It’s a long-standing tradition at Playground to mark the anniversary of our opening with… what else… an Anniversary Cake! This year is no exception – and the challenge was doubly difficult this time around – how can you compete, in cake form, with a whole new building and the launch of an entirely new form of gaming at Playground? Chef Fadi Haddad of Wow Cakes has been faced with similar challenges for many years now, and for the 8-Year Anniversary of Playground, he has proved to be more than able to meet and surpass expectations! This year’s cake is nothing less than a miniature representation – in cake and fondant – of the entire Playground Complex! Not only did Fadi create an amazing cake, though – he traveled to the future to do it! The 8-Year Anniversary cake represents a completed new building, all the way up to the trees […]
Tag: Poker
The Bounty tournaments of the WCC
Of all formats presented in Playground festivals, bounty tournaments are probably the most popular. Everybody loves a bounty! There is something extremely gratifying in taking a value chip off a player that we just busted, and something very humbling in handing it over. It is the ultimate congratulatory gesture, and throwing it in the pot with a nod and some eye contact is worth a lot more than a simple: “nice hand!” But the chase is what really gets most players! The bounty hunting, the little voice in your head that becomes louder when you’re playing a pot with a player who has fewer chips than you do. The World Cup of Cards has 4 such events on the schedule. Let’s take a look at the list: Event #4: $100 + $20 + $100 6-Max 50/50 Bounty Monday January 21 The 6-Max format calls for extra-aggressive play. Bounties are sure […]
Event #3 is in the books
After a little more than eight hours of play, we have a winner in today’s tournament, Event #3 in the 8-Year Anniversary series, a $100 + $10 + $25 Bounty tournament. Congratulations to Benjamin Mathieu-Comptois on a tournament well played. After battling through a field of 121 entries (which included 30 re-entries), and collecting a whopping twelve $25 Bounties over the course of the day, Benjamin earned a prize of $2,126 plus those bounty chips. Well done! Event #3 Champion: Benjamin Mathieu-Comptois, $2,126 (plus bounties) Final hand of play The winner, along with the other five remaining final table players at the time, agreed on an ICM Chop, meaning that the purse was divided according to the players’ stack size at the time. They continued to play for bragging rights and a final prize of $241 after the deal was struck.
Welcome to the new playground.ca
By now, everyone who has visited the Playground Complex has noticed the huge changes that are underway. Those changes extend online as well – today, we launched a new and improved Playground website. The biggest changes in the new site are under the hood – but there are a few things players will notice as well. The most significant changes are the expanded menus, available from the top corners of the site. On the left there’s a new site menu, with an enhanced look and direct access to all parts of the website. On the right is the My Playground menu, which is all about you. Here you’ll be able to sign in to your account, register for a Player’s Card (if you don’t already have one), see your list of Shopping Cart items, and access a language switcher you can use to select the language you want to use […]
The TLB: a new path to MILLIONS!
-THIS STORY WAS EDITED WITH ADDED PRIZES! TOP 40 GET PAID! The Tournament Leaderboard, or TLB, has been around since the beginning. The core principle has always been the same: players finishing in the top 40% of every regular tournament held at Playground earn TLB points, and the best accumulators of every month are rewarded. Starting in December, and until further notice, our frequent achievers no longer compete for a spot in a freeroll, but for INSTANT PRIZES! The MILLIONS North America is approaching, and we want everybody to reap the amazing value offered by our massively guaranteed Step Satellites! Have a look at the MILLIONS satellite tree: STEP 1 $80 + $10 Turbo Re-entry STEP 2 $400 + $40 Turbo Re-entry STEP 3 $1,500 + $150 Re-entry Now, here is what our TLB top 40 will win: Top 3 TLB point earners: One(1) MILLIONS North America Main Event Satellite […]
MILLIONS Online comes to a close!
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 cruises past the $20M Guarantee!
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 […]
The WCC “Big 3”
The World Cup of Cards, the first poker festival to be held in 2019, is great for players who wish to chase an official title at a reasonable price. On the updated schedule, there is a total of 26 events and 15 satellites with buy-ins ranging from $110 to $1,650, and a wide variety of formats to please all players. Let’s take a look at our 3 most handsome guarantees: the World Cup of Cards “Big 3.” Event 8 – $200 + $20 Grand Prix Canada The Grand Prix Canada returns to Playground for the 4th time. This tournament presents an unbelievable buy-in/guarantee ratio. For $220, you have access to a half-a-million-dollar guarantee! Five online Day 1s and 12 live Day 1s all feed to a single Day 2 (January 27). The event concludes on Day 3 (January 28). Event 17 – $1,500 + $150 WPTDeepStacks The WPTDeepStacks, […]
Day 1C: Another huge Day in the MILLIONS Online
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: […]
Share your Celebration for a chance at MILLIONS!
As you probably already know our 8-Year Anniversary is coming up very soon and we want to give 10 lucky winners a reason to celebrate! Here’s what you need to do: create a short video – nothing complicated, there’s no need to hire a film crew, just use your cell phone – and tell us what you’re celebrating or what you’re grateful for. You can, for example, wish your friends or family happy holidays. Be creative (but keep it positive and sincere), it’s entirely up to YOU. This holiday season, try to put a smile on someone’s face, or better yet, make them laugh. It’s a celebration after all. Spread joy! Once you’ve made your video, upload it here. Apply the frame, fill out the entry form, then share it with your friends on Social Media and include the hashtag #ShareyourCelebration. That’s it. Easy peasy! The contest starts now and […]
MILLIONS Online Day 1B: The cup is (more than) half full
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 […]
Your first STEP to becoming a Millionaire!
The $10,000 + $300 MILLIONS North America Main Event is the largest tournament on our annual calendar, and starting in December, everyone who plays live here at Playground will have a great opportunity to play their way into this global event via Steps satellites. The Step system features satellites at 3 different buy-in levels to appeal to players no matter what their bankroll or experience level. Step 1 satellites award seats into the next scheduled Step 2 satellite, which in turn awards seats to a $1,500 + $150 Step 3 satellite – and once you’re there, you’ll be playing for a $10,300 seat in the MILLIONS Main Event in May! $80 + $10: Step 1 Satellite $400 + $40: Step 2 Satellite $1,500 + $150: Step 3 Satellite Players may start with the Step 1 and play their way through all of the steps, or may choose to start directly […]