Strangers in the Night, Playground’s famous charity event, is back on our felts as 1 of 4 multi-day events in the World Cup of Cards. This tournament is always a great opportunity to compete in a light atmosphere, shoot for some big payouts, and do your part to help people in need! The buy-in is $150 + $25, and with $65,000 guaranteed, there is enough in there to play it for the prizes, but there is another incentive: the entirety of the $25 fee goes to the Strangers in the Night charity initiative! Our Director of Charitable Initiatives, Larry Robinson, works closely with the Strangers in the Night Group, and they, in turn, help the Miriam Foundation, the West Island Women’s Shelter, and Lymphoma Canada; all great causes! Event #11 – Strangers in the Night: Day 1A – Monday January 28 at 7PM Day 1B – Tuesday January 29 at […]
Playground
The Value of Early Satellites
All of our poker festivals are preceded by a string of satellite tournaments, giving our players a chance to get into the action for a fraction of the buy-in. These tournaments represent a great opportunity to play the bigger events, and possibly experience a tournament breakthrough. The guarantees in these satellites usually get bigger as we get closer to the target event, so how much value can these early satellites represent? The answer is: a whole lot of it! Historical Numbers The intrinsic value of a satellite does not reside in the number of guaranteed seats, but rather in the ratio of players paid, compared to their guarantee. The entries to seats awarded ratio in the early satellites can be as good as 1 in 7 players paid on average, as seen with the WSOP-C Playground last summer and the Winter Festival in January 2018, while the satellites closer to […]
A Thank You Note
The last weekend marked the 8-year anniversary of Playground, and the celebrations were effervescent! 8 years already, what a ride! At the forefront of our celebrations was the Anniversary Series, which provided some rather amazing opportunities. There were 7 events on the schedule, along with a few MILLIONS Step Satellites, each with some unbelievable value. The Playground 200 needs no introduction. Through one Day 1 Online and four live starting flights, 707 entries were accounted for in this edition of our staple event. The hard-fought battle was finally won by Tommy Dion from Granby (pictured on the right), after starting Day 3 with only 6 big blinds! He brought home $15,818. The series also presented the very first MILLIONS Step 3 Satellite. 60 entries were put in, stemming from qualifiers, direct buy-ins, and re-entries. With 15 seats guaranteed, our Step 3 players enjoyed a pretty handsome overlay of $64,500! 15 of them, […]
Antoine Simon is the Champion of Event #7
By the time heads up play arrived, both players were quite fatigued and with the deal in place, there was some fight between the two players – Christopher Turnbull and Antoine Simon – but both were equally easygoing about the whole affair. The mood was light, the players were happy, there was a nice small rail consisting of Sergei Gurin, and the stage was set for the final stretch of this terrific event. Chris scored an early double to take the chip lead, but before long Antoine had doubled back and enjoyed a big lead once again. Eventually, with fatigue getting the best of the players, Antoine limped his button holding and Chris decided to shove over the top holding . Antoine called. The window card told most of the tale on the flop: . The on the turn gave Chris a few more outs, but the on the river […]
Minh Chi Nguyen is the Megastack Turbo Champ
With no deal in place to influence the pace of play and reasonable stack sizes and chip differential between the two players, one would have been excused to assume that heads up play would be an extended affair… but it was not – Minh Chi Nguyen and Guillaume Tremblay obviously came to play and weren’t afraid of a little gambling along the way. Before long, Guillaume was left gasping with just 160K left, and though he doubled once after that, within a few minutes both players were again happy with their holdings. Minh Chi: Guillaume: The flop was dealt: . When the came on the turn, Guillaume got out of his chair and on the river he put-on his coat and went for his payout voucher. Event #6 Champion: Minh Chi Nguyen, $1,985 Final Hand of Play 2nd place: Guillaume Tremblay, $1,525
A second jackpot in 3 days!
On the third day of existence of the EGD section at Playground, a second jackpot was hit! On Saturday night at 10:20PM, Lucie Bourcier was playing 0.01$ denominations on Eternal Lotus. The Lotus decided it was her time, and the Fu Gui Rong Hua feature unlocked the jackpot for her! Lucie was the proud winner of $10,243.32! We hope that this nice figure allows her to spoil herself and a few family members during the holidays. Congratulations!
