The players have just returned from a short break, and we have brought an update on the leaderboard during this time. Leading the way into level 24 is Siamak S, who won a big flip with versus the of his opponent in the last hand before the break, propelling him over 1.1 million in chips.

Here is a look at the current leaderboard:

The $100K Gtd event is now down to just 4 final tables, as only 36 players remain from the 880 player starting field.

Philippe Drouin and Michael Truaisch have both recently crossed the 1-million chip mark, and share the chip lead here at the start of level 23 with around 1.1 million each.

Once this level is completed, players will go on a short break and we will publish a more detailed update on the current leaderboard. Here is a look at the seating assignments for the final 4 tables:

After nearly a full 30-minute level of hand-for-hand, two simultaneous eliminations occurred on the bubble to bring the $100K Gtd event into the money.

Dwayne Mattice and Arnaud Pierre-Valette were both very short stacked when they elected to move all-in, and neither of the two were able to survive the affair. Since they were eliminated on different tables, the two bubble players ended up splitting 90th place money, taking home $120 each.

With those two eliminations, the tournament is now in the money, and we should see a sudden increase in eliminations as many stacks were heavily affected by the blinds during hand-for-hand.

Level 20 has just begun, and players will have a short break following this level, during which we will bring an update on the leaderboard. Blinds levels will increase to 40-minutes long following the break.

Congratulations to all the players who have earned a pay-day in this event!

The players in Day 2 are now on their first break of the day as tournament staff removes the pink/purple T500 chips from play. As mentioned earlier, after a slow start to the day the action has picked up significantly – it’s fair to say now that the tourney is entering the early stages of the bubble phase, as the players are just over 20 eliminations away from the hard money bubble in the tourney.

Any time there are many eliminations you also get stack inflation at the top of the leaderboard, and today is no exception. The top 5 chip leaders all have over 400K in chips – which means the leaders are all playing stacks greater than 65 bb deep.

Play has now begun on Day 2 of the tournament and an initial survey of the room confirms what the seating chart indicated – among the 169 players who started the day are an extremely impressive group of past champions of events at Playground Poker Club or at least players who have made deep runs in big events that have been hosted here.

And that’s not even mentioning other players who have proven their high level of skill elsewhere (in addition to here at Playground) like Ruben Perceval, Levon Dedayen, and Yannick Labattaglia.

Some of these talented players with Big-Event Playground successes in the past:

• Players Club member Jean-Philippe Piquette
• Grant Pazarka
• Real Cantin
• Rick Shamshoum
• Joey Boczek
• Jonathan Bussieres
• Michael Korovine
• Steve Pouliot
• Jonathan Poissant
• Levi Stevens
• Marc Guerbilsky
• Jessie Wheatley