Action at the table has been pretty cagey and cautious so far, but Elie Abdallah just forced some action blind on blind and was fortunate to get paid off – and send Alexandre Henry to the exit.

Action folded to Elie who open shoved his much larger stack, presumably with a steal in mind, but Alexandre had just enough of a hand to make the call after a couple of minutes of thinking about it.

Elie:
Alexandre:

The door card was fateful for Alexandre on a flop reading . He was behind to Elie’s pair of Fours – and the that completed the board were no help.

10th place: Alexandre Henry, $1,580

William Blais is a skilled poker player who is familiar with the end-game in a tournament of this kind, but unfortunately for him, he has found some rough spots in the early going tonight and is down to just about 300K in chips as level 26 comes to a close.

The first hand that saw an outflow of William’s chips was against Elia Abdallah. Elie raised to 80K preflop and William called from the bb. On a flop of , William check-called Elie’s bet to 95K, and on the turn he check-called Elie’s bet to 195K. The turn was the and William checked again – this time to be faced with a bat of 415K. He thought about it for a minute or so before folding. Elie stacked a nice pot.

Just one or two hands later, Mykyta Kurilenko got it all in and William made the call holding . Mykyta turned over a marginal hand – – but he got there right on the flop: (turn and river were and ).

Mina Gerges has been eliminated in 11th place, thus paving the way for the final table redraw. With just 10 players left, the min-cash from here on out is $1,580 and the prize goes up every spot!

The chip leader going to the final table is now Thierry Blanc, though he is followed closely by Elie.

The players are only 20 minutes into tonight’s Day 3 in the Playground 200 and two players have already been eliminated. Karl Curadeau and Alexandre Blanc were both among the smallest stacks to start the action, and neither one was able to double back to chip-health.

Here is a full set of photos of the players that started Day 3.

Day 3 in the Playground 200 is just minutes away. The bags have been placed on tables 63 and 64 and the players are doubtless making their way to the club to take their seats and play down to the big money in the tournament.

There are some wicked pay jumps today, as the first player to be eliminated today will take home $1,250 while the top prize – just 13 spots later – is $19,100. Once the tournament is down to 9 players, the prizes go up every hand – making every decision a big decision… and possible causing some players to stumble.

The chip average to start today is 32bb, and the final 13 is somewhat weighted to the “under” group, meaning that action should be quick right out of the gate tonight. The chip leader, Elie Abdallah, starts with a 77bb stack – almost 700K more than his next rival by chips. So not only are there some “shorties” in the field – there are plenty of players with enough chips to put them to the test.

Blinds will resume at 15,000/30,000 with a 30,000 button ante, and of course we’ll be following all of the action from beginning to end tonight.

Good Luck!

There are just 13 players remaining in Event #2, the Playground 200 in the October Power Weekend. Play resumes at 7:00pm this evening, and when it does, the players will be spread between two tables, and this state will remain until there are 10 players left and the final table is formed.