After a fairly short heads-up battle, it was Eddie Bangash who emerged as the champion of this first event of the Playground Poker Montreal Festival! He managed to navigate through a field of 1,401 entrants to claim the $32,100 first prize, and is now the proud owner of a Playground Poker Montreal Festival bracelet!
Congratulations Eddie! We hope to see you at the Main Event!
Event 1 Champion: Eddie Bangash, $32,100
Event 1 Runner-Up: Robert Amireault, $21,581
Last hand of play in Event 1
We are now heads-up in Event 1, and Eddie Bangash and Robert Amireault are battling it out for the $32,100 first prize, and of course the Playground Poker Montreal Festival winner’s bracelet! Eddie has nearly a 5-1 chip lead, as his 23M dwarf the 5M of Robert.
Good luck to both of you gentlemen!
With just under 2 million in chips, Andrew announced he was all-in from the small blind, and Eddie Bangash snap called from the big blind.
Andrew: 
Eddie: 
Eddie made a straight on the 
, and eliminated Andrew in 3rd.
3rd place: Andrew Sarazin, $14,760
Normand St-Jean Thibodeau was the short stack of the table when he moved all-in for 1.25M from the button. He was called by Robert Amireault from the big blind, and they shared a chuckle when they both turned over the same hand, with Robert holding 
, and Normand 
.
Unfortunately for Normand, the board ran 
, ending his deep run in this event. Just like that, Event 1 is down to three players!
4th place: Normand St-Jean Thibodeau, $12,200
Eddie opened the action preflop to 450K, and was faced with an all-in from Justin Lieu for around 2.2M. He didn’t take long to make the call, and they were off to the races!
Justin: 
Eddie: 
Board: 
5th place: Justin Lieu, $8,710
Here is an update of the chip counts of the remaining 5 players:
Final Table
Guillaume Bibeau was nursing a short stack for most of this final table, yet somehow every time he got his chips in the middle, they would come back in double. He wasn’t able to score another double up on his last hand though, as he open shoved 1.3M from the cutoff and was called by Eddie Bangash on the button.
Guillaume: 
Eddie: 
Board: 
6th place: Guillaume Bibeau, $6,690
Pierre Hubert Maltais opened preflop from middle position to 325K, and was followed by Eddie Bangash on the button, and Robert Amireault from the big blind. The dealer rang out a 
flop, and Pierre Hubert fired 550K after Robert knocked the table. Eddie made the call, and Robert threw his cards away. When the turn brought the 
, Pierre Hubert opted for a check. Eddie then slid in a bet of 930K, to which Pierre Hubert responded with an all-in for roughly 2.5M. Eddie couldn’t get his chips in fast enough, tabling for the nut straight. Pierre Hubert turned over , a hand that was drawing dead at that point. The river was a meaningless 
, and Eddie added over 3.5M new chips to his stack, increasing it to over 10 million!
7th place: Pierre Hubert Maltais, $4,400
Terry Nother found himself all-in preflop for his last 1.2M chips versus fellow short stack of the table, Guillaume Bibeau. He was poised for the double up, as his 
were far ahead of Guillaume’s , that is until Guillaume spiked a pair of aces on the river of the 
board.
8th place: Terry Nother, $3,390
Francois Gauthier was on a bit of a roller-coaster ride these last few hands, as he managed to double up to over 3 million versus Normand St Jean Thibodeau, only to lose half of it to Pierre Hubert a few hands later. Less than an orbit later, he found himself shipping 525K over to Guillaume Bibeau, who managed to double his short stack with versus Francois’s when a king hit the flop.
In his last hand, Francois 3-bet shoved just over 1 million over Justin Lieu’s utg min-raise, who made the call.
Francois:
Justin:
Francois wasn’t able to come from behind, and failed to improve on the 
board to finish in 9th place.
9th place: Francois Gauthier, $2,710
