Playground Winter Festival 2017

Winter Festival News

The Champion’s Freeroll

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A special tournament is on the menu tonight, as we welcome back the tournament champions from the 2016 Playground Poker Fall Classic.

Every event winner from the 16 events that took place in November was invited back to participate in a “Champion’s Freeroll”, a no-cost tournament where a $3,200 + $300 seat to the partypoker.net WPT Playground was added into the prize pool. In addition to the seat, the winner will also take home a stunning partypoker.net WPT Montreal Festival Champion’s Trophy to immortalize the moment.

Headlining the field is Hall of Famer and poker legend Mike Sexton, who is not only the voice and face of the WPT, but also the partypoker.net WPT Montreal Champion! Mike bested a field of 648 players to make history and add an impressive feat to his poker career.

Below is a list of all the 2016 Playground Poker Fall Classic champions:

  • Event 1 – The Wild $150: Jean-Francois Jodin – $26,083
  • Event 2 – $220 Freeze: Chris Annis – $6,108
  • Event 3 – The $250 Frenzy: Daune Fernandez – $50,000
  • Event 4 – $110 Deepstack: Francois Gratton-Valiquette – $4,545
  • Event 5 – $1,100 Deepstack: Lucas Soucek – $51,600
  • Event 6 – $220 50/50 Bounty: Karam Saleh – $7,359
  • Event 7 – $550 Freeze: Jean-Philippe Piquette – $28,420
  • Event 8 – Survivor: no champion
  • Event 9 – $3,850 partypoker.net WPT Montreal: Mike Sexton – $405,880
  • Event 10 – $220 Seniors 50+: Bob Taylor – $4,090
  • Event 11 – $330 8-max: Placide Junior Sanon – $14,732
  • Event 12 – $1,100 50/50 Bounty: Mohamad Tareg – $8,500
  • Event 13 – $330 5-card PLO: Dan Vidgerhous – $5,212
  • Event 14 – $1,650 Second Chance: Christopher Fisher – $37,295
  • Event 15 – $10,400 High-Roller: Pascal Lefrancois – $128,000
  • Event 16 – $165 Deepstack Turbo: Keith Laflam – $5,510
  • Event 17 – $330 Bounty: Jason Trottier – $8,196

Best of luck to our freeroll players!

partypoker.net WPT Montreal Festival Champion’s Trophy

 

Ruben Perceval strikes again!

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After 14 hours of grueling poker, Event 5, the $500 + $50 NL Hold’em Freeze, has concluded. Ruben Perceval, who came in second in the Playground Poker Spring Championship 2016, took the honors. The final table was very stacked, filled with experienced players the likes of Kevin MacDonald, William Blais, Siamak S and Shaan Siddiqui, to name just a few.

When play came down to a 3-handed game, an ICM chop was concluded between the remaining players, securing very nice amounts for the players still in contention. After that, the action went fast, but Ruben did not want to miss out on this opportunity to score a win, which had eluded him in April.

After Siamak’s elimination, Ruben and Shaan played but a couple of hands, before the fateful one arrived. Ruben raised the 40K big blind to 110K. That bet was met by a colossal all-in bet of around 1 million in chips. Shaan clearly did not want to see a flop, but Ruben forced him to when he called.

Shaan Siddiqui: 2 of Clubs 2 of Hearts
Ruben Perceval: Ace of Diamonds Jack of Diamonds

The runout was 9 of Hearts 4 of Diamonds Jack of Hearts  Ace of Spades  Queen of Diamonds

Shaan played a very solid game, acting as the chip leader that he was for most of the final table time. Ruben finally put his hand on a Playground win. Although he made quite a few very nice runs here at the club, this is his first Event win, and he left the table with a victorious smile.

Congratulations!

Event 5 Champion: Ruben Perceval – $17,715.00 and the Champion’s Trophy

 

Runner-up: Shaan Siddiqui – $15,080.00

Last hand of play:

The $250 Frenzy Champion: Isaac Buswell

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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 5 of Spades King of Spades 7 of Spades flop. Once all the chips were in the middle, Isaac table Ace of Hearts King of Diamonds and had to hold versus the King of Clubs 6 of Clubs of Santiago. The 9 of Hearts turn and Ace of Clubs 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

Santiago Plante

Last hand of play

Event 3 Day 3 seating chart (with counts)

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The following table is the official seating chart for Day 3 of The $250 Frenzy in the 2017 Playground Winter Festival. There was a full tournament redraw at 27 players remaining, so seats have not been redrawn for the start of Day 3 – the players will sit at their same relative position at the tables listed below. The counts provided are player-provided counts made as players bagged their chips at the end of Day 2.

