Action in the first hand was blind on blind, with Jessie playing from the sb and Maxime Lejeune Hebert in the bb. There was a small raise pre that Max simply called.
Flop: 
Jessie led out for 215K and Max called. The turn was dealt: 
. Jessie led again for 350K and Max folded.
The 6 players remaining in the TonyBet Winter Festival Main event have arrived and un-sealed their chip bags and action is underway! The action today is a continuation of yesterday’s final table, so there hasn’t been an additional redraw and the players are in the same relative positions to one another as they were to end the day yesterday.
Good luck to all 6 players!
Chip leaders Jiachen Gong and Jessie Wheatley
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
2nd place: Andy D’Alessandro, $3,475.00
Last hand of play
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 
Alexandre Boyer 
Alexandre was dominated, and the board was not much help to him: 
Congratulations, Denis!
Event 11 Champion: Denis Scott, $1,968.00
2nd place: Alexandre Boyer, $1,297.00
Last hand of play
Event 11 in the TonyBet Winter Festival was a $100 + $10 NL Hold’em Win the Button tournament, so named because instead of orbiting around the table seat by seat, the button goes to the person who won the last pot. There were a total of 86 players in the tournament which added up to a prize pool of $8,342.00. This was distributed according to the following table.
| Rank | Pos | First Name | Prénom | Last Name | Nom | Prize | Bourse |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Denis | Scott | $1,968.00 |
| 2 | Alexandre | Boyer | $1,297.00 |
| 3 | Simon | Pin-Disle | $1,297.00 |
| 4 | Robert | Dagenais | $1,500.00 |
| 5 | Andre | Bilodeau | $730.00 |
| 6 | Mitchell | Dredge | $560.00 |
| 7 | Jean-Philippe | Sauvageau | $420.00 |
| 8 | Raphael | Ohayon | $320.00 |
| 9 | Michael | Plante | $250.00 |
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 
, Riyaz check-raised his opponent, and then happily called off the 3bet all-in holding the stone cold nuts. His 
only had 4 full house outs to dodge versus his opponents 
, and the river 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
Event 10 Runner-Up: Shaan Siddiqui – $12,415.00
Shaan Siddiqui
Last Hand of Play
Event 10 of the TonyBet Winter Festival was a $500 + $50 NL Hold’em Freeze that played out over two days and attracted a large field of 132 players. The total prize pool for the event was $64,020.00 which was distributed according to the following payout table.
Note that a player deal was reached with 4 players remaining. They reserved $1,280.00 and the champion’s trophy for the winner and distributed the rest of the money via ICM chop. This deal is reflected in the following table.
| Rank | Pos | First Name | Prénom | Last Name | Nom | Prize | Bourse |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Riyaz | Abdulla | $12,975.00 |
| 2 | Shaan | Siddiqui | $12,415.00 |
| 3 | Todd | Pierce | $8,740.00 |
| 4 | Viken | Artinian | $8,300.00 |
| 5 | Mike | Lafable | $5,050.00 |
| 6 | Nicolas | Aubut | $3,830.00 |
| 7 | Ali | Jouni | $2,900.00 |
| 8 | Jeremie | Bilodeau | $2,200.00 |
| 9 | Zheng | Wei | $1,670.00 |
| 10 | Guillaume | Laroche | $1,260.00 |
| 11 | Yaseen | Siddiqui | $1,260.00 |
| 12 | Gary | Yeghiayan | $1,170.00 |
| 13 | Diana | Shamshoum | $1,170.00 |
| 14 | Daniel | Kwon | $1,080.00 |
Sitting in the big blind, Todd Pierce called a button-raise from Riyaz to go heads-up to action. Both players rapped the table on the 
flop, and Todd then lead out for 70,000 on the 
turn. Riyaz replied with an all-in, but figured he ran into a big hand when Todd made a snap call.
Todd: 
Riyaz:
Riyaz hit a lucky river, as he spiked his 2-outter on the river 
.
Event 10 is now heads-up between Riyaz Abdulla (around 2,050,000) and Shaan Siddiqui (around 1,275,00).
3rd place: Todd Pierce – $8,740.00
Todd Pierce
In the hand following the 4-way deal, Viken Artinian found himself all-in and far behind table opponent Riyaz.
Viken: 
Riyaz: 
Board: 
Viken didn’t find the much needed double-up, and, having locked in $8,300 in the deal, took a walk to the cage to collect his prize money.
4th place: Viken Artinian – $8,300.00
Viken Artinian
The final 4 players took a look at the numbers of an ICM chop, and all agreed with what they saw. The tournament requires at least 2% of the total prize pool to be left for the eventual winner, who will also take home a TonyBet Winter Festival Champion’s Trophy, and so in addition to the prizes locked in, they are playing for an extra $1,280.
Here are the prizes they have locked in:
| First Name | Last Name | Stack | Prizes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shaan | Siddiqui | 1,530,000 | $12,415 |
| Riyaz | Abdulla | 1,157,000 | $11,695 |
| Todd | Pierce | 340,000 | $8,740 |
| Viken | Artinian | 273,000 | $8,300 |
