This week’s STEP qualifier did not have to invest a single dollar to earn his seat at MILLIONS North America. He mostly plays tournaments, and won a STEP 2 seat by placing in the top 15 of the monthly Tournament Leaderboard. A couple of tournaments later, he’s on the list of qualifiers for the $10,300 Main Event in May! He tells us about his road to MILLIONS and the toys (cars) he would buy if he wins big next month. Introducing… Ivan the Terrible. (More great content coming up on Playground’s official YouTube channel. Please subscribe!)
Tag: Poker
More additions to MILLIONS North America
MILLIONS North America is less than a month away, and the poker community’s chatter is all about the event! partypoker LIVE and Playground keep an open ear, and player feedback sparked a few last-minute changes to the MILLIONS schedule. A Caribbean Poker Party satellite The famous Caribbean Poker Party will once again host the Grand Finale of the 2019 MILLIONS tour with MILLIONS World. At Playground, home of MILLIONS North America, we are happy to add a Caribbean Poker Party satellite at the heart of the festival! The tournament presents a guarantee of two packages worth $16,000 USD each. For a buy-in of $250 + $25, you could win the trip of a lifetime. The package includes a $10,300 buy-in to MILLIONS World with $10,000,000 guaranteed (Nov. 16-21), plus travel and accommodation. What does it look like over there? Click here for a quick preview! Shot clocks! MILLIONS […]
Mondial de la bière… it means Beerfest!
The Mondial de la bière, founded in Montreal in 1994, is a full-fledged international beer festival. The unique weekend-long tasting event provides a pathway from the art of local and international brewers to the taste buds of passionate and casual beer drinkers, and the 26th edition of the festival is held during MILLIONS North America, allowing all players to discover new and exciting concoctions! The event is once again held at Windsor Station in downtown Montreal (near metro stations Lucien-L’Allier, Bonaventure and Peel). It will be open to festival-goers from 11:00AM to 11:00PM, May 22 to May 25 – Wednesday to Friday. Admission is free, but to indulge in the main activity, you will need to buy a tasting glass and some coupons – they come in various packages, depending on how much discovery you plan to make. The festival bets on breweries that are not necessarily well-known, but have […]
partypoker closes 277 “bot” accounts
Last week, partypoker confirmed 277 bot account closures and $734,852.15 in redistributed funds between December 1, 2018 and March 31, 2019. The operation is conducted by partypoker’s Poker Fraud Team, said partypoker representatives, which is essentially “a collection of former poker professionals who are equipped with the necessary knowledge and expertise to investigate suspicious activity and aid partypoker in ridding the site of unscrupulous accounts.” The team works diligently to detect any suspicious activity on the tables, as well as investigate any suspecting player report. Suspicious activity can arise in the form of collusion between two or more players, or the use of bots or other prohibited software designed to give the offending player an unfair advantage. partypoker encourages all players who suspect foul play to report their doubts to info@partypoker.com, and promises to investigate all reports. partypoker is one of the oldest and most trusted online poker brands. A […]
Road to MILLIONS – Episode 4
This week’s featured player is Playground’s very first tournament winner! He won the first tournament ever held in our club, 8 years ago. It was a $100 event, but he is no stranger to $10K buy-ins either. His first major was in 2009: he played a WPT event at Fallsview Casino Resort in Ontario. He has yet to make a big score in one of these monster tournaments, and hopes that MILLIONS North America will be it! He jumped in a STEP 1 satellite following a casual invitation from our tournament director. He couldn’t turn down such attractive overlay! The very same night, he played the STEP 2, got through, and played the STEP 3 satellite on the following day. He is here now, qualified, pumped up for MILLIONS in May! Introducing… Carlo Nini. (More great content coming up on Playground’s official YouTube channel. Please subscribe!)