Play resumes at 7:00pm tonight (February 7th).

First Name | PrénomLast Name | NomSeat | SiègeStack | Tapis
SaidMichailidisTable 36 - Seat 11,125,000
Jean AllanChristineTable 36 - Seat 21,405,000
IsaacBuswellTable 36 - Seat 31,070,000
BenoitLordTable 36 - Seat 51,915,000
KelvinTangTable 36 - Seat 7470,000
SandroGrandeTable 36 - Seat 8995,000
PatrickMaillouxTable 36 - Seat 9195,000
PhilippeBelleyTable 39 - Seat 11,000,000
MichaelMalmTable 39 - Seat 2945,000
PierreGauthierTable 39 - Seat 3440,000
Shu Pui PhilipTseTable 39 - Seat 4490,000
AndrewBoujaoudeTable 39 - Seat 5665,000
EndritGeciTable 39 - Seat 6340,000
GregoryFeuzTable 39 - Seat 7980,000
LucianMariutaTable 39 - Seat 8160,000
NaghibollahNooriTable 40 - Seat 1800,000
MohamedBen YahiaTable 40 - Seat 2310,000
StephenNahmTable 40 - Seat 3660,000
JordanSaccucciTable 40 - Seat 41,230,000
SantiagoPlanteTable 40 - Seat 51,010,000
JasonConfortiTable 40 - Seat 6935,000
PrestenCloutierTable 40 - Seat 7900,000
JonathanGTable 40 - Seat 82,510,000
GianfrancoGiordanoTable 40 - Seat 9415,000

1,052 total entries in The $250 Frenzy; Day 1F sees 213 runners

  • Level: 5
  • Small Blind: 150
  • Big Blind: 300
  • Ante: 50
  • Chip Average: 23.8K
  • Remaining: 179
  • Entries: 213

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With registration now closed in this 6th and final flight to The $250 Frenzy, we now have our combined total of entries for this Event 3 of the Playground Poker Winter Festival.

213 players turned up to Day 1F, bringing the grand total of entries in The $250 Frenzy up to 1,052. This number surpasses the $200,000 guarantee boasted by the house, and once the tournament staff has crunched the numbers, we will publish all of the relevant prize-pool information, including the payout structure.

Here are the number of entries per flight:

  • Day 1A: 111 entries
  • Day 1B: 169 entries
  • Day 1C: 166 entries
  • Day 1D: 209 entries
  • Day 1E: 184 entries
  • Day 1F: 213 entries

So far the first 3 events of the Winter Festival have been a great success, setting the pace for a booming series highlighted by the partypoker.net WPT Playground – a $3,200 + $300 NLHE event that features a $1,000,000 guaranteed prize-pool. The full scheduled of events can be found here.

Be sure not to miss on taking home a share of the massive prize-pools by coming down to Playground Poker Club and taking part of the action. You can even qualify into our events via satellites on partypoker.net, or better yet win some Tournament $ on partypoker.net that you can spend on tournament entries of your choice!

Today on partypoker

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If you can’t make it out to Playground Poker Club today – though you really should – there is a ton of great stuff happening on partypoker you’ll want to check out!

  • Starting at Noon are the first satellites for this spring’s Grand Prix Canada! Online Day 1s begin next Sunday – but satellites start today. Win your way into this fantastic event with a $500,000 Guarantee!
  • The final WFT$ Satellites will be held tonight – win Tournament Dollars you can use to buy in to any event in the Playground Winter Festival!
  • Tonight is also the final online satellite for the WPT Playground, with Mini Feeders and Feeders available earlier in the day to help you win your way into the WPT for as little as $0.01.
  • Last but not least, there’s a $410 partypoker Million North America Phase 1 going tonight – and plenty of Mini Feeders and Feeders to use to qualify your way in for a low buy-in. The first 100 players to qualify for Day 1 online get back their buy-in as a bonus – 86 prizes left to be won!

So, while we hope you’ll join us in person here at Playground – there’s always great poker action to be found on partypoker!