The eliminations have continued at a furious pace, so quickly that it can be difficult to keep track. Here is a full list of eliminations in Day 2 up to about 20 minutes ago.

[Read more…]

Players are back from their break and we have an updated leaderboard as level 16 begins.

1. Noeung Troeung – 746K
2. HongKong Nguyen – 490K
3. Alain Jobin – 475K
4. Michael Mallette – 475K
5. Joakim Beaupré – 450K

Note that Michael Mallette and Alain Jobin are sitting side by side in seats 5 and 6 on table 56. Alain has already made one good laydown to a shove by Michael, but being on his left Alain can put pressure on Michael. Fireworks are to be expected.

Players are about to go on their first break of the day as tournament staff removes the black T100 chips from play. Action has slowed down a little bit, but that’s not to say it’s slow by any means – from the 300 who started the day there are just 206 players left after two full levels.

Here are some photos of the action in level 14, the first level to be played on Day 2 of the Main Event.

 « prev      1   2      next »  
(16 Photos)

Although no one started the day with over 400K in chips, 4 players have already surpassed that level. The first is Alain Jobin, who started the day as chip leader and has grown to solidly over 600K in chips in the first level of play today.

In addition to Alain, Joakim Beaupré, Noeung Troeung, and Philippe Landry have also built up stacks north of 400K as the eliminations continue at a very fast pace.

Some of the players to be eliminated in the opening moments of Day 2:

• Marc Etienne McLaughlin
• Levon Dedeyan
• Gabriel Alarie
• Felix Sides
• Robert Amireault

Blinds in the tournament are now up to 60 minutes in length, and in the first 30 minutes of level 14 we have already seen 30 players eliminated. This is fairly typical as the short stacks to start the day try to double up in order to be more competitive, and the high pace of eliminations will likely continue for at least one level if not longer.

Soon enough, though, and the event will start to approach the money bubble. The trend in Playground events lately has been to not have a sustained period of bubble play, with events often sailing right into the money. This event may very well overturn that trend, though, and we could see the pace of the tournament slow right down as the money bubble approaches.

A total of 300 players have qualified to return for today’s Day 2 of the Main Event in the Playground Poker Montreal Festival, and those players have taken assigned seats in the Tournament Hall as play has begun!

The chip leader to start the day is Alain Jobin, a regular in big events at Playground and who is frequently among the leaders in multi-day events he plays. There are several other Playground regulars still in the event and with a stack to pose a threat, including Ruben Perceval, Ami Alibay, Jeremy Chandler, Carlo Nini, Carla Sabini, Marc-Andre Racine and others.

We can’t only look to the top of the list for players who could go deep in the event though. Lurking among the starters today are some of Montreal’s top poker professionals, who can be dangerous on a Day 2 no matter how many chips they start with. That list starts with Jonathan Duhamel, who is by far the highest profile player still in the field. In addition to Duhamel are players such as Marc Etienne McLaughlin, Derek Lerner, Patrick Braga, and Jean-Philippe Piquette among others.

The last group of players to whom to pay special attention are the list of players who frequently travel for big events at Playground, are very experienced in big events and have had more than their share of success both here at Playground and elsewhere. This list includes players like Nicola Basile, Gaetano Di Maria, Amir Babakhani, David Baba and many many more.

While the field may not be stacked with touring pros, from experience it is stacked with very accomplished players and we’re sure for a great day of poker.

The Main Event of the Playground Poker Montreal Festival has completed three starting flights. Days 1a and 1b saw 125 players qualify through to Day 2 and the massive Day 1c, held today, saw another 175 players qualify, meaning that Day 2 will start with exactly 300 players, all of whom are still in contention for a piece of the prize pool.

For the record, there were a total of 189 re-entries in the event (players who entered on more than a single Day 1) but no player qualified for Day 2 twice.

This table contains the seating draw for the beginning of Day 2 of the Main Event, which will begin on September 1st at 12pm.

