Action continued at a fierce pace after the 5th and 4th place eliminations, and all of a sudden the tournament lost its 3rd place finisher, Axel Ouellet-Guy, and the 2nd place finisher, Yves Coulombe almost immediately following.
This leaves Jonathan Poissant as the Event 4 Champion! Congratulations!
Event 4 Champion: Jonathan Poissant, $1,858.00
Event 4 runner-up: Yves Coulombe – $1,045.00
Yves Coulombe
3rd place: Alex Ouellet-Guy – $1,225.00
Axel Ouellet-Guy
Event 3 of the TonyBet Winter Festival attracted a total of 158 players and after 8 hours of play, Nicolas Aubut has emerged as the champion!
The final table began with two separate deals being made. First, they chose to double the value of the Bounty (each player would give two bounty chips to the player that eliminated them), which would serve to accelerate the pace of eliminations. Second, the 10 final table participants agreed on a chip-chop, leaving $600 plus the trophy in the prize pool for the eventual winner.
The two players who ended up playing heads up for the victory arrived at the final table as short stacks – both were close to having the smallest count in the tournament at that point. Gradually, each one caught up to the average and finally they ended up playing head to head.
The heads up match between Marco Cannizzaro and Nicolas Aubut lasted about 15 minutes before there was an all-in and a call. Nicolas connected with his Ace on the flop and never looked back, winning the hand, the tournament, and the trophy. In addition, Nicolas managed to collect a massive total of 19 bounties (in addition to his own, which he kept). Congratulations!
Event 3 Champion: Nicolas Aubut, $1,925
The Runner-up in Event 3: Marco Cannizzaro, $1,420
Marco Cannizzaro
Last hand of the tournament
One of Montreal’s favourite all-time all-stars was dining at The Rail Coal Fire Bistro tonight – Mr Guy Lafleur! Of course we wanted to immortalize the moment with a photo, and Guy – as usual – was happy to oblige.
Event 2 of the TonyBet Winter Festival was a one-day Shootout event which attracted a total of 82 players. The tournament started with 9 tables of 9 or 10 players each, and players had to win their table in Round 1 in order to move onto Round 2, which was the final table.
The 9 who made their seat for the final table were then guaranteed a cash prize, with the winner set to take home a cool $3,101, as well as a TonyBet Winter Festival Champion’s Trophy. Once play fell 6-handed, the players agreed to make an ICM based chop, leaving the required 2% of the prize pool for the eventual winner. At the time, Shawn Dubeau and Michelle Belliveau were the big stacks, and they locked in $2,100 and $2,000 respectively, while Eric JC Ylagan was the shortest of the stacks, holding a little under 6 big blinds – worth $1,150 at the time of the deal. Eric then proceeded to go on a hot streak, and quickly ramped his stack up to the chip lead, knocking out players left and right in the process.
It didn’t take long before he found himself heads-up with a 3-to-1 chip lead versus Alex Plourde, a battle which only lasted a few hands. Both players found themselves with all their chips in the middle only a few hands into heads-up, in what was virtually a coin flip. Alex held 
, and was racing versus the 
of Eric. With no help on the 
board, Alex was eliminated in 2nd place, while Eric emerged as the champion.
Eric earned an additional $360 for the win, as stipulated by the conditions of the chop, and also took home the stunning TonyBet Winter Festival Champion’s Trophy.
Congratulations!
Event 2 Champion: Eric JC Ylagan – $1,510 and the Event 2 Champion’s Trophy
Event 2 runner-up: Alex Plourde – $1,590
Alex Plourde
Last hand of play
One of the key elements of the All-Stars for Starlight event was it’s charitable component. Instead of a normal tournament fee, everyone who entered any of the Day 1 starting flights paid $25 in addition to the $135 that goes to the prize pool. These $25 contributions add up – and for this event, it added up to a fantastic $27,725 that has been raised for this fantastic organization!
Everyone who played in the event – whether or not they qualified for Day 2 – should pat themselves on the back for contributing to an event like this. It’s a real accomplishment to raise so much money for such a worthy cause in just two days!
Hot off the presses: TonyBet has just announced a whole slate of freebuy tournaments scheduled to run this week in the run-up to the $1,000 + $100 TonyBet Winter Festival Main Event. The event has a massive $500,000 prize pool guarantee, and the sheer number of satellite winners’ further solidifies this as a very +EV event!
In case you weren’t sure, a freebuy tournament works just like a regular rebuy poker tournament, with one twist… your initial buy-in is free! That’s right, TonyBet is giving you another chance to freeroll your way into the Main Event!
There was a little open-face chinese poker action going on in the TonyBet Lounge this afternoon. After Larry Robinson was eliminated from the action today, he dropped by to try his hand at this exciting game (OFC Pineapple, to be exact) using the TonyBet software on tablets. Once he wrapped up his game we grabbed a photo of Larry and the TonyBet hostesses.
The players in the first starting flight of the All-Stars for Starlight event have just taken their second break of the day. Tournament staff have removed the green T25 chips from play and with action paused we were able to put together an up-to-date leaderboard at this early stage of the tournament.
Three players have distanced themselves from the pack at this point, but there’s still a lot of poker to be played. Here’s the current leaderboard:
| First Name | Prénom | Last Name | Nom | Stack | Tapis |
|---|---|---|
| John | Agridiotis | 152,100 |
| Dongkyo | Kim | 129,500 |
| Nassim | Kabbara | 96,700 |
Chip Leader John Agridiotis
John Agridiotis
Throughout the TonyBet Winter Festival players are invited to come and join us in the TonyBet Lounge, located in the far corner of the Tournament Hall. You’ll find comfortable couches, hors d’oeuvres, cold drinks, and some nice people to talk to. Join us when you bust out of an event – or just when you need to take a little break.
Today marks the beginning of a very special event – the All-Stars for Starlight event, in support of the Starlight Children’s Foundation of Canada. This is a 3-Day tournament with 4 starting days. The four starting flights will run on January 29th and 30th at 11am and 7pm, with Day 2 following on Sunday January 31st and the final day on Monday February 1st at 7:00pm.
Two things make this event special. First – it is the kickoff event of what is shaping up to be a great festival – the TonyBet Winter Festival. Second – the entire tournament fee paid by each player – $25 per entry – will be given as a charitable contribution to an amazing organization, the Starlight Children’s Foundation of Canada. When the dust has settled, we’re confident this will amount to a sizeable contribution to this worthy cause.
The Starlight Children’s Foundation Canada is a charitable organization dedicated to bringing laughter, joy and hope back into the lives of children with serious illnesses. For over 20 years, their in-hospital entertainment therapy and out-of-hospital fun family adventure programs have brought smiles to children when they need it most.
Cards are in the air in just about 10 minutes!
