Playground Winter Festival

Some notables in the field

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Tournament:

As was the case on Day 1a, yesterday, there are some notable players in the field today. There isn’t a single set of criteria that makes a player “notable” for the purposes of this blog – some of these players have had wide international success, others are local poker hotshots who have yet to break through, and still others are notable for other reasons!

  • Carla Sabini – Carla is a fixture in big events here at Playground Poker, but also spends a lot of time travelling to events around the world. She had a great week in London in 2013 when she used her winnings from a 30th place finish in the EPT London Main Event to buy in to the High Roller event – and made it to the final table, finishing 4th!
  • Vlad Faubert – Vlad hasn’t had the international breakthrough that many of his fellow Quebec-based pros have had, but no one underestimates his talent, and he is an absolute beast in tournaments at Playground Poker Club, having cashed in at least 10 events in the past.
  • Eric Afriat – Eric is one of the most celebrated poker players from Montreal, having followed years of success in tournaments around the world with a signature >$1M victory in a WPT event in Florida last year.
  • Steve Toulch – Steve is a regular big-event player at Playground Poker Club and though he hasn’t had the huge tournament victories of some others, he is nevertheless very recognizable for the TV coverage he received during a series of hands he played against Scotty Nguyen in the WSOP Main Event 2010.

Some early photos

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Tournament:

Play in Day 1b is approaching the end of level 2 and there are already 267 players in this flight, a number that continues to grow quite quickly.

Photos from levels 1 and 2:

Day 1b is underway!

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Tournament:

The preliminary announcements have been made and play has begun in Day 1b of the Main Event!

Participation today is already much stronger than yesterdays Day 1b, with 205 players already seated and another 6 levels of late registration available. Players receive a full 30K chip stack when they late register, so players who jump in the event late are not at a disadvantage relative to players seated now.

Good luck to everyone today!

Time for Day 1b

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Tournament:

Day 1a is in the books and so far 52 players have qualified for Day 2 of the Main Event of the Playground Winter Festival. Today is Day 1b – the second and final starting flight in the Main Event. We’re expecting that many more players will be joining the action today, including many players playing for the first time but also a substantial number of players who will be firing their second bullet in this re-entry event.

With 179 entries yesterday and a $500K guarantee, this tournament is officially in “overlay zone” – which means there’s a chance that the number of entries won’t meet the guaranteed prize pool. In effect, if this happens it’s free money for players – and underlines the huge amount of value in this tournament.

Main Event Day 1a – final chip counts

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Tournament:

Here are the final chip counts for Day 1a of the Main Event – Event 9 of the Playground Winter Festival.

There were a total of 179 entrants in this first of two starting flights in the Main Event. 52 of these players have qualified for Day 2 on Sunday, March 8th at 12pm.

Note that these are unverified player-counted chip counts. All chips have been sealed in bags until they return to play on Day 2.

[eztable width=”100%” colwidth=”35%|35%|30%” colalign=”left|left|right”]
First Name,Last Name,Chip Count [attr sort=”desc”]
Serge,Pouliot,”369,500″
Shawn A,Martell,”258,700″
Amirmasoud,Babakhani,”253,500″
Gabriel,Vezina,”214,000″
Mathieu,Parent,”206,600″
Shane,Flewelling,”195,500″
Jordan, Miraglia,”189,200″
Giovanni,Massa,”183,000″
Nicolas,Bastien,”179,100″
Dominique,Prefontaine,”157,000″
Denis,Scott,”151,500″
Jonathan,Poissant,”150,000″
Jason,Duval,”146,800″
Jamey,Allen,”146,200″
Jean Louis,Forino,”135,800″
Mackenzie,McDonald,”126,000″
Samuel,Chartier,”115,900″
Garen,Galanti,”115,700″
Jonathan,Brule,”113,500″
Troy,Hamilton,”110,800″
Alex,Fortin Demers,”110,400″
Anthony,Khoury,”108,400″
Quyen,Dao,”98,000″
Danny,Lauzon,”97,800″
Norman,Doucette,”94,000″
Chris,McClung,”91,000″
Sean,Windover,”88,400″
Guy,Chateauneuf,”88,000″
Ben,Menache,”83,300″
Osman,Soubra,”77,000″
Kevin,Dawe,”75,900″
Marie-Pier,Simard,”63,800″
Stephen R,Smith,”61,300″
Stephen,Baker,”61,000″
Jacques,Iza,”58,200″
Hiyaw,Gebreyohannes,”55,200″
Mario,Lepine,”49,000″
Joey,Silver,”49,000″
Johnny,Mazzaferro,”45,700″
Sergio,Vigano,”44,600″
Carter,Swidler,”42,300″
Daniel,Belisle,”41,900″
Hubert,Paquet Moisan,”41,600″
Tony,Stratopoulos,”39,100″
Geri,Casey,”35,700″
Matthew,Brunskole,”35,500″
Levi,Stevens,”34,700″
Bill,Germanis,”32,000″
Patrick,Atallah,”26,600″
Jean-Philippe,Piquette,”26,300″
Sebastien,Beaulieu-Amyot,”24,900″
Dominic,Champagne,”20,300″
[/eztable]

