The MILLIONS is only one month out, and at Playground Poker Club, we’re getting ready to host the biggest poker festival in Canadian history! With big festivals come big poker players, and some of the biggest names in the game, both local and international, have already confirmed their presence. Click here to see the updated list.

Because names and career earnings can only tell so much, here’s a brief presentation of some of these skillful players. We’ll publish more bios here in the coming weeks.

Ema Zajmovic

Ema is the new darling of the Quebec poker scene. In November of 2016, she final tabled the $3,500 + $350 WPT Montreal right here at Playground Poker Club, for $102,010. In the very next WPT we hosted, in February of 2017, she plowed through a 380-entry field to take the $3,200 + $300 WPT Playground Championship! That day, along with pocketing $241,500, Ema became the first female player to win an open event on the World Poker Tour. For her stellar efforts, Ema was nominated for – and won – Poker Moment of the Year at the 2017 GPI American Poker Awards!

Ema is ‘good for the game’ in an entirely different way than what that expression usually means. She is as fierce as can be when it comes to running deep in an important event, but she also lightens the mood on the felts and initiates friendly conversations, making one’s experience of losing their chips to her almost enjoyable. Almost!

Kevin Rivest

Kevin is a recent Championship winner at Playground. Last summer, during the World Cup of Cards, he bested a field of 899 entries and emerged the champion of the $2,000 + $200 WCC Canadian Poker Championships, which game him a huge $336,325 payday. Kevin has been a regular at the club for years, showing players how it’s done on the $2/$5 and larger cash tables, playing both Hold’em and PLO. With last summer’s big score, he is now an all-around accomplished player, and will enter the MILLIONS with some serious momentum!

Kristen Bicknell

Kristen seems to be everywhere these days. Just in the last two months, she collected prizes in Australia, then Uruguay, and just two weeks ago took down the APPT (Asia Pacific Poker Tour) National High Roller Event in Macau, for $279,549. Kristen, a partypoker Sponsored Pro and the most recent GPI Female Player of the Year will once again join us at Playground Poker wearing the partypoker colours and gracing our felts with her contagious smile. Will she warm up for the Main Event in the $25,000 MILLIONS Super High Roller? Only time will tell.

Eric Afriat

Eric is another Montrealer on a hot streak. After his win in the $3,500 WPT Seminole Hard Rock Showdown in 2014, which paid out a cool $1,081,184, he had to wait until 2017 to make another big time final table – and it happened right here at Playground Poker Club. He took 3rd place in the $3,200 + $300 partypoker.net WPT Playground, and then later last year, he did it again, placing 5th in the $3,500 + $350 WPT Montreal. He also started 2018 with a bang, taking down his second WPT championship in the WPT Borgata Winter Poker Open in January for $651,928.

Eric is known on the felts for his sharp comments, but also for the very scholarly fashion in which they are delivered. If you’re sitting at his table, prepare to be entertained in a multitude of ways.

Jeff Gross

Introducing Jeff Gross, a poker superstar, is an exercise in futility, but in case you were living under a rock for the last decade, we’ll have a go at it. Jeff was initially an online pro, having earned his stripes gradually as a young adult and into his 20s. He earned his first 6-figure score at the WSOP in 2010, and when Black Friday hit in 2011, Jeff became much more active on the live scene. 2013 was probably his biggest year, where he finished 3rd at the first ever WPT Alpha8 event in Florida, and 2nd at the 2013 Premier League Season VII, right here at Playground Poker Club. He has run deep in major events every year since then, and has a huge following that has developed through his popular Twitch and YouTube channels. It is an honour to welcome the #pokerflowshow back to Playground. We are looking forward to see him walk about our club in his usual casual wear and backpack.

Martin Jacobson

Jacobson, a former WSOP World Champion, currently ranks 20th on the All Time Money List. His win in the 2014 WSOP Main Event earned him $10,000,000, but over a solid career, Jacobson has accumulated another $6M in tournament earnings. He was playing in High Roller Events before and after his crown – in fact he placed 2nd in a $10K event right here at Playground in 2013 for $124,936! Whatever festivals he chooses to attend, you can be sure to see him playing the richest events in the house. If you assume that his large bankroll explains his success, however, you’re missing a huge part of the picture. His 3 months of preparation for the 2014 WSOP final table included roughly 500 hours of deep opponent analysis, simulations, discussions with friends, and work on game theory – plus an impressive amount of physical training as well. Now that’s preparation!

Of course, there are many more significant names on our list of confirmed players, not to mention those that will be added to it as we close in on the big dance. Check out the full list and stay tuned for more profiles as the MILLIONS approaches!

For now, make sure to earn your seat alongside these giants and an ever-growing list of qualifiers in one of our many satellites, at Playground or on partypoker!

This post was published first on this Playground Event Blog: MILLIONS North America 2018.