After several hands of hand-for-hand play, this $500 + $50 Deepstack tournament, part of the Playground Anniversary Series, is now in the money!

Michael Kororvine

When action folded around to Michael Korovine in the small blind, he opted to move all-in with his last few big blinds. Alexandre Lavigne made a quick call from the big blind, and they were off to the races.

Michael:
Alexandre:

Alexandre had a huge flop for his hand, and finally spiked a pair of aces on the board to win the pot, bringing the tournament into the money.

Congratulations to all the players who have locked in a cash prize in this tournament!

Although only a few players have been eliminated in the last two levels of play, there has been a lot of movement in chips. Jeremie Bilodeau has slipped out of the chip lead, but still holds a healthy ~300,000 stack, while Alexandre Lavigne has chipped up to over 315,000.

Simon Huard-Dufresne is currently in the chip lead, although his ~325,000 stack is only a few big blinds ahead of other big stacks in the field. Anesti Kocini has been on a roller-coaster recently, as his stack dipped well below average last level, before climbing back up in to the medium.

Recent eliminations include Charles-Eric Benoit, Mau Le Ho Tran, Jason Raymond Trites and Jozwik Krzystof.

Photographs from level 16:

We caught up to the action on the turn on table 62, and with a board showing and already over 120,000 in the middle, a raising war occurred between Richard Paradis and Jeremie Bilodeau, two of the chip leaders at the start of the hand. When all was said and done, both players had all their chips in the middle, and the dealer asked players to table their hands.

Jeremie:
Richard:

Richard had a huge draw, as both the straight and the flush could win him the pot, however the rest of the cards in the deck belonged to Jeremie, who had flopped a set of 6s. The river brought the , and once the dealer verified that Jeremie did indeed start with the bigger of the two stacks, the massive pot of nearly 440,000 was shipped towards Jeremie.

Robert Aho navigated through a field of 128 players to arrive at the elusive final table as the chip leader. He then managed to maintain this lead throughout the duration of the final table, before finally finding himself heads-up versus Mathieu Fonderflick. After only a few hands of play, Mathieu’s 5 big blind shove was called by Robert, and it was virtually a flip.

Mathieu tabled , and was up against the of Robert. He was poised to double up, until Robert spiked a pair on the river to take down the pot, and the tournament. Mathieu’s second place finish earned him a cool $4,450 in cash, while Robert’s victory was worth a sweet $5,900!

Congratulations!

$200 + $20 Deepstack Champion: Robert Aho – $5,900.00

Runner-up: Mathieu Fondeflick – $4,450.00

Mathieu Fonderflick

Last hand of play