MILLIONS of Beats
Montreal, a tourism hot spot, is one of North America’s most visited cities. Harbouring countless festivals (nearly 100 multi-day events each year!), serving delicious food from all over the world, and offering a vibrant cultural and music scene, Montreal has it all. Our snow is melting fast, and come MILLIONS North America in May, the city will be ready for all poker players’ extracurricular activities! Today, for our visitors coming to town for MILLIONS and locals looking for something different, we serve a selection of two options, catered for EDM enthusiasts, but easy to appreciate by anyone. It was extremely hard to slim down our recommendations, but these two fully deserve their nomination. Velvet Speakeasy In the Old Port, in the basement of an old Montreal inn, there is a large room with stone walls that has existed since 1754. Today, it is home to the Velvet Speakeasy, a […]
Global Poker Awards Highlights
Last Friday at the Aria in Las Vegas, the Global Poker Awards ceremony recognized some of the most influential people in poker. Although we all knew that William Foxen and Kristen Bicknell were receiving their Player of the Year (POY) awards, many more winners were yet to be revealed. The World Series of Poker Main Event, the iconic poker tournament that crowns the World Champion every year, was at the forefront of the ceremony. The tournament itself received the Event of the Year Award, while John Cynn, winner of the event, won the Tournament Performance Award. Cynn’s performance was no small feat: he bested a field of 7,874 players to take down the $8,800,000 first prize and the title! Playing with John Cynn at the final table was Joe Cada, winner of the 2009 WSOP Main Event. Cada came really close to becoming the only player in the post-Moneymaker era […]
Road to MILLIONS – Episode 3
This young player was born and raised in Beauce. He is a true poker fanatic. When asked what he would do if he made a big score at the MILLIONS, he did not hesitate: the first thing that came to mind was more poker! He played the 2018 MILLIONS North America after qualifying through the STEP satellite system, and he did it again this year, on his first try! Because one bullet is all you need. Boom! Let’s hear what he has to say about how to reap some STEP value. Introducing… Jean-Philippe Lehoux. (More great content coming up on Playground’s official YouTube channel. Please subscribe!)
Get into MILLIONS shape at the May Power Weekend
The Power Weekend, running from May 2 to May 6, is the last mini-series before the MILLIONS train comes to town. It is also your last chance to book a $10,300 seat to MILLIONS North America through STEP satellites. Your last satellite tree: STEP 1s – Fridays and Sundays through April, as well as May 2 and 3 STEP 2 – May 4 at 8:00PM STEP 3 – May 5 at 7:00PM The series, boasting over $240,000 in total guarantees, presents ten tournaments with cash guarantees ranging from $5,000 to $50,000. Strangers in the Night makes its way back to the Playground felts with three Day 1s, a $50,000 guarantee, and the great feeling of doing your part to make the world a better place! The $25 tournament fee goes entirely to the Strangers in the Night charity initiative, which benefits three non-profit organizations: Miriam Foundation, Lymphoma Canada, and The […]
Elon Musk now claims Model S AI system can detect when someone is lying
Plans in the works for live demonstration at an east coast poker tournament later this May. Elon Musk, co-founder and CEO of Tesla, the leading electric car manufacturer, announced this weekend that his new Tesla Model S, set to hit the showrooms in 2020, will have an integrated lie-detecting AI system. Musk claims that the system, equipped with new tech that can tell if someone’s lying, will increase owner security when they stop to assist someone. New tech involved consists of a Voice Modulation Deep Analyser, as well as some advanced options such as a passenger seat integrated Body Heat Sensor. “As a first public demonstration, said Musk in a press conference on Saturday, we plan to show that NOWAY JOSE, the AI developed to detect lies, is capable of spotting a lie even if it is told by the people who practise deception the most: poker players.” At […]
Road to MILLIONS – Episode 2
This poker player from Ontario is a frequent visitor at Playground. She plays primarily cash games, but found her way to the tournament hall after a dry patch, and ended up on the January Tournament Leaderboard to earn a STEP 1 satellite seat! A few STEPS later, she is on our list of qualifiers and about to play the biggest tournament she’s ever played: MILLIONS North America! Introducing… Christine Park. (More great content coming up on Playground’s official YouTube channel. Please subscribe!)
partypoker launches Texas Hold’em SHORTDECK
partypoker has launched online “SHORTDECK” games for its global dotcom market, a cash game format gaining popularity in the poker world and a favourite among high roller circles. Also known as “Six-Plus Hold’em,” the format offers an exciting variation on traditional Texas Hold’em marked by a few key differences. Most significantly, the game is played with a reduced deck of cards. All cards below a 6 are removed, leaving a 36-card deck. An ace can be used as high or low, making A-6-7-8-9 the Short Deck “wheel” or low straight. The other important distinction is in the hand rankings; in Short Deck Hold’em, a flush beats a full house. Available on 2-Max, 6-Max, 8-Max and 9-Max tables, the game requires every player to place an ante pre-flop, resulting in larger opening pots than in Texas Hold’em. For example, at a regular $100 buy-in 6-Max Hold’em table with blinds of $0.50/$1, […]