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 / […]
Playground
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 […]
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 […]
Jean-René Gonzalez wins Event #3
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
Event # 1 champion: Giovanni Petrella
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). […]
$25K Super High Roller Added to the MILLIONS North America Schedule
Playground and partypoker LIVE have announced a key addition to the 2019 MILLIONS North America schedule: a $25,000 + $300 Super High Roller event. Action will get underway at 3:00PM on May 25 and will continue with a restart at 12:00PM on May 26. As usual participants of this class of tournament have become accustomed to, play will be 8-handed throughout, and it will feature 40-minute blind levels. Registration will be open throughout Day 1 and through the first 4 levels of play on Day 2. This will be a reprise of the successful $25K SHR that was part of last year’s MILLIONS North America. That event saw a star-studded field take to the felts including a rare appearance by Viktor Blom. Joining him from the other side of the Atlantic were Niall Farrell, Toby Lewis, Manig Loeser, Marc Macdonnell, and Roberto Romanello. There were plenty of Americans in the […]
A third Jackpot in March!
Last night in the Original poker room, a Secondary Bad Beat Jackpot was won – the third Jackpot in March… so far! To date, each of the three different “flavours” of Jackpot have been hit this month – Omaha, Primary, and now the Secondary Jackpot. The hand occurred on table 12, which was a $2/$5 table with 9 players active. The button was on seat 7, which was occupied by Sylvie C. The action opened with a raise to $25 from Thai K. Kevin C, two seats over, reraised to $75. Sylvie and Thai both called. Flop: Action checked around. Turn: The first two players to act checked to Sylvie, who made a very small $35 bet into a $232 pot. the small sizing couldn’t entice Thai to stay – he folded. Kevin, on the other hand, chose to raise to $115. With action back on Sylvie, the reasoning behind […]
The Primary BBJ adds to the madness in March
The second Jackpot in the month of March has just been hit – this time it was the Primary Bad Beat Jackpot which had grown to almost $450,000! Added to the PLO Jackpot that was won a few days ago, March really is living up to its reputation that it comes in like a lion! The Jackpot hand occurred just after 11:00am on table 1 in the Original poker room. This was a $1/$2 table that had a full complement of 9 players. The hand opened with limps from 4 players until action was on Joey S, a Playground cash game regular, who raised to $13 from the small blind. John C called from middle position and the other players all folded – there were two players to the flop. Flop: The flop was a juicy one but Joey opened with a check. John bet $30 and Joey made the […]
A PLO Jackpot to start off March
The month of March is said to “come in like a Lion” and at least in terms of Jackpots, March 2019 looks like it’s living up to its billing. The Omaha Jackpot was hit recently, so the dollar value at stake wasn’t huge – $8,734 – but nevertheless, a jackpot is a jackpot no matter the amount! Play was on table 15 at 3:35am, which was a $2/$2 PLO table. There was one other PLO table active at the time. The action in the hand started when Claude A called the $5 straddle, following which there were 3 other calls plus a check from the player who straddled. 5 players went to the flop. Flop: Action checked around and the was dealt on the turn. The first 3 players to act all checked, and then Claude took the initiative and bet $10. Two players called and there were three players […]
A breakthrough day for David Hamel
The February Power Weekend was a great series with plenty of action and lots of success stories, but none as inspiring as the one David Hamel presented us with on Sunday. David has been a tournament regular at Playground since the very beginning. He appears in Tournament Leaderboard standings from the earliest days of this promotion, and has had deep runs in big and small events going back several years. His Sunday started with a Day 3 appearance in the Playground 200, which turned into a final table appearance, and eventually he was heads-up for the Championship! He ended up coming 2nd in the event after a great heads-up battle – good for a $14,050 prize. But that’s not all! The top 3 players in the event were also awarded seats in that night’s MILLIONS North America STEP 3 satellite. Just minutes after his big result, David cashed his prize […]