Play has just finished on Day 2 of the Playground 200. The Playground 200 drew 607 total entries from the combined Day 1s, and there were 126 players in field to start Day 2. By the time the buzzer sounded to signal the end of play, only 9 players remained so tomorrow’s Day 3 will begin with the final table.
The field shrank quickly in the early levels, getting past the money bubble before the first break of the day. The hand-for-hand play on the money bubble can sometimes bring big tournaments to a virtual standstill, but it only took one hand for the bubble to burst on this event so the action carried on without delay. From there the field continued to shrink steadily, as many players were looking to ratchet up their winnings. The end of the day was punctuated by a flurry of action that reduced the field to the final nine players who will return tomorrow evening to compete for the $22,286.00 first prize.
Someone in the field will also win a little something extra, thanks to partypoker last-longer free roll. The last player in the field wearing the partypoker LIVE patch will automatically win a $530.00 final satellite ticket for the upcoming MILLIONS North America, and there are several patches remaining amongst the final nine players.
Two players stood out in the field today: Eric Lupovich and Hassan Salha. Lupovich has been one of the chip leaders throughout the tournament and continued to accumulate chips steadily this afternoon to remain among the chip leaders. Hassan Salha, who currently holds a big chip lead on the field, went through a few cycles of boom and bust today. He went from being a big stack early to a short stack after losing a huge pot in level 20. But he found a way to build it up again and was able to maintain one of the leading stacks throughout the final three tables.
Play resumes tomorrow at 7:00pm.
Here are the chip counts for the final table:
| First Name | Last Name | Chip Count |
|---|---|---|
| Hassan | Salha | 4,440,000 |
| Rabah | Al-Nasseri | 2,100,000 |
| Bruno | Blanchette | 1,465,000 |
| Elvira | Popescu | 1,400,000 |
| Alexandre | Nadeau-Levesque | 1,365,000 |
| Adamo | Giroux | 1,275,000 |
| Eric | Lupovich | 1,235,000 |
| Shawn | S | 1,205,000 |
| Isham | Yamani | 705,000 |
and, before long, all the chips went in. Abriol made a continuation bet of 150K and Popescu, who had the bigger stack going in to the hand, raised all in. Abriol called immediately and hands were tabled.
turn and 
river did not provide Abriol’s one-outer, and he hit the rail in 12th place. He will take home $1,860.00 for his trouble.
. Salha was first to act and led the way with a bet of 35K. Popescu flat called, and Normandin put in a raise to 75K. This raise forced Salha out of the pot, and the action was back to Popescu who raised all in. Popescu emerged from day 1 with a large stack and found a way to maintain her momentum throughout Day 2 to remain one of the larger stacks all day. She had Normandin covered, putting him in a difficult spot, but with so many chips in the middle Normandin found himself committed and made the call.
, offered no help for Normandin, and Popescu collected another huge pot.
. Shein’s opponent flopped a king and Shein made his way to the counter to collect his ticket, only to be called back to the table because he had less than one big blind remaining. Despite the micro stack, Shein managed to be ahead when his tournament life was finally at risk when he woke up with an ace, but it was not enough and Shein’s opponent hit the board and the pair sent Shein to the rail.