Fall Classic News

Sexton Wins: History is made; the legend grows

2016/11/18 - 1:46 by

Mike Sexton has won the 2016 partypoker.net WPT Montreal!

The certified Hall of Famer, all-around poker legend and the voice and face of the WPT for its entire 15 year history has added to his legend and made history at Playground Poker Club by winning this $3,850 NL Hold’em event, now in its 5th year. For his victory, Mike wins $405,880.00 in cash, a US$ 15,000 entry in the WPT Tournament of Champions, the Playground Poker Champion’s Belt, his name (further) immortalized on the WPT Champions Trophy as well as a gorgeous Hublot watch and a pair of gold Monster 24K headphones!

Mike and his heads up opponent, Benny Chen, engaged in a truly epic heads up battle that lasted 157 hands before a champion could be crowned. Benny proved to be an extremely skilled player and held a large chip advantage for long stretches of the evening, but Mike proved to be up to the challenge and kept on grinding, sometimes with a small stack, sometimes with more… until finally he took the chip lead in hand #262 – and secured the victory just 2 hands later.

In the ultimate hand of the night, Benny was first to act and shipped preflop for 8,150,000 in chips. Mike looked at his cards, let out a “Whoa” and instantly called, turning over . Benny flipped over – and would need some help to keep any of his chips.

The flop was spread from right to left: – a queen was the door card, the final card revealed on the flop. Mike raised a fist into the air in celebration – all he had to do was to fade Benny’s gutshot draw… The turn was which, though it connected well with Benny’s hand and the board was pretty much a blank in reality… and then a real blank on the river, the ! And Mike Sexton was the champion!

2016 partypoker.net WPT Montreal Champion: Mike Sexton, $405,880.00

Mike Sexton with WPT and Playground Poker staff

Mike Sexton and the Playground Poker Champion’s Belt

partypoker.net WPT Montreal runner up: Benny Chen, $286,110.00

Lefrançois crowned Champion of the High Roller

2016/11/18 - 0:14 by Jôle Simard

Pascal Lefrançois and Mark Radoja played heads-up for about a half-hour. For those two to end up playing heads-up was a natural outcome, as they played a lot of hands together since the formation of the final table. They were constantly testing each other in a variety of different scenarios, as if to prepare for the match to come.

They started the heads-up match with even stacks, and were playing for $8,000.00, having split the rest of the pool evenly. Playing 10K/20K/a3K, there were 61 big blinds in play. They played rather small, seeing a lot of flops, dancing around. Radoja was the first to get a significant lead, getting to a 3 to 1 ratio pretty quickly. But then Lefrançois fought back, and eventually tables were turned, favoring Lefrançois by the same margin. After losing a few more blinds, Radoja set a trap from the button, limping on it. Lefrançois took the bait, and shoved from the big blind, for an effective bet of 12.5 big blinds, as Radoja had 250K left. Radoja simply opened his hand:

Mark Radoja:
Pascal Lefrançois:

The board came , hitting Pascal just enough to give him the pot, and the two friends immediately stood up to shake hands. In this way, Lefrançois was crowned Champion of the Playground Poker Fall Classic’s High Roller Event, taking the High Roller title from Marc-Étienne Mclaughlin who had won that Event here during the World Cup of Cards.

Mark had to leave to prepare for an upcoming trip, so he gave his drink to Pascal, as they had just ordered one each. Pascal went ahead and offered it to one of the Bounty hunters in the adjacent tournament. We hope that this person will go on and win the tournament, thus having a really nice story to tell.

Congratulations Pascal!

The High Roller Champion: Pascal Lefrançois – $128,000.00 and the High Roller Trophy

Runner-up: Mark Radoja – $120,000.00

Last hand of play:

Second Chance Champion: Christopher Fisher

2016/11/17 - 22:04 by

When the deal was made 3-way, Christopher Fisher and Ted Doukas were both relatively short compared with Jordan Saccucci – but when Jordan went out in 3rd, Chris picked up most of those chips. When heads up play began, Chris enjoyed a 3-1 chip advantage.

Play continued for a little time before what looked to be a definitive all in showdown that pitted Chris’ against Ted’s dominated . The on the river brought Ted from behind, however, and play continued.

A few hands later there was another all in and call, and once again Ted was dominated: against Chris’ . Once again, though, the deck had other ideas and Ted hit his on the flop and won the hand – and this time it was significant, the two players were now almost even in chips.

What could have become a very drawn out affair, however, did not as both players were by then extremely tired and neither seemed particularly excited/disappointed to be at parity. Consequently, on the very next hand Ted shoved all in with and found a quick call from Chris, holding just . Again, the cards spoke:

Chris had won the hand, and when the stacks were counted down, he had won the tournament as well. Congratulations!

