The Montréal Poker Expo gets underway in just one week! The first event is the $135 + $25 Strike Out Cancer Charity event, and it starts with TWO Day 1 flights on Friday August 21st. What’s special about this event is that the entire $25 tournament fee is going to the Jodi Taiger Lazarus Fund for Hereditary Breast Cancer Research. It’s going to be a great tournament for a great cause and with a $100,000 Guarantee, it’s going to have a massive prize pool for the players as well. In addition to the Strike Out Cancer tournament, the Montréal Poker Expo includes 13 other events including the $1,000 + $100 Main Event with a $500,000 Guarantee. Players in all 14 events will be playing for their share of huge prize pools, as well as bragging rights over poker friends and foes alike. They’ll also be competing for an amazing Montréal […]

July’s edition of the Playground Power Weekend wrapped up on Sunday with the conclusion of the $50K GTD $150 + $15 NL Hold’em Re-entry tournament. This topped off a fantastic weekend of poker that began on Thursday night, during which over $170K in total prizes were distributed. The festivities got started on Thursday night with a $200 + $20 NL Hold’em Freeze that attracted 172 players. That meant a prize pool valued at $33,368 that was paid out to a total of 20 players, and by the time there were 8 players left they decided to do an ICM chop. The remaining prize pool was divided and Patrick Tardif ended in first place, taking home $4,703.00 for his efforts on the night. On Friday at noon, attention shifted to the $200 + $30 + $100 NL Hold’em Bounty tournament. Each player had a huge $100 bounty on their head, so […]

The Playground Power Weekend wrapped up early Monday morning (at 5:30am!) with the conclusion of the $270 + $30 Tag Team event. This was the 10th edition of this popular tournament, and after a very long day of poker, Adam Cader and Olivier Courcelle-Doire emerged as champions. To win the event they had to navigate through a field that started with 172 2-person teams a huge field! The other tournaments that made up the Power Weekend were equally successful. On Friday there was a $300 + $30 Deepstack Freeze that attracted 162 players who built a $47,142.00 prize pool. At the end of the event, three players decided on a chip chop to end the tournament with Diana Shamshoum in the #1 position, followed by Denis Quirion and Stephane Gosselin. Saturday’s tournament was the $135 + $15 Mix Max event. Mix Max means that as the tournament progressed, the number […]

From Friday June 12th to Sunday June 14th, we’re hosting the Playground Power Weekend. The Festival will be a short one, but the action will undoubtedly be worth clearing your schedule for. First up will be a $300 + $30 Deepstack Freeze, which starts on Friday June 12th at noon. Blind levels will be 30 minutes in length and players will start with 25K in chips. This has proven to be an extremely popular format in the past – in January, the prize pool climbed over $100000! Saturday’s event is a format we haven’t seen in a while: it’s a $135 + $15 Mix Max. This is a really fun format that starts as a normal 10-handed tournament. As the field shrinks, so does the number of players at each table. When there are 80 players remaining, there will be a maximum of 8 players per table, then 6 players […]

The Playground Poker Spring Classic presented by partypoker.net has come to a close and over the 18 days of (almost) non-stop poker tournament action, more than $2.1M in prizes was awarded to players from all over North America and around the world! This year’s edition of the Spring Classic was the first time partypoker.net became the sponsor for the entire festival, and with their support there were 4302 total entries in the 16 events we hosted, starting with The Wild $150 on Sunday April 19th all the way through the WPT Canadian Spring Championship to the closing event, the $200 + $30 + $100 Bounty event! The cornerstone event of the Spring Classic was the partypoker.net WPT Canadian Spring Championship, which saw 370 entries compete for a top prize valued at over a quarter million dollars! At the end of the 5-day event, Sheraz Nasir emerged victorious, edging out Lu […]

The Playground Poker Spring Classic presented by partypoker.net is in full swing. The first three bracelets have been awarded in Event 1, Event 2 and Event 4; with Event 3 (The $250 Frenzy), set to conclude tonight. The Wild $150 was a blockbuster event attracting 1188 entries over 4 starting flights. On the final day of play, 24 hopefuls returned, each with the same goal in mind winning the top prize of $28,780.00. The last 3 tables were made up of a who’s who of the Montreal poker scene, with Rick Shamshoum edging out his competition to take home the first bracelet of the 2015 Spring Classic. Event 2 was next on the agenda, a $200 + $20 Freeze. After 9 hours of poker, the 148 player starting field was whittled down to 6, at which point the remaining prize money was restructured at their request. When it was all […]

As we say in the Montreal area, a tough winter just makes springtime that much sweeter! Temperatures are rising, the snow is almost gone and in 10 days, the spring will reach its apex as the Playground Poker Spring Classic, presented by partypoker.net, gets underway. Judging by the number of satellite entries, it’s shaping up to be a great event! There have already been 36 seats awarded, a number that got a huge bump last night (Wednesday April 8th) as the partypoker.net Mega Overlay satellite event wrapped up. This edition of the Mega Overlay added 17 entries into the event. In addition, there are at LEAST another 32 entries yet to be awarded in live satellites and that’s just counting the guaranteed seats yet to come. Online poker is another important way for people to win their way into big events. Satellites have been running on partypoker for several weeks, […]

After 12 fabulous days of poker, the Playground Winter Festival has come to an end. The Winter Festival, which ran from February 27th to March 10th successfully kept the cold of winter at bay, and provided 12 days of fantastic poker action to players from all over Eastern Canada and the Northeastern US. The festival opened with The Wild $150, which attracted 1441 entries over its three Day 1s and generated a massive prize pool of $188,699.00! At the end of Day 3, 8 players had each won $10K or more, including over $20K for the winner, Jean-Francois Marin! Event 4 was the next of the “large” events – it ended up awarding a total prize pool of $48,015.00. The event was a $300 + $30 Freeze which had 165 players and awarded $11,500.00 to the winner who was local player Michael Korovine. The biggest tournament of them all, however, […]

The Main Event of the Playground Winter Festival has come to a close, with Sergio Vigano being crowned champion! Sergio, a poker player who was visiting Playground Poker Club from New Jersey, collected a cool $86,640.00 for the win. The Main Event was a $1,000 + $100 No Limit Hold’em Re-entry tournament with 2 Day 1s that attracted 494 entries. The field included many top players including Yann Dion, Eric Afriat, Kevin McPhee, among others. By the time Day 2 had started on Sunday, the field had been narrowed to 139 players – with almost all of the notable and more experienced players having qualified. Play on Day 2 sailed very quickly towards the bubble before the pace of play slowed somewhat. When the bubble was reached in level 19, there were still over 4 full hours left to play according to the schedule, and as it turned out, that […]

There’s a new festival on the agenda at Playground Poker Club designed to liven up the winter with some hot poker action! The Playground Winter Festival gets underway on February 27th with a 4-Day-1 Re-entry event ($100K Guaranteed), to be followed by 14 other events including the $1,100 Playground Winter Festival Main Event with a $500,000 Guaranteed Prize Pool! The Main Event starts on Friday, March 6th and features 2 Day 1s (Next-Day Re-entry) and will play out though Day 4 on Tuesday March 10th when a winner will be crowned. Other events in the festival include a $300 + $30 2-Day event, a mixed Hold’em/Omaha event, and a $200 + $20 Survivor tourney. The festival wraps up with a $90 + $10 + $25 Bounty event on March 10th. Live Satellites to the Playground Winter Festival Main Event Live satellites at Playground start on February 8th and continue every […]

January’s special event at Playground Poker Club was a $300 + $30 Deepstack Freeze, and despite several hours of snowfall on Thursday night and dropping temperatures throughout the morning on Friday, the players arrived ready to join the action on Friday afternoon. By the time the event got underway, the published capacity of 250 players had already been reached, and dozens of alternates were waiting to take their seats as players were eliminated in the early going. By the time all of the alternates were seated, a total of 364 players had entered the event an unofficial Playground Poker Club record for a single-day stand-alone event! Among the record field were quite a few players who have had big success in tournaments at Playground in the past, including Players Club members Jean-Philippe Piquette, George Caragiorgas and Philippe Plouffe plus past Playground champions Alexandre Lavigne, Jason Comtois, and Alim Perales. Such […]

Playground Poker Club celebrated its 4-Year Anniversary with a 3-day, $90 + $10 No Limit Hold’em Re-entry tournament with three Day 1s. This year’s event attracted an impressive 978 players, adding up to a massive prize pool of $88,020.00! One of the highlights of the tournament was the anniversary cake, which was served on December 17th (Day 1c). This year’s cake was based on the events we hosted in 2014, and featured representations of many of the trophies, bracelets, belts, and even some of the cash that had been awarded. As usual the cake was a big hit! Day 2 began with 187 players and quickly moved into the money, as the event paid the top 100 finishers. At the end of Day 2, just 18 players remained, who came back on Friday evening to play to the end. The eliminations on Day 3 began relatively quickly, but then at […]