Playground Poker

It didn’t take more than 5 hands of hand-for-hand play before we eliminated the final player. Now down to 17, spread over two tables, every player is in the money.

The player to make the ignominious exit was Guillaume Tremblay, whose was defeated by Christine Park’s .

The board came down a , and while Guillaume would usually be ecstatic to have made trip aces, that third ace sealed his fate, completing Christine’s full house.

Congratulations to all the players still left, and good luck on the last push to glory.

The final table in the 8-Year Anniversary Shootout Turbo is now underway. Here are the photos of the lucky nine competitors.

Congratulations to all of the finalists!

Eight of the 9 tables in the shootout turbo have been reduced to a single player. But at table 56, Ghita Acordunencei and Eric Schanck continue to go head-to-head to determine who advances to the last seat at the final table.

Joon Park is on the top of the heap heading into the final stretch of tonight’s $300 + $30 Deepstacks tourney, holding almost twice as much as his closest competitor and quadruple the average. Can he keep up the pace?

We were down to 20 players, the final two tables. But in the last few seconds we’ve gone down even further, to 19.

The shortest stack at the table found himself with a pocket pair, and rightly shoved for his remaining stack of 29,000. Considering the fact that the blinds are 3K/6K, it was a timely decision.

Unfortunately for Sylvain Lessard, his pocket 9’s ran into Marc Petit’s .

When the board came down , Sylvain’s night was over.

He almost made it! The top 17 of this tournament are paid, and so finishing in 19th will only garner him the personal satisfaction one can derive from lasting almost to the end of a tournament – but not quite.

On table 31 just now we saw a player in deep contemplation and stopped to investigate.

With only the blinds in the middle (equaling 10,000) and Pietro Di Alessandro’s bet of 11,500 Guillaume Tremblay had shoved all in for 67,000. Pietro had to think long and hard about it, and eventually his curiosity got the best of him. It was a fateful decision.

Pietro:

Guillaume:

The board was dealt , and with no clubs in his hand Pietro was also dealt a death-blow. A few hands later his tournament was over.

Level 13 has just wrapped up and the players are now enjoying a 15 minute break. Four of the 9 tables have been reduced to a single player. And those players are: Michael Cohen, James Brown, Patrick Sullivan and Nicolas Connan who have all qualified for the final table and a share of the prize money.

Congratulations to those four and best of luck in the final table!

On table 31 there were four players involved in a hand as we walked by. There was about 15,000 in the pot, and the flop had already been dealt.

Flop:

The table checked revealing a on the turn.

At this point the player utg checked, followed by Pierre Marquette. Douglas Best chose this moment to shove for 93,000. Two of the remaining players got out of the way, but Pierre check-called the all in, confidently flipping his cards.

Pierre:

Doug:

Pierre had been slow-playing the ace-high stright from the turn. Unfortunately for him, a floated down the river, sinking his chances of winning the hand. Indeed, only a few minutes later Pierre busted out in 45th, most likely because of the damage Doug did to his chip stack.

After joking to me about his opponent, Olivier Brossard’s frequency of check-raising, Ahmad Baalbaki was hoisted by his own petard. Preflop, Ahmad raised to 2,200. Olivier called.

When the first three community cards came down , Olivier checked. But when Ahmad wagered 2,200, Olivier immediately raised to 6,000. Ahmad looked at me, laughed, and made note of the check-raise before he mucked his cards.

At table 30 just now Joon Park just ended another player’s night, adding to his significant pile of chips.

Hi opponent, Matthew Pascarella, whoved with a 10-9 suited.  But he ran into Joon’s A-9, which was enough to take Dylan out as a pair of nines, ace kicker. With only 38 players left and the chip average around 100,000 every chip counts as the players slowly make their way to the final table.