Play in the Playground 200 moved to hand-for-hand action immediately coming out of the players’ first break of the day, and 2 minutes would be wound off the clock for each hand starting at 40 minutes remaining in the new level. There were several short-stacked players, during the first two hands, including Ivan Driard who, on his bb, had just 4,000 chips behind – but he and the others managed to double up and stave off elimination for at least another few hands…
Hand-for-hand started with 73 players remaining and the first elimination came relatively quickly. Frederic Normand got it in against Jahkheem Polydore and had his 
beat by Jahkheem’s 
on a 
board runout. Frederic’s elimination brought the field to 72 players, and while play was still paused, table 25 was broken and all of the tables resumed play in a few moments with exactly 9 players seated per table.
About 7 hands in, on the same table where Ivan was nursing his tiny stack, a hand developed that would take the Playground 200 the rest of the way into the money. Nassim K was all in and he had two customers, John Arauja and William Pauzé, both of whom covered him. Both players had called and the flop was dealt.
Flop: 
.
This time it was John’s turn to shove his dominant stack, and William made the call. All three players’ hands were tabled.
Nassim: 
John: 
William: 
John had out-flopped both of his opponents and after the virtual formalities of the 
turn and river, he stacked the chips and William and Nassim were eliminated. Because both players were on the same table, the 71st place prize went to William, whose stack was greater than Nassim’s. Nassim – was the unfortunate bubble player in the tournament. And short-stacked Ivan managed to sneak his way into the money!
Everyone else is now in the money! Congratulations!
