Today’s Playground 200 Day 1B had 152 total entries (including 28 re-entries), and it was a great night of poker action from start to finish. When the dust had settled only 35 players were left standing to face Day 2, coming up this Saturday at 1pm. Congrats to all of you!

One of the stories of the evening had to be Joel Moreau, who had been putting in work all day long, as well as enjoying a long run of good cards. Joel final tabled the noon tournament, the $100 + $10 + $25 Bounty, and then decided he wanted to crush the competition in the Playground 200. That he did. Leading at each of the breaks, he ended up nicely positioned for Saturday’s contest.

In the end, however, there can only be one player at the top of the leaderboard, and that was Rejean Grenier.

1 Rejean Grenier: 259,000

2 Shahar Ohaion: 230,000

3 Joel Moreau: 214,000

See the Playground 200 Combined Day 1 Results page to see the results of all of the Day 1s in the tournament.

On table 34 just now, both Konstantin Shukhman and Rong Xu got their chips in the middle preflop with pocket pairs, but it was Konstantin who came out on top, QQ > TT, ending Rong’s night.

The board was dealt , and the field was reduced by one more player.

We are halfway through level 12, and in one hour and fifteen minutes the players still left alive will bag up their chips and return for Day 2 action, starting on Saturday at 1pm.

He has been leading all day long, but over the last four levels Joel Moreau has really stretched out a huge lead out over his opponents.

His 348,000 chips are almost triple that of his closest rival. Well done!

But can he keep it going? We’ll see….

Peter Zhou just eliminated Hamid Ofogh mid-way through level 11, thinning the crowd down to 57 remaining players. He did so holding versus his opponent’s .

The flop came down , and that was all she wrote for Mr. Ofogh.

With the blinds at 500/1000, Bill Kontaratos opened the action in late position with a raise to 2,500. The player to his left, Roland Clement in the small blind, re-raised to 7,500. As if this wasn’t enough, Gianfranco Giordano in the big blind then re-raised all in. Lots of preflop action!

The all in was too much for Bill, but Roland was happy to call with his . Unfortunately he ran into Gianfranco’s pocket aces. A stunned Roland can be seen below contemplating what to do with the rest of his chips as we move into the final rounds of today’s flight.

Board:

Level 10 has just begun here at Playground, and Rejean Grenier just doubled up at the expense of his opponent Patrick Mortier.

We joined the action with the board showing . Patrick was the first to act, betting 4,000. Rejean raised to 45,000, effectively daring Patrick to call with an all in. Patrick obliged him, chasing a flush to his detriment.

Rejean flipped over a , showing two pair, 10’s and 4’s.

Patrick flipped over his , a smaller two pair. Barring another diamond or a miracle 9, Patrick’s night was over. As it turned out, fate dealt Patrick some unnecessary cruelty, as the river came down a , completing Rejean’s full house. That’s poker!

During the first hand post-break, two players found themselves battling it out, all in. We joined the hand once things had already been put into motion.

With the board showing , both players flipped over their cards.

Sebastien Lepine:

James Brown:

Sebastien was looking to complete his open-ended straight draw, but unfortunately for him a came down on the river, ending his night. This time the Aces came out on top.

Joel Moreau has approximately the same amount of chips he had 4 levels ago, but he remains the chip leader. In fact, three of the chip leaders from the last break are still in the top 5. Congratulations to those players, and good luck to all the rest!

We joined the action with 10,000 in the pot and the flop dealt .

Gabriel Samson opened with a bet of 4,000, which Michael Khan (in black on the left) called after some serious thought.

The turn came down a , which seemed to scare some caution into Gabriel, who checked.

Sensing his trepidation, Michael bet a pot-sized 15,000. This was too much for Gabriel, pushing him out of the hand and scoring Michael a handsome little win.

As we near the end of level 8 (and the beginning of the second break), every extra chip is an advantage.