Event 4 is down to 18 players, and this means hand-for-hand is in effect.

Photographs from levels 18 and 19:

Day 2 of the $300 + $30 Freeze-out is in level 18 now, and the field has been reduced to it’s final 3 tables.

Photographs from level 17:

Local player Xin Qi started the day as one of the shorter stacks, but he has been active to start the night and has grown his stack to just around the tournament average.

The first hand was a save – from the cutoff, Xin shoved 18.5K and was called by Joseph Abou Khalil (one of the chip leaders).

Xin:
Joseph:

It was a very nice spot for Xin and the community cards were safe: .

A few hands later, Nicolas Belcourt raised his button to 12K and Xin (big blind) shoved – and got an instant call in response. Nicolas showed while Xin would need some help, holding just .

He got all the help he needed by the river as the flop of gave Xin the gunshot draw which didn’t hit on the turn – – but did appear on the river .

Two of the chip leaders just clashed in what turned out to be a huge pot. Eric Guindon opened the action with a raise to 15,500 from utg. He was called by Joseph Abou Khalil from middle position, and they went heads-up to the flop.

With the board showing , Eric placed a c-bet of 25,000 which was called by Joseph. The turn brought the , and Eric followed up with another bet, this time of 50,000. Joseph came over the top by announcing all-in, and after a moment of hesitation, Eric made the call.

Eric:

Joseph:

With only four cards that can help Eric, he was eliminated as the river brought a meaningless . With that pot, Joseph leaped far ahead of the field, sitting on just about 400,000.

Event 4 has resumed and cards are flying – both playing cards and metal All-In cards (or as some have called them, Quadrilaterals of Death)!

Amazingly, the first player to be eliminated tonight was NOT J-F Lescadres, who started tonight with just 6 antes in his stack. He didn’t return to claim his tiny stack but had a couple of hands before he was in the big blind position (and therefore all-in blind) and another player was eliminated before he was.

One of the other early eliminations was Domenico Agatiello. Agi lost most of his stack after raising to 12K from middle position and the big blind defended by shoving over the top. Agi thought for a few seconds but finally called – holding . The player in the big blind was ahead with .

The community cards fell and Agi was crippled. One hand later he lost the rest of his chips as a player raised pre to 12K, and Agi shoved with . The board was no help and he was eliminated.

There have been many other big clashes already tonight, including a huge hand between two of the chip leaders – details coming soon!

Players are now making their way into the Tournament Hall to take their seats for Day 2 of the $300 + $30 Freeze. The tournament will resume in just over 5 minutes with 37 players left in the action, playing for a share of the $48,015 prize pool.

The bubble player will be the one who is eliminated in 18th place – and if past events are any indication, we should reach the bubble relatively quickly with action slowing down only as the final table bubble approaches.

Play will resume in level 17 with blinds at 2.5K and 5K and a 500 chip ante each hand. Blind levels will also increase to 30 minutes to start the night, and remain so until the end of the tournament

Good luck to the players tonight!

This is the official seating chart for Day 2 of Event 4, a $300 + $30 NL Hold’em Freeze tournament in the Playground Winter Festival.

Through 16 levels of play on Day 1, the 165 players who started was reduced to 37 players remaining in the event. These players will take their seats this evening at 7pm to play the event out to its conclusion.

Click (or tap) on any column header to sort this table.

[eztable width=”100%” colwidth=”25%|25%|30%|20%” colalign=”left|left|left|right”]
First Name,Last Name,Seat [attr sort=”asc”],Chip Count
Eric,Guindon,Table 38 – Seat 4,”190500″
Joseph,Abou Khalil,Table 38 – Seat 6,”187500″
Peter,Bodnar,Table 37 – Seat 1,”186000″
Georges,Rombotis,Table 39 – Seat 7,”171000″
Sarabdeep,Ahluwalia,Table 34 – Seat 4,”154000″
Andreas,Loubounakis,Table 39 – Seat 2,”153000″
Said,Nehme,Table 37 – Seat 5,”150000″
Marc-Olivier,Carpentier-Perrault,Table 34 – Seat 2,”119500″
Nicolas,Belcourt,Table 38 – Seat 2,”117500″
Edward,Hislop,Table 33 – Seat 8,”115500″
Rong,Xu,Table 39 – Seat 9,”111500″
Raymond,Kay,Table 37 – Seat 8,”109500″
Martial,Bonnaire,Table 39 – Seat 6,”98000″
N,T,Table 39 – Seat 5,”94500″
Guglielmo Mino,Dall Osto,Table 34 – Seat 1,”93000″
Martin,Peltier,Table 37 – Seat 4,”85000″
Daniel,Schreiber,Table 37 – Seat 7,”82000″
Kevin,Macphee,Table 37 – Seat 2,”75500″
Samuel,Picard,Table 34 – Seat 7,”75500″
Debra Ann,Holman,Table 34 – Seat 5,”72000″
Dean,Murphy,Table 33 – Seat 1,”71400″
Jean-Philippe,Lehoux,Table 33 – Seat 4,”71000″
Linda,Huard,Table 38 – Seat 8,”68000″
Michael,Korovine,Table 38 – Seat 7,”67500″
Hiyaw,Gebreyohannes,Table 33 – Seat 9,”65000″
Maxime,Siegmann,Table 39 – Seat 1,”59500″
Frederic,Cossette,Table 33 – Seat 6,”59000″
Kathy,Sawers,Table 33 – Seat 7,”54000″
Domenico,Agatiello,Table 39 – Seat 8,”53500″
Maxime,Laberge,Table 33 – Seat 2,”51000″
Richard,Elias,Table 33 – Seat 5,”51000″
Patrice,Mailloux,Table 39 – Seat 4,”49000″
Levi,Stevens,Table 34 – Seat 8,”42000″
Marie-Pier,Simard,Table 37 – Seat 6,”38000″
Xin,Qi,Table 38 – Seat 5,”28500″
Daniel,Mackay,Table 38 – Seat 1,”21000″
Jean-Francois,Lescadres,Table 34 – Seat 6,”3000″
[/eztable]

Players in Event 4 have just returned from a break and we found a clear chip leader among the 86 players remaining plus another two players with stacks greater than twice the average – and the rest of the field trailing behind.

1. Mino Dall Osto – 141K
2. Joseph Abou Khalil – 89K
3. Sarabdeep Ahluwalia – 85K

Here are some photos from Event 4 – $300 + $30 freeze-out: