Event 4 is coming back from break after 8 levels of play, and two players have already managed to breach the 100K mark: Melissa Cummings and Jonathan Theriault are both holding roughly 105K each to lead the field for the time being. Not far behind is Jeff Cote, who has 96K, and there are a number of players with stack sizes in the 80K-90K range.

Play is about to resume in level 9, where the blinds will be 400/800/a100. The event will go on break until tomorrow upon the completion of the next 5 levels.

Jeff Cote

Jonathan Theriault

Melissa Cummings

The second break is just around the corner here in Event 4, and the 221 player field has been reduced to 155 players.

Here are a few photos from the last two levels:

Players in Event 4 coming off a short 10-minute break after having played 4 of the 13 levels scheduled to be played out today. A total of 221 players have registered in todays Event, and a few of them have already jumped to an early lead.

Here are some players who have chipped up nicely in these first few levels:

• Melissa Cummings – 71K
• Stephen Hardy – 64K
• Yannick Lamarre-Delooz – 61K
• Pierre Guitard – 53K

The first two levels have come and go here in Day 1 of Event 4, and attendance has climbed up to 190 entries. Players still have just over an hour left to enter the tournament, with late registration set the close around 2:15pm.

Here are a few photos from these early levels of play:

Event 4 of the Playground Poker Spring Classic is set to start in a few short minutes, and players are beginning to take their seats here in the tournament hall. This event is a $500 + $50 No Limit Hold’em tournament that will be played over 3 days, with 13 levels of 30 minutes scheduled for today’s Day 1.

With this being the biggest buy-in of the series so far, as well as with the WPT Main Event only 2 days away, we should expect to see some bigger names from the poker world start to make their appearance here at the Spring Classic.

So far 122 players have already registered, and the registration period will remain open until the end of the first break, which will be after level 4, roughly 2:15pm.

Good luck to our players here in Event 4!

With the 1492 player field down to just 3 remaining, Raffi Garabetian moved all-in from the button preflop for just over 4.8M, and was called by Steve Pouliot from the big blind.

Raffi:
Steve:

The board ran out , and Steve added a few more millions to his chip lead stack, while Raffi walked over to the cash to collect his $16,860 reward.

Play is now heads-up in this opening event, with Steve Pouliot holding around 25M out of the 30M in play. But his opponent is Daniel Charette, seems to have an infinite amount of lives!

3rd place: Raffi Garabetian, $16,860

Here is how the chips are spread out amongst the final 4 players of Event 1:

• Seat 2. Raffi Garabetian – 5M
• Seat 3. Daniel Charette – 4.8M
• Seat 4. Tony Stratopoulos – 2.8M
• Seat 7. Steve Pouliot – 17M

Steve Pouliot has been on a huge run in the last two levels, picking up one pot after another, usually uncontested. This time he was just at the right place at the right time, when Shawn Martell open-shoved his 4.6M chips stack from middle-position, and Steve quickly called from the button.

Shawn:
Steve:

Shawn was drawing dead by the turn, with the board showing , but will go home with a nice $9,140 payday.

Players will go on break in 3 minutes, and we will provide an update on the chip counts at that point.

5th place: Shawn Martell, $9,140