Event 3 of the Playground Winter Festival was The $250 Frenzy, a No Limit Hold’em event which included 6 starting flights and a guarantee of $200,000. A total of 1,052 entries took place which generated a prize pool of $229,599, of which the top 108 players secured a cash prize.
227 stacks made it through to Day 2, however 3 players managed to qualify two stacks each, and therefore only their biggest stack was moved forward. Day 2 saw the field play through the money bubble and down to the final 24 players, who then bagged their chips onto tonight’s finale.
Jonathan G returned to the felts in Day 3 with the biggest chip count, however his title of chip-leader was stripped from him fairly quickly. It took less than 3 levels to see the field be reduced to the 10-handed final table, with Isaac Buswell leading the way.
Presten Cloutier won a big flip to kickoff the final table, besting Benoit Lord with ace-king over pocket-jacks. Pierre Gauthier was the next eliminated, and he was followed by Jonathan G in 8th place. Gianfranco Giordano waited patiently for his time to shine, but was sent to the rail in 7th before he had a chance to spin up his stack.
At this point the 6 finalists agreed to split the prize-pool based on an ICM-chop, leaving an additional $4,500 for the eventual tournament champion. Play then opened up considerably, and in less than half a level we lost Michael Malm ($23,395), Philippe Belley ($13,850), Naghibollah Noori ($16,300) and Presten Cloutier ($24,935) before arriving at heads-up play.
Isaac Buswell began heads-up play versus Santiago Plante with a 3-to-1 chip deficit, however in a matter of minutes he spun it around and took over as chip leader. In the final hand of play, both players were firing away at the 
flop. Once all the chips were in the middle, Isaac table 
and had to hold versus the 
of Santiago. The 
turn and 
river brought no change to the outcome, and Isaac locked in the victory, taking home $28,975 along the way, as well as the Event 3 Champion’s Trophy. Santiago collected a consolation prize worth $22,325.
Congratulations!
The $250 Frenzy Champion: Isaac Buswell – $28,975.00
The $250 Frenzy Runner-Up: Santiago Plante – $22,325.00
Last hand of play
, and was matched up against Isaac Buswell holding 
, and was met with a call from Santiago, who tabled 
board, however Santigo’s kicker was the better one, and he was awarded the pot.
board.
board.