May Power Weekend News

Our Rebuy Champion: Ranjeev!

2018/05/18 - 21:55 by Jôle Simard

Event 4 in the May Power Weekend was a $50 + $10 NL Hold’em Rebuy tournament. Players could rebuy an unlimited amount of time during the first 4 levels, directly at the table, making for an interesting dynamic.

When the rebuy period was over, players started to be a little more cautious with their plays, until the final table was reached. A deal was struck 10-way that brought a lot of action. Every final tableist was secured a payment and the only extra money was at the very top – all were playing for a $509 extra.

Eight busts later, Cole Skye and Ranjeev M were heads-up and they gave quite a show. The first thing they did was to reduce the variance to the maximum. They added $192 to their secured amount and played for $125.

Even though the bounty was massively reduced, both players put on their best game, trying to control the pots, sizing each other up, tanking and making lay-downs. After a while, Ranjeev got the upper hand, seemingly having Cole figured out. He correctly called him off with weak pairs on a few occasions, and showed a few well-timed bluffs.

Cole was on the wrong side of the grind, and even though he managed to gain some life back, he was leaned on again and eventually shoved with an ace into Ranjeev’s kings. Snap call. Clean board. A champion was crowned!

Event 4 Champion: Ranjeev M. – $817

Runner-up: Cole Skye – $892

Last hand of play:

Event #3 Champion: Jonathan Bussieres

2018/05/18 - 3:18 by Shawn McCrory

Event #3 of the May Power Weekend, the PLO Bounty Re-entry, brought out enough players to easily surpass this tournament’s $10,000 guarantee.

In predictable fashion, the players were quick to put their bounty chips in play throughout the early levels, each prepared to take advantage of this event’s unlimited re-entry format if necessary. This type of play comes with the territory for any re-entry bounty tournament, but the surprise was that the players showed no signs of slowing down after the end of the late registration and re-entry period. The field reduced to the final nine, who moved on to the final table, well before anyone expected.

The last two men sitting, Marc Chanthamynavong and Jonathan Bussieres, were playing similarly-sized stacks and agreed to a deal that would see them each take $2,400, leaving an extra $406 for the eventual winner. Both players fond a way to survive the crazy action in the early levels and built their respective stacks slowly and steadily throughout the evening.

The two players traded a few small pots back and forth during their heads-up match before Bussieres doubled through Chanthamynavong. Bussieres had flopped bottom set and played it passively against Chanthamynavong’s aggression. Chanthamynavong had flopped a combo draw, with lots of straight and flush outs, and when Bussieres raised all-in on the turn, Chanthamynavong was committed to the pot. Bussieres’ set stood, giving him a big double up and a healthy chip lead. On the following hand, all the chips went in pre-flop, and once again Bussieres flopped a lead that he would not relinquish.

With the victory, Bussieres adds another line to his steadily growing poker resume and collects another Playground event championship. Congratulations!

Event #3 Champion: Jonathan Bussieres, $2,806

Last hand of play:

Makan Salimi bags large

2018/05/18 - 3:16 by Jôle Simard

Day 1A of the Playground 200 is in the books. From 129 entries, just 27 players managed to survive today’s 14 levels. The last level was quite tight, as players took little risk to avoid being knocked out right before the fake finish line.

All of these players will be added to the Combined Day 1 Results, found here. This list will be updated as Day 1s conclude, and will eventually provide a full list of Day 2 qualifiers. Three online players have been waiting there for some company since last Sunday. With the conclusion of Day 1A, that list rounds 30 players.

Tonight, Makan Salami finished strong, getting a few chips from Craig William who was on pace for a top 3 stack. Salami bagged 239,000 chips and is followed by Ben Menache, who finished with 182,500.

After these two come a pack of players in the 160s. George Siamoutas, David Sorgente, Nicolas Miron, Lee Chanwoo and Gil Charles are all within 7,000 of each other.

To join them and take shot at the $100,000 guarantee, play in Day 1B (Friday 7:00pm) or Day 1C (Saturday 11:00am). All qualifiers merge on Sunday at 12:00pm. See you tomorrow!

Pierre out on the bubble

Level: 14
Small Blind: 3K
Big Blind: 6K
Button Ante: 0
Chip Average: 230K
Remaining: 5
Entries: 46

2018/05/18 - 1:19 by Shawn McCrory

Play in the Omaha Bounty tightened up, if only briefly, on the money bubble at the final table. But now that Frederic Pierre has been eliminated in seventh place, play should return to its former, frenetic pace.

Pierre, who had been playing a short stack, waited patiently for a good spot, and he found one when he woke up with in the big blind. Shijaudin Daud Sha had opened the action to 15K and picked up one caller before Pierre moved all-in from the big blind for roughly 30K. Daud Sha re-raised to isolate and they went heads-up. The board, , gave Daud Sha trips on the river, and Pierre was eliminated in seventh place.

Stuart Taylor wins Event #1

2018/05/17 - 19:38 by

The end-game in Event #1 of the May Power Weekend at Playground Poker Club ran very quickly, as the table was reduced from 8 to 2 in just over an hour, and to 1 Champion left standing just minutes after that. And when the last stacks were shipped, Stuart Taylor emerged as the victor. There was no deal between the players as heads up play got underway, and no deal would be made as this segment of the tournament only lasted for around 25 minutes.

Michael Hunter started out roughly equal to Stuart as play began, but in short order, Stuart had taken about 40% of Michael’s chips, and when he looked at an he felt it was time to make his shove. Stuart took no time at all to call and flip over his cards:

Michael:
Stuart:

The flop was a pretty definitive answer to the question at hand: and the turn was enough, leaving the meaningless on the river as the end of the hand – and the end of this kickoff event in the May Power Weekend!

Event #1 Champion: Stuart Taylor, $2,137

2nd place: Michael Hunter, $1,250

Final Hand of play

The May Power Weekend is underway!

2018/05/17 - 12:08 by Playground Poker

Play in Event #1 is almost through to the first break and with that action underway, the Playground Power Weekend for May 2018 is now on the track! This month, the “Weekend” features 9 events spread from Thursday to Monday evening… well, that means Tuesday morning (early).

In keeping with all of the Power Weekends we have thrown, the idea is to present a short series of different, sometimes offbeat tournaments with affordable buy-ins – but to mix that with at least one low-buy-in/high-guarantee event. This time, the “Main” is the 3rd edition of the Playground 200. With a $20 + $20 buy-in, it’s accessible to almost everyone, while the $100,000 guarantee makes it appealing to everyone – even the player used to playing larger stakes events!

Today’s tournament is a NL Hold’em 3 Lives Turbo event, while tonight will see the first of three Live flights in the Playground 200. All along the way there are other fun tournaments – a shootout, a couple of bounty tournaments, and a $330 PLO Bounty event that is sure to be a wild ride.

Good luck to everyone!