The bubble hand occurred in the first hand back from break. All of the tables still in the event were displaying their red lights to indicate that the hand was over – all except for one table at the extreme left-hand side of the group of tournament tables, in a row all by itself. A hand had developed between Murielle Viau and Alexandre Pruneau – who qualified for Day 2 on partypoker last Sunday. Alexandre was at risk and waiting for the tournament director to give the OK to continue with the hand.

We arrived at the table just when the players had been instructed to reveal their hands and the pause was lifted:

Alexandre:
Murielle:

Alexandre was in a hole, and it got deeper on the flop of . The on the turn gave him some additional outs – but the on the river was the end of the road for Alexandre.

The tournament is down to 89 players left – the clock was paused to move to hand for hand action with just 1 minute left before the break. When the clock was paused, one of the tables that had yet to finish took a while to wrap up, so the tournament director chose to send everyone on break and begin hand-for-hand action when the players return.

During the break, tournament staff removed the purple T500 chips from play an introduced the blue T25,000 chip into play. We also managed to get an accurate list of the current chip leaders:

• Benoit Larochelle Legrand – 632,000
• Martin Demondehare – 618,000
• Dominic Boucher – 560,000
• Pierre Lauze – 504,000

Play is resuming now…

Play is now in level 17 and the tournament is just 11 players off the bubble. During the first two levels today, two players have managed to build up stacks hovering around the 500,000 chip mark – Benoit Larochelle Legrand and Pierre Lauze – with Dominic Boucher challenging with over 400K in his stack.

The first 40-minute level played today has just concluded and from 156 players who started the day, just 122 remain – 34 players were eliminated in the first level (plus about 5 minutes). This takes the tournament about half way from where it started today to the money bubble, and although play should slow down slightly, we’ll be in the bubble zone within the next two levels, three at the outside.

Here is a gallery of some of the players today.

Most of the players have arrived on time for the Day 2 restart – although as usual there are a few stragglers – and now that the chips have been unbagged and re-stacked, and with tournament director announcements having been made… cards are now in the air!

One of the players who hasn’t made it is the chip leader today, Tomas Larivee Magni – but he has enough chips to start to miss a hand or two…

Play on Day 2 will be 9-handed and blinds are 40 minutes in length. Play today is slated to continue through 10 levels today, at which time the remaining players will bag up their chips for Day 3.

In just 15 minutes, action will resume in the July Power Weekend 2018 edition of the Playground 200. 156 players will take their spot at one of 18 tables in the Tournament Hall here at Playground Poker Club, all of them vying for a spot in the money, and later to reserve a seat in Day 3 of the event and the big money positions. With $330 set to be paid for a min-cash and $24,792 up top for the eventual winner, there’s a lot to play for!

The tournament will pay 88 players, so a little more than half of the players who start today will achieve the first goal – a tournament cash. With only 68 players to be eliminated before the bubble arrives, the pressure will be on most of the players from almost the beginning of play on Day 2. Typically there is a flurry of eliminations in the first level, which could easily take the event half-way to the bubble, and then the pressure will definitely be on the entire field.

Tomas Larivee Magni starts the day in the driver’s seat with a stack of 389,000 – a 130bb stack. He’s one of just 4 players that will start the day with a stack of greater and 100bb, and only 13 players have double the tournament chip average to start the day. Even the big stacks, however, will find themselves under pressure before too long. Perhaps not due to their stack size, but definitely due to the high number of talented players in the field. There are players throughout the restart list that have “been there before” – who have enough experience in multi-day events like this one – to give anyone a run for their money – and their tournament chips.

Action gets underway in 15 minutes – good luck to all of the players!