Playground Poker

Right after the elimination of Patrick St-Onge, Hisham went all-in with an small 19,000 stack and below-par hand .  Benoît Rouleau surprised everyone by raising to 100K; effectively isolating himself with Hisham when the other players folded.  Benoît revealed his hand: .

The flop had a little something for everyone: and by pairing the board, the on the turn reduced Hisman’s options severely.  Now he needed to hit a spade, a three, or a seven.  Lady luck decided Hisham was done for the night by sending an on the river, pairing the board again and letting Benoît’s ace kick-in.

So it’s the end of the line for Hisham, and the reamining five players have requested a pause to discuss a possible ICM chop.

6th position: Hisham Hamoud, $1,140

It’s the end of the line for Patrick St-Onge.

Patrick went all-in with from the cut-off. On the button and holding , Benoît Rouleau waited a bit before calling, hoping to drag the small and big blinds into the mix. But, Tony and Charan folded, leaving Patrick and Benoît to duke it out.

The board hit Patrick like a ton of bricks: . As he slowly got up, the turn made sure he was drawing dead, and a on the river closed the deal. Full house for Benoît, 7th place for Patrick.

7th Position: Patrick St-Onge , $860

With 7 players remaining, there has been a full redraw and the players are getting settled into their seats at the final table.

Charan is the current chip leader but Nicholas is very close on his heals.

One would think that this close to the final table (and the juicier payouts) the players would take it slow or play it safe. But now, this bunch is on fire and they are taking no prisoners.

On table #31, a three-way all in spelled disaster for Nirvair Sandhu. Having the least chips involved, Nirvair was holding . Hicham Hammoud was holding . He had more chips than Nirvair, but less than Matthew Di Perna who covered both players and had tabled .

The board was out: ; giving a full house eights over kings. The hand sent Nirvair to the rail and allowed Hicham to double-up.

In a flash, the action flared up on table #35 where Nicholas Soller was claiming another victim. Paul El-khouri was all in with whereas Nicholas was holding . As soon as the flop came out Paul got up and started to pack-up his belongings. Everyone agreed that the flop was tailor-made for Shooter: . The on the turn sealed Paul’s fate, and to add insult to injury another spade showed up on the river , sending Paul home in 10th place.

Nicholas Sollier a.k.a. Shooter McGavin is wasting no time thinning out the field. When we got to the table the hand was over and this is what we saw…

Ryan Jensen:

Tyler Bryk:

Nicholas:

Community cards:

So with a set over set, “Shooter” sends 2 more to the rail. The friendly banter at the tables never seems to stop at Playground and we could hear the remaining players at the table desperately asking the tournament director for a table switch, obviously wanting to get away from Nicholas’s fire. That was a wish the TD could not grant, but after that hand, he broke another table, thus leaving only two. And more importantly, giving a slight reprieve to the short stacks constantly apprehending the upcoming blinds in a 6-max format.

After his bubble-breaking hand, Carl Gagné-Lizotte is the new chip leader. Obviously Carl is running good this week-end. He won Event #4 Playground 100 Sunday, and is now in a good position to cash big again this time.

In total, four players have scooped more than 400,000 chips and are now our current chip leaders, with Carl at the top of the list, with no less than 459,000 chips. There are currently 3,575,000 chips in play, so it’s still anyone’s game.