Diana Shamshoum was almost eliminated in the first few minutes of the day, but managed to stage a recovery after being reduced to just 3 big blinds. She ran her stack back up over 12 big blinds before 3betting all-in from the small blind following a button-open by Todd Pierce. Todd made the call, and the two were off to the races.

Diana:
Todd:

Although Diana found the flop she was looking for, Todd turned a set on the board to score the knockout.

13th place: Diana Shamshoum – $1,170.00

Shaan Siddiqui just took a large chunk of Daniel Kwon’s stack, as his overcame Daniel’s in an all-in preflop situation.

Shaan knew he was in big trouble once cards were tabled, however he managed to flop a set on the board to double his 193,000 stack up to almost chip lead, leaving Daniel with under 60,000 behind.

A few hands later he was eliminated by Riyaz Abdulla, ending his run in 14th place.

14th place: Daniel Kwon – $1,080.00

By the end of the first level, Event 10 was down to just 16 players, and we are just around the corner from the money-bubble.

Shortly after players merged down to the final 2 tables, Marc Andre Larouche found himself all-in versus Riyaz Abdulla on a flop of . Marc Andre tabled for top pair and nut flush draw, however he failed to improve versus the :T of his opponent as the running cards brought the .

In almost the same time, Senthuran Jeyaralingnam was eliminated as Mike Lafable completed his flush with on a board, outdrawig Senthuran’s .

Daniel Kwon leads the final 16 with a stack nearing 400,000, while Ryaz Abdulla and Todd Pierce share comfortable second place stacks worth roughly 300,000.

Action folded around to Jessie Wheatley, who opened to 105,000 from the cutoff. Charles-Etienne Gagnon replied with a 3bet to 310,000 from the button, and was followed by an all-in from Maxime Lejeune Hebert from the small blind. Jessie asked for a count of Maxime’s stack, but finally let go of her hand after the dealer announced it was of 1,175,000. Charles-Etienne quickly made the call, and cards were tabled.

Maxime:
Charles-Etienne:

It looked quite bleak for Maxime, until a queen dropped on the river on a board showing . Charles-Etienne was covered by only a margin of 5,000 and was therefore eliminated in the hand, bringing us one elimination away from our official final table of 6.

8th place: Charles-Etienne Gagnon – $13,020

 

After an eventful Day 2 of the TonyBet Winter Festival Main Event, 26 players have managed to bag chips for Day 3 after 21 levels of play over 2 days of poker.

Chip leader at the start of the day Rabah Belal Ahin El-Nasseri was not amongst the remaining players, although he did manage to collect a min-cash, while local pros Yann Dion and Isabelle Mercier failed on their mission to bring home the bacon. Jonathan Roy looked as if he was going to end Day 2 with some chips, but got knocked out on the penultimate hand of the night.

Poker notables Will Molson (488,000) and Marco Caza (1,033,000) managed to stay alive so far in this Main Event, and will be back tomorrow to continue their progress towards the elusive final table. Alexandre Lavigne (410,000) also bagged some chips, and he is on the hunt for his 4th final table in a Main Event here at Playground Poker Club. Local heroes Michael Korovine (323,000) and Jiachen Gong (416,000) are also still in the running, all eyeing the sweet $100,000 first prize.

Day 3 will begin at 12pm tomorrow, February 9th, and will play down until the official final table of 6 is reached. Leading the way is Benoit Jean (1,730,000), who took the chip lead on the last hand of the night as he eliminated Michael Johnston. Inches behind is Ryan McGarry (1,667,000), who has maintained a spot amongst the leaders throughout most of the day.

In a few moments we will publish the full list of player-reported chip counts, as well as the new seating assignments for Day 3 and the payouts thus far in this Main Event of the tonyBet Winter Festival.

See you tomorrow!