After four Day 1s and a Day 2, today was the final day in the October Power Weekend edition of the Playground 200. After starting with 487 entries, by just after midnight on October 8th, just one player remained: Mykyta Kurilenko. Mykyta defeated Gary Lucci after about 50 minutes of heads up play following the elimination of Cristian Muset. The final 3 players had made a deal, but that didn’t stop them from playing hard to earn the additional $1,995 that came with the Championship, but at the end of the affair, only Mykyta was left standing. Or sitting, rather, and posing for the Champion’s photo. When heads up play began, it seemed like it was destined to go in the other direction, that it might be written in the stars that Gary would win. And indeed through much of the heads up period, the table was definitely tilted in […]

After a short heads up phase where both players took out all the stops in order to win, Sandrel Dugue got the last word. Sandrel went all-in pre-flop and Alexandre immediately called. Sandrel Dugue: Alexandre Cousineau: The dealer wasted no time in running out all five community cards, but the flop was enough for Sandrel. Board: So Alexandre Cousineau is out in 2nd position, and Sandrel Dugue is crowned the winner of Event #9 50/50 Bounty. Sandrel also managed to pick-up 10 bounties, this will add a hefty $1,000 to his winnings. Congratulations to all the winners. Event #9 Champion: Sandrel Dugue, $2,955 + $1,000 The winning hand 2nd place: Alexandre Cousineau, $2,230

The heads up action between both women was intense but brief. Although Brigitte started with twice her rival’s stack, Lucie managed to climb back up until she had just about 1 million chips. But Brigitte could not be deterred from her goal and sure enough, a few hands later she got her wish. Lucie tried to make a grab for the pot and went all in holding: She was, however, a bit taken by surprise when Brigitte snap called all-in with The dealer ran the board So this spelled the end for Lucie Lee, who goes home with a 2nd place finish. Congratulations to Brigitte Korak for her 1st place position. The enchanting lady was all smiles, having overcome 49 other ladies to get to this point. Women’s Event Champion: Brigitte Korak, $835 The winning hand 2nd place: Lucie Lee, $650

After a long and grueling day of poker on the felts of the Playground Poker Club Tournament Hall, Danny Boudreau has emerged as the winner of Event #7, a $70 + $10 NL Hold’em Freeze that began at 1:00pm today. By the time play got to the heads up phase, both players were quite worn out and Danny in particular seemed very eager to wrap things up quickly. In fact that had been true since at there were 6 players remaining, and in a way it worked to his advantage once the deal had been reached because it allowed him to play fearlessly – and to amass a whole boatload of chips along the way. During heads up play, every hand was either a quick fold or an all-in situation. However, even after a full double-up, by the final hand Fady Habashi was still covered by Danny and all the […]

Event #6 of the October Power Weekend, the Megastack Turbo Re-entry, had a robust turnout of 86 entries. The huge starting stack of 50,000 in chips was immensely appealing and helped create some wild action in the early levels. Given the number of chips and the turbo format, the players sprinted out of the gate and put those chips to work. There was no shortage of huge opening bets and raises, enough to even bring about 11 re-entries before the end of the late registration and re-entry period. Trevor Dixon jumped out to the early lead, but he saw the cards turn against him following the first break and ended up busting in the middle of the pack. Anderson Frank-Graham had his turn in the driver’s seat at the second break, but he was soon overtaken by our eventual champion, Stefano Parisé. Parisé had a healthy stack from the early […]

After a tough and relatively long heads up battle, James McDermott has emerged victorious over Sharrol Segal. Segal, from Vancouver, played a great match, but McDermott (from the Ottawa area) was able to take it down in a two-hand process. The first step on his way to victory came after about 20 hands of heads up play – Sharrol had a clear stack size edge at the time. James was in the small blind and flat called, and Sharrol took the opportunity to go all in. James called and the cards were exposed. James: Sharrol: Community cards: Over 500K in chips were shipped over to James, and Sharrol was left quite short-stacked – playing just over 200K. A couple of hands later, Sharrol went all-in from the button and James made the call. Sharrol: James: James hit right in the window – the flop came . And no help was […]

After over 7 hours of play, Michael McKinnon has emerged as the Champion of Event #4 in the October Power Weekend – the $100 + $10 Deepstack Turbo Re-entry. For long periods of play it looked like other results were practically guaranteed – both Gary Lucci and George Iliacopoulos looked to have insurmountable leads – but Michael persevered and managed to come out on top! The final act in the tournament started with three players remaining, after a deal had been struck and Mario was removed in the first hand following the deal. This set up a stretch of almost two full levels that were played 3-way between George, Michael, and Franco Casarcia. At this point, George had an overwhelming chip lead and it seemed that the players were simply “playing out the string” to borrow a term from the baseball world. Eventually, Franco’s stack had dwindled to almost nothing […]

Event #3 of the Playground Power Weekend – a $200 + $30 + $100 PL Omaha Bounty Re-Entry event – has just come to an end and we have crowned our winner: Manfred Gunther. No less than 40 entries were logged for this tournament, including 10 re-entries. The action was fast and intense for the most part of the evening. Midway through the tournament, quite a few of the shorter stacks ended up on the table hosting most of the chip leaders. That put a heightened amount of pressure on them, and the eliminations were at a steady pace. After 11 levels, we were down to the last 9 players and a full seating redraw took place for the final table action. It was no surprise that Manfred Gunther, who had a pristine run all evening, was the chip leader on the final table. His stack alone was bigger than […]

Event #1 in the October Power Weekend was a $100 + $10 8-Max Re-entry. 72 entries joined the tourney, and 9 players got paid. It took about 6 hours to get to the final table, but the final 9 got it done in just an hour and a half! When Michael Zenetzis left in 3rd, heads up play was between Anderson F and Mike Lafable. The pair have played together for the longest time right here at Playground, but today they found out that they are also frequent opponents on the virtual felts! Anderson, reportedly, worked his way into this tournament from a centroll that cost him 0.21$! From there, he worked his way through 4 levels of feeders to get the PP LIVE Dollars that he used to buy into the first event of the Power Weekend. What a parlay! The duel did not last very long. Zenetzis had […]

A little after 9AM on Tuesday morning at Playground Poker Club, after 12 full days of competitive tournament poker, the WSOP-C Playground concluded. The festival presented 7 Ring Events and proudly launched Season IV of the WSOP International Circuit. The Main Event, at a $1,000 + $100 buy-in, was the playing field of the $50K Last Longer, reserved to those who bought in with PP LIVE Dollars. Nathan Hall, finishing 5th in the tournament, added $50,000 in PP LIVE Dollars to his $72,000 fifth prize. He secured his $50K bonus when the 38th position was eliminated! You can read the full story here. Our friend Kristen Bicknell pocketed her biggest cash to date at Playground, finishing 4th in the $2,000 + $200 High Roller event for $36,220. She actually played for over 18 hours on Day 2 to beat her personal record at this venue! Of course, not every player was […]

Event #6 of the WSOP-C Playground, the $2,000 + $200 High Roller, was a huge success that surpassed all expectations. There was a relatively short Day 1 that saw only eight levels of plays but drew a healthy turnout nonetheless. 112 players were survived to play Day 2, but the structure allowed for four levels of late registration and re-entries to start the day which let the field to grow to 288 entries. The huge turnout brought the prize pool to beyond double the $250,000 guarantee.  The top 39 finishers walked away with some profit from this event, but everyone was hoping for the champion’s six-figure prize, WSOP ring, and lifelong bragging rights as a WSOP Circuit Event champion. But attaining those goals would end up taking more skill, patience and determination than anyone would have expected. The field was full of top-tier talent, and play on Day 2 lasted for more […]

The Heads up action between Gino Roland Frenette and Tomas Larivee Magni was not very long. As per standard protocol the length of the levels was reduced to 15 minutes, and the battle began. Although they were almost evenly stacked, they played safely and they played to win. Gino gradually grinded out Tomas’s chips until the last hand. On the last hand both men chuckled because they almost had the exact same hand: Gino: Tomas: Upon seeing the hand Tomas said: “we almost have the same hand, chop-chop probably”, and Gino nodded his approval. But, as fate would have it, the single card that was not identical was key: the 3. The dealer laid out the flop: and Tomas said: “No! Not the three”, with a smile. The and the changed nothing and Gino, in line with his entire day, won the last hand and took 1st place with the […]