This Saturday night at Playground Poker Club was a special night, as it took host to Event 12 in the Playground Poker Spring Classic – The Women’s Event. They were 61 to start the night, and after 8 hours of play there was only one woman left standing, our champion Tina Howie.

From beginning to end Tina lead the show. Combining good cards in hand with strategic tournament plays, she was able to keep herself ahead of the field, at times up to fourfold the average stack. She was already in the chip lead when she arrived at the final table, and went on to eliminate every adversary that got in her way. It was almost no surprise to see that heads-up play only lasted one hand, where Tina was dealt THE best hand in poker – pocket aces. Her opponent Irene Tzanetopoulos, who sneaked her way through the final table with a short-stack in hand, was also dealt a pair and had no choice but to go with it.

Tina:
Irène:

Board:

Tina and her premium pair went on to win the hand, and she was crowned our Women’s Event Champion, collecting a cool $3,000 cash prize, along with a Playground Poker Spring Classic Champion’s Trophy!

Congratulations!

The Women’s Event Champion: Tina Howie – $3,000

The Women’s Event Runner Up: Irène Tzanetopoulos – $2,000

Last Hand of Play

 

The Seniors’ Event was a new addition to the line up in the Playground Poker Spring Classic, and a massive 151 players over the age of 50 came out to participate, of which 16 returned home with a cash prize.

Players seemed to be enjoying themselves throughout the night, as many laughs were shared and friendships created, however once play fell “in the money”, the players put their game-face on. Action slowed down to a near halt, as players seemed determined to make the elusive final table, and it took over 90 minutes of play for the field to drop from 16 to our final table of 10. Once at the final, the pace all of a sudden drastically changed, and the final table was a parade of all-ins and eliminations. Within the first orbit, we saw 3 players hit the rail, and after only 45 minutes of play, the 10 player final table was down to just one man: Pierre Remillard.

Majid Khajed Hosseini was the table captain for most of the final table, until he found himself on the losing end of two massive pots to Pierre, and was eliminated in 4th place. Peter Cornick was next to go, which brought the event down to heads-up play between Pierre and Denis Scott. It only took a few hands of play before both players were all-in on a flop in a limped pot. They both tabled top-pair with a weak kicker and shared a laugh, until the running cards made Pierre’s higher-kicker play, eliminating Denis in second place.

Congratulations!

Event 11: Seniors’ Event Champion: Pierre Remillard – $5,200.00

Seniors’ Event Runner-Up: Denis Scott – $4,000.00

Last Hand of Play

Tonight’s tournament lineup in the Playground Poker Spring Classic presented by partypoker.net included Event 9, a $500 + $50 PL Omaha Single Rebuy event. There were a total of 61 players in the tournament and at the end of the battle, Ambrose Ng emerged as the victor! Hadi Bechara finished in 2nd place and along the way did most of the heavy lifting by eliminating most of the others on the final table.

The final table began with negotiations about a possible deal, but at least to start with all agreements were refused – but these refusals softened after a few orbits with little progress. Various agreements were discussed, but eventually they decided on a modified chip chop with some additional prize money allocated to first and second place.

Play continued but at a very fast pace until the tournament was heads up – which was also over quickly as Ambrose Ng found himself with almost all of the chips when the following hand occurred.

Ambrose:

Hadi:

Community cards:

Ambrose Ng was the champion of Event 9.

Event 9 Champion: Ambrose Ng, $5,310

2nd place: Hadi Bechara, $3,470

Last hand of play

Event 7 in the Playground Poker Spring Classic presented by partypoker.net was a new addition to the series, as it took our regular 50/50 Bounty format and super-sized the buy-in, making it a $500 + $100 + $500 NL Hold’em Bounty Event. Every knockout was worth $500 cash, and players were evidently out on the hunt for these precious chips, generating a ton of action on the tables.

The “Bounty-Hunter” of the day was Daniel Hughes, who cashed in 10 Bounty chips along with placing 8th place on the final table, although Jeffrey Cormier was close with 9 of his own.

Once the tournament reached the final table, play somewhat tightened up as the top prize of $20,000 was well worth playing your best for. Jeffrey got hit with the deck in the early stages of the final table, and amassed a massive chip-lead stack after getting paid on back-to-back hands with pockets kings in the hole. He carried his chip lead into 5-way action, where Brian Morgan took over as top stack. Once play fell 3-handed, the chip lead was shifted to Daniel Whalen, and at this point the final 3 negotiated an ICM based chip-chop. Daniel took home the larger share of the chop, but all three players were well-compensated for their deep-run. The tournament required an extra $1,700 to be set aside along with the Playground Poker Spring Classic Champion’s Trophy, and so play continued after the agreement.

Brian was quickly eliminated, and heads-up play between Daniel and Jeffrey went on for almost 2 levels of play. Although they started even in chips, Daniel chipped his way into a 2-to-1 lead before seeing the stacks flip when he ran his into Jeffrey’s . Jeffrey then began applying pressure on his opponent, until finally Daniel open-shoved with , to get called by . Daniel couldn’t improve on the board, and Jeffrey was crowned our Event 7 Champion!

Congratulations!

Event 7 Champion: Jeffrey Cormier – $16,520.00 (+ 9 Bounty chips)

Event 7 Runer-Up: Daniel Whalen – $15,430.00 (+ 7 Bounty chips)

Last Hand of Play

Event 8 in the Playground Poker Spring Classic presented by partypoker.net has come to an end, as it is a Survivor format which awards the top 10% an equivalent share of the prize pool. This series, from 136 starting players, we have 13 Survivors who have earned themselves a cash prize of $2,910 each! Jin Sheng Deng was our 14th place finisher, and was awarded the surplus of the prize pool, which totalled $1,746.

Meet the 13 Survivors!

• Rene Berube
• Michele Black
• Denis Ward
• Derek Bennett
• Denise Berkowitz
• Maxime Macdougall
• Carmela De Ciantis
• John Ward
• Vera Greenstein
• Robert Aho
• Anastasia Maxwell
• Shawn Daigle
• Sebastien Proulx

Congratulations!

Our 6th champion in this Playground Poker Spring Classic has just been crowned! After nearly 9 hours of play, it was Darryl Beal who emerged as our 50/50 Bounty winner, collecting 13 bounty chips worth $100 each along the way.

Darryl built a monster stack as the tournament was approaching the bubble, and although he lost good portion of it to Eric Nuss shortly before the final table, he remained patient and never gave up hope. He grinded a short stack in the late levels of the final table before finally finding himself heads-up versus Michele Black, who was on her quest for a second trophy here at Playground. Although Michele had the chip advantage, the two players agreed to share the prize pool evenly, leaving behind the require 5% extra for the eventual winner. The winner was now set to take home just over $5K, and the runner-up a touch over $4.6K.

Darryl doubled-up in one of the first hands of heads-up play to even the match, and the two went back and forth for a few orbits until a huge hand occurred. Michele played a flush draw very aggressively on the turn, and with all the chips in play, she missed the river and lost to the top two-pairs of Darryl, who took most of her chips in the hand. With only 1 big blind behind, she wasn’t ready to give up just yet – and was determined to become the 3rd female champion of 6 events in this series so far. She went on to double up 4 times, and rebuilt a stack worth 25% of the chips in play. On her fifth all-in, she tabled , and was up against Darryl’s . They both connected on the flop, however Darryl got the best of it when the running cards brought a and a to give him two-pairs.

With that hand, Michele was knocked out in 2nd place, and Darryl was crowned our Event 6 champion, taking home the biggest share of the prize pool, as well as a Playground Poker Spring Classic Champion’s Trophy.

Congratulations!

Event 6 Champion: Darryl Beal – $5,148.00

Event 6 Runner-Up: Michele Black – $4,620.00

Last Hand of Play

Event 5 Champion: Rong Xu

As we mentioned earlier, once the deal was made the play became extremely loose as everyone was tired after a day that was already more than 13 hours long. When all was said and done, there were just two players left: Neal Thornton and Rong Xu. They played all of 3 hands heads-up before Rong was crowned the champion of Event 5!

Event 5 Champion: Rong Xu, $10,425 plus the Champion’s Trophy

2nd place: Neal Thornton, $9,125

The final hand of play