Event 14 Champion: Christopher Fisher, $37,295.00

2nd place: Theodore Doukas, $31,000.00

Final hand of play in Event 14

Welcome to the WPT Montreal Final Table

Level: 29
Small Blind: 40K
Big Blind: 80K
Ante: 10K
Chip Average: 3.3M
Remaining: 6
Entries: 648

2016/11/17 - 16:04 by Playground Poker

From a starting field of 648 entries, the WPT Montreal is now down to just 6 finalists, who are back today to play down to our WPT Montreal Champion. With already $81,740 locked-in, the players are gunning for that $405,880 top prize.

The final 6 is lead by WPT’s own Mike Sexton, who eliminated Samuel Louis Gagnon in 7th place last night to take over the chip lead. Second in chips is Ema Zajmovic, born in Bosnia but raised here in Quebec. 2013 Millionaire-Maker winner Benny Chen returns third in chips, while Ilan Charlot Boujenah holds the 4th biggest stack. Jake Schwartz comes in as one of the two short stacks, but carries a ton of tournament experience with him and is a force to be reckoned with. Rounding the final 6 is Nadir Lalji, who bagged just under 20 big blinds.

The stage is set and the cameras are rolling as action resumes now. A live stream on a 30-minutes delay is available for the viewers at, simply click here or on the “Live Stream” tab found at the top of the page.

Good luck to the finalists!

First Name \| Prénom	Last Name \| Nom	Seat \| Siège	Stack \| Tapis
Nadir	Lalji	Seat 1	1,520,000
Benny	Chen	Seat 2	2,480,000
Ilan Charlot	Boujenah	Seat 3	2,290,000
Mike	Sexton	Seat 4	6,215,000
Ema	Zajmovic	Seat 5	5,385,000
Jake	Schwartz	Seat 6	1,550,000

Second Chance final table

Level: 20
Small Blind: 5K
Big Blind: 10K
Ante: 1K
Chip Average: 337.8K
Remaining: 10
Entries: 135

2016/11/17 - 15:39 by

Event 14 in the Playground Poker Fall Classic has reached the final table – all the remaining players have taken new seats on Table 70 in the Tournament Hall.

First Name \| Prénom	Last Name \| Nom	Seat \| Siège
Kenneth	Lindgren	Seat 1
Erik	Lemarquand	Seat 2
Terry	Flood	Seat 3
Paul	Petten	Seat 4
Jordan	Saccucci	Seat 5
Marton	Szlavy	Seat 6
Olivier	Boyer	Seat 7
Francois	Bergeron	Seat 8
Theodore	Doukas	Seat 9
Christopher	Fisher	Seat 10

And now… Day 2 of the High Roller & 2nd Chance

2016/11/17 - 12:00 by

In addition to the final day of the WPT Montreal, today is also host to Day 2 of the High Roller and Second Chance tournaments. They’re both slated to start in 5 minutes, and players are now arriving in the Tournament Hall and taking their seats, ready for action.

In the High Roller event, Pascal Lefrancois is in the driver’s seat with a more than 60K chip advantage as play starts. But while the advantage is nice to have, the field is stacked with talent, so no one on the leaderboard can afford to sit and wait for the action to come to them.

The Second Chance event is also pretty stacked with talent. There are some big chip leaders in the event like Kenneth Lindgren and Jordan Saccucci – but there are players throughout the field that will have a lot to say about who wins this event!

Good luck to everyone today!

7th place: Walter Asatoorian ; 6th place: Ricky Campanelli

Level: 25
Small Blind: 30K
Big Blind: 60K
Ante: 5K
Chip Average: 800K
Remaining: 5
Entries: 161

2016/11/17 - 3:35 by Jôle Simard

Cédric tried to raise, but only put in 75K on a 60K big blind, so he was forced to just call. That’s when Keith Laflam raised to 205K, showing a lot of strength. And then, Walter Asatoorian shoved. Cédric got out of the way, happy that he only put 60K into the pot.

Walter Asatoorian:
Keith Laflam:

Laflam flopped a set, but the turn brought a straight draw to Asatoorian. The river was clean though, and then there were 6.

The next hand, Ricky Campanelli raised all-in from the cut-off with . It was quickly called by Pascal Monarque from the blind, as he was holding . The board did not help Campanelli, and he walked away with a nice 4-digit prize.

Walter Asatoorian takes $980 for his 7th place, and Ricky takes $1,310 for 6th. Congratulations both!

Event 14 Day 2 seating draw (with counts)

2016/11/17 - 2:03 by

Day 2 of the $1,500 + $150 NL Hold’em Second Chance event in the Playground Poker Fall Classic presented by partypoker.net will begin at 12:00pm on November 17th. Here is the official seating chart for the tourney restart on Day 2.

