Sitting on a short stack of 190K, Al Cancari had little choice but to move all his chips in the middle with any two decent cards. He picked up a marginal hand, and was called by both Raymond Kay and Jean-Francois Lescadres.

The two active players checked it down until the river, and on a board showing , Jean-Francois wagered 500K. After a moment in the tank, Raymond made the call, and all three players tabled their hands.

Jean-Francois:

Raymond:

Al:

Jean-Francois’s flush was the winning hand, eliminating Al in 15th place.

15th place: Al Cancari – $2,960

Shortly after eliminating Georges Hallak in 16th place, Thomas Wintermans found himself on the winning side of the biggest pot this tournament has seen so far.

Tyler St Clair raised to 200K from early position, and saw a 3bet from Thomas. He elected to 4bet shove, but couldn’t manage to get Thomas out of the hand.

Tyler:

Thomas:

The board stayed clean for Thomas’ pair of tens, showing , and he doubled his 2,245,000 stack up to just over 4,600,000. He is now our current chipleader.

At 30K/60K/a5K, Thomas Wintermans opened from utg+1 to 125K, and was 3bet by Georges Hallak to 340K. Thomas announced a 4bet all-in, which was quickly called by Georges.

Thomas:

Georges:

Thomas turned a straight on the board to eliminate Georges in 16th place. The blinds went up during this hand, and we are now in level 29.

16th place: Georges Hallak – $2,550

Andre Bilodeau was looking at an almost certain double up, when he found himself all-in preflop with versus the of Jean-Francois Lescadres. He was even a 96.5% favourite to win the hand after the flop was brought out. However Jean-Francois managed to catch a miracle runner-runner to win the hand, with the turn and river bringing the and .

With that unfortunate turn of events, Andre was sent to the cashiers to collect his $2,550 prize for placing 17th.

Event 3 had been reduce to two tables, and here are the current seating arrangements:

Table 31

Seat 1. Andre Bilodeau
Seat 2. Al Caranci
Seat 3. Edward Hislop
Seat 4. Andrew Lalonde
Seat 5. Jmes Danchuk
Seat 6. empty
Seat 7. Raymond Kay
Seat 8. Jean-Francois Lescadres
Seat 9. Terence Lai

Table 32

Seat 1. Georges Hallak
Seat 2. Gregory Katayama
Seat 3. Nicolas Malo Majeau
Seat 4. Rick Shamshoum
Seat 5. Lesley Amos
Seat 6. John Helou
Seat 7. Tyler St Clair
Seat 8. Michael Malm
Seat 9. Thomas Wintermans

Recent eliminations include:

18th: Michel Leblanc – $2,550
19th: Rahman Khakban – $2,260
20th: Vo Victor Ly – $2,260

Photographs taken during level 27

Georges Hallak

Jean-Francois Lescadres

Michel Leblanc

Lesley Amos

Rick Shamshoum

Nicolas Malo Majeau

Alexandre Normandin Charest

Terence Lai

Marc-Andre Racine

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(23 Photos)

We are still in the first level of play for Day 3 of Event 3, but we’ve already lost a number of players. Here are the eliminations so far today:

21st: Alexandre Normandin Charest – $2,260
22nd: Sebastien Rioux – $2,000
23rd: Rostand Asselin – $2,000
24th: Joel Moreau – $2,000
25th: Marc-Andre Racine – $1,740
26th: Derek Lerner – $1,740
27th: Tin Tan Lao – $1,740
28th: Stephane Lacas – $1,510

Event 3 – the $225 + $25 ‘Frenzy’ No Limit Hold’em Re-entry – is coming to a close tonight, as the 28 players that remain from a starting field of 1332 will battle it out until there is but one left, our tournament champion. The winner will walk out with a $50,000 prize, as well as a Playground Poker Fall Classic bracelet!

Leading the field with an impressive 2,700,000 stack is Rick Shamshoum, a local regular here at Playground Poker Club who has had some deep runs in past series. His most notable score came when he finished just shy of the final table in the Main Event of the Playground Poker Montreal Festival earlier this year.

He is closely follow by Alexandre Normandin Charest, who holds a stack of 2,673,000 chips. These two players have a good lead on the rest of the field, as next on the leaderboard is Jean-Francois Lescadres and his 1,965,000 stack.

WSOP bracelet winner Michael Malm, who also won a bracelet in the Playground Poker Spring Classic earlier this year by winning Event 4 – $500 + $50 No Limit Hold’em, is coming in to Day 3 with a stack of 1,300,000, good for 5th on the leaderboard. His experience is certainly going to give him an edge on the field, as he has been in this situation many times in his career, and knows how to close the deal.

On the shorter end of the leaderboard is online phenomenon and local pro Derek “Derek8” Lerner, who is not to be underestimated. Although he only bagged 331,000 chips after losing a huge flip near the end of Day 2, he is always a force to be reckoned with at the tables, and will certainly make his presence felt today.

We followed Michael and Derek throughout their Day 2, as well as three other players. The graph below shows their chip counts at every stage of the Day, from level 15 through to level 26. Michael’s graph line is in orange, while Derek is in green, and the tournament average is represented in gray.

Day 3 will begin in around 20 minutes, be sure to stay tuned in to the blog for live updates throughout the night!

Good luck!

There are 28 players left in Event 3 as it enters Day 3, the final day of the tournament. The event has been “in the money” for over a hundred eliminations now, but the players remaining are those that stand a chance to make a big score, at least “big” relative to the $225 + $25 buy-in! The min-cash for every player left is $1,510.00 – and that number goes all the way up to $50K for the winner!

Good luck to all of the players still in the action. Cards are in the air at 7pm.