After 14 levels of playe, Day 1C of the Playground 200 tournament is over. Out of the 226 entries, 56 players managed to bag chips tonight. That’s exactly the same number of qualifiers as for all the Day 1’s combined up to this point.

Only three players are above the 200K mark tonight. Bryan Robitaille Frequet leads with 286,000 chips in the bag. This number lands him in 5th position overall on the combined scores. He’s followed closely by Naghibollah Noori who has 239,000 and Karl Curadeau with 231,500.

Day 2 gets underway Saturday at noon. Some players have bagged chips on more than one Day 1 flight, so there will not be 112 players for Day 2; the Tournament Director will provide the final list and seating draw shortly.

In total, 487 entries were logged for all Day 1’s combined.

To see the results please visit the Playground 200 Combined Day 1 Results page.

One table has been seeing crazy action all evening. And most of the ruckus has been brought on by Walide Ahmed Zazouh. And Lady Luck seems to be on his side tonight.

There are too many hands to count, where Zazouh has made players growl in disbelief, or simply shrug in despair. His funny antics at the table has every player in stitches as he busts hand after hand with “marginal” hands, to say the least.

One such hand was in progress when we were around. From player accounts we learned that there had been a decent raise from John Karantambias preflop. Zazouh called from the big blind. The flop came out: . Holding John waited on the flop for Walide’s check. “I’m weak bro”, admitted Zazouh, checking. To this statement John fired 19K into the pot, obviously wanting to push his rival out of the pot as quickly as possible.

Riding a wing and a prayer Walide called with ; bottom pair. When the turn came out Walide went all-in and got the call from John Karatambias. “You know I’ve got the five!” Walide exclaimed, standing up and grinning wildly. Players were shaking their heads and looking to the ceiling, incredulous in the face of Walide’s obviously glorious good fortune.

Only a queen could save John, but it did not come. The on the river sealed the hand. John’s stack easily covered Walide’s, but the loss did cost him a chunk he was not eager to let go of.

As we sat down to write up this hand, the loud voice of Walide could once again be heard across the Tournament Hall. In less than 10 minutes he knocked out 3 players, including John Karatambias. There is apparently no end in sight for Walide’s unusually lucrative and long “5 minutes of fame”. Once again, as we got to the table just in time to snap a shot of Zazouh receiving a huge amount of chips from the dealer, the remaining players at the table were all laughing.

Things are quieting down as the players head into the last hands of the evening.

The last break of the evening has just ended and we have updated the leader board.

Karl Curadeau is now in first place with a sizeable lead with 207,700. Karl is, for now, the only player with more than 200K chips, and just about 40K ahead of his closest rival.

Robert Gariepy, chip leader at the previous break, is the only player that has remained on the leader board. With basically the same chip count he had before he has now dropped to third place.

We are approaching the end of level 11 here in the Tournament Hall at Playground Poker Club and the the tension is rising. Tables are breaking steadily even though the players are playing it moderately safe. Grinders are grinding and bluffers are bluffing, just another day at the office…

We took a few more photos of the players. We’ll update the leader board during the break after level 11.

While players were on break we took a quick survey of the tables to find players with more than 100K. We found four such stacks, and among them Robert Gariepy in in the lead with 162,300 chips.

Play is steady and the eliminations are starting to pile up at a steadier pace, as the blinds go up and the pressure increases on the shorter stacks.

We are down to 136 players in Day 1C of the Playground 200, and we are just about halfway through level 8. Players will soon take a short break and allow the tournament personnel to remove the green 25 chips.

The 15 minute break will once again give us the opportunity to survey the tables and see where the chips are stacked.

Here are a few more photos of the players from levels 7 and 8.