[Click or tap on a column header to sort, or search for a name]

First Name \| Prénom	Last Name \| Nom	Seat \| Siège	Stack \| Tapis
Roger Basil	Yaiche	Table 61 - Seat 1	83,000
Farzad	Zare	Table 61 - Seat 2	81,500
Marton	Szlavy	Table 61 - Seat 3	169,000
Christopher	Fisher	Table 61 - Seat 4	255,000
Marco	Caza	Table 61 - Seat 5	155,500
Kenneth	Lindgren	Table 61 - Seat 7	345,500
Erik	Lemarquand	Table 61 - Seat 9	185,500
Dave	Jeanneau-Cyr	Table 65 - Seat 1	96,000
Terry	Flood	Table 65 - Seat 2	39,500
Theodore	Doukas	Table 65 - Seat 4	223,000
Harley	S	Table 65 - Seat 5	145,000
Salomon	Ponte	Table 65 - Seat 6	109,500
Thomas	Lefort	Table 65 - Seat 8	115,000
Francois	Bergeron	Table 65 - Seat 9	146,000
Jordan	Saccucci	Table 69 - Seat 2	335,000
Samuel Bisrat	Tsehai	Table 69 - Seat 3	49,000
Armah	Attoh	Table 69 - Seat 4	98,000
Olivier	Boyer	Table 69 - Seat 5	318,000
Paul	Petten	Table 69 - Seat 6	176,500
Nimer	Ltaif	Table 69 - Seat 7	117,000
Michael	Ferrer	Table 69 - Seat 8	119,000

Lefrancois leads the High-Roller into Day 2

Level: 11
Small Blind: 600
Big Blind: 1.2K
Ante: 200
Chip Average: 58.6K
Remaining: 21
Entries: 41

2016/11/17 - 0:02 by Playground Poker

The $10,000 + $400 High-Roller Event was the biggest buy-in event in the Playground Poker Fall Classic, and it attracted a field of 41 runners, which included many distinguished players in the poker community.

Through 10 levels of play, only 21 players remained when the clock for Day 1 struck zero, and they have bagged and tagged their chips onto tomorrow’s Day 2. Play resumes at 12pm, and will play down until we have our High-Roller champion, who will pocket a $156,000 cash prize as well as a Playground Poker Fall Classic Champion’s Trophy. The top 6 spots will secure a payday.

Local pro Pascal Lefrancois leads the final 21 into action tomorrow, having bagged a massive 174,000 chip stack. Senthuran Vijayaratnam returns with a hefty army of 117,400, while Mark Radoja (105,000) and Darren Elias (104,600) rounds out the list of players who bagged in the 6-figures. Full counts can be found in the table below.

First Name \| Prénom	Last Name \| Nom	Seat \| Siège	Stack \| Tapis
Pascal	Lefrancois	Table 70 - Seat 1	174,000
Senthuran	Vijayaratnam	Table 70 - Seat 2	117,400
Mark	Radoja	Table 66 - Seat 5	105,000
Darren	Elias	Table 66 - Seat 8	104,600
Anthony	Zinno	Table 62 - Seat 6	90,400
George	Caragiorgas	Table 62 - Seat 5	85,400
Lucas	Greenwood	Table 62 - Seat 7	61,700
Samuel Robert	Phillips	Table 62 - Seat 2	55,400
Dylan	Wilkerson	Table 66 - Seat 3	55,400
Caitlin	Hall	Table 70 - Seat 5	46,200
Jiachen	Gong	Table 62 - Seat 6	44,800
Ari	Engel	Table 62 - Seat 1	39,700
Gerald	Karlic	Table 62 - Seat 3	38,400
Michael Garry	Aron	Table 66 - Seat 7	36,300
Marc-Étienne	McLaughlin	Table 70 - Seat 6	34,100
Keven Michael	Stammen	Table 62 - Seat 8	31,800
Martin	Raus	Table 66 - Seat 1	25,000
Ryan David	McEathron	Table 70 - Seat 4	24,000
Dean	Murphy	Table 70 - Seat 8	23,100
Peter	Chien	Table 66 - Seat 2	21,500
Manig	Loeser	Table 70 - Seat 7	18,100

Samuel Louis Gagnon eliminated in 7th; Official final table is set

Level: 29
Small Blind: 40K
Big Blind: 80K
Ante: 10K
Chip Average: 3.3M
Remaining: 6
Entries: 648

2016/11/16 - 19:44 by Playground Poker

When the WPT Montreal went on break following level 28, chip-leader at the start of the day Samuel Louis Gagnon was riding the shortest stack of the final 7 players. Once action resumed, he 3bet his final 18 big blinds from the button after an open. Mike Sexton moved all-in over the top from the small blind, isolating the at-risk player and closing the hand heads-up.

Samuel:
Mike:

Samuel’s pocket pair was in bad shape to start the hand, and as the dealer rung out a board, he found no help and was eliminated in 7th place.

With only 6 players left in the event, the WPT Montreal has reached it’s official televised final table of 6 players, who are currently bagging and tagging their chips for tomorrow’s finale. Below are the chip counts for Day 5.

See you tomorrow!

First Name \| Prénom	Last Name \| Nom	Seat \| Siège	Stack \| Tapis
Nadir	Lalji	Seat 1	1,520,000
Benny	Chen	Seat 2	2,480,000
Ilan Charlot	Boujenah	Seat 3	2,290,000
Mike	Sexton	Seat 4	6,215,000
Ema	Zajmovic	Seat 5	5,385,000
Jake	Schwartz	Seat 6	1,550,000