After a relatively long period of chips mostly shifting from player to player – particularly considering the stack sizes in play relative to the blinds – Owen Snow found himself down to 75K and decided to open shove – blind. Alissa Ann Allen folded but Giovanni Petrella made the call. Jean Philippe Pepin strongly considered calling as well, but chose to fold.

Owen:
Giovanni:

There was a pair for Giovanni on the flop of meaning Owen would need running cards to come out on top – but when the was dealt on the turn the hand was effectively over. The river was a meaningless .

5th place: Owen Snow, $340

Owen Snow

Since the break, Mathieu Desrochers had played his bb and sb without picking up any chips so he was short – around 50K. Giovanni Petrella opened to 53K and Mathieu shoved. Everyone else folded until it was back to Giovanni, who made the easy call.

Giovanni:
Mathieu:

The community cards came out which didn’t even give Giovanni much of a sweat even though he won the hand with no pair.

6th place: Mathieu Desrochers, $240

Mathieu Desrochers

The blue T500 chips were removed during the last break and we were able to get full counts for the remaining 6 players in the tournament.

When the final table came together there were several players with relatively small stacks and 1 monster stack in the tournament. This has created a dynamic that makes it pretty tough for the small or the average stacks to chip up.

The first two players eliminated with Nassim Kabbala in 10th and Jason Conforti in 9th. Once they were gone and the tournament hit the hard money bubble, the players quickly agreed to re-distribute the 2nd and 3rd place prizes to add an 8th prize – a classic bubble save. This had the side benefit of keeping the tournament moving at a relatively lively pace, and 2 more players were eliminated in short order. Alex Beaupré took 8th place ($100) and Chirag Patel in 7th place ($170).

All the while, Alissa Ann Allen is sitting in seat 10 with a monster stack – she’s playing with well over 450K in chips – just a little under half the chips in play. The player on her left – Giovanni Petrella – is also playing with a lot of chips – over 250K in his case – so between the two of them they account for over 60% of the chips in play. We’ll see what impact that has on how the game proceeds.

The Win the Button tourney has now passed to its two last tables and just 18 players remain (2 have already been eliminated since the merge). The tournament continues to move very quickly and it won’t be that long before there’s a final table!

Here’s a look at the current seating arrangement.

The prize pool and payout schedule for the first event in the Playground Anniversary Series, the Win the Button Re-entry tournament, is now available. There were a total of 74 entries in the tournament, which added up to a prize pool of $4,307.00. This will be distributed according to the following table.