LIVE EVENTS

Joe Pellegrino, on his first live tournament ever, managed to overcome a shark-infested final table and claimed the WSOP-C Playground Main Event title! The amazingly popular series was, again this year, a tremendous success. The Main Event itself was no exception.  It presented four starting flights, including an online flight that featured a novelty: the Online Day 1 & 2. Those who played it went through both Day 1 and Day 2 in a single flight, allowing them to secure a prize before making the trip to Playground, an excellent proposal for out-of-towners. Players from Days 1A, 1B and 1C merged into one of two Day 2s: Day 2A and Day 2B. Finally, on Day 3, the whole field was brought together in our club to play until the final table, or the end of level 27, whichever came first. The huge number of total …

Sinisa Stajic had about 20M left when he picked up a pair on the button. He went ahead and invested his 20 bigs, hoping for a pick-up or a race. He got the latter, as Joe Pellegrino woke up with a monster. Stajic: Pellegrino: Board: Pellegrino’s jacks held easily, and he started the heads-up match with about 75% of the chips in play. However, he doubled Qi Hu on the second hand when his failed to hit a king against Hu’s . Meanwhile, Stajic was walking to the cashier, disappointed to have been so close to a WSOP-C ring. His $130,740 payday will surely hit him in the morning, erasing all hard feelings. What a run by Stajic!

Qi Hu, strong from a recent knockout, made it 1.8M to go from the button. Daniel Neilson was on the big blind and announced all-in. After some deliberation, Hu made the call. Hu: Neilson: Board: The ace came in the window, and the rest of the flop was also bad news for Hu. Neilson’s 22.2M was so doubled up, and after losing a small pot, stacks are once again about even.

Qi Hu raised small, and Daniel Neilson made the call from the big blind. That flop seemed to hit him pretty well, but Hu was well off from the beginning. Some chips went in on the flop, but it is the turn that saw the majority of Neilson’s chips go in. Board: Neilson: Hu: The river was irrelevant, and Qi Hu took Neilson and a comfortable lead. He is now leading the trio with nearly 55M, half the chips in play. Neilson takes $95,000 for his 4th place. Good job on an amazing 4-men show!

Just before the break, Sinisa Stajic and Daniel Neilson went at it in a blind-vs-blind battle. All streets saw small bets go in, and Neilson’s 2.3M river bet was raised to 7.5M. After some thinking, Stajic made the call, but both players had turned trip queens with kicker on board and chopped the pot. Our 4 finalists are holding on tight with a WSOP-C title in mind. Here are the updated counts:

The $300 + $30 Closer was a hell of an event, but it has finally come to an end. After bringing in 1,091 total entries over the course of four Day 1s, Day 2 was an action-packed event from start to finish. Over the course of almost 14 hours of play, our Day 2 qualifying field of 220 players reduced itself down to just two: Alexander Allison and and Abram Logasy. In the end, Alexander ended up taking it down, earning himself a fantastic prize, bragging rights, and of course the very cool WSOP-C Playground championship ring. Congratulations Alex, aka “Cheese9”! You are the 2019 $300 + $30 Closer champ! $300 + $30 Closer Champion: Alexander Allison, $50,000 Last Hand of Play The heads up match between the last two players didn’t last as long as it took to go from three players to two, …

Its Alexander Allison versus Abram Logasy for the big prize and the championship ring. Heads up!

While the first six players to exit the final table left in relatively rapid succession, the battle to make it to the final two took a lot longer. Not totally surprising, considering the fact that there were 21,820,000 chips in play spread semi-evenly between the three competitors Abram Logasy, Jonathan English and Alexander Allison. In the end, it was Alexander Allison who did the damage, taking most of Alex’s stack the hand before he officially knocked him out. In the pre-departure hand, it was Alexander’s versus Jonathan’s . The board came down , and Jonathan transferred about 90% of his chips to Alex, whose threes held up. The final nail in the coffin came the next hand, when Jonathan shoved with . He came up against Alex again, who had this time. The board came down , and the pair of eights took it! Jonathan …

Now it’s down to only three. Donald Abdelhay’s last hand came when he faced off against Alexander Allison. Somehow Donald found himself all in with a against Alexander’s , which didn’t bode well. Things went from bad to worse when the board was uncooperative, being dealt . Still, Donald comes away with a healthy $15,000. Nice work!

The eliminations are coming fast and furious here at the Closer’s final table, and the latest victim was Evgenii Tsatskin. As it was with many other hands on the final table, this elimination originated from an preflop shove. Evgenii’s pocket sixes couldn’t stand up to Abram Logasy’s pocket sevens when the board came down . Evgenii walks away with fifth place and a $10,000 prize – not bad for two days work!

