After 10 hours of poker 24 players are still at their seats, having survived all 18 of their Day 1 levels. They have each earned themselves a spot in this Sunday’s Day 2. There, they will truly separate the wheat from the chaff and compete for a piece of the $500,000 guaranteed prize pool.

Congratulations to all of our players for an excellent day of work, and especially to our chip leader Dimitri Morcos, for collecting over 2,000,000 chips. He is in an excellent spot to begin the next level of competition this weekend.

Day 2’s play will start on Sunday, January 27th at 3:30PM. See you at the tables.

On this beautiful rainy Thursday 194 players decided to join the noon edition of the $200 + $20 Grand Prix Canada Day. Right now there remain only 28 players, all of whom hope to be able to last through the final hour and earn their seat in Day 2, which begins Sunday at 3:30PM.

Out front so far is Dimitri Morcos, who boasts an impressive 1,998,000 chips. But not too far behind are a few others, listed below. Dimitri only grabbed the chip lead away from Daniel Pepin at the last moment before the break, eating up two of his opponents’ stacks at the same time, sending them both home in a nasty hand.

In it, Dimitri had pocket 4’s and flopped a boat. Better still, his two opponents had flush and straight draws, keeping them on the hook. They went the distance, and Dimitri reaped the rewards.

Good luck to all of our players on the final push on today’s Day 1C flight!

Back on table 20, which seems to be getting a lot of the blog’s attention, we witnessed a hand predominantly played between Stephan Richer and Steve Horic. The entire hand Steve had his hat pulled low over his eyes and his left hand rested on his left cheek. He didn’t move a muscle except when he moved in chips.

Steve started the hand by raising it 20,000 preflop. It was called by two players, one of which was Stephan in the big blind. With 65,000 in the pot, the flop was dealt .

Stephan checked, so Steve bet 32,000. Stephan called it, but the other player faded out of the hand.

A came down on the turn, prompting another check from Stephan. This time, still relatively motionless, Steve raised to 60,000. Up to this point Stephan had always been happy to call, but as the size of the bets went up, his confidence went down.

He ultimately couldn’t solve the riddle of the Steve and folded. Steve raked in the chips and Stephan lived to play another hand.

Things were going just the way William Lessard wanted. He was able to get all his chips in versus and opponent and had him dominated. Besides his opponent catching a 10, what could go wrong?

William had an and his opponent Jordan Damiani had an . Jordan was squirming, but not for long. The full house on the board saved the day, Kings over Sixes.

Board:

Sometimes you get lucky!

The field continues to shrink, but not on table 20. Mario Barriere just called Alexandre Thibouthot’s all in and doubled him up, keeping Alex alive and putting his stack up near 400,000.

The hand began with a limp from early position by Carl Des Granges, which was then raised to 32,000 by Dimitri Morcos. Mario called the 32,000, but then Alex decided to shove on the button for his remaining 160,000.

That move chased out Carl and Dimitri, but after a moment of contemplation Mario called. He flipped over a pair of and was likely none too happy to see Alex’s pair of staring up at him.

The board was no help, coming .

Play continues!

Daniel Pepin is the chip leader after almost seven hours of play. It looks like he is the first player to reach 1,000,000 chips, so congratulations to him. Now beginning level 13, our players have six full 30-minute levels to go.

Good luck to all the players trying to make it to the end of the day. There is still a lot of poker left to play!

With the blinds now at 3K/6K and the average stack above 300,000, the end of the day feels a little closer. However, based on the other Day 1s it is likely that players will need at least 800,000 in front of them to comfortably finish the day.

Doing well takes a mix of concentration, skill and luck, and to make it through all 18 levels successfully is the result of dozens (if not hundreds) of small decisions. The players must weigh the risk of rising on the leaderboard with the risk of losing a chunk of their stack. Sometimes caution pays off, and sometimes it is aggression that takes the front seat.

On table 20 just now we witnessed some of just that sort of calculation, as Hugh Baird pushed his weight around – seen below channeling the dark side of the force with his hoodie – eventually collecting the pot without having to show his cards.

The hand began with Hugh’s late-position raise preflop to 17,000. He was called by the buttonand the big blind, but after a flop, his next 20,000 bet pushed the big blind out of the hand, leaving only Alexanddre Thibouthot on the button for some heads up play.

When a came down on the turn, both players checked to see a on the river. Hugh continued on as he had been doing and opened with another bet, this time for 60,000. After a short pause to think about it, Alexandre decided upon the cautious approach, and Hugh added about 50,000 new chips to his stack.

Play continues!

The registration period for Day 1C has officially closed.

If you want to play in a $200 + $20 Grand Prix Canada Day 1 event today, you now only have two choices: either play in the 5PM Day 1D flight, or come down at 10PM for the Day 1E Turbo flight, where levels last on 15 minutes, as opposed to the normal 30 minute levels of non-turbo flights.

Good luck!