This poker player from Ontario is a frequent visitor at Playground. She plays primarily cash games, but found her way to the tournament hall after a dry patch, and ended up on the January Tournament Leaderboard to earn a STEP 1 satellite seat! A few STEPS later, she is on our list of qualifiers and about to play the biggest tournament she’s ever played: MILLIONS North America! Introducing… Christine Park. (More great content coming up on Playground’s official YouTube channel. Please subscribe!)
Poker
partypoker launches Texas Hold’em SHORTDECK
partypoker has launched online “SHORTDECK” games for its global dotcom market, a cash game format gaining popularity in the poker world and a favourite among high roller circles. Also known as “Six-Plus Hold’em,” the format offers an exciting variation on traditional Texas Hold’em marked by a few key differences. Most significantly, the game is played with a reduced deck of cards. All cards below a 6 are removed, leaving a 36-card deck. An ace can be used as high or low, making A-6-7-8-9 the Short Deck “wheel” or low straight. The other important distinction is in the hand rankings; in Short Deck Hold’em, a flush beats a full house. Available on 2-Max, 6-Max, 8-Max and 9-Max tables, the game requires every player to place an ante pre-flop, resulting in larger opening pots than in Texas Hold’em. For example, at a regular $100 buy-in 6-Max Hold’em table with blinds of $0.50/$1, […]
Another day, another BBJ!
March madness is truly living up to its billing at Playground, as another Secondary Bad Beat Jackpot was awarded last night! This latest jackpot was delivered thanks to a perfect runout in a limped pot on a 1/2 table. It happened shortly after 2:30am on table 2 in truly dramatic fashion. The table was playing 7-handed, and the action started with a call from the first player to act, James H. A second player called before the action was bumped up to $6, a raise that was called by all but one player at the table. The flop: . The first two players to act checked before James, the initial caller, put out a bet of $5. The small bet was promptly raised by the next player to act, Danny C., who went all-in for $57. The raise chased everyone else out of the pot before Danny called for less, […]
March: a festival of Bad Beats
Last night at 9:26PM, seven players were shooting on table 15, playing $2/$2 PLO. Éric M, sitting in seat 4, opened the pot to $10, a rather common opening bet at these stakes. Two players called before Anthony C made it $25 to go. Out of seven players, only one did not call the 3-bet! Six players went to the flop: Anthony was the pre-flop aggressor, and when you raise and get called by a sea of players, there is no better feeling than to flop the nuts with redraws to the super nuts! He cautiously placed a continuation bet of $25, trying to get as many people as possible to stick around. Only Éric did, raising to $100, enough to cover Anthony’s $55. Turn: River: Éric, too excited to wait, waived his right to show last and slammed his monster open: Éric: Anthony did not react right away, possibly […]
A monster PLO tournament in April
In April, the Playground tournament schedule is about daily events, STEP satellites, and one glorified tournament: the $500 + $100 + $500 PL Omaha Deepstack 50/50 Bounty Rebuy event, held on April 14. PLO players have been itching for some nice bounty action, and they got what they wanted in March with the addition of the $100 + $20 + $100 PL Omaha Deepstack 50/50 Bounty Re-entry tournament on Sundays. On April 14, this tournament transforms into a $1,100 event with rebuys! Bigger buy-in, bigger prizes, same game! Unlimited Rebuy means that reloads are done directly at the table, allowing players to keep battling the opponents they have come to know… and maybe go after their own chips for the old best-served-cold dish! What else can we shoot for in April? MILLIONS North America STEP 1 Satellites! The last satellite tree grows in April and into May, where the last […]
Event #8 has its champion: Nicholas Soller
The heads up match between Charan Malhotra and Nicholas Soller lasted three levels. The chips were exchanging hands every now and then, but mostly, both players were waiting for a decent hand. Charan started with a sizable lead on Nicholas, who only had 900,000 of the total 3,575,000 chips in play. Mid-way through the two-man contest, Nicholas doubled-up and Charan was badly hurt. The two experienced players played back and forth for a while, never doing much harm to each other, and seemed to be quite content to play on, even after 10 hours of play. Tournament structure in the late stages has an uncanny ability to put an end to the festivities: the blinds go up. It is universal truth that all good things must come to an end; and heads-up matches are no exception. Things started to get a little less comfortable when the blinds hit the 60K / […]
Event #7 6-Max Re-entry Champion: Benjamin Mathieu-Comtois
It all started at noon today and by the time the late registration period was over, there were a total of 78 players (including 17 re-entries), which allowed the prize pool to swell to a total of $7,326. 10 players were to be paid today. As the 6-max is an aggressive and fun format, the lead shifted from one player to another throughout the course of the day. When the tournament had funneled down to 7 players, the final table was formed. Being the last day of the March Power Weekend, many of the Playground dealers who were not scheduled to work joined the action as they rarely get a chance to play. The regular clientele however played a tough game and gave the dealers some fierce competition, doing everything possible to secure a win. Mission accomplished as heads-up play was between former dealer André Dupuis and Playground regular customer […]
MILLIONS South America is in the books
MILLIONS South America, first stop of the partypoker LIVE 2019 MILLIONS tour, ended last night with the last hand of Day 5 in the Main Event, largest tournament in Latin American history, held at the world-famous Copacabana Palace Hotel in Rio, Brazil. After a 3-hour long heads-up battle, Marty Mathis defeated Bruno Volkmann to put his hands on the MILLIONS South America trophy and $873,700 USD. The day started with 6 players at the official final table, led by a local player, Brazilian Bruno Volkmann. In second place was none other than home-grown talent Samuel Gagnon. Champion-to-be Marty Mathis was in 5th, with just about 20% of the leader’s stack. At Playground, we remember Gagnon from his 7th place finish in the 2016 WPT Montreal, the historical tournament that was won by Mike Sexton himself. Gagnon also finished 10th in this year’s World Cup of Cards Main Event, the WPTDeepstacks. […]
Dany Debs is Event #6 winner!
The heads up action between Dany Debs and Serge Roy was cool and relaxed. Both players exchanged chips, went all-in, folded, and let the button go back and forth for about 20 minutes. But, before long, Serge was running out of chips. His options were limited and something had to be done. He shoved all-in with his remaining chips and Dany made a swift call. Both men tabled their hands. Dany: Serge: The flop included a pair: and the on the turn gave each man a second pair. Now Serge was in trouble; his deuce was useless and he quickly figured out that he absolutely needed either a Jack or a Queen for a boat or any aAce to kick in. Unfortunately for him a little sealed his fate and he had to settle for 2nd place. So congratulations to Dany Debs, who takes the win in Event #6 $100 […]
Peter Maltais: Deepstack Turbo Champion
After Peter Maltais had doubled up with his hand, he was sitting on a 1M+ chip stack and he kept the pedal to the metal and shoved the next hand. Patrick made the call. Peter had shoved and was called by Patrick with . Once again, Patrick was way ahead. The board came , Peter hit his J and again Patrick lost with the best hand pre-flop, and Peter was now over 2mil in chips. Then Peter raised it up on the next hand to 400K, Patrick shoved his stack, and Peter made the call. Patrick: Peter: Board: and all of the sudden, with a ton of run good, Peter now had almoast all of the chips in play. On the last hand of play, Patrick shoved his remaining 300k dark and Peter snap called with . The board stayed clean, and, just like that, we crowned the champion in […]
Gagne-Lizotte bests Gomes to claim the title in the Playground 100
The Playground 100 was one of the highlight events in the March 2019 Power Weekend, boasting a guarantee of $25,000 over 3 starting flights. A total of 496 entries joined the event, nearly doubling the guarantee, and 51 made Day 2 – all of which were “in the money”. The day started with heavy action as many short stacks had snuck their way into the money, and with this pressure now off their shoulders, they were able to open up their game in an attempt to make their way to the final table. After 8 levels of play, the 10-handed final table was formed with Carl Gagne-Lizotte at the head of the pack. Luigi Fantigrossi came out swinging and did some damage to his table mates before ending his run in 5th place. He was followed by WSOP Bracelet winner Michael Malm in 4th and Joel Berard in 3rd before […]
Event #2 Champion: Kevin Javier
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 […]