Marco Cannizzaro of Montreal, QC has been crowned the Champion of the 8-Year Anniversary edition of the Deepstack! He outlasted 83 players through 27 levels, and a grueling 15 hours of play to emerge victorious. After Marco hit an ace on the river to knock Pierre Guay, the final three competitors continued to grind for dominance. Then Christine Park knocked out Mark Saddik a half-dozen hands later, leaving Marco and Christine to battle it out to the finish. When the tournament was reduced to 7 players, the competitors chose to do an ICM chop (reserving $750 for 1st place). Combined with his guaranteed $3,895, Eric won $4,645. When the final hand of play occurred and both players went all in, Marco was holding while his opponent, Christine, showed . The board ran out and Marco`s pair proved to be the winning hand!
Poker
Eric Schanck is declared the champ
Eric Schanck of Lachine, QC has been crowned the Champion of the 8-Year Anniversary edition of the Playground Shootout Turbo! He outlasted 62 players through 25 levels of play to emerge victorious. It wasn’t always easy going for Eric. He had to endure a heads up battle with Ghita Acordunencei just to secure the last spot at the final table. Ghita and Eric went back and forth long after the other eight spots had been secured, but in the end Eric finally prevailed. When the tournament was reduced to 8 players, the competitors chose to do an ICM chop (reserving $120 for 1st place). Combined with his guaranteed $665, Eric won $885. When the final hand of play occurred and all the chips were pushed into the pot, Eric was holding while his opponent, James Brown, held . The board ran out and the pair Eric was holding was potent […]
The first fifteen for MILLIONS
The evening of December 16th was the first $1,500 + $150 MILLIONS Main Event satellite – Step 3 with 15 $10,300 Seats guaranteed for the MILLIONS North America Main Event. Considering that this was the first satellite for the event, we wish to present to you the first 15 players that have booked their ticket for the event to be held in May! Congratulations!
Playground 200 Champion: Tommy Dion
Tommy Dion of Granby, QC has been crowned the Champion of the 8-Year Anniversary edition of the Playground 200! He outplayed, out-drew, and outlasted 706 players in the event to emerge as the Champion, and the final Playground 200 Champion of 2018. It was clear that something really special was happening relatively early in the day when Tommy took over a clear chip lead after having started with just 165,000 in chips – the equivalent of 6bb! Once he took the lead, although he took a few hits, Tommy stayed among the top 2 or 3 players the entire rest of the way. When the tournament dropped to 6 players, they chose to do an ICM chop (reserving $1,503 for 1st place) and Tommy was in 2nd place for a $14,315 score – and a chance at the additional prize. By the final hand of play the two remaining players […]
Let there be… cake!
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 […]
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, […]