West Hollywood, California, was the site of the 4th Annual GPI American Poker Awards banquet, and Playground Poker Club celebrated a tremendous accomplishment along side a who’s who of the North American poker scene. The event took place at the Andaz Hotel – the renovated successor to the famous – or infamous – Hyatt House/Riot House on Sunset Blvd!
Towards the end of the festivities, in the last group of prizes, came the moment of truth for Playground Poker Club and our partners from partypoker LIVE. A short video presented the four nominees, and then Joe Ingram took to the microphone. After a few words, he opened the envelope… “this is going to – the underdog – partypoker MILLIONS North America! Take it down.”
Words cannot adequately capture what came next… so, watch:
Winning the Event of the Year prize was a tremendous honour, but it was but the pinnacle of an evening full of recognition for Playground Poker Club and events that took place here. The competition for Moment of the Year was fierce, with some truly unforgettable moments among the nominees, but the winner was Ema Zajmovic’s WPT victory right here in the WPT Playground in February of 2017!
The moment was memorable, and important for poker, because Ema was the first woman to win an open World Poker Tour Championship. She was unable to attend the festivities, but our friend Samuel Carioti of the WPT accepted on her behalf.
Congratulations to all of the other nominees and winners in this edition of the American Poker Awards, with a special shout-out to Ari Engel, Kristen Bicknell, Jaime Staples, and Eric Danis – all good friends of Playground Poker Club, and all of them Canadian as well!
All in all it was a truly memorable night!