As level 4 came to a close we surveyed the room for some large stacks and couldn’t find anyone with a large stack running away from the field, but we did find a good number of players in the 65K to 75K range, i.e., players with about double the chip average or better.

In no particular order…

• Jonathan Poissant
• Carla Sabini
• Marco Caza
• Joseph Hertel
• Kevin Bijian
• Shahin Novouzian

There are, on the other hand, plenty of players who have let their stacks dwindle to under 10K (from a 30K starting stack), and some of these are starting to get picked off by table-mates with greater stacks, so the formula is complete for someone to build a huge stack by the dinner break at the end of level 9.

Players in the Main Event are now back from their first break of the day and play has begun in level 4.

A few players of note have joined the event in the last level or two, including Players Club members Jean-Philippe Piquette, Chanracy Khun, and George Caragiorgas.

Late registration will be open for another 3 levels of 45 minutes each plus the break following level 6, so there’s still a lot of time to get her and jump in the action!

We went around the tournament hall to get some shots of the early action.

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(23 Photos)

It’s still early and a lot of the field have not started yet, but already we have noted that Montreal’s most famous player, Jonathan Duhamel, is in the tournament today.

Playground legend Sylvain Siebert has also taken his seat. Sylvain has played in just about every major event we’ve held at Playground… and has made it to the final two or three tables every single time, including the final table of back-to-back WPT events in 2013!

There are quite a few other players in the field who have had international success – we’ll get a more complete list out later today.

“Dealers, shuffle up and Deal”

With that traditional command, Day 1a of the Playground Poker Montreal Festival Main Event is underway. To get things started today there are 151 players seated at the moment but with late registration continuing for about 5 hours, that number will climb quickly as players join in the action.

In just half an hour players will take their seats to begin the first of three starting flights in the Playground Poker Montreal Festival Main Event. Day 1a of any multi-starting-day event is always the least well-attended, but today there are already 115 players registered – a solid number considering that players are just starting to arrive for the day.

Interest in the festival has been surprisingly high even by our standards all week. Almost every side-event has had greater numbers than anticipated, and last night the “Eve of the Main” satellite with 20 seats guaranteed attracted well over 400 players, making it the largest single-day satellite in Playground Poker history. All tolled, 67 additional satellite seats were awarded during the day yesterday, bumping the total number of entries earned via satellite close to the 320 mark – which is very strong for an event of this scale.

Play today will continue for 13 45-minute levels with breaks every third level and a 45-minute break after level 9 is complete. Late registration is open until the end of level 6 and we should continue to see players join the action right up to the deadline.

Good luck to everyone playing today!