LIVE EVENTS

When we arrived at table 63 there was about 100,000 chips already in the middle. The board was showing and Michael Pitcher led out for 45,000. Ryan Tjong smooth called on his left and Jean-Francois Lescadres folded in late position.

The turn brought the and Pitcher shoved his stack, only to be snap called by Tjong.

Pitcher:
Tjong:

The on the river didn’t change anything.

There will be another break in a few minutes at which time we will update the leaderboard.

Jason James, the first to act, opened the action to 26,000 and it folded to Sebastrien Tejada in the small blind who smooth called. Yannick “Labatt” Labattaglia folded in the big blind and it went heads-up to the flop.

The flop came , and both players loved what they saw, although little did they know, it was a great flop for one of them and a terrible flop for the other. James continued for 34,000 and Tejada made the call.

The turn came and the action went check-check.

On the river, the dealer put out the , and James decided to check. Tejada then went for a large pile of 5K chips and made a bet of 80,000. James clicked the all in button for 190,000, and Tejada snap called.

James:
Tejada:

The players have just returned from their second break of the day and one player has become a millionaire with an incredible monster stack to take the lead in the MONSTER Stack event: Jean-Kristophe Guillette now has almost four times the average with 1,246,000, almost 350,000 above the second place runner, Edward Hislop who has 880,000.

Recent bustouts include:

Li Ding, Nicloas Lareau-Lessard, Aaron Parsons, Alexandre Mongrain, Bang Tran, Jacky Wong, Dalton Hoover, Greg McCann, David Ho, Shunn Jacques, Daniel Watton, David Nelson Neves and Randy Khalil.

The players were on the stone cold bubble for almost 90 minutes with 64 players remaining and 63 getting paid and the tension in the air could be felt throughout the room. There were at least five or six super short stacks and each one of those players had their eyes glued on the other tables and had their fingers crossed that someone else would bustout first.

The bustout hand finally happened on table 63 when Galvin Van Brussel was almost out of chips and ended up all in against Charles-Alexandre Bergeron. Van Brussel was way behind and was eliminated in 64th as the bubble boy to bring all of the others into the money.

Other bustouts that have now happened since the bubble hand include: Maxime Roby, Paul Sokoloff, Danny Freitas, Ryan Jensen, Oleg Sviriduk, Joel P., Zheng-Yi Xie, Anderson F., Duff Charette, Charles-Alexandre Bergeron, Philippe Oligny-Lauzon, Renaud Conti, Jamie Baker, Peter Mott and Lucas Braga.

There will be another break in 15 minutes which will give us a chance to update the leaderboard and go back to reporting on some key hands as the tournament will play down to a winner later tonight.

With the field now down to 68 players, there are some big stacks that are appearing in the tournament room, with the top stack belonging to Tim Cavallin of Burlington, Ont, who is sitting on 464,500. He is followed closely by Jean Kristophe Guillette (446,500) and the start of the day chip leader, Johan Levyssohn (441,000).

Here is the leaderboard from the break:

The action keeps unfolding on the 12 remaining tables and Day 2 is now has only 93 players remaining.

Here are a few of the players still in contention:

The tournament has already lost 18 players and the pace continues to move pretty fast.

Arriving at table 55, Danick Landriault had led out on the turn and Marc Karam, a Canadian pro from Ottawa, shoved his stack to put Landriault into a decision for his tournament life. Landriault made the call with a combo draw.

Landriault:
Karam:

Board: .

Landriault had all kinds of outs but could not hit on the river. Karam started the day with 281,000 chips and picked up the better part of 121,000 chips from Landriault.

Other early day bustouts include: Terence Caulcutt, Shahin Norouzian, Edward Parkinson, John Tajima, Fan Jia, Em Brand, Darren McGuire, David Cadoch, and Malawai Hoyer.

 Day 2 of Event #3 of the WSOP-C Playground, the $600 + $60 Monster Stack. Day 1 brought out a massive field of 435 players, enough to greatly surpass the $150,000 prize pool guarantee. Players are playing eight handed through 40  minute blind levels, and with 121 out of the original 435 players returning for today’s action, we expect the excitement to begin right out of the gate on the first hand of play. The top 63 players will be in the money, and they are all eyeing the top prize of $45,000. Johan Levyssohn leads the field to start Day 2, as the only player to bag more than 400,000 in chips. He has a significant lead over his nearest rivals but it is anyone’s game.

Players are in their seats and the tournament staff has just announced, “Players…shuffle up and deal”  and it is officially “game on for Day 2!“.

The stage is set for Day 2 of Event #3 of the WSOP-C Playground, the $600 + $60 Monster Stack. Day 1 brought out a massive field of 435 players, enough to greatly surpass the $150,000 prize pool guarantee. After 12 levels of play yesterday, the field was reduced to 121 players who will return this afternoon at 1:00pm to play until there is a winner in this two-day event.

Johan Levyssohn leads the field to start Day 2, as the only player to bag more than 400,000 in chips. He has a significant lead over his nearest rivals, but with a full day of eight-handed play ahead he will need to stay sharp to maintain the pole position.  

When play resumes, the players will be seated according to the following table.

After 12 levels of play, Day 1 of the $600 + $60 Monster Stack has wrapped.

At this point, only 125 players remain from the 435 that entered. Players will return tomorrow for Day 2, which will kick off at 1:00pm and play down to a winner. Because of the high number of entrants, the total prize pool of $253,170 extended well beyond the guaranteed expected minimum of $150,000.

Up at the top of the leaderboard is Johan Levyssohn, whose 414,000 chips put him in a great position to make a run for the big money tomorrow. A full list of the Day 2 qualifiers,along with their chip counts, can be found here on the results page. Speaking of money, top prize for this event is expected to be between $40,000 and $50,000, with approximately 60 players “in the money.” An exact count will be produced shortly.

Below are photos of some players with what appeared to be the most significant chip stacks. See you all tomorrow!

Having gathered 321,000 chips, this inanimate pair of sunglasses has taken the chip lead. Congratulations to Dolce Gabbana (aka Ayana Massa) on her impressive stack so far! Can she keep it up and maintain her lead as we move through our last three levels of the night? Stay tuned to find out!

Note: The registration period is now closed for the Monster Stack event. With 435 official entries, the prize pool is now 253,170.

Not every hand has to result in a winner to be dramatic, and such was the case just now on table 90.

The hand began with three players seeing the flop, which came down . Maxime Roby (below, left) was first to act, and bet 4,000. Another player folded and the last remaining player in the hand, Christian Barbeau, decided to call. Down came a , and this time Maxime checked. Christian raised to 7,000 but was check-raised to 21,000 by Maxime. Christian took three or four minutes to decide, but eventually called.

It seemed to the others at the table like a strange play at first, only to call – particularly since he had less than 10,000 left in his stack afterwards. He had already put around 28,000, so why not shove?

The river card was an which garnered an insta-shove of Maxime’s remaining 20,000. Surely Christian was committed at this point, and had no choice? He wasn’t sure. So unsure of his play in fact that he tanked for more than five minutes. Everyone wondered what he was pondering, but they were patient and no one called time. Eventually he called the all-in, and Maxime flipped over his cards.

Perhaps the table expected a muck, but everyone erupted in smiles and laughter when both players flipped over identical pocket eights. The dealer chopped the pot and dealt the next hand.