Players are back from break and we have a new top 4 to share.
Following the leaders are quite a few players in the >400K range, including experienced players such as Jason Duval and Eric Afriat, among others. The tournament is just 10 eliminations away from the bubble.
Play in the Main Event, now in level 17, has slowed down considerably. 65 players were eliminated in the first 3 levels, but eliminations have slowed right down. Though the bubble is still another 20 eliminations away, it’s clear that at least some of the players have transitioned to an opportunistic, chip-acccumulating style while others just try to stay alive in the tournament.
Photos from levels 16 and 17
Everyone knows the benefits of a large stack, but one of the least talked about benefits is just being able to effectively close the play in multi-way pots.
In a hand just now, Gabriel Vezina raised UTG to 8.5K and Giovanni Massa re-raised All-in, though only to 15.5K (he had recently lost most of his chips in another hand). The current chip leader, Serge Pouliot – aka Momess – chose to stay in the hand but not just by calling – he min-raised from the button.
Action was back on Gabriel Vezina, who simply chose to call the 22K – Momess had effectively communicated that if he wanted to stay in the hand, Gabriel would have to commit many more chips to the pot.
The board ran out 
and both players checked all the way down. Momess only made a hand (top pair) on the river – but it was enough to take down the pot of about 75K.
Players have returned from their first break of the day, during which tournament staff coloured up and raced off the black T100 chips. During the break we got updated counts to build this new leaderboard.
Serge Pouliot aka Momess
In the early flurry of activity, a few of the already-strong stacks have managed to chip up and join Serge Pouliot (who remains one of the big stacks) up over 350K in tournament chips. Some of the players who have made strong gains so far include Eric Afriat (400K), Amir Babakhani (350K), Frederic Pierre (360K), and Andrew Knowles (355K).
Play continues at a relatively fast pace as another 11 players have been eliminated.
15 minutes of Day 2 have passed and there have already been a few eliminations, taking the field down to 135 players. Table 49 has now broken and play continues on 15 9-handed tables.
The dealers are seated and the players’ sealed bags have been placed at the tables. Tournament staff is waiting at the entrance of the Tournament Hall to direct players to their seats. A few players have begun to file in to take their place as well…
And so Day 2 of the Main Event of the Playground Winter Festival is ready to go.
There are 139 players left in the tournament of the 494 players who began the event in one of the two starting flights. Play today is scheduled for 10 levels of 60 minutes each, and play will continue on 9-handed tables all day today. The big moment today will be reaching the money bubble, which will come after the player in 55th place has been eliminated.
Good luck to everyone still in the event!
This is the official seating chart for Day 2 of the $1,000 + $100 Main Event in the Playground Winter Festival.
Days 1a and 1b had a total of 494 entries, and of these, 52 players qualified through Day 1a and 87 through Day 1b, for a total of 139 players remaining in the event. This was a next-day re-entry tournament in which players could bring their best stack forward to Day 2, but no players qualified through both starting flights.
Play resumes in level 14 at 12pm on Sunday March 8th. The chip average of the players remaining is 107,000.
We would like to remind players that Daylight Savings Time comes into effect overnight tonight and they are advised to be careful to arrive on time on Sunday.
Click (or tap) on any column header in the following table to sort.
[eztable width=”100%” colwidth=”25%|25%|30%|20%” colalign=”left|left|left|right”]
First Name,Last Name,Seat [attr sort=”asc”],Chip Count
Alex,Difelice,Table 57 – Seat 3,”37,500″
Alex,Fiorani,Table 55 – Seat 7,”52,800″
Alex,Fortin Demers,Table 54 – Seat 9,”110,400″
Amirmasoud,Babakhani,Table 56 – Seat 4,”253,500″
Andrew,Knowles,Table 52 – Seat 1,”304,700″
Anthony,Khoury,Table 62 – Seat 5,”108,400″
Anthony,Kokin,Table 60 – Seat 3,”83,500″
Armry,Senat,Table 61 – Seat 3,”99,500″
Belal,El Bizri,Table 54 – Seat 5,”57,200″
Ben,Menache,Table 64 – Seat 8,”83,300″
Bill,Germanis,Table 63 – Seat 3,”32,000″
Carter,Swidler,Table 56 – Seat 7,”42,300″
Chanracy,Khun,Table 63 – Seat 8,”105,500″
Charles-Eric,Benoit,Table 55 – Seat 4,”128,300″
Charles,La Boissonniere,Table 64 – Seat 4,”52,200″
Charles,Macdonald,Table 52 – Seat 2,”45,000″
Chris,McClung,Table 64 – Seat 3,”91,000″
Chrishan,Sivasundaram,Table 65 – Seat 4,”85,200″
Conrado,Corpus,Table 52 – Seat 9,”140,800″
Daniel,Belisle,Table 54 – Seat 7,”41,900″
Daniel,Charette,Table 63 – Seat 1,”267,100″
Daniel,Fortier,Table 59 – Seat 6,”35,300″
Daniel,Hamelin,Table 62 – Seat 4,”141,000″
Danny,Boyaci,Table 56 – Seat 2,”51,200″
Danny,Lauzon,Table 53 – Seat 4,”97,800″
Dashmir,Zyli,Table 60 – Seat 9,”119,800″
Dave,Harvey,Table 63 – Seat 5,”32,300″
Denis,Quirion,Table 49 – Seat 1,”131,100″
Denis,Scott,Table 61 – Seat 4,”151,500″
Dominic,Champagne,Table 50 – Seat 2,”20,300″
Dominique,Prefontaine,Table 66 – Seat 4,”157,000″
Dustin,Melanson,Table 53 – Seat 3,”93,600″
Ema,Zajmovic,Table 61 – Seat 1,”71,200″
Eric,Afriat,Table 54 – Seat 3,”301,500″
Etienne,Leduc,Table 65 – Seat 6,”92,500″
Faisal,Khan,Table 60 – Seat 6,”214,900″
Franco,Sicondolfi,Table 59 – Seat 8,”57,100″
Frederic,Mercier,Table 65 – Seat 3,”129,600″
Frederic,Pierre,Table 55 – Seat 2,”250,400″
Gabriel,Vezina,Table 60 – Seat 8,”214,000″
Garen,Galanti,Table 66 – Seat 6,”115,700″
Geoffrey,Hum,Table 61 – Seat 6,”36,400″
George,Caragiorgas,Table 59 – Seat 5,”99,700″
Georges,Hallak,Table 49 – Seat 7,”192,100″
Geri,Casey,Table 52 – Seat 4,”35,700″
Giovanni,Massa,Table 59 – Seat 3,”183,000″
Guy,Chateauneuf,Table 49 – Seat 3,”88,000″
Hamid,Askarzada,Table 54 – Seat 6,”94,500″
Hiyaw,Gebreyohannes,Table 49 – Seat 8,”55,200″
Hubert,Paquet Moisan,Table 57 – Seat 7,”41,600″
Hugo,Fontaine,Table 55 – Seat 5,”155,200″
Ibrahim,Almalhi,Table 53 – Seat 9,”112,700″
Jacques,Iza,Table 62 – Seat 6,”58,200″
James,Rubin,Table 50 – Seat 7,”65,100″
Jamey,Allen,Table 62 – Seat 3,”146,200″
Jason,Comtois,Table 56 – Seat 8,”26,300″
Jason,Duval,Table 56 – Seat 9,”146,800″
Jason,Rivkin,Table 54 – Seat 8,”59,300″
Jay,Srinivasan,Table 64 – Seat 5,”116,700″
Jean Francois,Bouchard,Table 59 – Seat 1,”114,600″
Jean Louis,Forino,Table 56 – Seat 3,”135,800″
Jean-Philippe,Piquette,Table 62 – Seat 7,”26,300″
Joel,Moreau,Table 53 – Seat 5,”59,200″
Joey,Silver,Table 49 – Seat 4,”49,000″
Johnny,Mazzaferro,Table 52 – Seat 6,”45,700″
Jonathan,Brule,Table 66 – Seat 7,”113,500″
Jonathan,Bussieres,Table 60 – Seat 4,”44,000″
Jonathan,Cheung,Table 65 – Seat 2,”103,500″
