Action had calmed down in the last few levels of the Playground 100, and then all of the sudden, everything went wild. When play was down to 25 players, and with the top 20 moving on to day 2 and a guaranteed cash, most of those remaining had decent stacks and were playing very tight. Rene Noel had the smallest stack and was the first to exit the room. Mitcheal Ferguson had lost a few key hands late in the game and although he had a decent stack at the final break of the evening, before we had a chance to see the action, he also was sent on his way to the rail.

Malik Lefty, a regular at Playground, was sitting on a healthy stack and when he looked down at his hand, he saw what looked like a nice opportunity to put pressure onto the other players and see if he could eliminate Nicolas Miron who had the smallest stack on the table. Miron, another Playground regular, had a tough night and was nursing one of the smaller stacks the entire time. Well, as they say, timing is everything. Miron had shoved his 9 big blind stack and Lefty went heads up against him holding ace-queen suited. Unfortunately for Lefty, Miron had the goods; he was holding pocket aces and managed to score a badly needed double up.

Play was all of the sudden on the bubble and as fate would have it, Lefty and Miron ended up heads-up again. With Lefty in the big blind with blinds at 6,000/12,000, Miron raised it up to 26,000 and everyone got out of the way except for Lefty who made the call while defending his big blind. The flop came king-ten-eight and Lefty checked. Miron checked back. The turn was an ace, and this time Lefty lead out for 30,000. Miron made the call. The river was a four and Lefty decided to shove his stack. Lefty was holding king-eight and had flopped two pair. Miron however was holding ace-ten and had turned a higher two pair and snap called Lefty’s shove. Miron, who only a few moments earlier was sitting on less than ten bigs, now had a great stack. Lefty, who had a great stack, was now the bubble boy.

The top stack of the flight belongs to Shelley Rapp. Rapp, another regular here at Playground, played a steady game all night long. As each level progressed, her stack kept growing, and although she was not a top five stack until the final break, she played solid all night long and kept chipping up slowly and steadily. She also had some good luck to go along with her skill, flopping the top straight against the low straight, as well as some other key hands. When it was all said and done, she bagged the top stack of the evening (412,000). Miron was the second biggest stack (374,000), followed by Simon Tabah (320,500) and Francis Carriere (296,000).

Players will return for Day 2 on Sunday at 3:00pm, and players will all be in the money, with a guaranteed min-cash, while playing for the top prize on the final table. The combined Day 1 results (tonight’s results will be added on Saturday) can be seen by clicking here

There are two more Day 1 starting flights tomorrow, Day 1D Saturday July 20 at 11:00am, and Day 1E Saturday at 7:00pm.

Players should note that if they have already bagged a stack for day 2, they can still enter another flight, and should they bag again, they will play the largest stack while still receiving a min-cash on any smaller bags that they must forfeit.

Shelley Rapp:

Nicolas Miron:

Malik Lefty: