So far 277 players have braved the snowy weather to make it out for Day 1c of Event 1 in the 2014 Playground Poker Spring Classic. With late registration open for over two hours more, that number will surely climb.
After a short delay to allow people a little more travel time to arrive today, the TD has announced “Shuffle up and deal” and play is now underway.
Day 1b is now in Level 3 and the number of entries has pretty much settled on 422 although alternates may continue to be seated until the end of the first break after Level 4. Of those who started tonight, 390 remain on tables throughout the tournament hall – there are even two tables in use on the stage!
We’ll be posting some photos of the action tonight in just a few minutes.
Of the 329 players who started Day 1a, the following 96 players have qualified for Day 2. The chip average for this flight was 68,700. Day 2 will start on Sunday March 23 at 1pm.
| Rank | First Name | Last Name | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shawn | Coots | 205,200 |
| 2 | Kevin | Gosselin | 186,400 |
| 3 | Kyle | Hartree | 182,300 |
| 4 | Jonathan | Thibault | 146,100 |
| 5 | Sonja | Smirnov | 143,200 |
| 6 | Stephan | Belisle | 138,800 |
| 7 | Chad | Beecraft | 126,200 |
| 8 | Alexandre | Morel | 120,800 |
| 9 | Mathieu | Leclerc | 117,300 |
| 10 | Andre | Gareau | 114,400 |
| 11 | Etienne | Leduc | 113,100 |
| 12 | Francois | Bergeron | 112,300 |
| 13 | Jean | Rheaume | 110,900 |
| 14 | Derek | Boucher | 106,300 |
| 15 | Alain | Blais | 104,200 |
| 16 | Mario | Grondin | 103,000 |
| 17 | Guillaume | Labelle | 101,800 |
| 18 | Chantal | Goudreault | 101,000 |
| 19 | Thierry | Viceconti | 96,900 |
| 20 | Paul | Trebuss | 95,700 |
| 21 | Dale | Chalifoux | 95,300 |
| 22 | Martial | Bonnaire | 94,900 |
| 23 | Leigh | Sargent | 94,300 |
| 24 | Jose | Lopez | 94,100 |
| 25 | Lance | Perkins | 91,800 |
| 26 | Philippe | Boucher | 87,700 |
| 27 | Mario | Massie | 86,500 |
| 28 | Derik | Brandt | 86,200 |
| 29 | Sonny | Elias | 83,000 |
| 30 | Roger | jr Lamarre | 82,300 |
| 31 | Chris | Gravel | 75,300 |
| 32 | Mario | Bourassa | 73,800 |
| 33 | Jean | Laviolette | 73,300 |
| 34 | Andrew | Hansen | 71,600 |
| 35 | Byron | Doyle | 71,300 |
| 36 | Simon Pier | Belair-Grondin | 71,100 |
| 37 | Said | Michailidis | 70,000 |
| 38 | Mohammed | Rubel | 69,900 |
| 39 | Nicolas | Malo Majeau | 69,400 |
| 40 | Stephane | Hamel | 67,400 |
| 41 | Alain | Binette | 67,100 |
| 42 | Diana | Shamshoum | 67,100 |
| 43 | Benoit | Mathieu | 66,000 |
| 44 | William | Wright | 65,000 |
| 45 | Francois | Cardinal | 64,900 |
| 46 | Benoit | Pesant | 64,600 |
| 47 | Dominique | Prefontaine | 64,500 |
| 48 | David | Baba | 64,000 |
| 49 | Arthur | Dittburner | 62,100 |
| 50 | Amir | Ahmed | 60,900 |
| 51 | Nathan | Robarge | 60,700 |
| 52 | Yannick | Lamarre-Delooz | 59,100 |
| 53 | Pascal | Ferland | 58,300 |
| 54 | Michael | Neuber | 57,800 |
| 55 | Eleuterio | De Miranda Guedes | 56,500 |
| 56 | Eric | Richer | 55,500 |
| 57 | Jean-Simon | Gadoury | 55,500 |
| 58 | Andre | Turcotte | 54,700 |
| 59 | Nathan | Yuen | 53,000 |
| 60 | Francois | Ruel | 52,100 |
| 61 | Jean-Francois | Morin | 51,700 |
| 62 | Georges | Hallak | 51,200 |
| 63 | Spencer | Stacey | 49,600 |
| 64 | Patrick | Azevedo | 47,700 |
| 65 | Vincent | Mailhot | 46,900 |
| 66 | James | Chauvin | 43,100 |
| 67 | Francois | Chemaly | 42,500 |
| 68 | Oliver David | Greer | 42,500 |
| 69 | Brian | Reuvers | 41,400 |
| 70 | Denis | Constantineau | 40,500 |
| 71 | Patrick | Mailloux | 40,000 |
| 72 | Frazer | Courts | 39,900 |
| 73 | Luc | Ratelle | 39,300 |
| 74 | Christopher | Saliba | 38,600 |
| 75 | Adam | Cader | 38,500 |
| 76 | Dario | Diplacido | 38,000 |
| 77 | Marc Andre | Beaudoin | 35,200 |
| 78 | Jason | Comtois | 34,600 |
| 79 | Beverly Ann | Willier | 34,400 |