The $2000 + $200 High Roller started on Saturday and it boasted a $250,000 guaranteed prize pool. In the end it attracted a total of 177 runners creating a prize pool of $343,380, with the top 23 players in the money, with a min-cash in 23rd paying $4,000, and the top prize in first place paying out $75,000 plus the WSOP-C Playground champion’s ring. Tu Kham Tran is a local tournament a cash game player who is known to have a “wild style of play”, often building a stack early in the game with his super aggressive style. Other times he is seen exiting the tournament room before the tournament reaches the first break of the evening. His approach in a higher buy-in event might have been a bit different as although he played his loose-aggressive game early on in the tournament, he tightened up …

Xiaoming Su played a great game and stayed under the radar until the tournament was close to the money bubble, when all of the sudden he seemed to put the pedal to the metal and began to chip up nicely. As Day 3 started, he not only played well but also had the poker god on his side as he had some phenomenal run good to go along with his skill and he became a force to be reckoned with. After the 3-way deal was negotiated, play had opened up and the table started to see more flops. With the blinds at 80,000/160,000, Su opened to 350,000 and was called by Tu Kham Tran. The flop came and Tran checked-called a bet of 430,000 by Su. The turn brought the and Tran checked again. Su upped the stakes this time with a bet of 780,000, …

The players asked to see the ICM numbers one more time and in the end they were able to agree to a deal. The payouts will now be as follows: Tu Kham Tran: $53,270 Aaron Olshan: $45,250 Xiaoming Su: $45,860 On top of the ICM payouts, they will be playing down to a winner for an additional $15,000 and the championship ring.

Edzevit Alitovsky busted in sixth place for $18,500. The next to go was Lucas Drolet who open shoved pocket tens and received a call from Tu Kham Tran in the big blind holding AK. Tran spiked a king on the flop and an ace on the river which ended the day for Drolet, finishing in fifth place for $22,000. After Drolet’s exit, Tu Kham Tran limped his button only to see Xiaoming Su open shove from the small blind. David Guay made the call in the big blind and Tran folded.  Su had picked up a premium with his pocket queens and Guay made the call with an ace in the big blind. Guay had wheel outs on the 245 flop but didn’t get any more help on the turn or river. Guay had a huge rail who all clapped as he exited in fourth …

Over the last hour the tournament has lost the following players: Here are the chip counts of the final six players:

The final event of the WSOP-C Playground, the $500 + $50 Pot Limit Omaha, was an action-packed affair that brought out fans of four-card poker in droves. The field was small when the action began at noon, but new players and re-entries kept rolling in until the end of the late registration period to bring the total number of entries to 213, enough to more than double the $50,000 prize pool guarantee. The huge turnout created a six-figure prize pool to be awarded to the top 31 finishers, with an impressive $22,500 up top for the eventual winner. The pace of play was extremely fast in the early levels. Many players were happy to take their chances with a wide range, knowing that unlimited re-entries were available. The result was a lot of multi-way all in pots that created some monster stacks in the early …

The players are about to return from their latest break, and only eight players remain. Adam Mateus made his exit in ninth place shortly before the break and collected $2,150 for his final table appearance. The chip counts of the remaining players are listed in the table below.

What started with 213 entries is down to only nine players after 23 levels of play. The last two players to exit the field – Zahir Gilani and John Cayler – were eliminated in back-to-back hands and will each collect $1,750 for their efforts. The nine finalists are Pinto S, Em Brand, Francois Goulet, Chrishan Sivasundaram, Jason Hallee, Adam Mateus, Martin Kozlov, Fadi Haddad and Jean-Serge Baril. Jason Hallee currently has the chip lead, but with blinds at 12K/24K that could change at any moment.

The remaining field has been holding steady at 11 players. The stacks are still fairly deep at this point, as the chip average provides slightly more than 24 big blinds. The pay jumps will begin to get a lot more enticing once the final table arrives, but the remaining players have victory in mind rather than simply laddering up so they are maintaining their focus and determination. The following table lists the payouts that have already been awarded tonight.

Following the latest break in the action, the remaining players have been moved to the main tournament hall, and Jean-Serge Baril has the chip lead. Baril is playing a stack of 885,000, which is over 70 big blinds at this point, while the second largest stack, held by Martin Kozlov, is 815,000. The current chip average provides roughly 30 big blinds so even the shorter stacks in the field have some room to maneuver, but the margin for error remains razor thin for all involved. Here is an updated look at the field from level 20: