Category: World of Poker

It’s time for progressive knockouts! The famous KO Series returns to the partypoker felts from February 3 to February 17, promising over $15M in guaranteed prize money – a 33% increase since last edition – across 437 tournaments! Every single tournament in the aptly named festival follows the increasingly popular Progressive Knockout (PKO) format, where every player carries a bounty that grows every time they eliminate a player. The schedule offers a range of popular game formats to satisfy all tastes, including “Normal,” “Mix-Max,” “PLO,” “6-Max” and “8-Max.” All events fall under one of six buy-in tiers from “Micro” to “Super High Roller” with buy-ins ranging from $2.20 to $3,150, accommodating all poker bankrolls. Keep in mind that whatever level you play, partypoker waives the rake on the bounty portion of the buy-in. Everybody loves extra value! Of course, there is an extensive satellite schedule that accompanies the series along […]

Gavin Smith, Canadian poker legend and former Playground Player’s Club member, passed away in his sleep last night, in his Houston home. He was 50 years old. Gavin had his poker breakthrough in 2005 when he won a $2,000 event at the Mirage Poker Showdown for $155,880. One week later, he won the WPT main event of that festival for $1,153,778. After adding 2 more final table appearances that year, he was named WPT Player of the Year. He followed up with a prolific career, collecting 6-figure cashes throughout the next decade, including a WSOP bracelet and the associated $268,238 in 2010, as well as a 4th place finish at the inaugural WPT Montreal worth $212,973, held at Playground in 2012. From his visits at Playground, we remember him as a highly entertaining individual and a one-of-a-kind character. His opponents, although usually having a tough time matching his poker skills, […]

With every new year, in all forms of competition, we reflect on the accomplishments of our highest achievers. In poker, to a large extent, this means attributing the Global Poker Index (GPI) Player of the Year (POY) awards. In 2018, American William Foxen finished first in front of Stephen Chidwick, David Peters, and high stakes darling Justin Bonomo, while our own Kristen Bicknell, was recognized as the Female Player of the Year… for the second year running! William had an amazing year. After earning $1.7M in 2017, thanks to a 7-figure score in December of that year, he stayed the course and amassed $6.6M in 2018, earning precious GPI points in all the right tournaments, to finish with over 4,000 points and the award! Kristen, from St. Catharines, Ontario, has been in the spotlight for quite some time. She and William travel the world and play the most prestigious poker […]

The MILLIONS Online has come to a close, and after smashing the $20,000,000 guarantee on Tuesday, play resumed on Wednesday with just 29 players left competing for the biggest prizes. When the dust settled, there was a chop between the first and second place players, with Manual “Sherparentao” Ruivo in 1st for $2,329,944 and Pim “ForMatherRussia” de Goede in 2nd for $2,309,995. One of the biggest stories of MILLIONS Online was the player who finished in 3rd place for $1,364,688, Slovenia’s “Scarmak3r”. He started his journey by winning a $5.50 satellite, and then played his way through the rest of the satellite tree to a Main Event ticket – and then rode that all the way to a huge 7-figure score!   Playground’s heartiest congratulations are reserved for frequent Playground tournament player William Blais, who came in 6th place for $655,050! William has been playing here as long as anyone […]

MILLIONS Online is the Online version of the MILLIONS poker series presented by partypoker LIVE, and when they announced that the guarantee of the event was going up from $5M (2017) to $20M (2018), people all around the poker world were skeptical, to say the least. Now, with late registration closed in Day 1E, it is clear that partypoker has managed to beat the guarantee by a healthy margin. The final prize pool in the event is more than $21.5M, which sets the new record for largest poker tournament by prize pool in history! Day 2 in the event gets underway at 2:00pm. Through the first 4 starting flights there were 568 players qualified, and Day 1E is set to add another 110+ players to the mix. Day 2 will play through 18 levels with blinds starting at 80K/160K and an ante of 20K. The chip average to start the […]

Sunday on partypoker saw another huge milestone passed as 1,112 entries joined Day C in MILLIONS Online, taking the overall number of entries past the 3K mark to 3,170 so far in this huge $20M Guaranteed tournament. There’s still a way to go before the guarantee is reached, but the tournament is definitely on track to not only match but to surpass the $20,000,000 – which will make this the largest tournament in poker history by a wide margin! The chip leader at the end of Day 1C was Carlos “carlitos350” Camargo, who managed to accumulate 19,285,021 chips through the end of the 20 levels played on Day 1. This puts him in 6th place overall, as no one has been able to catch up to the leaders from Day 1A last week. There’s another player among the leaders on Day 1C who should be on everyone’s radar moving forward: […]

The second of 5 starting flights in the partypoker LIVE MILLIONS Online event was held last night on partypoker.com and with 484 entries joining the tourney, the total number of buy-ins has now reached 2,058 – more than half of the number required to hit the massive $20M Guarantee in the tournament! Pundits and commentators have been impressed with the player numbers so far, which looks to be on track to match and surpass the huge guarantee. The tournament is already the largest in partypoker history and one of the largest in online poker history overall! The chip leader to the end of Day 1B was Argentinian “patrondelmal” (21,904,963 chips), and there are two Canadians in the top 10, Troy “good player” Quenneville (15,442,304 chips) and Shyam “S_dot111” Srinivasan (13,678,675 chips). There are several other players we have gotten to know here at Playground that were able to make their […]

2018 has been a huge year in the poker world, and the year is concluding with a bang with MILLIONS Online on partypoker! We previewed the $5,300 MTT last week, and with Sunday’s Day 1A now in the books, it’s becoming clear that the event is delivering on its promise to be the largest single online MTT in history! Day 1A ran on Sunday November 25th and featured a total of 1,574 entries, which got the tournament off to a great start by contributing almost $8M to the prize pool. There’s still a long way to go to reach the ambitious $20,000,000 Guarantee, but with the amazing feeders and Mega satellites underway every day, there’s plenty of opportunity left for players to join the event for much less than the $5,300 buy-in amount. Through the 18 levels of play on Day 1A, the 1,574 entries were whittled down to just […]

The partypoker LIVE Caribbean Poker Party is in full swing at the Baha Mar Resort in the Bahamas. There are two huge events underway this afternoon, and players that we know well at Playground are involved in both. First up is the final day of the $25,500 MILLIONS World event, and with just 9 players left and a $250,000 min-cash today, Charles La Boissonnière is among the final group. Charles is very well known as a terror at the tables here at Playground, and though he’s not a regular in $25K tournaments, his $900,000 in lifetime earnings just in events held at Playground is a testament to his superior abilities on the felt. Action is underway now and you can watch a live stream via partypokerlive.com. It’s also Day 2a in the $5,300 CPP Main Event, and with 465 players slated to play today in addition to new Day 2 […]

The 3rd partypoker Monster Series will be held from July 29th to August 6th and, as always, the series guarantees great tournaments at a wide range of buy-ins – and over $2,000,000 in guaranteed prize pools! The Monster Series is a festival that focuses on low- to mid-stakes online tournaments divided into three tiers of buy-in: Low, Medium, and High. It also features a wide range of poker formats like 6-Max, Deepstack, and Hyper tournaments – each offered at all three buy-in tiers. The festival culminates with its Championship Event #52-High on August 5th – this tournament alone boasts a $200,000 guarantee! While you’re playing Monster Series events, you’ll also want to consider related promotions like the Cash Game Monster Hour, 50/50 ticket giveaway, and the Play 10 Draw. See our Monster Series page for more information. Team partypoker’s Natalia Breviglieri commented on the Monster Series: “I love these low […]

Montreal’s (and Laval’s) own Chanracy Khun has progressed to Day 6 of the WSOP Main Event in Las Vegas! There are just 109 players left – just 1.4% of the total field – and with 4,830,000 chips, Chanracy starts the day in 33rd place on the leaderboard. Being in the last 109 players in the Main Event is impressive – but this is ground Chanracy has traveled before. His second-biggest score in poker came in 2014 when he exited in 69th place in this event for $103,025 – a feat he’s no doubt hoping to improve upon this year. Chanracy has played every big event here at Playground Poker Club since the first Playground Poker Classic in 2011, in which he placed 4th ($20,000), but his true breakthrough in the poker world came in Barcelona in the Spring of 2013, when he won a WPT Main Tour title for €181,400. […]

In Las Vegas, this year’s record-setting edition of the WSOP Main Event continues with Day 5 and there are still several players we’ve developed a relationship with over the years in the hunt for the ultimate prize in poker! The number following each player’s name is their chip count to start Day 5. Brian Altman (4,861,000) – Brian had a memorable spring of 2016 in the Montreal area when he juggled two events at the same time but hosted at two different venues – and managed a win plus a 16th place finish in that year’s WPT Canadian Spring Championship. Brian Yoon (3,228,000) – Brian was the overall Day 2 chip leader in the 2018 MILLIONS North America Main Event. Many years earlier, while visiting Playground to play in the WPT Montreal, he booked a win in a $220 Bounty Tournament, one of the side events in the 2014 Playground […]