LIVE EVENTS

Since the 16-player redraw, a volley of eliminations took place, all within the last 20 minutes of the first stint:

16th: Laurence Grondin – $4,950
15th: Chanwoo Lee – $5,850
14th: Adam Cader – $5,850
13th: Samuel Roussy-Majeau – $5,850
12th: Donald Rushton – $7,360

Bill Kontaratos best took advantage of all that chip movement, and is now sitting in the driver’s seat, forcing Marc-André Yelle to leave the spot for the first time in over 24 hours.

The 11 remaining players are now playing short, and will be brought together on the Playground 1000 final table as soon as two more players run out of chips. Here are the actual counts, taken during the first break of the day:

Two consecutive eliminations lead to a 16-player redraw. Here is the latest info:

18th: Tina Frascarelli – $4,950
17th: Timothy Ulmer – $4,950

Benoit Coulombe had under a million chips left, and the big slick was one of the hands that he was definitely going all the way with. Unfortunately for him, Nirvair Sandhu was dealt aces on that hand, and despite hitting a king on the flop, Coulombe was taken out in 21st.

Benjamin Mathieu-Comtois followed in 20th, leaving just 19 players playing somewhat short-handed. Three more eliminations are needed before players are shuffled again, randomly redistributed on 2 tables of 8 and allowed some time to breathe before they are hit with another series of blinds.

21st: Benoit Coulombe – $4,160
20th: Benjamin Mathieu-Comtois – $4,160

The first 45-minute level has passed in Day 3 of the Playground 1000, and after one elimination, the event merged on 3 tables. Three more bust outs took place since the merge:

25th: Constantinos Psallidas – $3,020
24th: Denis Quirion – $3,490
23rd: James Dickinson – $3,490
22nd: Jonathan Marrie – $3,490

Here are some shots taken during level 25:

Today is the conclusion of the Playground 1000. Today, a champion will be crowned! Day 2 allowed the field to narrow down from 182 players to just 25. In this group, many serious contenders have their eye on the big prize.

All through Day 2, it seemed like both Marc-André Yelle and William Blais were unstoppable, as they increased their respective stacks without a significant step back, but chance drafted them on the same table to start Day 3! What happens when two unstoppable forces collide?

And there are many crafty experienced players on today’s seating chart. Duff Charette, Laurence Grondin and Noeung Troeung, just to name a few, are recognizable talents and may have a say in the outcome of today’s showdown.

At 12:00pm sharp, action resumes on 4 tables, and we don’t stop until one player has all the chips and put their hand on the stunning Playground 1000 trophy and the $86,750 first prize. Stay tuned for photos, leaderboard updates, bad beat stories and hopefully a few grandstand plays!

Here’s the seating arrangement:

The end of level 24 brought about the conclusion of a tough day of work for 25 Day 3 qualifiers. The last stint offered a nice Cinderella story, courtesy of Constantinos Psallidas. Costa, after losing kings to ace-queen, was left with 90K or 3 big blinds, and announced out loud that he would orchestrate a comeback for the books. He first flopped a flush with against a pair a fives and one level later, he is putting away 840,000 chips in a bag, to be re-opened tomorrow at 12:00pm at the start of Day 3, the final day of the Playground 1000.

The chip lead still belongs to Marc-André Yelle, who unsurprisingly gained more chips in the last segment of the day. William Blais, who also displayed impressive consistency today, follows.

Action resumes at 12:00pm. Don’t be late!

Players in Playground 1000 are entering the last level of a grueling Day 2. The battle was fierce all day long, and in the group of 27 remaining runners, many had their tournament life at stake more than once. Some of them will not get to bag chips tonight, but will leave with $3,020 or more. From now on and until the final table, there will be a pay jump every 3 eliminations.

Here are a few recent shots of the field:

Marc-André Yelle, conductor of the Playground 1000 Day 2, is an absolute freight train. Since his quick ascension to the top, he hasn’t let go of the driver’s seat once, and his lead is increasing with every level. The current top 8 shows him at 6 million and change on top of the list, followed by a pack of players working with less than half his chips, all within 800K of each other.

For all 31 remaining players, the secured prize is now $2,640 with more pay jumps to come before the end of the day. Two more levels to go…

After 18 hands of hand-for-hand play, the money bubble finally burst! It was a long-winded affair for all, but none felt it more than Sylvie Belair, who was hanging by a thread the whole time and won not one, but two 3-way all-in hands to survive! In the most memorable of the two, she went all-in from the under-the-gun position with 30K on a 20K big blind, was called twice, and picked up the pot with jack high. She went on to fold a full round and got tens on the big blind, allowing her to triple up with an ace and two queens on board!

Meanwhile, at least 8 players had their tournament life at stake. No more than 2 were actual underdogs, but it was one of the most epic bubble battle, one that lasted almost 2 hours. The tournament staff, although there was another 41 minutes to go before the closest break, decided to send the 58 money earners to a much-deserved 15-minute pause.

In the end, the bubble burst when Rayan Chamas raised from a late position and was called by Allan Puzantian, somewhat short-stacked. When Puzantian saw the flop, he committed the rest of his chips with . Chamas made the call with and held, sending 58 players in the money. Congratulations all!

Marc-André Yelle is still our chip leader, having played aces vs queens wonderfully, according to another player at that table, picking up a 3M+ pot in the process. He is now working with 3,658,000, and his only close follower is none other than William Blais, a relentless force during hand-for-hand play.

Next break will be in an hour, and two more levels will be played after that. Here are more shots of the money bubble period:

Day 2 is now exactly halfway through the day, and the field is 8 eliminations from the money. At the second break, we counted 12 stacks over a million and put them together to update the leaderboard.

Marc-André Yelle is having a great as his leading stack indicates, but William Blais is the player who made the most gain so far, having started the day with 200K!

Day 2 of the Playground 1000 is approaching the money bubble. There are only 18 more eliminations to go before the prizes are reached, at which point we should see another wave of eliminations due to short stacks playing more liberally.

At the first break, 4 players counted a 7-figure stack. Another 4 were pretty close by, hinting at an interesting race for the next leaderboard update. Here’s our current top 8: