The 3 remaining players shuffled chips around the table for a few hands before the right situation arose. Mykyta Kurilenko held and Cristian Muset held and all of the chips were in the middle.

Things looked solid for Cristian to double on the flop – all he had to do was fade a King and he was home. It was not to be, though, as the turn came and the fateful river brought and Cristian was eliminated in 3rd place.

3rd place: Cristian Muset, $10,920

Play is now heads up between Gary Lucci and Mykyta for the negotiated prizes plus $1,995.

The final 3 players in the Playground 200 were advised that to make a deal, they had to leave at least $1,995 in the prize pool to be awarded to the player that finishes first, but when presented with ICM chop numbers in which that amount was taken equally from each payout. This yielded the following results.

Gary Lucci: $14,945
Mykyta Kurilenko: $13,270
Cristian Muset: $10,920

Play continues to see who will take first place and the additional $1,995 that is still at stake.

The final 3 players

Words we have typed very often this weekend include: “Gary” “Lucci” “Leader” “Top” and “Most Chips”. This is yet another post that says this: Gary Lucci is in the lead in the Playground 200 with 3 players left.

The 3 players remaining just took a break and we got full counts once a slight colour-up was performed.

First Name | Prénom	Last Name | Name	Seat | Siège	Stack | Tapis
Gary	Lucci	Seat 5	6,185,000
Mykyta	Kurilenko	Seat 6	4,140,000
Cristian	Muset	Seat 9	2,030,000

Before the clock re-started, the remaining players have asked for ICM chop numbers so they might explore the possibility of a deal.

It’s pretty uncontroversial to say that Elie Abdallah has been the most active player at the table all night, and has pushed all the edges he could to gather and try to hold on to a ton of chips – but variance and the normal outcome of normal poker hands finally caught up with him and he has been eliminated in 4th place.

The hand that did the most damage recently was played against Cristian, and after a small raising war, both were all-in pre.

Elie:
Cristian:

The community cards had nothing in them for Elie ( ) and he shipped 90% of his stack to Cristian, leaving him with just over 350K.

On the following hand, Elie was in the bb and Gary Lucci raised to 200K. Action came back to Elie and he chose to simply flat call. The flop was dealt: and Elie had little choice but to shove his final 165K. Gary called.

Elie:
Gary:

So far Gary had the lead and the and on the turn and river sealed the deal.

4th place: Elie Abdallah, $5,930

With play in the Playground 200 into level 30 and the bb up to 100K, the players in the tournament seem to have gotten a little restless, as stack sizes make it difficult to get far in a hand without someone going all-in. This allowed Elie to make a full double through Cristian a few minutes ago – and two hands later the same type of action saw Thierry Blanc hit the rail in 5th place.

Thierry had been by far the least active player at the table since the final table was established, and with his chips dwindling, when faced with a button raise to 300K from Cristian, he chose to shove over the top – only to get an instant call from his neighbour to the right.

Thierry:
Cristian:

Cristian’s Ace-King high was good on the board and now just 4 players remain in the tourney.

5th place: Thierry Blanc, $4,550