In just 10 minutes, action will resume in the October Power Weekend 2018 edition of the Playground 200. 110 players will take their spot at one of 13 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 $350 set to be paid for a min-cash and $19,100 up top for the eventual winner, there’s a lot to play for!
The tournament will pay 61 players, so a little more than half of the players who start today will achieve the first goal – a tournament cash. With only 49 players to be eliminated before the bubble arrives, the pressure will be on players from almost the beginning of play on Day 2. Typically there are 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.
Michael Khan starts the day in the driver’s seat with a huge stack of 417,000 – 139bb. He’s one of just 4 players that will start the day with a stack of greater and 100bb, and only 9 players have double the tournament chip average to start the day. Even the big stacks, however, will find themselves under pressure before too long – because there are quite a few very experienced 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 be dangerous no matter how much they’re starting with. Nick Nickoletopoulos, Tomas Larivee Magni, Charles La Boissonniere – and no one can ignore Karim-Olivier Kamal and Albert Nguyen, players with both pedigree and huge stacks to start the day!
Action gets underway in 10 minutes – good luck to all of the players!