Sylvain Siebert (title picture), a regular achiever here at Playground Poker Club, qualified into the Million North America through one of the Phase 1 tournaments. He pretty much destroyed his Phase 1 Event, and started today with a very cool 3M stack.

Anyone who played with him before knows that he wasn’t going to sit on those chips. In fact, he kept climbing during the first 4 levels of play today, and is now the owner of the biggest stack in the room, scanned at 5,125,000 a few moments ago, during the break following level 4.

Here is a look at the top of the leaderboard, as players keep coming in. The tally is now at 348 entries, 265 of which are still in line for a Day 2 seat.

First Name | Prénom	Last Name | Nom	Stack | Tapis
Sylvain	Siebert	5,125,000
Dilovan	Hussein	4,095,000
Tony	Tran	4,030,000
Niall	Farrell	3,450,000
Alex	Fortin Demers	3,120,000
Philippe	D'Auteuil	3,050,000
Matthew	Salsberg	2,890,000
Marie-Josée	Duguay	2,850,000
Guillaume	Nolet	2,715,000

Photographs taken during level 4:

After 2 one-hour levels of play in the Playground Poker Classic Main Event, the partypoker Million North America, players took a 15 minute break, allowing them to stretch their legs and focus on their game plan.

During that break, we surveyed the tables to create an early leaderboard. Of course, this list is filled with Phase 1 qualifiers who started the day with much more than a million in chips, but our current chip leader, Dilovan Hussein, is not one of them! That’s right, he managed to transform his 1M Day 1 starting stack into the 3.7M that is reigning in the tournament hall, sitting atop the leaderboard.

Below the table is a gallery of notables, taken during level 2.

First Name | Prénom	Last Name | Nom	Stack | Tapis
Dilovan	Hussein	3,710,000
Sylvain	Siebert	3,130,000
Marie-Josée	Duguay	2,535,000
Tony	Tran	2,385,000
Masoud	Tavangari	2,250,000
Matthew	Salsberg	2,100,000
Karim	Abdelhamid	2,025,000
Matthew	Brunskole	2,015,000
John	R	1,995,000
Gregory	Hartwick	1,965,000
Dov	Markovich	1,960,000
Steven	Joudry	1,930,000

As is customary at Playground Poker Club at the start of a partypoker Main Event, Mike Sexton, the voice and face of partypoker, made an announcement on the microphone.

This time, he was joined by Tony Dunst, famous poker player and spokesperson for partypoker. Sexton said a few kind words on the quality of the venue, and talked a little bit about the Event, before announcing the much expected words: ”Shuffle up and deal!”

Once these words were pronounced, the clock started ticking and the partypoker Million North America was underway! 215 players started on time, including 89 Phase 1 stacks, and more will join throughout the day. 146 more Phase 1 stacks are on the shelves and will come into play tomorrow, on Day 1B.

Good luck all!

One of the interesting wrinkles in a tournament that employs the Phase 1 structure is that players who have not yet started the “real” event already have stacks in play. Therefore, tournament staff must perform a seating draw before each Day 1, just like you’d find in any tournament before Day 2.

The following table is the official seating draw for Day 1A of the partypoker Million North America. Each of the players listed below is a Phase 1 winner, and the stack size is the amount of chips they ended with during their successful Phase 1 tournament. In the case of online Phase 1 qualifiers, the stack size has been rounded up to the nearest 500 due to the minimum denomination chip in play to begin Day 1.

These stacks will be on the table (bagged) to begin Day 1 at 12:00pm tomorrow. Note that the tables seem relatively sparse – that is because Day 1 Buy-ins and Satellite winners will join the tournament in the normal way as they will be given a random seating ticket when they buy in to the event.

