Yesterday, Playground closed the books on the 2019 World Cup of Cards. The festival’s huge success is largely due to our players, who came out in droves, despite some of the worst weather we had in years, to compete in the WCC. The sheer number of participants was astounding; $2,476,956 were paid out in cash prizes of all sizes! We also want to thank our partners, WPTDeepStacks, Grand Prix Canada, and Card Player Poker Tour, with whom we worked to build the three marquee events of the series.   WPTDeepStacks The WPTDeepStacks was the festival’s Main Event and the biggest buy-in of all 26 events. Players got in for $1,650 (or roughly 10% of that if they won a seat through one of the event’s satellites), and competed for a $998,130 prize pool. Day 2 finished with exactly 9 players, as the format demanded. All 9 finalists came back the following […]

After more than 10 hours of poker, the WCC Event #26 has a champion. It took more than eight hours to reach the final table, but when it was finally established, Rami Hammoud played dominant poker. He steam-rolled his way to victory, knocking out the final two players that stood between him and victory in three, quick hands. When Jacob Parent raised all in with a pair of sixes, , Rami called with . The board came down and Jacob’s night was over. As he left the table, he surrendered his bounty chip to Rami, the 15th bounty chip our champion was awarded during the event. Two hands later, it was Charles-Éric Benoit’s turn to face off against Rami. He pushed his bounty chip forward, risking it all with . Rami was holding . When the community cards were dealt, , Charles-Éric was Rami’s 16th bounty of the evening, and […]

It was a grueling day of poker full of action and packed with seasoned poker professionals. We started the day with 64 competitors, with only 40 slated to be paid. As the group made its way towards the final table we lost a lot of big names. That said, once the final table was formed the field was still very strong. After four hours of intense play the final four players decided upon an ICM chop. That helped speed the tournament along, but it still took another 90 minutes to crown our champion. And that champion is Danny Ibrahim! Although Danny is an experienced poker player, this is his biggest win to date. On top of his ICM-apportioned win of $42,070, he also gains the $6,000 kept in reserve for the winner. In the end he takes home a prize of $48,070, the trophy, and many great memories from a […]

Event #25 of the World Cup of Cards, the $100 + $10 8-Max Re-entry, drew a large afternoon turnout of 118 entries including 23 re-entries, enough to more than double the prize pool guarantee. The players in this event made two deals to re-distribute the prize pool; the first was made to provide the player on the money bubble a small cash of $150, and the second was an ICM chop of the remaining prize pool when three players, Chris Arvanitis, Yannick Labattaglia and Eric Guindon, remained. According to the terms of the ICM chop, each of the three finalists locked up a significant profit for the day and left $230 for the eventual winner. After the deal was made, the first player to exit was Eric Guindon, who earned $1,955 in the process. It then came down to a heads-up battle between Arvanitis and Labattaglia. At this stage, the trophy and […]

Event #24 of the World Cup of Cards, the $200 + $20 PL Omaha 3 Lives Re-entry, was a huge success that brought out a field large enough to more than double the prize pool guarantee. Players took advantage of the re-entry option early and often, generating 21 re-entries in the first six levels of play. In many tournaments with this kind of structure, we tend to see the play tighten up once the re-entry period ends, but that was not the case tonight. The loose play of the early levels kept up all the way until the money bubble, as multi-way pre-flop all ins were a regular occurrence up until the very late stages of play. Once the field reached the money bubble, the players found some patience and some folds, as a dozen hands of hand-for-hand play ensued. The short stack in the field nearly blinded out and was […]

After 45 minutes of head-to-head action at the final table, Nabil Nahoul took down the Short Deck trophy, 1st place and the $1,388 that go with it, narrowly defeating runner-up Borislav Angelov. The two players exchanged the chip lead several times, but whenever it seemed that Borislav was going to take it down, Nabil would thunder back with a massive win. And when we say massive, we mean it! Nabil pulled quads on three separate occasions in the heads-up battle alone! The hand that finally finished Borislav off was another quads miracle, with Borislav’s preflop shove with not standing a chance against Nabil’s on a board. Borislav had an excellent tournament with lots of great play throughout the evening and early morning, but it is certain that his 2nd place finish was bittersweet. That is the nature of poker. When you run into a player who pulls that many improbable […]

With the chip stacks to start heads up play being at the level they were at, it was possible, even probable, that the 2-way match would end up taking a significant period of time. However these players had something else in mind. Before the end of the same level as heads up play began, there was an all in and a call – and a player at risk. Julio Cacoilo opened the action preflop with a raise to 400K and Martin Gaudreault-Remillard made the call. Flop: The action went check-check – a little bit of a surprise considering the wet board. The turn was – and the action heated up quickly. Martin opened to 500,000 only to face an all in raise from Julio. Martin went pretty deep into the tank before calling – but call he did. Julio: Martin: . Martin was miles ahead with two pair and just […]