[eztable width=”100%” colwidth=”25%|25%|30%|20%” colalign=”left|left|left|right”]
First Name,Last Name,Seat[attr sort=”asc”],Chip Count
Alain,Jobin,Table 56 – Seat 6,”394,000″
Philippe,Landy,Table 52 – Seat 7,”323,000″
Denis,Cyr,Table 25 – Seat 2,”291,600″
Osman,Noor,Table 20 – Seat 5,”284,900″
Kenneth,Legue,Table 64 – Seat 1,”283,200″
Peter,Senecal,Table 53 – Seat 9,”282,200″
Joakim,Beaupre,Table 64 – Seat 5,”276,700″
Calogero,Graci,Table 70 – Seat 6,”269,700″
Francois,Semaan,Table 65 – Seat 9,”267,700″
Kamal,Hamai,Table 57 – Seat 2,”262,700″
Kostadinos,Kiropoulos,Table 65 – Seat 7,”260,000″
HongKong,Nguyen,Table 67 – Seat 5,”254,000″
Noeung,Troeung,Table 28 – Seat 2,”252,200″
Serge,Pouliot,Table 66 – Seat 2,”246,500″
Renmei,Liu,Table 23 – Seat 3,”237,900″
Demo,Kiriopoulos,Table 27 – Seat 5,”236,800″
Sylvain,Cote,Table 56 – Seat 8,”229,300″
Ratharam,Sivagnanam,Table 22 – Seat 1,”227,000″
Mathieu,Parent,Table 56 – Seat 2,”224,200″
Gabriel,Vezina,Table 58 – Seat 1,”221,300″
Carlo,Nini,Table 55 – Seat 6,”220,800″
Daren,Keyes,Table 25 – Seat 1,”219,900″
Sean,Windover,Table 60 – Seat 3,”219,500″
Patrick,Braga,Table 22 – Seat 3,”217,800″
Gaetano,Di Maria,Table 70 – Seat 4,”217,300″
Mark,Salerno,Table 58 – Seat 3,”217,200″
Julien,Sanscartier,Table 68 – Seat 4,”210,000″
Alex,Fortin Demers,Table 22 – Seat 4,”205,500″
Matthew,Johnson,Table 59 – Seat 3,”204,700″
Senthuran,Vijayaratnam,Table 57 – Seat 1,”202,000″
Chad,Gray,Table 27 – Seat 1,”199,200″
Tyler,Petri,Table 22 – Seat 8,”194,400″
Andrew,Pereira,Table 24 – Seat 5,”193,700″
Ruben,Perceval,Table 50 – Seat 1,”191,600″
Jigmi,Jamyangling,Table 19 – Seat 9,”189,500″
Najem,Khalil,Table 68 – Seat 7,”188,000″
Nimer,Ltaif,Table 66 – Seat 1,”187,800″
Rick,Shamshoum,Table 52 – Seat 6,”185,500″
Rodney,Lawrence,Table 63 – Seat 6,”183,500″
Shaan,Siddiqui,Table 50 – Seat 4,”181,200″
Richard,Rudik,Table 27 – Seat 2,”173,900″
Presten,Cloutier,Table 49 – Seat 8,”169,800″
Vinh,Lieu,Table 53 – Seat 5,”169,000″
Gabriel,Alarie,Table 64 – Seat 7,”168,000″
Steven,Chu,Table 63 – Seat 7,”167,700″
Christine,Do,Table 49 – Seat 2,”167,000″
Charbel,Kanterjian,Table 55 – Seat 1,”164,900″
Chris,Stechlinski,Table 62 – Seat 4,”164,800″
Jonathan,Poissant,Table 67 – Seat 1,”164,200″
Yannick,Lamarre-Delooz,Table 64 – Seat 2,”163,400″
Bryce,Potter,Table 25 – Seat 8,”161,600″
Dean,Murphy,Table 61 – Seat 8,”160,000″
Sylvain,Lepage,Table 51 – Seat 5,”159,900″
Hong Wei,Jin,Table 23 – Seat 7,”157,400″
Jonathan,Bussieres,Table 65 – Seat 5,”157,000″
David,St-Louis,Table 21 – Seat 8,”156,000″
Jean-Francois,Marin,Table 62 – Seat 7,”154,200″
June,Roberts,Table 67 – Seat 2,”151,300″
Mark,Dietrich,Table 59 – Seat 4,”150,100″
Amirmasoud,Babakhani,Table 61 – Seat 9,”149,900″
Salomon,Ponte,Table 55 – Seat 3,”149,500″
James,Wesley,Table 69 – Seat 8,”148,900″
Casey,Smith,Table 21 – Seat 2,”148,800″
Ian,Armorer,Table 25 – Seat 6,”148,100″
Daniel,Gagne,Table 69 – Seat 7,”146,400″
Carla,Sabini,Table 18 – Seat 1,”144,800″
Kendra,Bernard,Table 49 – Seat 3,”144,600″
James,Danchuk,Table 28 – Seat 4,”143,500″
Bradley,Tuck,Table 69 – Seat 5,”143,000″
Josue,Sauvageau,Table 67 – Seat 9,”141,900″
Shahin,Norouzian,Table 55 – Seat 7,”140,000″
Vincent,Jacques,Table 17 – Seat 1,”139,900″
Jano,Salbzian,Table 63 – Seat 4,”139,800″
Michael,Malette,Table 26 – Seat 8,”137,300″
Lorne,Wechsler,Table 49 – Seat 9,”136,000″
Yannick,Harvey,Table 66 – Seat 7,”136,000″
George,Metaxakis,Table 67 – Seat 4,”135,900″
Rami,Hammoud,Table 60 – Seat 4,”135,800″
Samuel Bisrat,Tsehai,Table 51 – Seat 3,”135,000″
Tian Lin,Liao,Table 69 – Seat 2,”135,000″
Domenic,Durante,Table 70 – Seat 2,”134,900″
Domenico,Scalamogna,Table 21 – Seat 6,”134,600″
James,Armstrong,Table 51 – Seat 9,”133,300″
AJ,Gambino,Table 49 – Seat 6,”130,200″
Matthew,Camacho,Table 25 – Seat 4,”129,600″
Theodore,Doukas,Table 58 – Seat 2,”129,000″
Ami,Alibay,Table 50 – Seat 6,”128,800″
Alain,Rondeau,Table 20 – Seat 8,”127,900″
Nicholas,Topfer,Table 63 – Seat 3,”127,600″
Jeff,Cote,Table 55 – Seat 2,”127,200″
Shawn,Sperber,Table 17 – Seat 5,”127,200″
James,Gibson,Table 64 – Seat 6,”126,900″
Claude,Martin,Table 24 – Seat 4,”126,300″
Blake,Charbonneau,Table 25 – Seat 7,”125,600″
Stuart,Taylor,Table 23 – Seat 4,”124,300″
Mike,Nolan,Table 53 – Seat 6,”122,400″
John,Helou,Table 64 – Seat 3,”122,200″
Edward,Hislop,Table 17 – Seat 4,”120,800″
Shane,Mackinnon,Table 54 – Seat 7,”120,600″
Fraser,Swidler,Table 26 – Seat 4,”120,100″
Jino,Veizi,Table 66 – Seat 8,”120,100″
Domenic,Vannelli,Table 67 – Seat 6,”119,400″
Michael,Wolowicz,Table 23 – Seat 6,”119,400″
Frederik,Simoneau,Table 57 – Seat 3,”118,600″
Benoit,Jean,Table 58 – Seat 9,”118,300″
Daniel,Gagnon,Table 49 – Seat 7,”118,300″
Alexandre,Lavigne,Table 51 – Seat 7,”117,200″
Israel,Pantaleon,Table 50 – Seat 8,”117,200″
Marco,Caza,Table 55 – Seat 5,”117,200″
Marc-Andre,Racine,Table 61 – Seat 6,”115,400″
Dario,Diplacido,Table 26 – Seat 6,”115,000″
Vlad,Faubert,Table 18 – Seat 5,”112,500″
Nicolas,Malo Majeau,Table 21 – Seat 3,”111,500″
Jean-Philippe,Lehoux,Table 24 – Seat 7,”110,800″
Richard,Figiel,Table 52 – Seat 3,”110,700″
Gaetan,Miron,Table 64 – Seat 4,”110,300″
Nicola,Basile,Table 62 – Seat 3,”110,300″
