Jean-Philippe Piquette, a local hero who has had success in both cash and tournaments, had won the $500 buy-in Event in the Playground Poker Fall Classic in November 2016, for $28,420. Earlier last year, he also took down the 1,350 + 150 No Limit Hold’em Shootout at the 2016 WPT Fallsview Poker Classic, in Niagara Falls, for $36,665 – not to mention having been the winner of the first two Playground Poker Championship belts! This week, he is on a mission.

As we got to his table, we could determine that Piquette had raised to 175K from an early position, and had been called from Austin Peck, 3 seats to his left, and raised to 775K from Kurt Kohlberg, on Peck’s immediate left. The rest of the table got out of the way, and Piquette went to the tank. He asked to see his opponents’ stacks, and then removed his own bet, which meant that he was at least going to call. But call he did not! Instead, he slid forward 1,480,000 in chips, and waited for the response.

Peck threw his hand in, and Kohlberg took but a few seconds to go all-in, for about 4M. Piquette, who started the hand with around 5M in his stack, made the call.

Jean-Philippe Piquette:
Kurt Kohlberg:

Board:

Kohlberg was drawing dead on the turn, and it was at that point that Piquette put a victorious smile on his face. We wish him the best of luck for the remaining of his journey!

Table 30 has rounded up some of Montreal’s best poker players. On it, one can see Carter Swidler ($551,237 in lifetime earnings), who cashed $108,410 for his 5th place in the 2015 partypoker.net WPT Montreal, right here at Playground Poker Club. On his right sits none other than Marc-André “FrenchDawg” Ladouceur ($1,843,708 in lifetime earnings). Although he made most of his money in the online nosebleeds, he is an established and feared tournament player.

Last but not least, a few seats over is Marc-Étienne McLaughlin. His lifetime earnings are $2,905,697, $1,601,024 of which came from his 6th place finish in the 44th World Series of Poker Main Event, in 2013. He is considered a top 5 tournament player in Québec.

All 3 have a little under average, but they will probably find a way to climb up the leaderboard.

That table has tremendous skills on it, as you can also find Maria Ho, professional player with over 2M in lifetime earnings. Maria and Marc-André are also connected as two of the Captains of Global Poker League teams (LA Sunsets and Montreal Nationals, respectively).

As we were writing these lines, the table was broken, and those players are now scattered on the tournament floor. We wish them good luck on their new tables!

Players are back from their last break of the night, and are back at their seats for the final 2 levels of play. Upon their completion, the survivors will bag their chips onto tomorrow’s Day 3, where we should reach and pass the money-bubble.

A number of stacks have grown above the 10-million chip mark since the last break, and while the players were stretching their legs we put together an updated leaderboard for the event.

Photographs from level 16:

Photographs from level 15:

Having played 4 out of 8 levels today, the halfway point has now been reached. Players have enjoyed a warm buffet, and are now back at the tables for the second half of Day 2.

The prize pool will be published shortly, but it is now confirmed that 119 players will get paid in the Event and that a cool $1,000,000.00 will go to the winner, with 6-figure prizes awarded to the top 7 positions. It is also confirmed that the Million North America just beat the all-time prize pool record in Canadian poker history! It is with great pride that Playground Poker Club claims this record today. This great milestone is yet another notch on our belt.

Here is the top of the leaderboard, as play resumes at level 15, with blinds at 25K/50K/a5K.