Last level of the day

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Tournament:

Play has now moved into level 13, which is the last level to be played today. There are currently 62 players still in the action over 7 tables (play is 9-handed), but there are several short-stacked players left, so there’s a lot of action left to come in the final 40 minutes.

We’ll post final chip counts for the day about an hour after the conclusion of play tonight – and then tomorrow morning at 11am, the whole process will start again for Day 1b.

Counts into the final 2 levels

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Tournament:

Starting level 11 of the 13 to be played tonight in Day 1a of the Main Event, there are quite a few players who have managed to build up truly impressive stacks. First among all of the players remaining – by a big margin – is Serge Pouliot, whose big hand we wrote about a few minutes ago.

  1. Serge Pouliot – 264K
  2. Gabriel Vezina – 198K
  3. Norman Doucette – 186K
  4. Mathieu Parent – 165K
  5. Jean Louis Forino – 165K
  6. Shawn Martell – 162K
  7. Amir Babakhani – 156K
  8. Nicolas Bastien – 156K
  9. Jamey Allen – 143K

Huge hand on 50

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Tournament:

We just witnessed a huge hand on table 50 which has most likely vaulted the winner into the chip lead in today’s flight of the Main Event.

We arrived at the table preflop as Serge Pouliot’s all-in bet was being counted on request of the next player to act, Brian Wang. It turns out that Serge had just over 74K, and Brian just flat called from the cutoff. The button and blinds all folded, and action was back on the initial raiser in the hand, Debra Ann Holman (who had open raised to 5K to get this all started).

At first, Debra Ann wasn’t sure that the action was on her, and when this was clarified, a few seconds later Serge called time – though not enough time had yet elapsed for the dealer to administer a 60-second clock. Debra Ann wasn’t happy, though, and she said, “just for that, I’m going to call too” – and pushed her whole (shorter) stack in the middle.

With all action completed, the players tabled their hands:

Debra Ann: 4 of Hearts 4 of Clubs
Serge: King of Clubs King of Diamonds
Brian: Ace of Spades 10 of Clubs

Any doubt as to the result was extinguished almost immediately on the 5 of Hearts 3 of Spades King of Spades flop, which was followed by the turn Jack of Hearts. This renewed some of Brian’s hopes for the hand and he pleaded for a Queen, but it was not to be as the safe 7 of Clubs fell on the river.

Serge didn’t quite triple, but he increased his stack to just about the 200K mark, which puts him among the chip leaders so far.

Daylight savings time!

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Tournament:

Just a reminder to everyone that between Saturday night and Sunday morning, Daylight Savings Time will come into effect in Montreal. As the old adage goes: “spring forward….”

It’s not as important in this era of self-setting and self-adjusting electronic devices, but for players who qualify for Day 2 of the Main Event, be sure to remember to check your devices, watches, and/or clocks to make sure you’re here on time to start the day at 12pm (noon).

Playground Winter Festival