July Power Weekend News

The Shootout Champion: Haralambos Margaritis

2018/07/30 - 1:02 by Jôle Simard

Event 6 was a shootout tournament, a fun format in which you need to win your table to earn a round 2 seat, where everybody gets a share of the prize pool. 120 players took part, indicating that our player base is fond of sit & gos! To succeed in it, you need to be able to adjust your game as players get eliminated.

17 players did just that, and showed up on the final 2 tables with a minimum prize of $220. Kristopher Chaykowski was very active in the early round 2 action. His stack was the most volatile, as he was trying to earn enough to indulge in big stack play. Down on his luck, he did not make the final table.

Alexandre Mongrain played a solid game, but got crippled by the eventual champion when a gutshot appeared out of the blue to pass the flopped set. Mongrain, despite tripling up to an almost playable stack, left shortly after, sharing 6th and 7th place with Andy D’Alessandro.

Five players agreed to a modified ICM calculation, and as is customary when only 2% of the pot remain, the events that followed were lightning fast and devoid of any deep strategy. When the dust settled, Haralambos Margaritis was left alone, with a suited ace in one hand and a beer in the other. His added $200 got him the biggest payday.

Congratulations!

The Shootout Champion: Haralambos Margaritis – $1910

Runner-ups: Patrick St-Onge (2nd), Diego Aguilar (3rd), Tanvir Ahmed (4th) and David St-Louis (5th)

Last hand of play:

Playground 200 Day 3 seating draw (with counts)

2018/07/29 - 21:36 by

The Day 3 restart in the Playground 200 is coming tomorrow – Monday July 30th, at 7:00pm – and when it does, there will be 21 players seated on 3 tables according to the following seating chart. Play continues tomorrow until a champion is crowned!

First Name \| Prénom	Last Name \| Nom	Seat \| Siège	Stack \| Tapis
Jean-Rene	Guay	Table 32 - Seat 1	1,245,000
Jean-Francois	Bruens	Table 32 - Seat 3	775,000
David	Bolduc Hamel	Table 32 - Seat 4	1,015,000
James	Mcdermott	Table 32 - Seat 5	1,050,000
Michael	Mckinnon	Table 32 - Seat 7	690,000
Daniel	Germain	Table 32 - Seat 8	950,000
Sebastien	Drolet-Poitras	Table 32 - Seat 9	1,325,000
Dominique	Dion	Table 35 - Seat 1	940,000
Gregory	Ducharme	Table 35 - Seat 2	1,055,000
Co	Tran	Table 35 - Seat 3	1,470,000
Michel	Leblond	Table 35 - Seat 4	615,000
Maxime	Marcouiller	Table 35 - Seat 6	1,065,000
Steve	Horic	Table 35 - Seat 8	605,000
Yonathan	Moryoussef	Table 35 - Seat 9	885,000
Duff	Charette	Table 36 - Seat 2	455,000
Rachid	Bahaj	Table 36 - Seat 3	670,000
Nick	Nickoletopoulos	Table 36 - Seat 4	420,000
Dominic	Boucher	Table 36 - Seat 5	415,000
Kevin	Rousselle	Table 36 - Seat 7	495,000
Dave	Jeanneau-Cyr	Table 36 - Seat 8	990,000
Carl	Lafontaine	Table 36 - Seat 9	415,000

Nickoletopoulos takes a hit

Level: 23
Small Blind: 10K
Big Blind: 20K
Button Ante: 20K
Chip Average: 727K
Remaining: 24
Entries: 698

2018/07/29 - 18:53 by Jôle Simard

Nick Nickoletopoulos, from the under-the-gun position, found a hand to go all-in with 700K. Michael Mckinnon, sitting on his immediate left, pushed his own stack of 414K, and when everybody else folded, both players went to a heads-up showdown.

Nick:
Michael:

Board:

In the absence of a matching card on the board, Nick had to push over half his stack to his neighbour. No matter what happens for him today, he is having a great July Power Weekend, having taken down the PLO Event. Mckinnon enjoyed a nice boost, passing the average.

Event #5 Champion: Jean-Francois M

2018/07/29 - 4:34 by Shawn McCrory

Event #5 of the July Power Weekend, the $100 + $20 + $100 50/50 Bounty, drew an impressive turnout of 214 players. Showing the consistent popularity of Power Weekend bounty tournaments, this event generated a prize pool that far exceeded the $20,000 guarantee.

The early levels were predictably wild, with lots of multi-way all ins and plenty of huge pots. There were nearly 200 entries when the first break arrived and a rush of players to the cashier brought the total number to 214 before play resumed. 40 players were eliminated prior to the first break, and the action continued at a frantic pace right through to the second break of the evening.

David Ho jumped out to an early lead, but he ran out of steam around the time of the second break. From there Andre Piunno rose to the top of the leader board with Yan Gohier right behind him. Piunno and Gohier managed to maintain the largest stacks in the field all the way to the final table. The only lull in the action this evening was the hand-for-hand play on the money bubble, but it was brief by comparative standards, and the action quickly got back up to speed.

When the final table was down to its last four players, Jean-Francois M, Georges Rombotis, Yan Gohier and Elie B, they negotiated a deal that divided the prize pool and took the bounty chips out of play. Jean-Francois and Yan each received $2,500, while Elie and Georges took $3,100, leaving an extra $406 for the winner.

Jean-Francois M built a big stack in the middle stages of the tournament and then went on a roller coaster in the late stages. He went from playing a stack that was well above average to being all in with only a handful of blinds when the field was down to two tables. After losing a huge pot, Jean-Francois was, in his words, “on tilt” and moved all in blind out of turn. After being cautioned by the dealer, he waited his turn and moved all in blind nonetheless. He managed to make a full house with in what was the start of an epic comeback. From there, he won pot after pot and made his way to the final table with an above-average stack. After the players chopped the prize pool at the final table, Jean-Francois eliminated each of them in turn to complete a remarkable comeback to claim victory. Congratulations!

Event #5 Champion: Jean-Francois M, $2,906

Last hand of play:

July Power Weekend – Short Deck has arrived

2018/07/05 - 16:00 by Jôle Simard

July has arrived, and with it the second half of 2018. The WSOP-C Playground is less than 2 months away, and at Playground Poker Club, we are getting ready for the last Power Weekend before the World Series of Poker comes to town. The July Power Weekend will run from July 26th to July 30th, and it includes a little bit of everything!

This Power Weekend comes with a very exciting novelty. This month, the Short Deck Hold’em variant makes its way to the Playground felts! The game is said to have originated in Macau in high stakes circles, 4 years ago. Phil Ivey and Tom Dwan helped to popularize it, but the game’s rapid growth in popularity is mostly due to its action-inducing properties.

Short Deck – also known as Six Plus – is played with decks of 36 cards. All 2s, 3s, 4s and 5s are removed, making almost every hand look playable. When you jump in, be aware that in Short Deck, it is possible to make an A-6-7-8-9 straight, and because there are only 9 cards of each suit, a flush is ranked higher than a full house. $60 + $10 No Limit Short Deck tournaments will be held on July 9th, 16th, and 23rd at 8PM – allowing players to get accustomed to the intricacies of this fun-packed variant. Play 1, 2, or all 3 of them to be ready for Event 7 in the July Power Weekend, a $100 + $10 NL Short Deck Hold’em event!

What else does the July Power Weekend bring? The Playground 200, of course! The event has become a cornerstone of Playground Poker Power Weekends. Its affordable $200 + $20 buy-in gets you a shot at a $100,000 guaranteed prize pool! It features one online Day 1 and three live Day 1s for you to choose from.

Other notable tournaments are the $80 + $10 Mix Max, our kick-off event, where the number of players per table reduces as the event progresses, and the $100 + $10 Shootout, where you have to win your table to advance to round 2. These fun formats are designed to let you go off-road with your favourite poker game. Get out of your comfort zone – it will keep your brain sharp!

In total, the July Power Weekend presents 9 events and over $190,000 in guaranteed prize pools.