Event #1 – $100 + $10 8-Max Re-entry

A champion is crowned in the 8-Max Re-entry

2019/02/20 - 20:35 by Bob T

An epic heads-up battle took place between Jean-Pascal Gauthier and Anish Sood to close out the action in Event #1 in the February 2019 Playground Power Weekend. Along the way, the two remaining players looked at the ICM chop numbers, but in the end, they decided to just play on.

Anish was dominating up until the last hand before break, but with only 10 seconds to go before the break was to start, an important hand was dealt. Anish was on the button and looked down at and shoved. Jean-Pascal woke up with and, as expected, snap called! The Queens held and Jean-Pascal received a nice double-up, adding almost 300k to his stack.

Returning from their last break, chips moved back and forth until Anish went all in with Big Slick. Jean-Pascal called, holding a hand that was clearly dominated: King high, 8 kicker. The dealer fanned out a King-high flop with a spade draw, before turning an 8 and giving Jean-Pascal the lead. The river was a brick and Jean-Pascal became the chip leader.

The last hand played out with Anish holding against Jean-Pascal’s . The board came , giving Jean-Pascal a Q-high straight for the win. Congratulations!

Event # 1 Champion: Jean-Pascal Gauthier, $1,741

Last hand of play:

2nd place: Anish Sood, $1,290

We are now heads-up!

Level: 19
Small Blind: 10K
Big Blind: 20K
BB Ante: 10K
Chip Average: 630,000
Remaining: 2
Entries: 63

2019/02/20 - 19:07 by Bob T

The action has been pretty standard over the last few levels on this three-handed final table, with lot’s of “shove-folds” going on.

Jacques Pilon was starting to feel the pressure as he was watching his stack drop in size and finally decided to shove on the button. Anish Kumar Sood, who has been the most aggressive player of this final table, gave it a quick thought and threw in a calling chip.

The cards were tabled: Jacques had shoved , and, Anish called with . When Anish saw what he was up against, he said in whisper, “good to see”.

The dealer spread out a board of: and the chips were pushed to Anish. Jacques collected $960 for his afternoon grind, a nice payday for an afternoon of poker.

Three handed as the eliminations continue

Level: 17
Small Blind: 6K
Big Blind: 12K
BB Ante: 6K
Chip Average: 420,000
Remaining: 3
Entries: 63

2019/02/20 - 18:32 by Bob T

The pressure has been mounting while the blinds keep rising; we have now lost Christopher Lefebvre in 7th place ($290), followed by Raphael Tran Dinh in 6th place ($390), Chris Arvanitis in 5th ($520), and Francois Nicolas in 4th ($710).

Anish Kumar Sood has re-gained the chip lead and is now battling back and forth with Jacques Pilon and Jean-Pascal Gauthier. The chip average is still 35 bb’s so there is still a lot of room for some good poker action.

Final table chip counts

Level: 15
Small Blind: 4K
Big Blind: 8K
BB Ante: 0
Chip Average: 180,000
Remaining: 7
Entries: 63

2019/02/20 - 17:50 by Bob T

There have been two eliminations so far on the final table, George Cowe was the “bubble boy” collecting $180, and Yvon Robert Blais just collected $210 for finishing in 8th place.

Here are the final table players with their chip counts:

First Name \| Prénom	Last Name \| Nom	Stack \| Tapis
Jacques	Pilon	320,000
Jean-Pacal	Gauthier	275,000
Chris	Arvinitis	194,000
Francois	Nicolas	149,000
Raphael	Tran Dinh	130,000
Anish	Sood	101,000
Christopher	Lefebvre	74,000

We have a final table!

Level: 14
Small Blind: 3K
Big Blind: 6K
BB Ante: 6K
Chip Average: 157.5K
Remaining: 8
Entries: 63

2019/02/20 - 17:15 by Bob T

Action was 10 handed, split between 2 tables, until Line Desjardins succumbed to fate, today just wasn’t her day to make the final table. Line picked up and was all-in pre-flop, only to be snapped called by one of the larger stacks who was lucky enough to look down at . The board ran out and Line’s tournament run came to an end.

The official final table in an 8-Max event is played out 9 handed, and since only 8 places were to be paid, the players agreed to make a “bubble deal” by each contributing $20, so the next player out will walk away with $180.

The field is thinning

Level: 13
Small Blind: 2K
Big Blind: 4K
BB Ante: 4K
Chip Average: 126,000
Remaining: 10
Entries: 63

2019/02/20 - 16:34 by Bob T

The tournament is now down to 14 players of which the top 8 will be paid. As expected, the short stacks have been shoving, some have been successful and are still alive, a few others have now exited the tournament room. The mood has been casual yet at the same time focused as everyone wants a piece of the prize pool pie.

Here is a look of a few of the players that were still in in level 12: