Demo Kiriopoulos (pictured right) is back at Playground Poker Club, searching for another deep run after making an appearance on the final table of the partypoker MILLIONS North America earlier this year.

He is currently in the WPT500 Day 1F flight, and has just caught a lucky turn to eliminate Benjamin Leblond from the field. Demo had opened the action to 2,000 from the cutoff, and was met with an all-in from Benjamin in the big blind. He made the call for around 15,000 total, and players opened their cards.

Demo:
Benjamin:

Board:

With that pot, Demo climbed to average stack, sitting on a little over 50,000 in chips.

Photographs from levels 9-10:

The second break of the night has just passed, marking the half-way mark for Day 1F players. Another 8 levels of play remain, with registration still open until the start of level 11.

Dean Murphy (pictured below) has claimed the top spot on the leaderboard heading into level 9, having climbed up above 200,000 in the last few minutes of level 8. He is closely followed by Tarik Rehou. Below are the top counts in play:

Tarik Rehou cold-called a 3-bet of 4,000 chips from the small blind before Jean-Philippe Piquette 4-bet all-in from the big blind. The original raisers removed themselves from the action, leaving just big-stacked Tarik in the hand.

He asked for a count, and the dealer cut out JPP’s stack before announcing that it was of 31,300. After a little hesitation, Tarik threw in some calling chips and hands were tabled.

JPP:
Tarik:

With no danger on the board, Tarik eliminated a dangerous opponent from the field while increasing his holdings to almost 200,000 – good for the current chip lead. A short break is scheduled in a few minutes, during which we will update the leaderboard.

Photographs from levels 7-8:

Tony “Gameboy” To, who has had some memorable runs in the past here at Playground Poker Club, has been hard at work in this WPT500 and has just sent two players to the rail in one shot.

When we arrived at the table, the board read and Tony has a pair of tabled in front of him. The dealer was finalizing the counts, and then confirmed that Tony’s 40,500 stack was the biggest of the three players involved in the hand. He was awarded the pot, propelling him into the 6-figures and amongst the current chip leaders of Day 1F.

Igor Rosenblit (pictured below) is the first player to breach 100,000 chips so far in Day 1F of the WPT500, having amassed a cool 102,300 chips through the first 4 levels of play. Masi Vito is currently second in chips with 96,500, while Dean Murphy rounds the top 3 with a stack of 81,100.

Play has just resumed in level 5, with registration still open for another 6 levels of play.