Day 1a of The Wild $150 began today at 11:00am and play continued through 14 30-minute levels before the remaining players bagged up their chips to return for Day 2. There were 275 entries in today’s starting flight, the 1st of 4 in the event, and when the dust settled there were just 59 players remaining. All of these players have qualified for Day 2, which will begin on Wednesday April 20th at 7pm.

Any player who entered today’s starting flight in the tournament may re-enter in a subsequent starting flight – this is a “next day re-entry” event, meaning that players enter each of the 4 starting flights once.

The players in The Wild $150 have just completed the break following level 11 and have returned to their seats to play through the final 3 levels of this starting flight. Play is set to conclude at the end of level 14, at which time the remaining players will bag up their chips for Day 2.

This leaderboard resembles the last, although if anything there are fewer players who have built up big stacks than a few levels ago, as the following table will show. That being said, however, Rodney Ramalho has managed to build up a very solid lead with almost 200K in play – and Rodney is a player with the experience to both maintain and continue to grow that stack.

There was a huge hand on table 58 just as level 8 was coming to a close and players were going on break.

There were 4 players in the hand on a flop of

Benjamin-John Bauwens (bb) opened the action to 3,900 and Isham Yamani (utg) called. Then Pierre Pellerin (utg+1) raised to 8K. The action was on Ian Levine on the button – but he hadn’t noticed the raise and just put out 3,900. The dealer explained (and the floor was at the table supervising) that he could fold and leave the 3,900 there, or call. Ian elected to make the call. Action was back on Benjamin-John – and he chose to raise all-in for 38,050 chips.

The first to tank was Isham, who folded after some consideration. Pierre didn’t take long to make the call, cutting out the exact chips from his stack and pulling in the 8K he had raised with. The decision was now on Ian… who went in the tank… and after about a minute, reluctantly folded. The two remaining hands were flipped over.

Benjamin-John:
Pierre:

Pierre didn’t know it at the time, but he was drawing not just thin but dead, as Ian had folded the . The turn card was the – and it turns out that would have been an action card had Isham and Ian stayed in the hand – Isham had folded pocket and Ian was on the hearts draw (to the along with his ).

As it stands, the set of Nines held on the river and Benjamin-John stacked the chips before going on his break.

Registration has closed in the first of 4 starting flights in The Wild $150, and there were a total of 275 runners in this flight in the tourney! This bodes well for the overall attendance in the event, which is on track to meet and possibly far exceed the guarantee!

During the break we quickly surveyed the room to find the current chip leaders, but we stopped counting once we came across Jonathan Masse’s huge stack of over 100K in tournament chips – with 5x the starting stack after just 4 levels of play, he’s far and away the chip leader in the tourney to this point.

Counts are sure to tighten up as the day progresses.

There are many players of note in the field today, including players with significant success in past events, past champions, and others who have otherwise distinguished themselves in event held here at Playground Poker Club. This is definitely not an exhaustive list, but it should give a glimpse into the range of players in the field.

By the way, late registration will end after the coming break.

• There are two former champions of past Wild $150s in the field – Mike Lafable and Steve Pouliot.
• There are at least two more players who have final tabled this event or a similar event in the past – Said Michailidis and Randy Khalil.
• Chris Arvanitis made the unofficial Final Table of the last WPT Montreal, going out in 7th (just before the TV final table).
• George Kazarian and his wife Diana Shamshoum have both had a ton of results in the past both here at Playground Poker Club and in poker rooms in Atlantic City, one of their favourite vacation spots.
• Players Club member George Caragiorgas is always a player to be feared although he’s one of the nicest guys at the table, and not only due to his deep WSOP Main Event run several years ago!
• Rodney Ramalho had a big breakout in tournament poker last year, having won over $400K over the course of about a year.

Good luck to all!

Play is now underway for Day 1a of The Wild $150 and there are already 176 players seated with 2 full hours of late registration still available! The first starting day in a tournament of this kind is often the least busy, but considering that today is a Sunday, it seems likely that this event will buck that trend and attract a very healthy number of players.