Through the first level and a half of play, the Playground 200 has already dropped by 34 players – just over half of the number that must be eliminated before the bubble arrives today. The pace of play has, has usual, been very quick, but things seem to have slowed down a little bit as the smaller stacks have been eliminated – or on the case of Charles-Eric Benoit – grown to more than respectability.

The players’ first break of the day will come following the next level, which is to say in about 40 minutes, and it’s quite likely that the bubble will be reached shortly after the break.

Vincent Tremblay is still the chip leader in the tournament, and he has grown his stack up to well over 600K at this point. The player who started second in chips – Mathieu Boucher – is also now seated at Table 64, which looks to have an overload of large stacks on it.

Charles-Eric B started Day 2 with a short stack, but he is back in business following a triple up in the first level of play.

The board read when the chips went in. Charles-Eric was up against Claude Amar and Francis Rivest-Beaudoin. When Rivest-Beaudoin and Amar checked through the turn and river, Charles-Eric knew his hand was good and flipped over . Two pair was plenty good in this spot, as Rivest-Beaudoin and Amar quickly mucked. With the triple up, Charles-Eric is now playing a healthy stack, not far off the 128,000 chip average.

Here are a few photos taken during the first 10 minutes of the action today.

It’s a beautiful if somewhat blustery Sunday in the Montreal area, and with 4 Day 1s in the Playground 200 now in the rear-view mirror, the stage is set for Day 2 in the event. There are 133 players who will take to the felts at 12:00pm (noon) today, and all of them are competing for one of the 80 finishing spots in the money, ranging from the min-cash $350 all the way to the first place prize of $23,036! The total prize pool in the event is $123,346, and you can consult the entire payout chart in the Results tab here on the Playground Events Blog.

The chip leader to start today is Vincent Tremblay, who managed to bag an incredible 513,500 chips during Day 1C. That’s a 172bb starting stack – a truly remarkable figure and a total so high that he must already be considered a favourite to go very deep in the tournament. Mathieu Boucher also managed to bag more than 100bb through the online Day 1 – he was the overall chip leader all the way through until the end of Day 1C. Other players in the top 10 to start today include Joey Boczek (95bb), Grey Wolf aka Siamak (92bb).

The average stack to start the day is 121,500 chips – 41bb – and if we look at the players above this average, we find Brian Bond – a former champion of an event very similar to the Playground 200, and a few other experienced players as well, including Piotr Wielopolksi, Ben Menache, David Sorgente, Jason Conforti, Daune Fernandez, and Levon Dedayen – each of whom has the ability to make their mark on the event. And that’s not to discount players starting a little shorter – Yannick Kwan, Bill Kontaratos, Event #5 Champ Rong Xu, Sebastien Drolet-Poitras are all formidable poker talents and won’t go quietly! Even at the bottom of the list we find Charles-Eric Benoit, who is more than skilled enough to cause problems for the field even if he does start with just 10bb today!

Action gets underway in just minutes and play will continue today through 10 levels of 40 minutes each today. With just a few more than 50 eliminations before we reach the bubble, action should be extremely quick today to get started – good luck to everyone!