Jôle Simard

After Richard Myron’s elimination in a hand that we unfortunately missed,  a big pot was played between Matthew Shafman, Jason Duval and Matthew Sherman. The pot was nicely built, and Sherman check-raised all-in after Duval had bet and Shafman called. Sherman took it down and is now 2nd in chips with a little over 500K. Matthew Shafman leads comfortably with nearly a million chips.

Eric Place was down to his last 64K, and they went in pre-flop. He was contested by Daniel Le.

Eric:
Daniel:

Board:

Myron took $5,350 for his 9th place finish, while Place cashed $6,090 for his 8th place.

The tournament director just announced the last 5 hands of the night. Players will then bag their chips, and come come back tomorrow at 1pm for the completion of the Event. The full list of qualifiers will be published shortly, along with their stack.

Here are some photos of Day 2 qualifiers, taken during the last moments:

Players are now racking their chips for the 27-player redraw. The pool of players is shuffled, and the new seats will appear on the screen. With 16 prizes in the Event (listed below), only 11 eliminations separate us from the money, but with only 30 minutes to go before the end of Day 1, the money bubble should only happen tomorrow.

Here are the prizes that our Second Chance players are gunning for:

Rank | Pos	Prize | Bourse
1st	$53,580.00
2nd	$33,285.00
3rd	$19,860.00
4th	$12,470.00
5th	$9,230.00
6th	$7,940.00
7th	$6,890.00
8th	$6,090.00
9th	$5,350.00
10th-12th	$4,710.00
13th-15th	$4,120.00
16th	$3,600.00

After 2 days of high level PLO action, Manfred Gunther, an experienced local player, took down the $500 + $50 Pot Limit Omaha Event.

The tournament spanned 2 days, and welcomed 53 players, 10 of which re-entered within the first 6 levels of play. After 12 levels of 30 minutes, only 14 players still had chips and bagged them up for tonight’s final showdown. Among them were Sébastien Leboeuf, chip leader at the time and playing his first Live PLO tournament, Raymond Latinsky, who proved to be a very skilled PLO player, the colorful Joey “Birdman” Boczek, and of course Manfred Gunther.

Day 2 started slowly, almost nonchalantly, with some players enjoying a meal, and no one seemed to be in a rush. However, after more than an hour and a half of play, 3 players fell within 20 minutes, and 2 more about a half-hour later, which sent the Event to the final table.

Manfred Gunther started strong. It wasn’t long before he had twice as many chips as anyone else. At that point, he got it in pre-flop with the second in chips, Raymond Latinsky. He managed to pull the upset in that hand, and so he was propelled way in front, after taking out the player whose play was most respected by our Champion. After that, it was a landslide. One by one they fell, and although Pirooz “DoubleO” Bayat knows what he is doing on a PLO table, he could not cope with Manfred’s crushing chip lead.

He managed to gain a few chips at first, by was finally ground down under the weight of his opponent. The final hand is pictured below. Pirooz took $6,505 for his amazing run, and Manfred wins $11,000 and the stunning PPFC Champion Trophy.

Congratulations!

Our $500 + $50 PLO Champion: Manfred Gunther – $11,000.00

Runner-up: Pirooz Bayat – $6,505.00

Shot of the heads-up match:

Last hand of play:

Players are now resuming play after the last break of the day in the $1,500 + $150 Second Chance Event. We scouted the tables during that break to find the chip leader, and it was no surprise to see that Jason “Bébé chien” Duval had built a huge stack of 267,600 chips, good for the lead. His tournament experience is vast, and his reputation precedes him.

He is followed by Matthew Sherman, who is currently working with 185,800. A few other players are in the mid-hundreds – a full list of Day 2 qualifiers will be published when Day 1 is done.

Frédéric Breton had managed to double against Manfred earlier, and it seemed like we were going to have a lengthy and interesting trio. However, he lost a good chunk very early in the 3-way match, and was felted shortly after by Manfred Gunther. He and Pirooz Bayat are now heads-up, with a 5 to 1 advantage for Manfred.

Frédéric’s elimination hand:

Frédéric:
Manfred:

Board:

Frédéric takes $4,040 for his 3rd place. Great performance!