After 3 long days of poker, Mark Wells managed to turn a 20,000 chip starting stack into 24 million tournament chips, in the meantime, turning his $135 (+ $25 charitable contribution) investment into a sweet $24,440 cash prize! It wasn’t until 2 in the morning on Tuesday August 25th that the outcome of the Strike Out Cancer Charity Event was decided – a long journey that began on Friday August 21st. Participation in Day 1a was strong as 238 players joined us for that Friday afternoon heat – the start of a strong trend that would continue through Day 1d on Saturday evening. During the event, players had the opportunity to see and play with some of the greatest stars from the poker and hockey worlds. Larry Robinson, Guy Carbonneau, Guy Lapointe, Jacques Demers, Karl Dykhuis, Eric Desjardins, and Antonio Esfandiari all played in the event. Everyone – stars and […]

The traditional first event in a major festival at Playground Poker Club is a $135 + $15 Re-entry event that has come to be known as “The Wild $150.” One of the best values in poker the tournament gives everyone the chance to play Big Event poker at an accessible buy-in. Event 1 of the Playground Winter Festival was held between February 27th and March 3rd and as usual it attracted a huge number of entries – 1141 this time around. This generated a prize pool of $188,699.00 well surpassing the $100K guarantee! Of the 1441 entries 341 players were left to begin Day 2 and as is typical for this event the action was fast and furious as play moved towards the money bubble which they reached at the end of the 6th level of play on Day 2. Day 3 began with Jean-François Marin as the leader with […]

Jonathan Jaffe finished runner-up in the 2008 WPT World Poker Finals in Mashantucket, and was determined not to finish in second place again. He came into the final table as the chip leader, and although he saw his stack swing throughout the night, he inevitably found himself with all of the chips in play. Heads-up play with opponent Ratharam Sivagnanam last quite a while, and both players held the lead at multiple occasions. Following a big pot won by Jonathan that left Ratharam with less than a quarter of the chips in play, Jonathan began applying pressure on the short stack. Ratharam responded to his aggressive opponent by limp-shoving a marginal hand, only to run into a monster. After making the call, Jonathan tabled , and needed to hold versus Ratharam’s to become the champion. The board ran out and with that, Jonathan won the tournament, the Hublot watch, the […]

With a deal in place – even one that reserved $10K for the eventual champion – it would be easy to assume that 3-way or heads-up play would be less serious than it might normally be. But judging by the play after the deal, that was definitely not the case in this tournament! When Matt Jarvis took the lead, however, there was no looking back. He played aggressively and Pascal was unable to double back through him and retake the lead – or even to draw level. On the final hand of the tournament, Matt limped for the first time in the match, and Pascal immediately shoved his last ~340K. Matt called and Pascal’s tournament was on the line. Pascal: Matt: The flop of wasn’t helpful for Pascal, and the on the turn put a second pair on the board, and Pascal needed either a king or an 8 to […]

Somewhere near the middle of Day 1, Faisal Khan built an over-average stack, and from that moment on, he never lost control of the tournament. He steadily maintained a spot atop the leaderboard, and only fell below average once heads-up play began. It didn’t take long for him to regain the lead versus heads-up opponent Daniel Strelitz, and inevitably he found himself to be the sole survivor of a starting field of 269 entries. In the final hand of play, Faisal called the all-in of Daniel on the turn, with a board showing . He tabled for top pair, and had a few outs to fade to win the hand versus Daniel’s . With the river bringing the , Faisal won the pot and the tournament! Congratulations Faisal!

Raymond Kay outlasted 1,331 other competitors to emerge as the champion of Event 3, a $225 + $25 No Limit Hold’em Frenzy! In heads-up play against Jean-François Lescadres, Raymond saw his stack fall rather short before winning two big pots that eventually lead to his victory. In the last hand of play Raymond opened the action preflop from the button. On the flop, Jean-Francois check-raised Raymond and then called Raymond’s 3-bet shove. When they opened their hands, they saw they were virtually flipping. Raymond showed down and was against the flush and straight draws of Jean-Francois who was holding . The pair of tens improved to a straight with the running cards showing the and the and this was good enough to win the pot. Raymond earned a cool $50,000 for his first-place finish as well as a Playground Poker Fall Classic bracelet. Jean-Francois received a consolation prize of $34,270 – […]

Congratulations to Mike Lafable who battled hard all day to emerge victorious in Event 1, The Wild $150, at the 2014 Playground Poker Fall Classic. Ahmad Baalbaki worked equally hard and managed to come in 2nd place. The player that Mike triumphed over was Ahmad Baalbaki. The two players’ voyage to the end could not have been more different. Where Ahmad was among the chip leaders from early on in Day 2, Mike was never among the leaders until the very end. And where Ahmad played a tight, aggressive game, Mike seemed to alternate between trying to open up the game by playing a lot of hands and then periods of extremely tight play as he needed to double up to survive. But, survive he did as did Ahmad and both players did very well to get to this point in the tournament. For his victory, Mike won the top prize of […]

On Sunday January 19th we held the 8th edition of the ever-popular Tag Team tournament. This event has become one of the most popular special events on the calendar and always attracts a diverse group of 2-player teams who join up to try and win the whole thing. The most recent Tag Team event featured 124 two-player teams. Everyone played their own starting stack for the first 6 levels, and after a short break team members brought their stacks together and teams alternated between players from level to level. If a player busted out during the individual portion of the tournament, as long as their partner had a stack they could continue after the merge. On Sunday, 112 of the 124 teams remained alive at the merge and that number slowly fell as the day progressed until a final table of 9 teams was left in contention. At the end […]

And the winner of the Playground Poker Fall Classic MVP Belt is… Vince Dwyer! Vince came from behind and just barely managed to stay in front of the second-place finisher to win the belt, which was awarded to the player with the best overall record over the course of the entire Fall Classic. Vince’s path to the MVP didn’t start out quickly – but he cashed in both Event 1 and Event 2 to grab some crucial early points. As the Fall Classic drew to a close things heated up for Vince as he rode two great results straight to the top of the standings. In event 12 he was heads up with Bhupinder W and eventually finished in 2nd place. He followed up that solid performance the very next day, with another final table in Event 13, the $185 + $15 + $100 Bounty tournament. He went out in […]