Jôle Simard

As our 8 qualifiers are now decided, Day 1B came to an end. There seems to be a trend in the Crazy $80 final tables: both of our flights so far have produced pretty intense final table confrontations. Today, it was Scott Aylward who had a good chunk of his leading stack stolen in what was the most brutal beat we have seen today.

When Micheline Roberge raised him all-in on a , he could not have called faster, and slammed his hand open: . He had the nut straight on a rainbow board. Micheline reluctantly opened . But she did not despair, calling for a 9 on the turn. And sure enough, the dealer revealed the , steering the hand towards a chop. Realizing she now had a flush draw freeroll, she called for a heart. River: .

Heartbroken, Aylward paid her the 82,500, and took a sip of water. Play went on, and minutes later, Aladin Reskallah had his run into , and was knocked out by Paul Arcache, the owner of the kings, who incidentally bagged the most chips. He sent 424,500 to Day 2, and the closest stack was Scott Aylward’s, valued at 236,500. See the full list of qualifiers in the results section.

On this note, we remind you that Day 1C is set for tomorrow 11:00am, and that Day 1D of the ”Strangers in the Night” Event is starting right this moment. This is your last chance to join the 131 qualifiers on tomorrow’s Day 2, 7:00pm.

Our last 10 are currently taking a break, which allowed to take full counts. They are all looking to bust 2 more people in order to add their name to the qualifiers list. Scott Aylward increased his lead some more. Himself, along with Paul Arcache and Michel Lafleur, are pretty much locked in for the Day list, but anything can happen, as we saw yesterday!

Here are the counts:

There are only 10 players left in Day 1B of the Crazy $80, and the final table is being formed. 8 of them will get to bag chips. Here is the seating chart and some of the finalists photos:

Another break has passed, and a new driver has taken the wheel. New driver, yes, but Scott Aylward must be accustomed to the leaderboard by now, as he appeared in all of them, and has been climbing that board every time. He is now comfortable in first place, with a plush stack counted at 145K.

21 players are at the tables, meaning the half-ante is in effect. We will break another table very soon, and are closing in on the qualifications. Here is the current top 4:

The last hour has seen 15 players bite the dust, leaving only 31 at the tables. Khaled Baalbaki has escaped from the leading pack, with a very strong 120K stack. Returning from break, blinds are now 800/1.6K/a1.6K, which should speed up the pace some more.

As a reminder, play will continue until 8 players are left, at which point they will bag their chips and come back on Friday at 12:00pm for Day 2. Here is the new leaderboard, led by Baalbaki:

The second allowed us to update the leaderboard, which features 6 players with stacks upwards of 50K. It is pretty tight at the top, but Aladin Reskallah managed to break the triple stack mark, and is our current captain. Here is the list: