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 […]

Event 5 of the WSOP-C Playground, the Closer, just wrapped up in a jiffy. The event, fueled by 4 starting days, roared into its final day at noon with 211 players at the tables. After 12 hours of poker, it was down to just Robert Cheung, François Tarrab and Allan Barnes. Cheung gobbled Barnes’ chips, which allowed him to face Tarrab in a pretty even heads-up match. The match lasted 4 hands. In the third, Cheung completed the big blind from the button for 300K. Tarrab made it 900K to go, but when Cheung announced all-in, chose to fold with an ace face up. On the following hand, Tarrab made it 725K to go, and when Cheung went all-in again, he called right away. Unfortunately for Tarrab, he was drawing to one of 3 aces, and did not hit. He will have to console himself with $37,000, the amount that […]

The inaugural WSOP-C Playground Main Event has come to an end and the Champion has been crowned: congratulations to Danny Freitas! With the player deal that was made when there were just two players remaining – and the huge chip lead Danny enjoyed – heads up play was never destined to be a long affair. Maxime Boulais doubled up once – but otherwise, everything was going Freitas’ way and nothing was going to stop his championship bid. The win caps off a fantastic week, as Freitas also final tabled Event #1, the Colossus, and arguably exited prematurely in 6th place having controlled the table and the leaderboard for long stretches of play. The same was true in the Main Event. Freitas began play on Day 4 in 4th place on the leaderboard with 8.925M in chips, and just two levels in to the final day, he was past the 25M […]

After a heads up battle that can only be described as epic, Marc-Olivier Carpentier-Perrault has emerged as the Champion of Event #4 of the WSOP-C Playground, the $5,000 + $300 Super High Roller event. Igor Picone, a young Belgian player, put up a massive fight and on several occasions looked like he might come out on top. For his victory in the event, Marc-Olivier won $100,000 plus the coveted WSOP Circuit Ring, while Igor had to settle for $67,000 for second place. Day 2 in the event started with just 11 players remaining, and by the end of the first three levels of play on the day there were 5 eliminations, the bubble was burst, and the first three players to be paid made their exit – Pablo Mariz in 9th place, Mike Leah in 8th, and Omid Shahbazian in 7th. Play was 6-handed and Marc-Olivier had managed to build […]