After three 40-minute levels we reached the first break. Leading the pack is Gino Frenette, looking slightly surprised below. There are a few other players near him in the leaderboard with approximately half a million chips.

Players have just returned to their seats and are currently playing hand for hand on the bubble. The next player eliminated goes home empty handed, and all others are in the money. Good luck to all players!

Mike Patenaude just crippled his opponent Dylan Thubault on table 24, his Aces cracking Dylan’s AK.

Mike picked up almost 200,000 in the hand, vaulting him into the top of the standings, and severely restricting Dylan’s opportunities as the cutoff looms.

Top 89 are paid, and at the moment there are 95 players still at the table.

The field in the Playground 200 is down to 99 players – which means that only 9 more players have to be eliminated before the remaining field is in the money! Among those eliminated before the money are some very experienced poker players: Maxime Laberge, online qualifier Rami Hammoud, Rodney Ramalho, and Ian Armorer. Better luck next time for them – and good luck on the bubble to the other 99 still in the action!

When we joined the hand, a was already showing on the board.

It was at this point that Mario Page accidentally turned over one of his cards (a ) before the player on his left (Simon Belzile) had a chance to act. It appeared that he believed his raise of 12,000 had won the hand. The floor manager was consulted briefly, and play was allowed to continue without any penalty.

When Simon took his opportunity to play (knowing his opponent had made at least a pair of 6’s) his call was a sign to Mario that he wasn’t afraid.

River:

This time Simon led out with a 12,000 three-bet. But, surprisingly, even with the handicap of his opponents knowing one of his hole cards, Mario re-raised to 50,000. This was ultimately the end of the hand for Simon, who was forced to fold in the face of Mario’s confident play.

Although we were not present, we learned that Simon had busted only a few hands later. Who knows what kind of effect this hand had in his early demise!

We’ve only lost 25 players so far in today’s early Day 2 action, with 113 players still in the hunt.

The 8-Year Anniversary edition of the Playground 200 is a great success, attracting a grand total of 707 entries from the 5 Day 1 flights that were held, adding up to a substantial prize pool of $137,158! This will be distributed among the top 89 finishers with $340 to be paid as a min-cash. Prizes go all the way up to a minimum of $2,500 on the final table, all the way to a huge $25,048 for first place in the tournament!

You can see the entire payout structure here: Playground 200 prize pool & payouts.

Joey “Birdman” Boczek found himself staring at a pocket pair in one of the early hands. Imagine his joy when he shoved preflop and was called by a lower pocket pair!

However, the celebration didn’t last – his 8’s were defeated by his opponent’s pair of 7’s when they turned into trips on the flop.

Devastated, Birdman shoved all in on the very next hand. He collected only the blinds.

But the poker gods were not done with the Birdman yet! A few hands later he shoved with against two other opponents – one holding 7’s and the other a pocket pair of 9’s.

Board:

The Bird tripled up with a bigger boat, back to where he started, and the game continues! Let’s hope he can fly out of danger and win a few more pots to get back to a more comfortable chip count.

In just a few minutes play will resume in the Playground 200. Day 2 kicks off at 1pm sharp, and the field is a strong one. 139 players will start the day, but how many will finish?

Good luck to all the competitors about to hit the felt!

139 players will be making their way to the Tournament Hall at Playground in the next half hour to take their seats for the restart of the 8-Year Anniversary edition of the Playground 200. Play gets underway at 1:00pm.

Play will resume in level 15 with blinds of 1,500 and 3,000 and a big blind ante of 3,000. Considering that the chip average for the restart is 127K, the average stack resumes with 43bb – the tournament is plenty deep and will require some true poker skill to navigate successfully. The chip leaders – Frederic Gagne, Everol Davis, and Yannick Labattaglia – are all starting the day over 100bb deep!

The field is exceptionally strong for a tournament at this buy-in level. There are familiar names throughout the restart list. In addition to the leaders mentioned above, there are skilled and experienced players like Michael Lawson (95bb), Sergei Gurin (93bb), William Blais (88bb) – not to mention recent Playground 200 champ Mykyta Kurilenko (76bb).

Table 21 may prove to be a “one to watch” as seats 5 to 9 are filled with players with above-average stacks, including Joel Moreau (Seat 5, 214,000 chips), Mohamed Sabounji (Seat 6, 186,500 chips), William Blais (Seat 7, 262,000 chips), and Everol Davis (Seat 8, 309,000 chips).

Good luck to everyone playing today!