We went to the felts during the break between levels 11 and 12 to see how the chips stacked up. Jonathan Brazeau is in the lead with 207,600 chips. Hot on his tail are Alexandre Ruest, with 174,700 and Marc Petit, with 165,700.

The 77 players remaining in the tournament are resuming play and we expect things to heat up considerably in the last 3 levels before the bags come out.

As the players head into the final minutes of level 11 before the break, the action is fast, strong and unforgiving.

The action flared up on table #35 between Vera G. and Abdulkadir Abdurazak Mohammed. We missed the initial action but the red all-in cards were out and Vera was opening up her pocket aces . Abdulkadir knew he was in trouble, holding pocket eights .

As the board was gradually revealed: , Vera’s smile started to fade. All eyes were riveted on the dealer as he brought the on the turn. Relief flooded Vera’s face when the arrived on the river. Considering that a few levels ago Vera was down to barely 30K, he new 140K stack was pushed up proudly against the rail.

The players are coming back from their second break and Marc Petit has jumped ahead of the competition and is now sitting behind more than 150,000 chips. With the average at 41K he is definitely in a nice position.

For now, the only other player above the 100K mark is Jeffrey Joseph Gerald Joubert. Joubert, who is having a great run today, was also on the previous leaderboard from the first break.

The number of players is going down steadily as we approach the 2nd break. The 134 players are keeping things interesting and we can’t wait to see who’s got the chips!

Here are a few more photos from levels 7 and 8.

In total 207 entries were logged, including 35 re-entries, and the registration period is now closed.  There are now 135 players remaining and the heat is on.  Players are being sent to the rail at a constant pace, and every hand counts on the path to glory.

We witnessed a hand on table #31.  When we arrived at the table, Diana Shamshoum was deep in thought.  She was facing a considerable all-in from Saman Saryazdi.  Diana was obviously undecided, giving the distinct impression that her hand was not very strong.  Nevertheless, she decided to call and tabled her hand: .  Saman didn’t seem too worried as he pushed his cards out:

The flop didn’t help either player.  Now Saman only needed to dodge jacks, fours, two consecutive hearts or an Ace-three combo.  When the on the turn was exposed, Saman sighed and started to get up.  With no help from the on the river, he was sent to the rail.

We didn’t hear the final all-in amount but it took two separate scoops from dealer to transfer all the chips to Diana.  After this hand, her stack leveled off to approximately 66K, roughly double the average.

The boards are now showing more than 200 entries for this last Day 1 of the Playground 200, with just a few minutes left before the end of the registration period.

With the average hovering around 33K, Kevin Cote’s 18,200 all-in had the players of table #38 putting on their thinking caps.

In the end, all the players folded except Mohamed Ben Yahia. Mohamed decided to call after a short reflection and turned over .

Kevin felt relatively good tabling his but his heart sank on the flop. With his flush option out the door, Keven knew he needed some help from lady luck. Unfortunately for him, the on the turn and the on the river spelled the end of he line.

So Mohamed Ben Yahia adds an important stack of chips to his increasing pile as we head into level 7 in a few minutes.