After almost 9 hours of play and an ICM chop, the endurance and will to fight on at the final table was beginning to wear thin. However, over three successive hands, Stephane Gauthier came out of nowhere and eliminated all three of his opponents, one after another. Congratulations to Stephane for an excellent tournament! The hand that won him 1st place and the trophy is below, in which he pulled a flush on the river. Stephane defeated 2nd place finisher Christopher Turnbull. Christopher took home $2,695 and 10+ $100 bounty chips. However, as mentioned above, this was the third hand in a row won by Stephane, each of which was an all in. He previously defeated the 3rd place finisher Philip Schrier (who took home $2,035 + 2 $100 bounty chips) when Philip’s pocket pair of was routed by Stephane’s on a board. Stephane had also defeated the 4th place […]
Playground
WCC Event #3: Poissant wins
After just more than eight hours of play we have crowned ourselves a winner. Congratulations go out to Jonathan Poissant for winning Event #3 in this year’s World Cup of Cards, the $100 + $10 8-Max Deepstack Re-entry. Jonathan will take home $2,110 for his win. Jonathan said something interesting as we set up the championship photo. He recounted to us that, while he works 6 out of 7 days this week, today was his day off! He decided he wanted to come to Playground to relax and have fun, which turned out to be a good decision. Champion Jonathan Poissant Jonathan won the tournament after only a few minutes of head-to-head play with Steve Khoury, who earned $1,884 for his 2nd place finish. The way that Jonathan took down the tournament win was actually a combination of two successive hands. The first one crippled Steve, a hand in which Steve’s two […]
Event #2: And the winner is Christina Knot
A champion has been declared in the $150 + $15 Deepstack Turbo, Event #2 in the World Cup of Cards. After more than eight hours of play, including close to 90 minutes of back-and-forth heads up action between Christina Knot and Anh Nguyen, where both players were saved more than once by unlikely cards being dealt on the river, Christina, of Saint Hippolyte Quebec, finally prevailed. Anh went all in with and Christina wagered everything on . It looked like Anh might reign victorious, but the final hand was won on the final card when the board was dealt . As runner up, Anh’s share of the prize pool was $3,210! But the grand prize of $5,166 and a champion’s bragging rights go to Christina, who demonstrated poise and perseverance throughout the event! Christina Knot
Tag Team: We have a winner!
The winner in the first event in the World Cup of Cards, the $400 + $40 Tag Team, is Team Vincenzo D’Elia! After approximately 90 minutes of heads up play (and three switches between tag team partners) the final hand was played by Miguel Goncalo (of Team Brigitte Metivier) and Anthony Meli (of team Vincenzo D’Elia). Both players felt they had worthy cards and jumped all in preflop. The board was dealt , but unfortunately for Miguel his couldn’t beat Anthony’s . Team Brigitte Goncalo take home their ICM Chop of $7,710 (-$250) and 2nd place. Congratulations! However, an even bigger congratulations go out to Team Vince! Well done boys! You’ve truly earned your 1st place win as well as your prize of $7,415 + $1,000 (-$250), or $8,165!
A Secondary BBJ to warm up a cold morning
This morning, just after 7:00am, a group of players found themselves in a hand that will not only warm up a very chilly day, but will put some jackpot dollars in their pockets as well! The action went down at table 12, which at the time was playing at stakes of $2/$5. There was substantial preflop action as a player opened with a limp, followed by a raise and a call of $20. Nhan T then 3bet to $75 – action that was followed by Jean K’s 4bet to $275. The players folded back to Nhan, who shoved. Jean made the call. Nhan: Jean: It was stack-on-stack with black Kings against red Aces, and both players got a nice taste on the flop: – now the hand was set-over set and the jackpot potential was plain for everyone to see. Turn: The turn card was a brick, but the river […]
EGDs – the biggest Jackpot week to date!
Last weekend was by far the busiest since our Electronic Gaming space opened its doors to the public. Playground welcomed and signed up hundreds of new guests. News of the best customer service north of Vegas and the highest payout rate in Canada travels fast! Playground’s Electronic Gaming Devices have been rather generous this week, giving out a total of $133,349 in Jackpots alone! Since last Friday, 44 Jackpots were hit, including our biggest to date, worth $30,222.70! A few other notable Jackpots: On Saturday the 12th, Normand Turenne was betting $4 a spin on 50 Mega Clover, a 5-reel game with 50 fixed lines, when he hit a $4,242.40 Jackpot! The very next day, Dominic Tremblay was paid out a cool $10,000 sum, the second biggest of the week. He was playing Fruits ‘n Royals at the far end of the room. Last night at 2AM, Quick Hit […]
The WCC starts Sunday!
We are just a few weeks into the new year, and it’s time for Playground to host Winter’s Hottest Festival: the World Cup of Cards! The WCC, with its combined guarantees of over $2,000,000, is the very definition of variety. Tournament buy-ins range from $110 to $1650 with a blend of rarely seen formats, high-value satellites, and, of course, 3 marquee events with huge guarantees: Event #8: Grand Prix Canada The Grand Prix Canada is a $220 buy-in tournament with a guarantee of $500,000! There are 17 Day 1s, including 5 online on partypoker. The online flights are held on 5 consecutive days at 8PM starting this Sunday, with $22 satellites starting 2 hours prior, each with 10 seats guaranteed. The whole event is by far the most impressive buy-in/guarantee ratio! Unlimited re-entries. Don’t miss it! Event #17: WPTDeepStacks The WPTDeepStacks, winner of the 4th Annual American Poker […]
Our biggest Jackpot to date!
Last night, early in the evening, Luigi B. was casually playing one of our Quick Hit Platinum Plus games, when his session suddenly took a sharp turn: Luigi hit a HUGE $30,222.70 Jackpot! At exactly 7:25PM our winner-to-be was spinning at 300 credits a pop, or $6, which is the game’s maximum bet. He got himself a few free spins, and one of them unlocked our biggest Jackpot to date! Luigi and his wife were each handed a glass of champagne (along with a nice chunk of change) to celebrate the win, and the rest of the bottle was shared among the neighbouring guests. Congratulations Luigi!
The next Super Sunday is announced!
Super Sunday, the pinnacle of cash game promotions, happens on the first Sunday of every month. February, however, presents an exception: the next edition will be held on February 10. The first two were incredibly popular, drawing huge crowds and generating tons of excitement. The word of the Super Sunday giveaways totalling over $30,000 has continued to spread, and we expect the next one to be the biggest to date. Meanwhile, it just so happens that Sunday, February 3 is the day of the Super Bowl, the most popular North American sporting event of the year. It is also a busy WCC day, with WPTDeepStacks Day 1C and 3 other tournaments on the schedule, and we realize that adding another can’t miss event could potentially present some tough choices for a lot of players. For these reasons, we felt like pushing off the February Super Sunday made a lot of […]
The Satellites of the WCC
The World Cup of Cards is approaching, with its multitude of fun tournaments and all the formats you love. Within the series, you will also find an abundance of satellite tournaments for the WPTDeepStacks, the CPPT, and the MILLIONS Main Event. Six (6) WPTDeepStacks Satellites – $165 + $15 The WPTDeepStacks is the World Cup of Cards Main Event. The buy-in is $1,500 + $150, but you will find many opportunities to claim one of the 29 guaranteed seats and play the tournament for one tenth of the price. With a $750,000 guarantee, this tournament is sure to create some pretty good action. Two (2) CPPT Satellites – $110 + $10 The Card Player Poker Tour Event (CPPT) has a $1,000 + $100 entry fee. It sits towards the end of the festival with a $500,000 guarantee; a great way to shoot for some last minute hard cash! The festival […]
Gavin Smith passes away in his sleep
Gavin Smith, Canadian poker legend and former Playground Player’s Club member, passed away in his sleep last night, in his Houston home. He was 50 years old. Gavin had his poker breakthrough in 2005 when he won a $2,000 event at the Mirage Poker Showdown for $155,880. One week later, he won the WPT main event of that festival for $1,153,778. After adding 2 more final table appearances that year, he was named WPT Player of the Year. He followed up with a prolific career, collecting 6-figure cashes throughout the next decade, including a WSOP bracelet and the associated $268,238 in 2010, as well as a 4th place finish at the inaugural WPT Montreal worth $212,973, held at Playground in 2012. From his visits at Playground, we remember him as a highly entertaining individual and a one-of-a-kind character. His opponents, although usually having a tough time matching his poker skills, […]
It’s payday for the Bad Beat winners!
One week ago today, at the wee hours of the morning, the Primary Bad Beat Jackpot was hit. Our two big winners did not waste any time to pick up their winnings; both of them showed up this afternoon, all smiles, about 15 minutes apart. On Monday, January 7, Amirhossein Shemshaki flopped quad jacks. After that, all it took to break the bank was for him to slow play his monster to the end, letting Darrell Brown catch up with runner runner straight flush. Click here to see the full play-by-play. Both players posed today with their big cheque, just before taking possession of their respective share of the Jackpot. Take a look at these numbers! The Primary Bad Beat, reset at $250,000, awaits the next hit. Being part of the hand will change your yearly budget, but just being in the room when it happens gets you a share! […]