After 14 levels of play, Day 1A in the Playground 200 has come to a close. Of the 94 entries in this first of four starting flights, there were 22 Day 2 qualifiers including Douglas Best, Nicola Spinelli, and Ivan Driard (pictured), who each have amassed more than 200,000 chips – in fact, Douglas is over the 300K mark.

These players have all qualified for Day 2 in the event, which is slated to begin at 1:00pm on Saturday February

Players may consult the Combined Day 1 results for a complete list of results.

Here are a few late-night photos from Day 1A of the February 2019 edition of the Playground 200.

The players are now taking their final break, and while doing chip counts among the remaining 32 stacks, we found quite a few players with very competitive stacks, including the current chip leader Joseph Abou Khalil, who is playing 186,500 chips.

We arrived at table 35 with a player in early position having laid out a 16K bet on the river on a board reading and the player on the button – Mathieu Bouvret – was in the tank… but not for too long. Eventually, he grabbed one of his smaller stacks of purple T500 chips and stabbed it down in front of him while simultaneously declaring, “all in”. His opponent simply flipped a single chip in the middle by way of a call.

Mathieu:
Opponent:

The stealthily-made full house had the upper hand, and when the stacks were counted down, Mathieu had 55,600 chips behind – exactly 600 chips more than his adversary, who was eliminated on the following hand.

There’s a break in Day 1A and with 52 players remaining in tonight’s first of four Live starting flights in the event, just two players have (so far) moved into the 6 figure zone. There are a number of players in the neighbourhood of 75K-95K – just one pot more could get any of these players past this threshold as play is set to get underway in level 9.

Here are some additional photos of players taken towards the end of level 8.

Play has now moved into level 7 in Day 1A of the Playground 200, and with the turn of the clock came the end of the late registration period in the tournament. The final total number of entries tonight was 94 – a normal-sized starting flight for a Day 1A in a multi-day tourney.

The play so far has seemed relatively conservative so far, with hands like the following indicative of what can be seen on tables throughout the Tournament Hall. There were 5 players to a flop of when we arrived at the table, and action checked around to Steven Dubois-Daigle on the button, who bet 1,300. Josef Ares in Seat 2 made the call and the other players folded – the hand was now heads up. The turn was the and the action was a simple check-check, and likewise on the river . Josef showed for Ace high while Steven took the small but slightly inflated pot down with his .