A few more players have been eliminated just before the end of level 24. First to go was Alain Rondeau.

A few minutes later Jano Salbzian found himself very short stacked after having made a bad call (in his words) and got it in for less than 60K on the next hand from UTG. Chad Gray, to his immediate left, raised to 115K and everyone else including the blinds folded.

Jano:
Chad:

Jano hit on the flop of but the turn and river didn’t give him the lift he needed to pass the pocket Nines.

Immediately after Jano got his coupon at the tournament desk, both Carla Sabini and Dean Murphy – two mainstays of the Montreal tournament scene appeared as well.

Here are some photos from the first level that was played today in Day 3 of the Main Event.

Andrew Pereira

John Helou

Jano Salbzian

Michael Mellor

Yannick Lamarre-Delooz

Alexandre Lavigne

Joakim Beaupré

Dustin Melanson

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(33 Photos)

Two players have been eliminated in the first half of level 24. First to go was Saim Mumal, who busted on the first hand, followed 20 minutes later by Patrick Braga. Both players started the day with short stacks.

Meanwhile, one of the other short stacks to start the day, Alain Jobin, has built his chip count up from under 250K to over 1.5M.

The players have all arrived to start Day 3 in the Main Event of the Playground Poker Montreal Festival, the TD has just made the introductory announcements and now the clock has started to count down level 24. Blinds are 60 minutes long today and play will continue until an official final table of 9 players remains.

Day 3 of the Main Event of the Playground Poker Montreal Festival will get underway in just under 12 hours, and with 35 players remaining the field is stacked with talent!

The current chip leader, Pierre Daigle, started Day 2 with just about 50,000 chips in play but managed to chip up quickly to the point that he was among the leaders all day. Players like Michael Malette and Noeung Troeung were among the leaders for most of the day as well.

There are some other players who played more modest stacks who now find themselves near the top of the leaderboard – most notably Alexandre Lavigne, who has had remarkable success in events at Playground Poker Club in the past year.

Also lurking on the leaderboard are quite a few extremely accomplished players with a long history of top results at the top levels of the game whether online or live. First on this list is Montreal’s own Derek Lerner, but anyone who overlooks players like Ami Alibay, Carla Sabini, or Patrick Braga will most likely regret it eventually.

Special mention should also go to Nicola Basile, a Toronto-area player who is a frequent visitor to Playground for big events and recently made a deep run in the inaugural WPT 500 at Aria in Las Vegas, and (for an entirely other reason) Mike Costa, who flew to Montreal at the last minute, had a friend late register for him and had his stack blind off for about 2 levels past late reg just to get in the tournament in the first place.

Good luck to everyone still in the event. Day 3 is sure to be a fantastic day of poker!

Players are bagging their chip after 10 levels of play in this Day 2, and the 35 that remain will be back tomorrow at 12:00pm to continue playing out this Main Event of the Playground Poker Montreal Festival.

Full player reported stacks, as well as the seating assignments for Day 3 will be published shortly.

Level 23 has just begun, and this is scheduled to be the last level of play for today. Once the clock runs out, the surviving players will bag their chips in preparation for Day 3, tomorrow at 12:00pm.

The last break of Day 2 of the Playground Poker Montreal Festival Main Event is just about over, and there are two 1-hour levels left before players bag for Day 3. A number of players have already breached the 7-figure mark, and this is what the leaderboard looks like at the moment:

1. Noeung Troeung – 2,110,000
2. Pierre Daigle – 1,890,000
3. Gabriel Vezina – 1,323,000
4. Alain Jobin – 1,227,000
5. Yannick Lamarre-Delooz – 1,140,000
6. Mike Costa – 1,105,000
7. Dean Murphy – 1,075,000
8. Presten Cloutier – 1,010,000

Other notable counts:

• Alexandre Lavigne – 936,000
• Ami Alibay – 835,000
• Amir Babakhani – 255,000
• Carla Sabini – 769,000
• Derek Lerner – 702,000
• Patrick Braga – 490,000

Here are a few photos from level 21:

We’ve seen a number of players hit the rail since the money has burst, and only 67 remain of the 300 that started Day 2. There are still three 1-hour levels left to play before the tournament goes on pause until Day 3.