Playground Poker

After six levels and three breaks, we have a new chip leader: Muhammad Abdel-Rahim, with 912,000 chips. At this point there are only 75 players left, and based on the speed at which the blinds keep rising, we expect to be down to less than 40 by the end of the night. The top five chip leaders are below, all at 650,000 or above.

To all those still at the tables, keep it up! You’re almost there!

We walked past Darren Elias a few levels ago, and saw him sitting with a crippled stack of 3,500. Fast forward a few orbits, and he managed to spin it up to over 70,000 chips. After a few unfortunate spots, his stack was cut down to sub 10,000 chips again, however he found two double-ups to boost him up above 40,000.

He pulled the trigger once more in a recent hand, but was not able to find another double-up, and Pascal Lefrancois collected the remainder of his chips.

With only 18 players left in the field, the tournament is now 5 spots away from the payouts with less than 30 minutes of play left in Day 2. The players requested that the day be extended until the final 13 has been reached should this not happen before the end of the level, to which the floor agreed.

As the end of level 18 approaches (the 6th of 10 levels today), we heard an all in from table 29 and walked over to investigate. When we arrived the board was already showing .

It was at this point that Raphael jammed, followed by an insta-call by Said.

Raphael:

Said:

The turn and river were dealt , and with his Queens Said El-Yousfi  ended Raphael Duval’s night in 80th place. Duval will collect his prize money and Said will keep playing, moving ever closer to the final table.

Alex Foxen opened his button pre-flop, and when Edward Lin 3-bet him from the big blind, Alex slammed in a 4-bet all-in worth roughly 80,000. Edward made the call holding a premium pair, and hands were tabled.

Alex:
Edward:

Board:

Edward had his opponent covered by a few big blinds, and with that pot he narrowly surpassed the 200,000 chip mark.

After an action-packed first half of the day, the pace in the High Roller seems to have slowed down considerably since the re-entry and registration period have come to an end. With the tournament now only 7 eliminations away from the money, and the average stack a hefty 50 big blinds, players are on their best performance heading into the last level of the day.

Tommy Nguyen has held on to the chip lead through level 15, increasing his stack to roughly 340,000 chips. One more level of play remains before the survivors bag their chips onto Day 3, where we will play down to our tournament champion.