| 80 | Chris | Sarena | 34,300 |
| 81 | Marc | Fournier | 33,700 |
| 82 | Tina | Sigalos | 33,700 |
| 83 | Kevin | Roy | 31,500 |
| 84 | Gregory | O'Leary | 30,900 |
| 85 | Francois | Cote | 29,800 |
| 86 | Carlo | Nini | 28,800 |
| 87 | Francis | Jette | 28,100 |
| 88 | John | Toth | 28,000 |
| 89 | Jason | Mottershead | 27,900 |
| 90 | Alexandre | Renaud | 26,700 |
| 91 | Scott | Taylor | 26,600 |
| 92 | Yanick | Mailloux | 23,400 |
| 93 | Saad | Lakhsassi | 22,100 |
| 94 | Nicolas | Aubin | 20,800 |
| 95 | Gaston | Groulx | 15,200 |
| 96 | Martin | Giguere | 12,700 |
Day 1a has finished and almost as soon as the first flight of players were finished, the players for Day 1b were gathering in the tournament hall, ready to take their seats.
And now that the announcements have been made, cards are in the air for Day 1b, the second flight in Event 1 of the 2014 Playground Poker Spring Classic. There are already 367 players seated with a published maximum of 400, and we expect to surpass the cap through alternates who may be seated until the end of the first break.
With Day 1a of Event 1 of this year’s Playground Poker Spring Classic almost complete, attention will soon shift to Day 1b, which begins at 7:30 this evening.
The surprising attendance figures for Day 1a suggests that flight 1b will also be huge – and all the more so considering that while the cap today was 250 (we seated 79 alternates), the cap tonight is 400 players.
According to the most up-to-date figures from the cashier’s desk, over 150 seats for tonight have already been sold, so if you are planning to play tonight we would suggest that you start making your way to Playground soon to ensure that you can get into the tournament.
A quick survey of the room two levels before the end of the day gave us an idea of the chip leaders so far in Day 1a. All chip counts are approximate.
We’ll add photos of the leaders in the final level of play today.
There are 212 players remaining of the 329 total who started today, and those players are all on break now as staff removes the green T25 chips from the event.
At the last break we noted that a few players were still waiting to be seated as the final alternates were allowed to enter after the break. All the alternates who wanted to play were in fact seated before the end of level 5 (the first level after the break), and in total, 79 alternates who joined the Day 1a action.
The tournament has played through 4 levels and players are on their first break of the day. At this point the day has far exceeded our expectations in terms of the number of players.
To accommodate the high level of interest, we accepted over 80 alternates before refusing anyone. All 80+ will play today, provided they still want to enter when called (players who feel it’s too late will have their entry fee reimbursed). Alternates will be seated until everyone who: a) paid before we stopped selling alternate tickets; and, b) still wishes to play in Day 1a; has been seated.
Here are some shots of the early action in Event 1 Day 1a of the 2014 Playground Poker Spring Classic.
All of the photos we’re taking during the Spring Classic will be hosted at Flickr, an excellent photo service we use. You can go directly to see all the photos on the Playground Poker Flickr page.
The players have taken their seats and the TD has announced the day’s schedule and announced, “Shuffle up and Deal”!
Holding Day 1a on a Friday afternoon is a new addition to the schedule for this kickoff event in the Spring Classic but it has already proven to be a very popular addition – the flight is already at it’s 250-player announced capacity and additional players who arrive will be seated as alternates.
The capacity for tonight’s Day 1b is 400 players, so there will be even more space for players who wish to try and qualify for Day 2 on Sunday.