Samuel Louis,Gagnon,Table 63 – Seat 2,”110,000″
Vincent,Cloutier,Table 19 – Seat 6,”109,700″
Eric,Theroux,Table 57 – Seat 6,”109,600″
Joseph,Abou Khalil,Table 53 – Seat 3,”109,500″
Sergio,Iannetti,Table 22 – Seat 9,”109,100″
Jean-Francois,Lescadres,Table 56 – Seat 5,”108,700″
Tom,Kim Tien,Table 61 – Seat 1,”108,000″
Richard,Brinklow,Table 25 – Seat 5,”107,100″
Jason,Diluzio,Table 65 – Seat 1,”105,000″
Kevin,St-Martin,Table 66 – Seat 4,”104,900″
Milton,Mavrigiannakis,Table 28 – Seat 8,”103,600″
Robert,Amireault,Table 66 – Seat 9,”103,300″
Patrice,Rinfret,Table 51 – Seat 6,”102,600″
Jonathan,Schaler,Table 60 – Seat 2,”102,500″
Steven,Tran,Table 21 – Seat 1,”101,900″
Medhat,Ramzy,Table 67 – Seat 3,”101,000″
Levon,Dedeyan,Table 22 – Seat 2,”99,800″
Anthony,Leung,Table 19 – Seat 2,”98,800″
Chris,Doheney,Table 20 – Seat 4,”98,500″
Glen,Hammers,Table 66 – Seat 5,”98,500″
Faizel,Satchu,Table 19 – Seat 3,”97,600″
Maduka,Meragal,Table 23 – Seat 8,”97,200″
Mitchell,Skoda,Table 52 – Seat 1,”96,600″
Carl,Laberge,Table 67 – Seat 8,”96,100″
Louis,Lam,Table 62 – Seat 8,”95,900″
Noy,,Table 57 – Seat 9,”95,700″
Saim,Mumal,Table 27 – Seat 8,”95,700″
Samuel,Barre,Table 70 – Seat 3,”95,300″
Cheryl,Leon,Table 58 – Seat 8,”95,000″
Nektarios,Papadedes,Table 60 – Seat 8,”94,900″
Amer,Sulaiman,Table 52 – Seat 4,”94,500″
Justin,Chung,Table 28 – Seat 5,”94,500″
Simon-Pier,Belair-Grondin,Table 60 – Seat 9,”93,600″
Phillippe,Belley,Table 20 – Seat 1,”93,300″
Giancarlo,Santolin,Table 65 – Seat 2,”92,800″
Jean-Philippe,Piquette,Table 20 – Seat 2,”92,600″
Patrice,Primeau,Table 21 – Seat 7,”92,200″
Romain,Putz,Table 50 – Seat 9,”91,300″
Paul,Mohorea,Table 19 – Seat 4,”91,000″
Jason,Comtois,Table 69 – Seat 9,”90,900″
William,Blais,Table 60 – Seat 5,”90,600″
Denis,Thibert,Table 24 – Seat 8,”90,300″
Ronald,Greig,Table 70 – Seat 1,”89,800″
Kevin,Rivest,Table 53 – Seat 4,”89,000″
Troy,Hamilton,Table 70 – Seat 9,”89,000″
Shawn,Brown,Table 60 – Seat 7,”88,500″
Max,Shuster,Table 20 – Seat 7,”88,300″
Patrice,Ravary,Table 54 – Seat 2,”88,300″
Tim,O’Grady,Table 59 – Seat 9,”88,100″
Frederick,Laurin Fortin,Table 56 – Seat 7,”87,800″
Andre,Vezina,Table 57 – Seat 5,”87,600″
David,Baba,Table 59 – Seat 2,”87,600″
Jacquelyne,Wong,Table 70 – Seat 5,”87,600″
Vince,Dwyer,Table 62 – Seat 5,”87,000″
Derek,Lerner,Table 54 – Seat 6,”86,900″
Felix,Sides,Table 50 – Seat 3,”86,400″
Jeremie,Bilodeau,Table 23 – Seat 2,”86,000″
Leroy,Pollack,Table 24 – Seat 3,”86,000″
Elie,Bou-Diwan,Table 19 – Seat 8,”84,900″
Dmytro,Silin,Table 62 – Seat 1,”84,600″
Marc Etienne,Blais,Table 19 – Seat 5,”84,000″
Daniel,Leduc,Table 70 – Seat 8,”83,300″
Johnny,Mazzaferro,Table 26 – Seat 1,”83,000″
Marc Etienne,Mclaughlin,Table 18 – Seat 9,”82,900″
Hiroaki,Harada,Table 63 – Seat 9,”82,800″
Thanh Phong,Trieu,Table 51 – Seat 1,”82,700″
Stuart,Zweig,Table 53 – Seat 2,”82,300″
Peter,Koumoutsidis,Table 68 – Seat 9,”80,900″
Conrado,Corpus,Table 52 – Seat 5,”80,600″
David,Ghazarian,Table 50 – Seat 2,”79,800″
Jonathan,Duhamel,Table 28 – Seat 3,”79,000″
Danick,Landriault,Table 27 – Seat 7,”78,800″
Kalpesh,Raichura,Table 18 – Seat 4,”78,500″
Marcelo,Guevara,Table 51 – Seat 4,”78,400″
Charles,La Boissonniere,Table 24 – Seat 2,”77,800″
Sammy,Chao,Table 17 – Seat 6,”77,000″
Tony,Apostolopoulos,Table 20 – Seat 3,”75,900″
Patrick,Mailloux,Table 55 – Seat 8,”75,400″
Henry,Ngo,Table 69 – Seat 4,”74,800″
Michael,Taylor,Table 27 – Seat 6,”73,600″
Imad,Salameh,Table 27 – Seat 3,”73,300″
Geri,Casey,Table 17 – Seat 2,”71,800″
Ibrahim,Almalhi,Table 26 – Seat 5,”71,400″
Jesse,Dee,Table 51 – Seat 2,”71,200″
Darrin,Oremba,Table 59 – Seat 8,”70,300″
Jeremy,Chandler,Table 51 – Seat 8,”69,500″
Donald,Laing,Table 53 – Seat 8,”69,200″
Daniel,Charette,Table 68 – Seat 5,”69,000″
Gina,Landry,Table 66 – Seat 6,”68,800″
David,Wevers,Table 64 – Seat 8,”66,400″
John,Toth,Table 18 – Seat 7,”66,300″
Chad,Coombs,Table 57 – Seat 8,”65,900″
Adrian,Ottorino,Table 58 – Seat 4,”65,700″
Michael,Mellor,Table 24 – Seat 6,”65,400″
Patrick David,Hu-A-Kam,Table 60 – Seat 6,”63,800″
James,Dickinson,Table 52 – Seat 8,”62,300″
Antonio,Pace,Table 54 – Seat 9,”62,200″
Xiao,Peng,Table 18 – Seat 2,”62,100″
Jean-Philippe,Matte,Table 19 – Seat 7,”61,000″
Nicholas,Chimienti,Table 55 – Seat 9,”60,300″
Eric,Ranger,Table 49 – Seat 5,”60,200″
Pierre,Daigle,Table 70 – Seat 7,”59,900″
Alexandre,Nolin,Table 56 – Seat 9,”59,500″
Terrence,Plagenz,Table 68 – Seat 1,”59,500″
Ian,Weber,Table 26 – Seat 2,”58,700″
Jack,Curley,Table 54 – Seat 5,”58,700″
Martin,Feijo,Table 57 – Seat 4,”58,000″
Thomas,Ricketts,Table 61 – Seat 4,”56,900″
Thi,Nguyen,Table 23 – Seat 1,”56,500″
Stephanie,Mclean,Table 49 – Seat 1,”53,500″
Rong,Xu,Table 54 – Seat 3,”52,400″
Frederick,Deguzman,Table 17 – Seat 8,”52,200″
Ben,Menache,Table 58 – Seat 6,”51,700″
Zheng-Yi,Xie,Table 61 – Seat 3,”51,400″
Jiachen,Gong,Table 25 – Seat 3,”51,100″
Jason,Mottershead,Table 63 – Seat 1,”51,000″
Dustin,Melanson,Table 50 – Seat 5,”50,900″
Allyson,Bourgeois,Table 69 – Seat 6,”50,700″
Mathieu,Weissmann,Table 53 – Seat 7,”50,500″
Jia,Wu,Table 62 – Seat 6,”49,500″
Constantinos,Psallidas,Table 69 – Seat 3,”48,600″
Eddie,Daldalian,Table 64 – Seat 9,”48,300″
Simon,Meunier,Table 63 – Seat 5,”48,200″
Christopher,Cameron,Table 23 – Seat 5,”47,400″
Robert,Petronio,Table 22 – Seat 7,”47,300″
Kevin,Baulne,Table 18 – Seat 6,”47,200″
Jean Sebastien,Dubois,Table 59 – Seat 6,”46,900″
Jean-Philip,Kouri,Table 17 – Seat 7,”46,900″
Paul,Petten,Table 63 – Seat 8,”46,900″
Andre,Bilodeau,Table 66 – Seat 3,”46,500″
William,Son,Table 19 – Seat 1,”46,400″
Spencer,Stacey,Table 21 – Seat 4,”46,100″
Louis-Philippe,Arpin,Table 57 – Seat 7,”45,100″
John,Blaha,Table 21 – Seat 9,”44,800″
Mathieu,Lemaire,Table 68 – Seat 2,”44,700″
Robin,Leblanc,Table 28 – Seat 1,”43,600″
Ghislain,Bolduc,Table 53 – Seat 1,”41,500″
Jonathan,Skelly,Table 28 – Seat 7,”40,000″
Buu,Nguyen,Table 67 – Seat 7,”39,800″
Giovanni,Massa,Table 58 – Seat 5,”39,000″
Michel,Naggar,Table 65 – Seat 6,”39,000″
Terry,Flood,Table 62 – Seat 2,”38,500″
Jessie,Macleod,Table 59 – Seat 7,”38,300″
Omid,Shahbazian,Table 24 – Seat 1,”38,200″
Yao,Wu,Table 58 – Seat 7,”38,100″
Anesti,Kocini,Table 52 – Seat 2,”37,300″
Panagiotis,Klaoudatos,Table 22 – Seat 6,”36,400″
Bruno,Desjarlais,Table 59 – Seat 5,”35,700″
Jean-Louis,Arseneau,Table 17 – Seat 9,”35,700″
Fraser,Malcom Harold,Table 49 – Seat 4,”35,500″
Nenad,Sizgoric,Table 17 – Seat 3,”35,400″
Alexandre,Nadeau-Levesque,Table 20 – Seat 6,”35,200″
Armand,King,Table 52 – Seat 9,”34,900″
Dino,Dalpra,Table 65 – Seat 8,”34,900″
Thanh-Phong,Bui,Table 56 – Seat 3,”34,800″
Christian,Paradis,Table 54 – Seat 8,”34,600″
Amine,Mouna,Table 56 – Seat 1,”34,500″
Linzi,Godin,Table 28 – Seat 6,”34,400″
Gianender,Khanna,Table 68 – Seat 6,”34,300″
Kevin,McColgan,Table 22 – Seat 5,”34,200″
Nancy,George,Table 26 – Seat 3,”34,200″
Michael,Maki,Table 68 – Seat 8,”34,000″
Johnson,Phanyaseng,Table 61 – Seat 5,”33,500″
Narinder,Khasria,Table 27 – Seat 4,”32,600″
Ivan,Fazal Karim,Table 69 – Seat 1,”32,300″
Mathieu,Laurin,Table 54 – Seat 1,”32,000″
Mark,Defaria,Table 18 – Seat 8,”31,600″
Yi Fan,Dong,Table 20 – Seat 9,”31,600″
Matthew,Brunskole,Table 54 – Seat 4,”31,400″
Lev,Plotkin,Table 62 – Seat 9,”29,200″
Richard,Bourgeois,Table 65 – Seat 4,”28,700″
Giuseppe,Perruzza,Table 21 – Seat 5,”28,000″
Danny,Rouleau,Table 68 – Seat 3,”27,800″
Mike,Costa,Table 59 – Seat 1,”27,000″
Lynn Kaley,Campbell,Table 65 – Seat 3,”26,100″
Sebastien,Labbe,Table 26 – Seat 7,”25,600″
Simon,Belanger-Hebert,Table 61 – Seat 7,”25,200″
Vincent,Lazaruk,Table 61 – Seat 2,”24,600″
Thomas,Harnois,Table 18 – Seat 3,”23,500″
Charles,Normand,Table 50 – Seat 7,”22,300″
Sylvain,Leblanc,Table 55 – Seat 4,”21,900″
Ian,O’Shaugnessy,Table 56 – Seat 4,”20,300″
Aladin,Reskallah,Table 60 – Seat 1,”18,000″
[/eztable]