Jonathan,Meyer,Table 59 – Seat 2,”302,900″
Jonathan,Poissant,Table 60 – Seat 2,”150,000″
Jonathan,Theriault,Table 55 – Seat 6,”36,000″
Jordan, Miraglia,Table 64 – Seat 9,”189,200″
Julian,Volpe,Table 64 – Seat 2,”123,700″
Kevin,Dawe,Table 49 – Seat 5,”75,900″
Kieu Hoa,Lam,Table 66 – Seat 5,”42,000″
Levi,Stevens,Table 66 – Seat 9,”34,700″
Levon,Dedeyan,Table 60 – Seat 7,”57,800″
Louis,Lam,Table 59 – Seat 7,”59,000″
Luciano,Iacovella,Table 52 – Seat 7,”53,800″
Lukas,Pasek,Table 66 – Seat 3,”80,800″
Mackenzie,McDonald,Table 49 – Seat 6,”126,000″
Marc Gabriel,Cyr,Table 53 – Seat 8,”91,300″
Marco,Lang,Table 56 – Seat 5,”68,100″
Marie-Pier,Simard,Table 53 – Seat 7,”63,800″
Mario,Lepine,Table 63 – Seat 4,”49,000″
Mathieu,Parent,Table 50 – Seat 5,”206,600″
Matthew,Brunskole,Table 55 – Seat 8,”35,500″
Maximilian,Droege,Table 53 – Seat 6,”122,100″
Michael,Antimisiaris,Table 66 – Seat 1,”297,000″
Michael,Bernard,Table 61 – Seat 8,”89,100″
Michael,Bryon,Table 50 – Seat 1,”135,700″
Michael,Noor,Table 65 – Seat 8,”83,100″
Mohammad,Vayani,Table 50 – Seat 6,”152,100″
Nabil,Assaff,Table 65 – Seat 7,”148,600″
Nader,Ammar,Table 62 – Seat 8,”69,000″
Nicholas,Soller,Table 63 – Seat 7,”120,300″
Nick,Nickoletopoulos,Table 57 – Seat 6,”41,200″
Nicola,Basile,Table 55 – Seat 3,”87,000″
Nicolas,Bastien,Table 57 – Seat 9,”179,100″
Nicolas,Belcourt,Table 57 – Seat 4,”228,200″
Norman,Doucette,Table 53 – Seat 2,”94,000″
Norman,Dowdall,Table 61 – Seat 9,”65,900″
Norman,Gauthier,Table 50 – Seat 4,”61,000″
Omid,Shahbazian,Table 55 – Seat 1,”46,400″
Omkar,Deshmukh,Table 56 – Seat 6,”35,000″
Osman,Soubra,Table 54 – Seat 1,”77,000″
Patrick,Atallah,Table 62 – Seat 1,”26,600″
Philip Richard,Elliot,Table 53 – Seat 1,”123,100″
Philippe,Lefrancois,Table 54 – Seat 4,”134,800″
Pierre Marc,Chadi,Table 64 – Seat 6,”212,900″
Quyen,Dao,Table 64 – Seat 7,”98,000″
Rick,Shamshoum,Table 65 – Seat 9,”142,000″
Rodney,Hollett,Table 50 – Seat 3,”35,700″
Rodney,Lawrence,Table 66 – Seat 2,”82,300″
Rodney,Ramalho,Table 49 – Seat 2,”222,400″
Ron,G,Table 63 – Seat 2,”271,600″
Ron,Shepherd,Table 57 – Seat 1,”274,300″
Rong,Xu,Table 50 – Seat 8,”70,200″
Samuel,Chartier,Table 57 – Seat 5,”115,900″
Samuel,Picard,Table 64 – Seat 1,”56,600″
Sean,Windover,Table 65 – Seat 5,”88,400″
Sebastien,beaulieu-Amyot,Table 63 – Seat 6,”24,900″
Serge,Pouliot,Table 60 – Seat 5,”369,500″
Sergio,Vigano,Table 61 – Seat 7,”44,600″
Shaan,Siddiqui,Table 61 – Seat 2,”45,000″
Shakeeb,Kazemipur,Table 57 – Seat 8,”74,900″
Shane,Flewelling,Table 66 – Seat 8,”195,500″
Shawn A,Martell,Table 60 – Seat 1,”258,700″
Siamak,Soleimanian,Table 62 – Seat 9,”142,500″
Stephanie,Hubbard,Table 59 – Seat 4,”45,200″
Stephen R,Smith,Table 57 – Seat 2,”61,300″
Stephen,Baker,Table 54 – Seat 2,”61,000″
Steve,Toulch,Table 52 – Seat 8,”66,300″
Tianshu,Liu,Table 56 – Seat 1,”127,000″
Tom,Kim Tien,Table 62 – Seat 2,”75,700″
Tony,Stratopoulos,Table 61 – Seat 5,”39,100″
Troy,Hamilton,Table 65 – Seat 1,”110,800″
Vince,Dwyer,Table 52 – Seat 5,”24,000″
Yan,Touchette,Table 52 – Seat 3,”56,400″
[/eztable]
