The players are slowly heading out of the tournament hall for a well deserved break, after 8 levels of play. When they return there will be 6 levels of play remaining, roughly three hours. This is usually when the tides start turning for a lot of shorter stacks, as the blinds increase gradually and the larger stacks turn up the pressure.

Since the last time we updated the leaderboard, four players have stacked more than 100K chips. The only player to make a second appearance on the board is Frederik Levesque, but he is trailing his other three opponents. Bill Kontaratos, one of Playground Poker’s regular players, has taken the lead with a very decent stack of 143,200.

There will be a last break between levels 11 and 12 and we’ll be sure to keep the leaderboard up to date.

Play is now steady and strong, as the players attempt to increases their resources enough to allow them to bag chips tonight.

The registration period is now closed. Tonight, this 3rd flight of Day 1’s, attracted 98 entries, including 9 re-entries. There are now 2,450,000 chips in play as we reach the half-way mark.

So far, 29 players have emerged from the initial Day 1 flights, with Ruben Perceval who bagged 187,500 chips in Day 1 (online) and Douglas Best who managed a hefty 314,000 chips stack from Day 1A. There is still a chance to qualify by playing the last Day 1’S tomorrow, at 1:00pm and 7:00pm. Day 2 will get underway Saturday, February 23rd, at 1:00pm. Tonight at approximately 2:45 am we will see who manages to add their name to the list for Day 2.

Here are a few more photos of the players, from level 7.

With only 7 minutes left to register, the heat is definitely turning up at the tables. We caught an important hand at table #33 between two of the previous leaders: Frederik Levesque and Karim-Olivier Kamal. With blinds at 200/400+400, both players called a preflop raise to 1,400 from Jean-Pascal Gauthier. On the everyone checked to Frederik, who bet 1,900. Karim wasted no time before raising to 7,600. The only other two players in the hand folded, and Frederik called instantly.

The dealer paired the board with a on the turn, and both players checked. The river, a , earned a check from Karim, while Frederik calmly bet 7,600, and waited for his opponent to respond. After a few seconds Karim threw in a single chip, clearly indicating a call. A small smile crept to the corner of Frederik’s mouth as he tapped the table and said:”good call”, while tabling his hand: . Karim wasted no time flipping open his winning hand: for 2 pairs.

Leader at the last break, Frederik Levesque had managed to add enough chips to his stack since play resumed because after the hand was over, he was still left with more than 65,000 chips. Karim gladly added the spoils to his own riches and ended up with a decent 85K+ stack.

No sooner was this hand over that the echoes of 3 short “all in’s” by table #37’s dealer were heard. We arrived at the table to witness the 3-way all in that spelled the end for Christian Soucy and Donald Abdelhay at the hand of Hubert Nadeau.
Donald:
Christian:
Hubert:

Board:

This was a much-needed win for Nadeau who’s all in was 11,325 and barely covered his 2 opponents.

The tournament hall is buzzing with 71 players still seated in Day 1B of the Playground 200.

At this point the boards are showing 91 entries, including 7 re-entries. With 2,750,000 chips in play, every player here has a chance at a shot for Day 2. As the clock for late registration slowly dwindles down, we took the opportunity to get a few photos of our players.

The 74 players took a short break and we went to see where the chips are stacked. With the average hovering just around 30K, we found 4 players who have managed to scoop 60K or more.

Frederik Levesque is in the lead as the only player above 70K, with a stack of 73,250. His closest rivals are showing no signs of letting off anytime soon.

Play will resume shortly and it will be interesting to see if our front runners hang to their lead or not. Players still have until approximately 10:30 pm to register or re-enter.

Here is our leaderboard:

The 64 players in this flight of the Playground 200 have adopted a steady pace, and the action is soft, for now. As everyone knows, anything and everything is bound to happen in poker.

Tonight players start with 25,000 chips and may re-enter as many times as they wish since this event has unlimited re-entries for all Day 1 flights. The tournament is 10-handed on all Day 1’s, whereas Day 2 and Day 3 will have 9-handed and 8-handed action respectively. The sum of $4,965 will be withheld from the prize pool, to be redistributed to the top 3 finishers in the form of three seats for the next MILLION STEP 3 satellite.

We are now at the midway mark of level 2 and there has only been one elimination. The player obviously elected to try a second bullet, since the boards show 1 re-entry. Here are a few photos of the early stages of level 1.