LIVE EVENTS

The Playground 200 was the marquee event of the February Power Weekend, featuring a $100,000 guaranteed prize pool. Players were allowed unlimited re-entries during the first six levels of each of the five Day 1 starting flights, and in the end, the event attracted a total of 697 entries, allowing the prize pool to grow to $132,218. The top 88 finishers were in the money, with a min-cash in 88th paying out $350, and the top prize paying $24,500 plus the coveted Power Weekend Champion’s ring!

Day 2 saw 152 players return to play through ten 40-minute levels and when the day came to an end, Jean-Pascal Gauthier lead 23 qualifiers into Day 3. Each player had now secured a $940 payday although all eyes were on the top prize.

On Day 3 the short stacks made moves from the first very hand of play and eliminations started to happen left and right. It took three hours for the nine-handed final table to be formed, and then not very long for the first elimination to take place. As play became six-handed, the action slowed down as all of the players were quite aware of the ICM considerations with the large pay jumps from each subsequent bustout.

Once play went three-handed an ICM deal was reached and it was Jean-Pascal Gauthier who was in the driver’s seat, holding close to 70% of the chips in play. After the deal was made, Adam Strulovitch was the first to leave the table, taking home $14,064 for his efforts. When play went heads-up between Gauthier and Alexandre Patry, Gauthier now had over 80% of the chips but Patry did not give up. He tried his best until finally the last hand came in to play. Patry moved all in with and was called by Gauthier holding . Gauthier made a pair on the flop, and Patry made a higher pair on the turn, but the river gave Gauthier trip-eights and the Playground 200 crowned a champion, Jean-Pascal Gauthier.

Playground 200 Champion: Jean-Pascal Gauthier, $23,810

Second Place: Alexandre Patry, $14,904

Last hand of play:

Not long after the ICM deal was agreed upon, Adam Strulovitch was the first to go, leaving in third place and collecting $14,064 for his deep run.

The three remaining players have decided to do an ICM chop as follows:

In addition to the above ICM payouts, the three players will play down to a winner for an additional $3,000 as well as the Champion ring.

Fourth Place: Eric Ranger, $8,230

Fifth Place: Steve Pouliot, $6,280

Action folded to Steve Fournier-Bernier who moved all in from the button for 850,000 (7 big blinds). Jean-Pascal Gauthier snap-called in the small blind. Fournier-Bernier had jack-nine and Gauthier was playing ace-queen. The board runout was of no help to Fournier-Bernier who leaves in sixth place for a $5,000 payday.

Steve Fournier-Bernier opened the action with a raise to 280,000. Adam Stulovitch smooth-called in the small blind. The flop came and the action went check-check. On the turn, Strulovitch checked and Fournier-Bernier bet 300,000 and was called by Strulovitch. The river brought the and both players checked. Strulovitch opened up pocket-tens, and Fournier-Bernier mucked.

The race is on as two players have almost identical stacks: Alexandre Patry is playing a stack of 5,360,000 chips and Jean-Pascal Gauthier is sitting on 5,345,000 chips. Both stacks are close to 45 big blinds.

Here are the chip counts:

Seventh Place: Frederick Gagnon, $4,140

Action was opened by Steve Fournier-Bernier, raising it up from 100,000 to 280,000. Both J-P Gauthier and Eric Ranger made the call.

The flop came and Ranger checked, and so did Fournier-Bernier. Gauthier fired out a bet of 250,000, and both others folded. Gauthier showed pocket-jacks.

Looking at the stacks, Eric Ranger has now lost over 65% of his stack, while Alexandre Patry has chipped up.

Looking at the stacks on the final table, Eric Ranger is leading with a stack of just over 4,750,000 chips, equal to 47.5 big blinds. There will be a break in approximately 30 minutes and all of the chip counts will be posted after the break.

Steve Cordeiro is the next to leave the room, finishing in eighth place for $3,300