After 15 hours Marco Cannizzaro is declared the champ
Marco Cannizzaro of Montreal, QC has been crowned the Champion of the 8-Year Anniversary edition of the Deepstack! He outlasted 83 players through 27 levels, and a grueling 15 hours of play to emerge victorious. After Marco hit an ace on the river to knock Pierre Guay, the final three competitors continued to grind for dominance. Then Christine Park knocked out Mark Saddik a half-dozen hands later, leaving Marco and Christine to battle it out to the finish. When the tournament was reduced to 7 players, the competitors chose to do an ICM chop (reserving $750 for 1st place). Combined with his guaranteed $3,895, Eric won $4,645. When the final hand of play occurred and both players went all in, Marco was holding while his opponent, Christine, showed . The board ran out and Marco`s pair proved to be the winning hand!
Eric Schanck is declared the champ
Eric Schanck of Lachine, QC has been crowned the Champion of the 8-Year Anniversary edition of the Playground Shootout Turbo! He outlasted 62 players through 25 levels of play to emerge victorious. It wasn’t always easy going for Eric. He had to endure a heads up battle with Ghita Acordunencei just to secure the last spot at the final table. Ghita and Eric went back and forth long after the other eight spots had been secured, but in the end Eric finally prevailed. When the tournament was reduced to 8 players, the competitors chose to do an ICM chop (reserving $120 for 1st place). Combined with his guaranteed $665, Eric won $885. When the final hand of play occurred and all the chips were pushed into the pot, Eric was holding while his opponent, James Brown, held . The board ran out and the pair Eric was holding was potent […]
The first fifteen for MILLIONS
The evening of December 16th was the first $1,500 + $150 MILLIONS Main Event satellite – Step 3 with 15 $10,300 Seats guaranteed for the MILLIONS North America Main Event. Considering that this was the first satellite for the event, we wish to present to you the first 15 players that have booked their ticket for the event to be held in May! Congratulations!
Playground 200 Champion: Tommy Dion
Tommy Dion of Granby, QC has been crowned the Champion of the 8-Year Anniversary edition of the Playground 200! He outplayed, out-drew, and outlasted 706 players in the event to emerge as the Champion, and the final Playground 200 Champion of 2018. It was clear that something really special was happening relatively early in the day when Tommy took over a clear chip lead after having started with just 165,000 in chips – the equivalent of 6bb! Once he took the lead, although he took a few hits, Tommy stayed among the top 2 or 3 players the entire rest of the way. When the tournament dropped to 6 players, they chose to do an ICM chop (reserving $1,503 for 1st place) and Tommy was in 2nd place for a $14,315 score – and a chance at the additional prize. By the final hand of play the two remaining players […]
Let there be… cake!
It’s a long-standing tradition at Playground to mark the anniversary of our opening with… what else… an Anniversary Cake! This year is no exception – and the challenge was doubly difficult this time around – how can you compete, in cake form, with a whole new building and the launch of an entirely new form of gaming at Playground? Chef Fadi Haddad of Wow Cakes has been faced with similar challenges for many years now, and for the 8-Year Anniversary of Playground, he has proved to be more than able to meet and surpass expectations! This year’s cake is nothing less than a miniature representation – in cake and fondant – of the entire Playground Complex! Not only did Fadi create an amazing cake, though – he traveled to the future to do it! The 8-Year Anniversary cake represents a completed new building, all the way up to the trees […]
The first EGD Jackpot has been hit!
About 36 hours after the opening of our electronic gaming space, the first EGD Jackpot has been hit! Last night, as the Friday buzz was coming over Playground, Danièle Brodeur was casually playing Quick Hit Platinum Plus, a 5-reel 30-line game. Suddenly, Quick Hit symbols stormed the screen, and she became our first EGD jackpot winner! Danièle was hand-paid $12,011.66 by one of our staff members, and just like that, her holiday shopping had become a lot more pleasant to think of! Congratulations!