The players in the WPT Playground have taken their first break of the day and during the pause we updated the chip counts for all remaining players.

The current chip leader is Tam Ho, with a million chip lead on the remaining field

Action has been fierce on the table so far, and the hand that saw the end of Ryan Yu’s day was no exception. Carter Swidler opened with a rais to 70K from utg+1 which was followed by calls from both Ema Zajmovic and Danny Li. Jean Francois folded and then Tam Ho raised to 290K. A couple of folds followed and Ryan 4bet all in for 870K. Carter, Ema, and Danny all folded – but Tam quickly made the call.

Ryan:
Tam:

Tam had a solid lead and his Kings held as the board ran out . With that pot he climbed up to 2,680,000 in chips.

9th place: Ryan Tack Yu, $24,120.00

After a very active start to Day 4 of the WPT Playground, Henry Tran just involved himself in a pot which lead to his eventual elimination.

Ema Zajmovic opened to 60,000 from the button, and Henry 3-bet all-in from the small blind. With a slightly shorter stack, Danny Li then moved all-in from the big blind, and Ema left the two gentlemen play the hand out heads-up.

Henry:
Danny:

Danny made three-of-a-kind on the board to double his 430,000 stack up, leaving Henry with 70,000 behind.

Henry limped in the pot on the next hand, but folded to a flop bet by Tam Ho in a 4-way pot. He folded two more hands before moving all-in for his remaining 25,000, and saw his last chips get picked up by Ryan Tack Yu in a 3-way pot.

10th place: Henry Tran – $20,160.00

Henry Tran has been extremely active to start the day, clearly trying to spin up his relatively depleted stack (compared to long passages of play on Day 3, at least). He has managed to pick up blinds an antes a couple of times but has also been forced to fold, so his strategy has been a bit of a wash so far.

Just now he raised to 60K from middle position only to be faced with a shove from Mekhail Mekhail, who starts the day as the short stack and was playing his small blind. Henry thought for about a minute before folding his face up – earning the light-hearted ire of the assembled players considering today is Valentine’s Day – the day of hearts!

Mekhail showed his hand as well – the – so at least in this instance, folding the hearts was likely the correct play.

The Tournament Director has just made some opening announcements to the 10 players remaining in the WPT Playground and cards are now in the air!

Blind levels will be 90 minutes long through the first 4 eliminations and then a 6 players remaining the level length will go down to 60 minutes in length as per WPT rules. There will be a pause with 6 players remaining at which time we will publish further information about the players’ decision with respect to completing the tournament today.

The $3,200 + $300 WPT Playground has reached the 10-handed “unofficial” final table to begin Day 4 in the event which is set to start in just over 30 minutes. Play will resume in level 25 with blinds at 15K/30K/a5K and an average stack 38bb deep. That being said, there are a few players near or below the 20bb mark, so play could move relatively quickly today.

Play was scheduled to continue until 6 players remain (the Official WPT Final Table), but upon the agreemment of all of the players – which seems likely, considering conversations that we’ve overheard during play yesterday play will continue to a conclusion today.

Here are short bios we have compiled for each of the remaining players.

• Tam Ho – Seat 01 – 1,700,000 (57bb)
  Tam is an experienced player whose best result in a Playground-hosted event was a 12th place finish in last November’s WPT Montreal for $33,560.
• Eric Afriat – Seat 02 – 1,135,000 (38bb)
  Eric is a very successful local player who is a member of the WPT Champion’s Club, having won the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Showdown in Hollywood, Florida in 2014. He has had a lot of other success as well, including a win and another final table in Bellagio Cup events in Las Vegas in 2012 and a WPT Final Table appearance at Bellagio in 2010.
• Mekhail Mekhail – Seat 03 – 300,000 (10bb)
  Mekhail is the one player left in the event with no published results to date. He starts today with just 10bb, but has managed to level up through several pay jumps with a relatively small stack so far.
• Ryan Tack Yu – Seat 04 – 520,000 (17bb)
  Ryan is a Canadian player who has had top results on tours around the world, including in WPT, EPT, and ACOP (Asia Championship) events.
• Jean-Pascal Savard – Seat 05 – 2,095,000 (70bb)
  Jean-Pascal hails from the Quebec City region and has amassed an impressive $835,933 in career live earnings, including a 4th place finish in a $35K High Roller event at the PCA in 2015.
• Carter Swidler – Seat 06 – 615,000 (21bb)
  Carter is an online wizard who is widely considered one of Montreal’s greatest online players – but who also has published live results going back to 2008 and over half a million in career live tournament earnings. Carter has visited the final table of a WPT event before, having placed 5th in the 2015 WPT Montreal ($108,410).
• Ema Zajmovic – Seat 07 – 2,985,000 (100bb)
  Ema is a local cash game specialist who is in the midst of a remarkable breakthrough in tournament play in the past year. She final tabled the 2016 WPT Montreal, eventually ending her run in 5th place for $102,010 after starting the final table as chip leader.
• Nghi Van “Henry” Tran – Seat 08 – 525,000 (18bb)
  Henry is a Toronto-area based player with over $1.5 Million in career live earnings including a victory in a $10K WSOP-C event in 2005 for $780,615 and many deep runs in events throughout North America including many in the WSOP in Las Vegas.
• Danny Li – Seat 09 – 495,000 (17bb)
  Danny Li joins us from Canada’s East Coast where he has had several deep runs in regional championship tournaments as well as having cashed in the WSOP Main Event in 2011 (697th place, $17,730)
• Jean Francois Bouchard – Seat 10 – 1,005,000 (34bb)
  Jean Francois is a local player with published results going back to 2010 in events here at Playground Poker Club but also on the WSOP-C and EPT Tours.