Following 40 minutes of hand-for-hand play, the remaining field in the Playground 500 is now in the money.

There were some dramatic moments before the bubble finally burst, as the larger stacks tried to use their chip advantage to pressure their opponents. Most notable among them was when Tony Wong made a big call that put his tournament life at risk with top pair on an eight-high flop. His opponent in that hand, Ruben Perceval, had tried to push him off the pot with an open-ended straight draw, but Tony made the fearless call and faded Perceval’s outs to take down a pot worth roughly 500,000 in chips.

The bubble finally burst when Louis-Patrick Levros was forced to move all in for less than a big blind from under the gun. Having lost most of his chips on the previous orbit, he waited patiently with the hope that another player might be eliminated before the blinds came around but to no avail. Levros’ small all in picked up several callers. When one player made a flop bet to try to build a side pot, Levros knew he he was trailing and rose from this seat. Although Levros had live overcards, he was unable to conjure help from the poker gods on the turn or river and was eliminated on the money bubble.