An epic heads-up battle took place between Jean-Pascal Gauthier and Anish Sood to close out the action in Event #1 in the February 2019 Playground Power Weekend. Along the way, the two remaining players looked at the ICM chop numbers, but in the end, they decided to just play on.
Anish was dominating up until the last hand before break, but with only 10 seconds to go before the break was to start, an important hand was dealt. Anish was on the button and looked down at 
and shoved. Jean-Pascal woke up with 
and, as expected, snap called! The Queens held and Jean-Pascal received a nice double-up, adding almost 300k to his stack.
Returning from their last break, chips moved back and forth until Anish went all in with Big Slick. Jean-Pascal called, holding a hand that was clearly dominated: King high, 8 kicker. The dealer fanned out a King-high flop with a spade draw, before turning an 8 and giving Jean-Pascal the lead. The river was a brick and Jean-Pascal became the chip leader.
The last hand played out with Anish holding 
against Jean-Pascal’s 
. The board came 
, giving Jean-Pascal a Q-high straight for the win. Congratulations!
Event # 1 Champion: Jean-Pascal Gauthier, $1,741
Last hand of play:
2nd place: Anish Sood, $1,290
