LIVE EVENTS

Day 1H has finally come to an end but there is no question, it did not come easily. Hand for hand play lasted for almost 45 minutes. With a total of 582 entries, the top 88 players were to bag and move on the Day 2, and although there were many all ins, the short stacks just kept surviving and doubling up.

The final hand of play came when Steeven Jacques shoved his stack with and after giving it some very serious thought, Antony Hallam made the call in the big blind with seven bigs, holding .

The flop came , giving Hallam a flush draw. The turn was the , which was of no help, and Jacques stayed in the lead with his ace. The river changed everything when the hit the board, completing a flush for Hallam, and knocking out Jacques to bring the Day 1H field into the money.

The chip leader for tonight’s flight is local player Hamid Reza Ofogh who bagged 421,000. Ofogh  was on the leader board the entire flight, starting off in third place at the first break, then moving up to first place at the second break, and moving to second place during the third break. He played a great tournament and had a ton of fun at the same time, while staying relaxed all night long. Tjhe smile on his face says it all.

Players return tomorrow (Monday) at 12:00pm for Day 2. For a complete list of combined Day 1 chip counts, click here. (NB: tonight’s flights will be added to the list on Monday morning, and the Day 2 seating draw will also be added at that point.)

You can feel the tension in the air as the tournament is on the stone cold bubble. There have been a few all ins with a call, but so far the short stacks have come out ahead and there have not been any bustouts.

A hand just took place between Eric Benhamron and Chuck Levros Jr. that almost ended it…but once again, Eric Benhamron (the shorter stack of the two players) won the hand.

Benhamron had shoved for just undedr 65,000 and received a call from Levros Jr. holding .

The board came and Benhamron received a badly needed double-up. The players are now on break while the floor colours up the 100 value chips.

Play is now hand for hand with 90 players remaining and 88 players scheduled to bag for Day 2.

Here are some of the players nursing healthier stacks:

The chips have been flying around and moving across the tables as play is very aggressive right now.

On table 90, Matthew Polishuk opened in middle position to 5,500. Daniele Sanna flat called in the cutoff position. On the button, Edward Parkinson looked down at his hole cards and decided to move all in for 21,000. Ryan Press in the small blind also moved all in (20,600). The initial raiser, Polishuk decided to fold his cards and move out of the way. The decision was on Sanna, who went into the tank, trying to decide if he should get involved or not. His stack was below average and he knew that he needed to build it up and finally decided to throw in a chip to make the call.

The hands were tabled:

Parkinson:
Press:
Sanna:

The flop came , giving Press two pair. Then came the turn, the . Now things got interesting as both Parkinson and Sanna picked up gutshot straight draws. Parkinson needed to see a jack, and Sanna was looking for a ten, although Parkinson of course had the blockers. The river was , and Parkinson made his broadway straight and received a badly needed triple-up.

As the dealer moved the chips his way, he stood up and made a little victory speech, saying “I would like to thank all of the players in the hand” as he had a big smile on his face.

With 582 players in today’s Day 1H flight, the play will continue until the field drops to 88 players. As the field is now starting to thin out with only 157 runners still in the game, the smaller stacks will start to get their chips into the middle to try to get a badly needed double-up, and then typically the players tighten up as everyone wants to make it to day 2.

While on the third break of the evening the stacks were counted and there is now a new leader: Randy Khalil has taken command and is is currently the only player above 300K, with a cool 326,600. Hamid Ofogh is right behind him with 296,000. Let’s keep a close look at this duo as both players can be dangerous with a big stack in front of them, and there are still many other tough players still in serious contention as well.

Some of the recent bustouts include: Gabriel Gingras, Sean Carpenter, Kevin Hanka, Tomas Larivee-Magni, Ryan Andrade, Vera G., Johnathan Dsouza, Chris Arvanitis, Chia Chang, Soterios T., and Marc-Andre Racine.

Here is the leaderboard from the break:

The rockets keep holding, and the best hand wins.

With blinds at 800/1,600, Philppe Plouffe open shoved and found a call by Anthony Ribeiro.

Plouffe:
Ribeiro:

Plouffe had some outs on the flop, but he couldn’t improve on the turn or on the river.

The players are about to go on break whch will allow us to up[date the leaderboard.