This evening’s 10PM Turbo flight for the $200 + $20 Grand Prix Canada has wrapped.

It had 85 entrants, triple the number of last night’s Turbo flight. As the clock wound down on the final minutes of level 18, there were only 16 players left. However, it took almost an hour to lose the last player, as the group had been playing with 17 for quite some time.

Their average chip stack at the end of the night was 531,000 leaving many of them in a good position to start Day 2, although not great. The average chip stack of many of the other dozen flights so far this week have left their remaining players with higher averages.

Below are some photos of our chips leaders from this group. And don’t forget: Day 2 will begin this Sunday at 3:30PM! See you at the tables.

On table 38 we just lost another one, and now we’re down to 21 players. Brigitte Korak was the executioner in this hand, striking down her opponent with an . That unlucky fellow? Amir Shami.

He had shoved with less than 10 big blinds, and so at this point in the tournament he really had no choice. His couldn’t stand up considering the board, which was a .

On this hand nobody hit, but Amir made the best of it, taking a few generous swigs of his glass of wine as he packed up his stuff. Level 16 is almost upon us.

As the blinds go up, the number of players go down. That’s the nature of the Turbo format. As a consequence, over the last 20 minutes we have witnessed what seemed like a dozen all ins, if not more. Our field of participants has dropped from a total of 85 (including 15 re-entries) down to only 26, less than three full tables.

The number of players will likely continue to drop quickly over the next hour.

With only 8,500,000 chips in play, the average chip stack is only 326,000 at the moment. With just over an hour left to play, our players will have to cut at least half of the field to bring the chip average up to something consistent with the other, full-sized flights, around a 700,000 average.

Indeed, some of the chip leaders in the other Day 1s had as much as 3,000,000 at the end of the day, so some of our players have a lot of work in front of them if they want to equal some of their peers from the other Day 1s… We’ll see how it goes and keep you updated.

Panagiotis Zafiris is having fun, and he’s stacking chips. After ten levels he’s got almost quadruple the average, and if he can keep it up he’ll be laughing all the way to Day 2.

The list of the 5 chips leaders is below, but as you’ll see, Mr. Zafiris is heads and shoulders above the rest at the moment.

Joshua Frazer James brought his lucky red coat, but up until now that shiny thing hasn’t done a damn thing for him. However, things may be about to change. In the last hand he faced off against three others and ended up coming out on top, using his table position and well-timed bets to force his opponents to fold.

The hand started with a raise from middle position by Kauvsegan Ehamparam to 6,500. Joshua and the two blinds called, and they saw a flop.

The blinds checked the flop along with Kauvsegan, at which point Joshua bet 7,000 and chased away the blinds. But Kauvsegan was game to play, and called. They saw a on the turn.

Kauvsegan checked again, only to see Joshua bet 12,000. This was finally too much for Kauvsegan, and Joshua took down the pot.

Was it his jacket? His skill? His table position? A combination? We’ll never know. But we hope he keeps that jacket on, it’s fantastic.

(Update: Joshua was eliminated while this post was being written)

On table 38 just now we witnessed a battle of the short stacks.

As we approached, Behrooz Salemi was already all in with showing on the board. It wasn’t a large bet, but most players got out of the way, and it was called by only Alberto Melendez. They flipped over their cards.

Alberto:

Behrooz:

Alberto was showing top pair and Behrooz was chasing the flush. The turn/river was a , no help for Behrooz, and he doubled up his short-stacked opponent.

The next hand, Behrooz (with almost nothing left) was forced to shove again, this time for 7,800 chips. His hand wasn’t terrible ( ), but he ran into the of Shailesh Patel.

The board was dealt , and Behrooz took his leave.

Ayana Massa is one of our competitors here in the $200 + $20 Grand Prix Canada Turbo Day 1H, and as we passed by her table just now her face said it all. She was absolutely gobsmacked. For the life of her, she couldn’t tell what her opponent was thinking.

Why was this?

Because here in level 5, with the blinds at only 800/1,600, Raphael Bernard opened with a 25,000 raise UTG. That represented 15x the big blind, an unusually large bet. But Ayana was in the mood to gamble, and so she called, still with a look of extreme perplexion glued to her face.

Flop:

With so much money in the pot already, they both checked the turn. It was a . It was at this point in this oddly-played hand that Raphael shoved, much to Ayana’s delight.

She snap-called and flipped over a low flush with her . Raphael had pocket . The river was another heart, which didn’t help him. He said goodnight, and Ayana was now officially less frustrated by the unorthodox play.

It’s Friday night, there are hundreds of people jamming our poker room, and the dream of making it through all 18 grueling levels to earn a seat on Day 2 is alive and well for many of our players.

This is especially true of our newest arrivals, the brave 27 souls who have signed up for the $200 + $20 Grand Prix Canada Day 1H Turbo, which just started a few minutes ago at 10PM.

And while the number of participants is sure to balloon over the next 2 hours, the size of the field will definitely not reach the huge numbers of our other, full-sized Day 1 flights today, which averaged 300 per group. So if you want a chance to win a part of the $500,000 guaranteed prize pool, this is your chance to get down here stake your claim – but without having to face off against a huge room.

In the Turbo, all you have to do is survive five hours of play (as opposed to the usual 10 hours), and you’ll be ready to join the Day 2 group this Sunday. The only real difference with the Turbo is that there are less breaks (only one), and each level is half as long.

Late registration is open for another two and a half hours (it closes just after midnight), so come on down, grab a seat and let’s go!