The chips are flying in the early levels of Day 1A. The players have clearly opened up their ranges and some surprising hands are being tabled at showdown.

A hand that just played out offers a case in point: When the blinds were 200/400, moved all in before the flop on a 3-bet from the button. His relatively short stack raise drew two more all-ins over the top from Imram Ali Hussain and Nabil Nahoul. The other players at the table looked dumbfounded when they saw the hands tabled; they were expecting a cooler spot involving some big pairs and maybe big slick, but the cards told another story.

Hus sheepishly tabled his , probably expecting to be behind in this situation. Hussain showed , and Nahoul flipped over . It turns out ace high was in the lead!

It was a dream board for, , and he tripled up his stack.

The action continues in level 7, and the late registration period has just ended with 144 players in the field.

The players are off on their first break on Day 1A of the Playground 200. The turnout of 124 players puts 3.1 million chips in play at this point so expect a number of big stacks to emerge by the time the players are bagging chips.

The play has been fast and aggressive from the first level, and 10 players already opted to fire a second bullet. Many players have built imposing stacks at this stage, but a handful stand well above the field with more than double the chip average at this stage.

The field continues to grow as we enter the fourth level of play on Day 1A of the Playground 200. In the past, we’ve seen that some players take a “wait and see” approach to the first flight of any multi-day tournament, but with unlimited re-entries and an extended late registration period, there are lots of reasons to join the fray sooner rather than later.

There are lots of chips in play in this first starting flight with 118 entries so far. Players can re-enter on subsequent Day 1s if they bag chips tonight but want to try to run up a bigger stack for Sunday’s Day 2.

There is still time to make it to Playground to join the field before the late registration (and re-entry) period ends at 10:15pm.

Here are a few more photos from the early levels:

The first starting flight of the Playground 200 is off to a great start with over 100 entries after two levels of play. This event features an extended late registration period, during which players can also re-enter the tournament as many times as the like, so expect the number of entries to continue to tick up right up until the 10:15pm cut off.

This event also offers some added value for the players in the form of a last-longer freeroll offered by partypoker. Sign up with partypoker LIVE and their representatives will set you up with a partypoker LIVE patch; the last player remaining in the Playground 200 wearing the patch will win a $530.00 satellite ticket for the upcoming MILLIONS North America!

Here’s a look at the field so far: