TonyBet Winter Festival

Jiachen Gong wins the TonyBet Winter Festival Main Event

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The TonyBet Winter Festival Main Event has just come to a close, and local hero Jiachen Gong was able to overcome a field of 520 players over 4 days of poker to emerge as the tournament champion!

Jiachen, better known as Jack here amongst friends at Playground Poker Club, came into this final 6-handed table as the chip leader, and although he gave up the lead to Jessie Wheatley in the early stages of the day, he jumped right back into the driver’s seat in no time. He delivered the knockout blow to both 6th place Danny Kalpakis and 5th place Jessie Wheatley, although in both cases most of the leg work was done beforehand, and then chipped his way up the leaderboard throughout 4-handed action. After the elimination of Maxime Lejeune Hebert in 4th place, Jack became the overwhelming chip leader, and never looked back after that.

Once he eliminated Grant Pazarka in 3rd place, he entered into heads-up play versus Will Molson with a 6-to-1 chip advantage. Will wasn’t going to make it easy for his opponent, and he almost instantly doubled up his short stack, becoming a potential threat given his expertise in the game. After several orbits of back and forth between the two, both players picked up an ace in the hole and the fireworks began. Jiachen min-raised his button, and Will quickly moved all-in for 3,425,000. Jiachen made the call, and found he needed some help if he wanted to win this pot.

Jiachen: Ace of Spades 8 of Clubs
Will: Ace of Clubs 9 of Spades

The King of Clubs Ace of Diamonds 8 of Diamonds 6 of Clubs 2 of Diamonds board was just what Jiachen ordered, and with the flopped two-pairs he was able to eliminate his opponent and claim victory in this Main Event, collecting a cool $100,000 in the process, as well as the TonyBet Winter Festival Champion’s Belt!

Congratulations!

TonyBet Winter Festival Main Event Champion: Jiachen Gong – $100,000.00

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TonyBet Winter Festival Main Event Runner-Up: Will Molson – $70,000.00

William Molson

William Molson

Last Hand of Play:

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Event 12 Champion: Chris Arvanitis

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Event 12 in the TonyBet Winter Festival – a $300 + $30 PLO Single Rebuy tournament – has come to an end following a marathon of poker! Play continued for almost 9 hours despite there only being 47 players in the tournament, and the rhythm of the game was constant – the rhythm of Pot Limit Omaha. Variance was always in play, strong hands couldn’t hold to the river, and the players leaderboard jumped around throughout.

The action sped up with 7 players remaining, following which they dropped very quickly, leaving Chris Arvanitis as Champion!

 

Event 12 Champion: Chris Arvanitis, $3,897.00

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2nd place: Andy D’Alessandro, $3,475.00

Andy D'Alessandro

Last hand of play

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Nous avons un champion

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Tonight’s Win the Button event in the TonyBet Winter Festival attracted a total of 87 players and played out through over 7 hours of aggressive poker. One of the goals in an event like this is to gain and keep position (the button) as often as possible, which greatly encourages action.

Heads up play lasted just a few minutes. Denis Scott had a 4-1 chip lead going into 2-way play. In an early hand, Denis raised to 60K only to face a reraise all from Alexandre Boyer. Denis called, almost before Alexandre finished declaring his bet!

Denis Scott King of Spades Queen of Hearts
Alexandre Boyer King of Diamonds 7 of Hearts

Alexandre was dominated, and the board was not much help to him: 8 of Clubs 3 of Spades King of Clubs 9 of Clubs Jack of Hearts

Congratulations, Denis!

 

Event 11 Champion: Denis Scott, $1,968.00

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2nd place: Alexandre Boyer, $1,297.00

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Last hand of play

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Event 10 Champion: Riyaz Abdulla

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Riyaz Abdulla almost didn’t play in Event 10 of the TonyBet Winter Festival, as he was in transit from London that same day and arrived at Playground Poker Club just in the nick of time to late-register himself into the tournament. Fast-forward 2 long nights of poker later, and the jet-lagged traveller was sitting in the driver seat on the final table, on the road to victory.

Riyaz came into Day 2 as one of the bigger stacks, and maintained a healthy chip count throughout the entire night, taking over the chip lead in the later stages of the final table. When play fell to 4-handed, a ICM based deal was made which awarded him $11,695, leaving an additional $1,280 for the eventual winner. Chip leader at the time of the deal Shaan Siddiqui locked in $12,415, while shorter stack Todd Pierce guaranteed himself $8,740 and Viken Artinian took $8,300.

It didn’t take long before Riyaz knocked out two opponents to find himself heads-up with the chip lead versus Shaan, and heads-up play was an even shorter affair, as Riyaz managed to eliminate his opponent on the very first hand.

On a board showing 3 of Hearts 6 of Diamonds 5 of Hearts 8 of Clubs, Riyaz check-raised his opponent, and then happily called off the 3bet all-in holding the stone cold nuts. His 7 of Diamonds 9 of Spades only had 4 full house outs to dodge versus his opponents 5 of Spades 6 of Hearts, and the river 10 of Clubs sealed the deal. With that, Riyaz collected the extra $1,280, and was awarded a TonyBet Winter Festival Champion’s Trophy!

Congratulations!

Event 10 Champion: Riyaz Abdulla – $12,975.00

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Event 10 Runner-Up: Shaan Siddiqui – $12,415.00

Shaan Siddiqui

Shaan Siddiqui

Last Hand of Play

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It’s Satellite Day at the TonyBet Winter Festival!

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It has become a tradition at festivals we host at Playground Poker Club to reserve the day before the Main Event for an intensive run of satellite tournaments, back to back to back. Anyone interested in playing in the TonyBet Winter Festival Main Event who has not yet secured a ticket has the ability to play their way in – for as little as $80!

There are three scheduled satellites today:

  • 12:00pm: $70 + $10 NL Hold’em Re-entry with 5 Seats Guaranteed
  • 4:00pm: $110 + $10 NL Hold’em Re-entry Turbo with 5 Seats Guaranteed
  • 7:30pm: $110 + $10NL Hold’em Re-entry with 30 Seats Guaranteed

Good luck to all!

The survivors!

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The Survivor event has concluded with 9 winners in Event 7 of the TonyBet Winter Festival. This was not a prize pool chop by choice – this result is built in to the design of the “Survivor” format, which pays an equal amount to 10% of the starting field. The tournament concluded as soon as the 10% mark was reached.

Each player earned $1,940 for their efforts this evening, and there was a little cash left over ($776.00) which was paid to the “bubble” player, Kenneth Legue, who finished 10th.

Here is the list of tonight’s winners:

  • Duff Charette
  • Jean-Philippe Sauvageau
  • Ryan Fisler
  • Samuel Picard
  • Valérie F
  • Sylvain Gauthier
  • Rong Xu
  • Kamal Sadaka
  • Daune Fernandez
Event 7 Survivors

Event 7 Survivors

Event 6 Champion: Real Cantin

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115 players came in today with the intention of becoming the Event 6 champion, however they all knew there was only enough room for 1 of them to accomplish their mission. Action went on for 14 full hours, and many hopes and dreams of winning were shattered in the process, as is the case in every poker tournament.

Once the field was reduced to just 4 players, they opted for an ICM chop of the prize pool. Jonathan Bussieres, who was the massive chip leader at the time, agreed to take $6,995, while Jeff Rosenblatt pocketed $5,690 for his second place stack. The two shorter stacks at the time, Ruben Perceval and Real Cantin, locked in $4,780 and $4,275 respectively. Given that the structure of the tournament requires at least 2% of the prize pool to be left for the eventual winner, the final 4 played the tourney to the end leaving $675 and the TonyBet Winter Festival Champion’s Trophy for the finalist.

Real must have felt compelled to win the event, given he received the shortest end of the deal, as he then began staging what turned out to be a successful comeback. He first doubled up through Jeff, and then won a huge 3-way all-in which brought him down to head-up versus Jonathan.

Real maintained the lead until he finally found a call to his 3bet all-in preflop, and went on to beat Jonathan’s Ace of Spades 6 of Hearts with his pair of 9 of Diamonds 9 of Clubs. With that hand, Real claimed victory in Event 6, while Jonathan locked in the biggest prize of the tournament.

Congratulations!

Event 6 Champion: Real Cantin – $4,950.00

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Event 6 Runner-Up: Jonathan Bussieres – $6,995

Jonathan Bussieres

Jonathan Bussieres

Last hand of play

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Event 5 Champion: Réjean Grenier

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Event 5 of the TonyBet Winter Festival attracted a total of 111 participants and it took over 8 hours to play down to the eventual champion, Réjean Grenier!

There was a player deal reached at 7 players remaining – they chose an even chop of the prize pool while reserving $315 and the trophy for the winner of the tournament. The deal proved to be a great way to “activate” the remaining players – and immediately following, Réjean eliminated 2 players in a single hand leaving just 5 remaining. A few minutes later say François-Étienne Corbin follow the rest of the players to the rail. Things slowed momentarily but then in the span of just a a few hands Denis Asselin and Kevin Birss were eliminated, leaving just Réjean and Yannick Labattaglia alive in the tourney.

The heads-up battle was relatively epic for a single-day tournament, lasting almost 45 minutes. Yannick managed to come from behind multiple times from as much as a 6-1 chip deficit… until the last attempt.

Réjean: Ace of Diamonds 4 of Hearts
Yannick: 9 of Spades 10 of Clubs

Community cards: 5 of Spades 4 of Clubs 3 of Hearts 2 of Spades 5 of Hearts

Event 5 Champion: Réjean Grenier, $2,250

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2nd place: Yannick Labattaglia, $1,935

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Final hand of the tournament

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Event 6 – scheduling note

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The weather is predicted to be pretty bad tomorrow (February 3rd), so we’ve decided to extend the late registration period for Event 6 of the TonyBet Winter Festival – the $300 + $30 NL Hold’em Deepstack event. Late registration for the event will remain available for 6 levels, not 4 levels, meaning that players can enter any time until 2pm tomorrow.

So if the weather is bad tomorrow, be sure to stay safe and take your time getting to Playground for the event – and we’ll give you the extra time you need so you don’t have to push it if road conditions aren’t great!

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Contact Us

Playground Poker Club

1500 Route 138,
Kahnawake, QC J0L 1B0
+1-450-635-7653
info@playgroundpoker.ca

TonyBet Winter Festival