A huge hand just transpired on table 20 as the final seconds on the clock counted down to the players’ first break of the day. Mitcheal Ferguson opened the action from middle position with a raise to 150K. Action folded around to Jason Mandanici-Turcot in the sb. He chose to shove his stack of approximately 1.6M in a classic squeeze… except that Patrick Rabouin-St-Laurent didn’t insta-fold but rather went into the tank… and eventually called! Mitcheal folded and the hands were exposed.

Jason:
Patrick:

There was bad news right away for Jason on a flop of – qnd then no rescue came on the turn or the river . The Ace was enough and Patrick scooped a huge pot.

Colin Scheckman has doubled through Tommy Dion to take the overall chip lead in the tournament with 13 players remaining. Play was blind on blind and when Colin turned over his , Tommy’s wasn’t quite as strong as he might have thought it would be.

The board came down and Colin’s Queens held. He expressed obvious relief once the hand was over and when the pot was shipped to him, he proved to be hovering right around the 3M chip mark with 13 players left in the action.

There’s an interesting story brewing in the Playground 200 as the player that started the day with the smallest stack – just 165,000 or 6bb – has moved solidly into the lead, playing over 2M in chips and with a clear gap between him and the other players at the top of the leaderboard.

Play is now down to 16 players left, which means the tournament is down to 2 tables. There will be a redraw when the final table is established at 9 players remaining.

Here are a few photos of the players remaining in Day 3, taken during level 25 as the day began. The tournament is down to 21 players as Mykyta Kurilenko (despite his double-up) and Ruben Perceval have been eliminated in the early going.

Mykyta Kurilenko – a recent past Champion in a Playground 200 event – has just doubled through Cristian Rho on table 24. The action was blind-on-blind with Mykyta having shoved into Cristian’s bb.

Mykyta:
Cristian:

Community cards:

The flop put Mykyta well in the lead and the turn confirmed the result. Mykyta is now up over the 500K mark – not yet among the leaders, but much healthier, stack-wise, than he was to start the day.

The tournament staff have made their introductory announcements and with all players having taken their seats for the final day of the Playground 200, cards are back in the air.

In fact, Robert Gosselin has already been eliminated today during the first hand, as his pocket Kings lost to Ace-Jack after the Ace came on the river.

The 8-Year Anniversary edition of the Playground 200 has been a great success, with 707 total entries and a prize pool of more than $135K. Day 3 is coming up in less than an hour, and there are just 24 players left in the tournament. Today is the day when the big prizes will be awarded. 24th place will award $950 – and the prizes only go up from there, all the way to the first place prize of $25,048.

Cedric Meyer begins the day with the chip lead – he’s starting with 1,525,000 chips (51bb), just ahead of Mitcheal Ferguson who will start with 1,490,000. There are 8 players, however, with more than 1M in chips to start the day, and each of them rates to have a good shot at the big money. They’re not the only ones, however – there are players like Jason Mandanici-Turcot, Mykyta Kurilenko, and Ruben Perceval that will start the day a little deeper down the leaderboard, but are proven “closers” with major event victories here at Playground on their resumes.

Action gets underway at 1:00pm and action will be in level 25 with blinds at 15K and 30K and a big blind ante of 30K. With the average stack sitting at just 25bb to start the day, action should be fast and furious right out of the gate today. Good luck to everyone still in the tourney today!

There are just 24 players remaining in the Playground 200, part of the 8-Year Anniversary celebrations at Playground. All 24 players will return at 1:00pm on Sunday December 16 for the final stint in the event. When play resumes, they will take their places according to the following official seating chart.

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