Day 1A of the Playground 200 just came to a close. 222 entries were accounted for, a record-breaking Day 1A in this tournament. Except for one wild table, the night started pretty slow. With a 25K stack to enjoy and 30-minute levels to work with, participants were playing the long game.

Our first-break leader, François Gobeil, was passed by Tommy Morissette-Lizotte and Habib Rachidi Alaoui in the 2nd stint, but managed to stay close to the top dogs all night, and finished in 4th place, just under our 300K+ trio.

Tomas Magni, known at Playground Poker Club for his big-league play on both cash games and tournaments, joined during level 6, started off strong, and never looked back. He finished with an impressive 389,500, good for the lead.

Here is our top 3:

1. Tomas Magni – 389,500
2. Richard Berenbaum – 350,500
3. Benoit Larochelle Legrand – 345,000

46 names will be added to the qualifiers list, found here. The Playground 200 resumes tomorrow night with Day 1B, and Day 2 is set for Sunday at 12:00PM. Congratulations to all survivors!

We did not catch the action on this hand, but arrived just in time to see the losing hand being mucked by the dealer:

Vivo L:

The dealer had counted 55K in Daniel Germain‘s stack, and Vivo was struggling to get to the right number, shocked by what had fallen on him.

Daniel:

Board:

A 3-way pre-flop all-in involving Mitcheal Ferguson, Haitham Masri and Raphaël Ohayon ended in favor of the biggest stack. Masri opened his hand first. Ferguson, who finished 6th in this afternoon’s Mix Max Event, then showed his over cards and looked at Ohayon, who opened last with the goods.

Masri:
Ferguson:
Ohayon:

Board:

Tommy Morissette-Lizotte is on a mission. His stack is only going one way: up. He is still leading Day 1A of the Playground 200, but François Gobeil is not too far behind, having added a nice run to a good start. Gregory Ducharme and Tomas Magni round up our top 4 at the last break, sitting at the same table.

When Tommy Morissette-Lizotte’s table was broken, chance sent him on Habib Rachidi Alaoui’s table. We caught a hand where both were involved. Habib placed a 14.5K bet on the flop, which was called by Tommy. A 3rd player, Dominic Boucher, decided to put the pressure on the monster stacks, not intimidated by their fortune. He shoved 49K, sending Habib to the tank. After some time during which Habib and Tommy were trying to size each other up, Habib folded, and Tommy reassessed the situation. He did some math and called.

Dominic:
Tommy:

Board:

Boucher did the right thing, but was forced to walk away with nothing more than a David and Goliath story.

Habib Rachidi Alaoui, whose stack climbed to greatness with a set of fives earlier, and Tommy Morissette-Lizotte have both managed to crush their respective table and are now extremely comfortable on top of the leaderboard.

During the 2nd break, we found 8 stacks over 100K: