. Jason Duval

Pictures on Facebook

There were about 20-25 hands of hand-for-hand play until the bubble broke. A couple of players doubled, some chips moved around the tables and finally Randall Zane went out in 28th place.

The rest of the players are now in the money and are guaranteed to win at least $2,025 – though most are hoping for much more than that.

Action is hand-for-hand as Event 5 has reached the money bubble.

Players are on their first break of the day. When they return blinds will be 3K/6K/a500. There are 32 players left after Michael Mellor was eliminated immediately before the break. David Ormsby raised preflop and there was a re-raise from Jason Duval. Michael then shoved about 100K total. The blinds both folded but the original raiser went all-in as well and Jason folded. David turned over and Michael turned over . The flop – – gave little help to Michael, but the turn added some outs although with only the river left to come. No miracle came when the came out. Michael left the tournament in 33rd place.

Event 5 is down to 33 players as the smaller stacks were under immediate blind pressure to start the day. Some of those smaller stacks have doubled (some twice), but some have been eliminated from the tournament.

Based on a rough estimate of the remaining players’ stacks, the current chip leader is Jason Duval who is playing over 450K. Right behind him are Kyle Zechner, Levon Demirdjian, Edin Cekic, Benjamin Leblond, and Thomas Lefort. These players are all playing between 290K and 390K.

The tournament is at level 16 with blinds 2.5K/5K/a500. The next break is at the end of this level in 18 minutes.

…and cards are in the air. Players are seated at 5 9-handed tables and will be playing 45-minute levels with a break after every 2nd level.

We’re about 20 minutes away from the beginning of Day 2 of Event 5, $1000 + $100 No Limit Hold’em Deepstack in the Playground Poker Spring Classic. Just 41 players remain from the 252 that started yesterday, and to get to Day 2 each of them managed to get past an incredibly strong field.

There are some great players still in contention in the event as well. Just from a rough count, there are at least a half-dozen certified online monsters still playing, some of the best of the Montreal tournament scene, a few members of the unofficial “Team Quebec Poker”, a member of Playground Poker’s Players Club, and you can’t forget the 2010 WSOP Main Event Champion, Jonathan Duhamel.

Day 2 will start at level 15 (Blinds 2K/4K/a400). Chip average is 153.7K and there are a total of 6.3M chips in play.