First Name | Prénom	Last Name | Nom	Seat | Siège	Stack | Tapis
Adam	Cader	Table 49 - Seat 2	237,000
Dov	Markowich	Table 49 - Seat 4	883,000
Richard	Gagnon	Table 49 - Seat 6	1,165,000
Mike	Lafable	Table 49 - Seat 8	609,000
Yves	Loiselle	Table 49 - Seat 10	1,320,000
Mark	Dube	Table 50 - Seat 2	277,500
Quyen	Dao	Table 50 - Seat 4	1,374,000
John	Folkins	Table 50 - Seat 6	429,500
Reid	Fortin	Table 50 - Seat 8	922,500
Diana	Shamshoum	Table 50 - Seat 10	188,000
Keith	Laflam	Table 51 - Seat 2	398,000
Igor	Tregoubov	Table 51 - Seat 4	904,500
Laurence	Louie	Table 51 - Seat 6	1,030,000
Nicholas	Civitarese	Table 51 - Seat 8	1,184,000
Giuseppe	Gabriele	Table 51 - Seat 10	505,000
Dejuante	Alexander	Table 52 - Seat 2	525,000
Rodney	Ramalho	Table 52 - Seat 4	1,003,500
Nick	Nickoletopoulos	Table 52 - Seat 6	542,500
Adam	Peltier	Table 52 - Seat 8	1,483,500
Yanci Ferris	Matteau	Table 52 - Seat 10	704,500
Yannick	Labattaglia	Table 53 - Seat 2	873,500
Asif	Vayani	Table 53 - Seat 4	531,500
Charles	La Boissonnière	Table 53 - Seat 6	200,000
Piotr	Siwiec	Table 53 - Seat 8	285,000
Gerald	Macloed	Table 53 - Seat 10	417,500
Paul	Trebuss	Table 54 - Seat 2	1,350,500
Alexandru	Baron	Table 54 - Seat 4	1,200,000
Pinto	S	Table 54 - Seat 6	445,500
Jonathan	Poissant	Table 54 - Seat 8	677,000
Vladislav	Adoniev	Table 54 - Seat 10	654,000
Gary	Johnson	Table 55 - Seat 2	1,456,500
Sherif	Saad	Table 55 - Seat 4	484,000
Matthew	Wilkins	Table 55 - Seat 6	814,500
Chanso	Munn	Table 55 - Seat 8	1,161,500
Sylvain	Siebert	Table 55 - Seat 10	3,054,000
Ian	Modder	Table 56 - Seat 2	344,500
Nadir	Lalji	Table 56 - Seat 4	1,600,000
Francois	Billard	Table 56 - Seat 6	1,100,000
Brent	Wajcman	Table 56 - Seat 8	865,000
Preston	Cloutier	Table 56 - Seat 10	1,600,000
Denis	Cyr	Table 57 - Seat 2	364,000
Julie	Poliquin	Table 57 - Seat 4	743,500
Troy	Reardon	Table 57 - Seat 6	246,000
George	Caragiorgas	Table 57 - Seat 8	170,500
Gaetan	Perreault	Table 57 - Seat 10	690,000
Louis-Philippe	Goulet	Table 58 - Seat 2	743,000
Francis	Jette	Table 58 - Seat 4	782,000
Armand	King	Table 58 - Seat 6	282,000
Sylvain	Lepage	Table 58 - Seat 8	1,082,000
Jean-Pascal	Savard	Table 58 - Seat 10	369,000
Taylor	Black	Table 59 - Seat 2	460,000
Tam	Ho	Table 59 - Seat 4	1,303,000
Anthony	Dalpra	Table 59 - Seat 6	758,000
Marc	Fortin	Table 59 - Seat 8	836,000
Jean-Marc	Le Bouthillier	Table 59 - Seat 10	296,000
Kathy	Sawers	Table 60 - Seat 2	807,500
Jonathan	Roberge	Table 60 - Seat 4	620,000
Ryan	Smith	Table 60 - Seat 6	2,366,500
Francis	Trudeau	Table 60 - Seat 8	305,000
Wai Kit	Ngai	Table 60 - Seat 10	200,500
Peter	Katsoulis	Table 61 - Seat 2	659,000
Jeremy	Chandler	Table 61 - Seat 4	725,000
Mathieu	Lavigne	Table 61 - Seat 6	502,000
Wesley	Wong	Table 61 - Seat 8	567,000
Francois	Tarrab	Table 61 - Seat 10	1,232,000
Ali	Zakeri	Table 62 - Seat 2	841,500
Simon	Pin-Disle	Table 62 - Seat 4	999,500
Hugo	Dumoulin	Table 62 - Seat 6	1,838,500
Aerial	Noseworthy	Table 62 - Seat 8	1,313,000
Drew	Doiron	Table 62 - Seat 10	1,354,500
Mitchell	Johnson	Table 64 - Seat 2	1,000,000
Kevin	Schulz	Table 64 - Seat 4	619,500
Lowell	Kim	Table 64 - Seat 6	893,000
Carlos	Mora Alvarez	Table 64 - Seat 8	268,500
Philippe	Belley	Table 64 - Seat 10	367,000
Ken	Ransom	Table 65 - Seat 2	1,004,000
Jie	Gao	Table 65 - Seat 4	230,500
Dave	Rathwell	Table 65 - Seat 6	203,000
Kyle	Janisse	Table 65 - Seat 8	900,000
Steven	Joudry	Table 66 - Seat 2	1,900,000
Marco	Caza	Table 66 - Seat 4	999,000
Jocelyn	Poirier	Table 66 - Seat 6	1,290,000
Frank	Szelepcsenyi	Table 66 - Seat 8	165,500
Sebastien	Legault	Table 68 - Seat 2	119,500
Francesco	Maltese	Table 68 - Seat 4	611,000
Mark	M	Table 68 - Seat 6	557,500
Daniel	Watton	Table 68 - Seat 8	1,772,500
Kristopher	Chaykowski	Table 70 - Seat 2	285,000