The morning flight is turning out to have a strong start, there are many local regs as well a lot of Playground’s out of town friends who drove a few hours in today’s sunshine to be part of the action. There are also a few past event champions in the field, and many others who are well known to go deep in past Playground events, so, needless to say, we are expecting a lot of aggressive poker action as the day progresses.
Here are a few shots of the field in level 3:
Action is underway as the tournament floor has just announced, “dealers, shuffle up and deal”. Players are steadily filling the tournament room and we are now already at 59 entries, which is the strongest start so far in the series for a Day 1!
Players have until 2:15 PM to jump into the action, so there is plenty of time to make your way down here. This is also a re-entry tournament, so just in case the poker God isn’t friendly to you in the early levels, you can always jump right back in to the action. We are expecting today’s turnout to be quite strong, and, there is still one more flight tonight at 7 PM (Day 1D).
During heads-up play, the players decided to make another small deal; instead of $400 going to 1st place, they agreed to re-adjust and leave $300 for 1st and $100 for 2nd.
The two players battled back and forth for an orbit or two, and finally they were both all-in: Jonathan had 
and Normand had 
. Jonathan was happy to smash the 
flop, hitting 2 pair, but as seasoned tournament poker players know, in most all-in situations, there seems to always be a sweat. He was not happy to see the spade draw and wanted the dealer to keep it clean. The 
on the turn was a brick, but the 
on the river made a flush for Normand, and, all of the sudden, we had our champion.
Event #3 Champion: Normand Plessis Belair, $1,715
Last hand of play
2nd place: Jonathan English, $1,500
Right after the players made a deal, play loosened up and we started to see a lot more flops. A 3-way all in developed when Alam shoved his 248K stack and both Matthew Willard and Normand Plessis-Belair also went all-in. Alam had 
, Matthew opened up 
, and Normand had 
. As fortune would have it, the runout was 
, and, Alam tripled up his stack while Matthew was eliminated in 4th place.
A few orbits later, the tables turned, as Alam got it in with 
and was called by Jonathan English who had , Alam couldn’t find any help with the 
board. He was crippled as most of his chips shifted to Jonathan. A few hands later he busted out in 3rd.
Just a few hands after the last elimination, the remaining four players asked tournament staff to pause the clock so they could discuss a deal. The minimum that needed to be reserved for the winner in this tournament (according to the tournament rules) was about $170, but everyone was happy to reserve quite a bit more than that – they settled on $400 for the winner – and to distribute the rest of the prize pool via ICM chop.
Play continues 4-handed.
Matthew Lakins was starting to blind down and when action folded his sb he decided it was time to go for it. He shoved his remaining chips with two broadway cards, 
only to discover his timing could not have been any worse; Jonathan English woke up with 
in the bb and and made the call. The board ran out 
and Matthew finished in 6th for a $520 payday.
On the very next hand, Jonathan English once again picked up a pair of cowboys, but had no callers.
Then Judith Bombardier shoved her remaining stack with suited connectors, 
and was called by Matthew Willard with his . The board of 
was of no help to Judith and she exited the tournament in 5th place for $680.
