Tonight was the 3rd of 4 starting flights in the Wild $150, also known as Day 1c of Event 1 in the Playground Poker Spring Classic presented by partypoker.net. There was a massive field of 326 entries in this flight, bringing the total number of runners in the event so far to 826. 68 players from this field qualified for Day 2 by having chips at the end of 14 levels. Day 2 will begin on Wednesday April 20th at 7pm.

Any player who has already entered one of the three starting flights already on the books in the tournament may re-enter in the final starting flight (Day 1d) tonight at 7pm – this is a “next day re-entry” event, meaning that players enter each of the 4 starting flights once.

Players are now on their last short break of the night, and in the minutes leading up to the break, we saw a huge hand occur between 3 players in the field. We missed the exact action, but all the chips went in on the flop, at which point players were asked to table their hands.

Philippe Drouin (small blind)

Paul El-Khouri (big blind)

Maxime Agbeti (middle position)

Although Philippe and Maxime flopped a straight, it was Paul who found himself raking in the chips, as he ran a full house on the  board.

Here is a look at the current leaderboard as play enters level 12:

1. Matthew Hendler: 154,000
2. Gaston Fernandez: 139,400
3. Georges Iliacopoulos 137,500
4. Nicolas Amiot: 137,000

Given the average 59,000, these players have taken a solid lead on the field in an attempt to finish atop the leaderboard following this Day 1 of The Wild $150.

The players in Day 1c are on their 2nd break of the night as tournament staff removes the green T25 chips from play. The chip average is slightly below 40K, and so far no one has accumulated more than 100K.

1. David Sorgente: 87,100 chips
2. Felix Sides: 86,800 chips
3. Lee Chanwoo: 81,500 chips
4. Richard Gagnon: 77,400 chips
5. Fabian Lacroix: 74,200 chips

The third Day of of Event 1 in the Playground Poker Spring Classic presented by partypoker.net has been running for more than 2 hours now, and late registration has now closed. Registration tonight was so strong there were 32 alternates admitted to the tourney, and tonight’s total of 326 combines with the 500 entries on Days 1a and 1b to bring the event well past the mark required to meet the $100,000 guarantee.

At the last break just one player has broken out from the field: Jesse Salazar, who had already accumulated 78,500 in chips. Notwithstanding the excitement in the room that goes with the beginning of a 3-week long festival – and a nice prize pool building in this tourney – the play in the event so far is slow and steady, even conservative. That’s almost certain to pass though as the action heats up!

The Playground Poker Spring Classic kicked off in force yesterday, as the two first starting flights to The Wild $150 saw a total of 500 entries combined – and this on a sunny Sunday! Two more flights remain to this $100,000 guaranteed fan favourite event, with Day 1c just moments away from it’s start.

The tournament hall is filling up quickly with players eager to take their shot at this massive prize pool, as already over 100 players have bought in to tonight’s flight. Late registration will remain open through the four first levels and break, giving players up until 9:40pm to hop into the action.

Tomorrow will be the final chance to qualify for Day 2 of this multi-day event, as the fourth and final flight is scheduled for 7:00pm Tuesday night. Don’t miss your chance at becoming our Event 1 Champion, who, in addition to taking home the lion-share of the prize pool, will also earn himself a Playground Poker Spring Classic Champion’s Trophy to immortalize the moment!

See you on the felts!

The 3rd of the 4 starting flights in Event 1, The Wild $150, will get underway in just a few hours – it begins at 7:00pm tonight! So far, the Wild $150 has attracted 500 entries, and exactly 20% of these have qualified for Day 2 (100 players).

We’ve put together a combined list of Day 2 qualifiers through Days 1a and 1b, and with 100 players qualified so far, the chip average is 100,500 tournament chips, and just over a third of the qualified field is over the average. This is due to the top-heavy stack sizes of the tournament leaders so far – Dominique Prefontaine and Jean-Sebastien Dore have both qualified with over 300K in chips while another 5 players have so far qualified with 195K or more.

Remember that this is a next-day re-entry event, meaning that any player may play in each starting day once. There are certainly players who failed to qualify through Day 1a or 1b who will give it another try tonight or tomorrow night (or both!), and players who have already qualified but with a smaller stack size are also welcome to try again. In the event that a player qualifies through two separate starting flights, they will start Day 2 with only the larger of their qualifying stacks – their smaller stack will be removed from play.

Good luck to everyone tonight!

Combined List of Qualifiers through Day 1a and Day 1b