Event #2 of the March Power Weekend, the Playground 500, was a tremendous success that brought out a field of 314 entries. The great turnout smashed the $100,000 guarantee to create huge prizes at the top of the money list. Today’s Day 3 started at the final table with eight players who put on a display of hard fought, determined poker. They took a cautious approach to the first two levels but there were still moments of excitement and tension, with a number of bluffs being shown at the table. Following back-to-back eliminations that reduced the field to six players, negotiations for an ICM chop of the prize pool began. And they did not last long, as consensus was reached quickly, allowing the final six to lock up five-figures scores. In many tournaments, the conclusion of a deal leads players to essentially “flip” their way to the end and stack […]

After the players returned from their short break, play resumed. Unfortunately for Harrison Kaczka, his luck was not changing. He tried to grind, fold and squeeze some value from the little hands that were favorable to him, but to no avail. Eventually, he just ran out of chips. He decided to go all in when he had 85,000 chips left, and Jean-René made the obvious call. In the end, all it took was a pair of jacks to crown Jean-René champion. Jean-René Gonzalez: Harrison Kaczka: Board: Event #3 Champion: Jean-René Gonzalez, $2,276 The last hand of play Second Place: Harrison Kaczka, $1,610

The day started at 11 this morning in the 1st event of the March Power Weekend, a $100 + $10 freezeout, which attracted 60 players, allowing it to surpass the guaranteed prize pool of $5,000, generating a total of $5,820 to be paid to the top 8 finishers. The final table saw the two who were the chip leaders all afternoon, Giovanni Petrella and Ron S., holding a substantial lead over the others. As expected, the short stacks shoved away and the field started to narrow down. Ron S. went on a crazy roller coaster ride, seeing his stack drop to 8K, then go back up to almost 300K, before busting out in 4th place. Dylan Thibault, a regular visitor from Ontario who likes to come play most of the Playground events, made a solid deep run, just as he often does, but ultimately busted out in 3rd place ($910). […]

Event #5, a $200 + $20 Deepstack Freezeout started at 11 AM, featuring a 30,000 chip starting stack and 20 minute levels.  Although the weather was not the best today, 113 players made the trip to Playground to enjoy a Sunday afternoon of tournament poker. There was a guaranteed prize pool of $15,000 that ended up swelling to $21,922! There were many local grinders mixed in with out of town players competing for a top prize of $5,252.  The day played out slowly, with many players grinding similar sized stacks. Cameron Wilson from Kitchener, Ont., had started to run away from the pack in the later stages.  Mike Saragossi then started to build a monster stack heading into the final table.  Ahmad Baalbaki was playing patiently, nursing a below average sized stack as we were down to the last 3 tables. he never gave up hope and was able to […]

Stephane Blouin-Verroeulst has won the Playground 200 in the February 2019 Playground Power Weekend, defeating David Bolduc Hamel in a tough heads up battle between two players that were clearly playing at the top of their game. Stephane had started the heads up match with a slight lead, and this was maintained through the initial level of 2-way play until the break – he had about a 3:2 chip lead. Sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. However during the break, he seems to have found a new focus, and within 10 minutes of play (perhaps even a little less), Stephane was up to a 5:1 advantage and the writing was on the wall. The final hand of the tournament came when Stephane called in the small blind, and then snapped off David’s shove from the bb. Stephane: David: Community cards: Just like that, Stephane became the Playground 200 […]

The heads up action was set up to be quick, with Yannick Bourque Patry having a huge lead on Denyse Mignault. Both players were obviously starting to show signs of fatigue, and the end seemed near. Right off the bat, Denyse doubled up in the first hand, armed with pocket Kings and 520,000 chips. After this quick hand, she managed to go all in 6 of the next 8 hands. Yannick seemed unable to get his hands on any decent cards at all. The blinds went up to 30K/60K and the pace intensified even more. Yannick stayed stone-faced and impassive throughout the match up, and tried as much as he could to prevent his chips from bleeding into Denyse’s stack. But it was a loosing battle. After 5 or 6 hands Denyse was now chip leader and was showing no signs of easing off the pedal. Every time Yannick raised […]

During heads-up play, the players decided to make another small deal; instead of $400 going to 1st place, they agreed to re-adjust and leave $300 for 1st and $100 for 2nd. The two players battled back and forth for an orbit or two, and finally they were both all-in: Jonathan had and Normand had .  Jonathan was happy to smash the flop, hitting 2 pair, but as seasoned tournament poker players know, in most all-in situations, there seems to always be a sweat. He was not happy to see the spade draw and wanted the dealer to keep it clean. The on the turn was a brick, but the on the river made a flush for Normand, and, all of the sudden, we had our champion. Event #3 Champion: Normand Plessis Belair, $1,715 Last hand of play 2nd place: Jonathan English, $1,500

An epic heads-up battle took place between Jean-Pascal Gauthier and Anish Sood to close out the action in Event #1 in the February 2019 Playground Power Weekend. Along the way, the two remaining players looked at the ICM chop numbers, but in the end, they decided to just play on. Anish was dominating up until the last hand before break, but with only 10 seconds to go before the break was to start, an important hand was dealt.  Anish was on the button and looked down at and shoved.  Jean-Pascal woke up with and, as expected, snap called!  The Queens held and Jean-Pascal received a nice double-up, adding almost 300k to his stack. Returning from their last break, chips moved back and forth until Anish went all in with Big Slick. Jean-Pascal called, holding a hand that was clearly dominated:  King high, 8 kicker. The dealer fanned out a King-high […]

Yesterday, Playground closed the books on the 2019 World Cup of Cards. The festival’s huge success is largely due to our players, who came out in droves, despite some of the worst weather we had in years, to compete in the WCC. The sheer number of participants was astounding; $2,476,956 were paid out in cash prizes of all sizes! We also want to thank our partners, WPTDeepStacks, Grand Prix Canada, and Card Player Poker Tour, with whom we worked to build the three marquee events of the series.   WPTDeepStacks The WPTDeepStacks was the festival’s Main Event and the biggest buy-in of all 26 events. Players got in for $1,650 (or roughly 10% of that if they won a seat through one of the event’s satellites), and competed for a $998,130 prize pool. Day 2 finished with exactly 9 players, as the format demanded. All 9 finalists came back the following […]

After more than 10 hours of poker, the WCC Event #26 has a champion. It took more than eight hours to reach the final table, but when it was finally established, Rami Hammoud played dominant poker. He steam-rolled his way to victory, knocking out the final two players that stood between him and victory in three, quick hands. When Jacob Parent raised all in with a pair of sixes, , Rami called with . The board came down and Jacob’s night was over. As he left the table, he surrendered his bounty chip to Rami, the 15th bounty chip our champion was awarded during the event. Two hands later, it was Charles-Éric Benoit’s turn to face off against Rami. He pushed his bounty chip forward, risking it all with . Rami was holding . When the community cards were dealt, , Charles-Éric was Rami’s 16th bounty of the evening, and […]

It was a grueling day of poker full of action and packed with seasoned poker professionals. We started the day with 64 competitors, with only 40 slated to be paid. As the group made its way towards the final table we lost a lot of big names. That said, once the final table was formed the field was still very strong. After four hours of intense play the final four players decided upon an ICM chop. That helped speed the tournament along, but it still took another 90 minutes to crown our champion. And that champion is Danny Ibrahim! Although Danny is an experienced poker player, this is his biggest win to date. On top of his ICM-apportioned win of $42,070, he also gains the $6,000 kept in reserve for the winner. In the end he takes home a prize of $48,070, the trophy, and many great memories from a […]

Event #25 of the World Cup of Cards, the $100 + $10 8-Max Re-entry, drew a large afternoon turnout of 118 entries including 23 re-entries, enough to more than double the prize pool guarantee. The players in this event made two deals to re-distribute the prize pool; the first was made to provide the player on the money bubble a small cash of $150, and the second was an ICM chop of the remaining prize pool when three players, Chris Arvanitis, Yannick Labattaglia and Eric Guindon, remained. According to the terms of the ICM chop, each of the three finalists locked up a significant profit for the day and left $230 for the eventual winner. After the deal was made, the first player to exit was Eric Guindon, who earned $1,955 in the process. It then came down to a heads-up battle between Arvanitis and Labattaglia. At this stage, the trophy and […]