The Marquee event of the Playground Poker Club 7 Year Anniversary has been the Playground 500, a $550 NL Hold’em tournament that featured 4 Day 1s and attracted a whopping 562 entries – building a prize pool of $272,570.00. With only 12 payouts left to be made, there’s still over $185K up for grabs – and all of it will be claimed tonight.
The chip leader to start the day is Sean Edelenbos, a Toronto-area player with only a few published cashes to his name. Everyone who plays in Canada knows, however, that due to the relatively few poker rooms in the Toronto area, it’s very common for a player with a short resume to have very tall skills – we’ve seen it again and again in big tournaments here at Playground Poker Club.
There are three other players we’ll focus on going into Day 3. First: Spencer Jean-Baptiste. His wild style and chatty demeanor at the table hide some really crafty play. Spencer has had two top-20 finishes in major tournaments at Playground in the past year, so he must be doing something right. Second: Eric Benhamron. Eric is the prototypical cash game player who jumps into tournaments simply for a change of pace. With his experience it’s practically a certainty that he has a skill advantage as long as the tournament (and his stack) is deep – but what happens when it’s not so deep any more? We’ll find out tonight – he’s starting with just 22 bb. Third is Thomas Lefort, who has made a name for himself over the past few years as a top-notch tournament player. With over $300K in lifetime earnings and already having made deep runs in 3 Playground events in the past year, it would be foolish to overlook this patient player.
Good luck to everyone tonight!
