2018 Playground Winter Festival News

Playground 1000 final table draw (with counts)

2018/01/30 - 22:05 by

Day 4 of the Playground 1000 will resume at 12:00pm tomorrow with 8 players, following the gripping elimination of 2 different players in the space of just a few minutes at the end of Day 3. When the players return, they will be seated in the following locations at the table.

The chip leader to start the final table is Ruben Perceval, but Omid Shahbazian is trailing him by just 150,000 tournament chips.

First Name \| Prénom	Last Name \| Nom	Seat \| Siège	Stack \| Tapis
Ruben	Perceval	Table 66 - Seat 1	9,575,000
Santiago	Plante	Table 66 - Seat 2	1,950,000
Omid	Shahbazian	Table 66 - Seat 3	9,425,000
Eric	Schanck	Table 66 - Seat 4	8,625,000
Said	Michailidis	Table 66 - Seat 5	6,200,000
Jaered Daniel	Besse	Table 66 - Seat 6	8,925,000
Nick	Nickoletopoulos	Table 66 - Seat 7	2,200,000
David	Bertrand	Table 66 - Seat 8	3,000,000

Playground 1000 Day 2 seating chart (with counts)

Level: 11
Small Blind: 1.5K
Big Blind: 3K
Button Ante: 3K
Chip Average: 212K
Remaining: 205
Entries: 440

2018/01/29 - 0:18 by

The Playground 1000 has attracted 440 entries to date with two levels of Day 2 entry still available. So far, there are 205 Day 2 qualifiers, and play resumes at 12:00pm on Monday January 29th.

To accommodate Day 2 entries without placing all such entries together, a total of 35 seats have been reserved on the 30 tables where play will begin. If there are more new Day 2 entries than this, new tables will be created with a combination of existing players and new entries to ensure fairness for all entries.

The players will be seated according to the following official seating draw. Player-provided chip counts are also included on this chart, and you may sort by stack size, first or last name, or seat by simply tapping or clicking each column header.

First Name \| Prénom	Last Name \| Nom	Seat \| Siège	Stack \| Tapis
Giovanni	Giannitti	Table 25 - Seat 1	101,500
Christopher	Turnbull	Table 25 - Seat 2	623,000
John	Pentefountas	Table 25 - Seat 3	141,000
Vi Thanh Tony	To	Table 25 - Seat 4	154,000
Joseph	Abou Khalil	Table 25 - Seat 5	758,000
Ryan	Parsons	Table 25 - Seat 6	306,000
Tony	Wong	Table 25 - Seat 7	84,500
Mingzhe	Zhang	Table 26 - Seat 1	77,000
George	Kazarian	Table 26 - Seat 2	128,000
Faisal	Khan	Table 26 - Seat 3	619,000
Yonathan	Moryoussef	Table 26 - Seat 4	564,500
Evgenii	Tsatskin	Table 26 - Seat 5	227,500
Anthony	Payette	Table 26 - Seat 6	165,000
Louis	Boutin	Table 26 - Seat 7	306,500
Alexandre	Nadeau-Levesque	Table 27 - Seat 1	212,000
John	Helou	Table 27 - Seat 2	532,500
Vincent	Benoit	Table 27 - Seat 3	279,000
Linda	Huard	Table 27 - Seat 4	214,000
Ron	Farber	Table 27 - Seat 5	246,000
Geoffrey	Hum	Table 27 - Seat 6	33,000
Michael	Korovine	Table 27 - Seat 7	231,000
Isham	Yamani	Table 28 - Seat 1	65,000
Andrew	Power	Table 28 - Seat 2	110,500
Benoit	Forcier	Table 28 - Seat 3	240,000
Daniel	Boisclair	Table 28 - Seat 5	50,500
Debra Ann	Holman	Table 28 - Seat 6	46,500
Norman	Gauthier	Table 28 - Seat 7	137,100
Feizal	Satchu	Table 29 - Seat 1	300,000
Tanvir	Ahmed	Table 29 - Seat 2	140,000
Sebastien	Vezina	Table 29 - Seat 3	296,000
Andrew	Dick	Table 29 - Seat 4	366,500
Daniel	Hughes	Table 29 - Seat 5	342,000
Alexandru	Baron	Table 29 - Seat 6	177,000
Mohammad	Abu-Hadbah	Table 29 - Seat 7	77,000
Yan	Neiman	Table 30 - Seat 1	268,500
Philippe	Belley	Table 30 - Seat 2	109,500
Ivan	Driard	Table 30 - Seat 3	220,000
Richard	Myron	Table 30 - Seat 4	149,500
Carl	Martel	Table 30 - Seat 5	366,000
Richard	Sysko	Table 30 - Seat 6	286,000
Leonard Gabriel	Tanase	Table 30 - Seat 7	155,500
Brian	Pinheiro Lopez	Table 31 - Seat 1	108,500
David	Valcourt-Dube	Table 31 - Seat 2	86,000
Karim	Abdelhamid	Table 31 - Seat 3	312,500
Jonathan	Marrie	Table 31 - Seat 4	170,000
Nick	Nickoletopoulos	Table 31 - Seat 5	148,000
Martin	Messier	Table 31 - Seat 6	359,000
Rami	Hammoud	Table 31 - Seat 7	351,500
Christopher	King	Table 32 - Seat 1	131,500
Brendan Patrick	Mc Gee	Table 32 - Seat 2	235,500
Mounzer	Awada	Table 32 - Seat 3	355,500
Andrew	Boujaoude	Table 32 - Seat 4	109,000
Jean-Sebastien	Dubois	Table 32 - Seat 5	186,000
Dean	Murphy	Table 32 - Seat 6	350,000
Robert	Beaulieu	Table 32 - Seat 7	419,000
David	Beer	Table 49 - Seat 1	128,500
Andrew	Hansen	Table 49 - Seat 2	226,000
Matthew	Wilkins	Table 49 - Seat 3	195,000
William	Matheson	Table 49 - Seat 4	90,500
Tina	S	Table 49 - Seat 5	328,500
Chad	Yurkin	Table 49 - Seat 6	270,000
Maxime	Theroux	Table 49 - Seat 7	180,000
Sean	Edelenbos	Table 50 - Seat 1	116,500
Blaise	Googoo	Table 50 - Seat 2	176,500
Robert Paul	Barron	Table 50 - Seat 3	240,500
Francis	Collins	Table 50 - Seat 4	277,000
Mark	Sloane	Table 50 - Seat 5	186,500
Danny	Lauzon	Table 50 - Seat 6	124,000
David	Bertrand	Table 50 - Seat 7	149,000
Nabil	Nahoul	Table 51 - Seat 1	362,500
Sebastien	Brazeau	Table 51 - Seat 2	120,500
Marcello	Iacovella	Table 51 - Seat 3	232,000
Jean Francois	Bouchard	Table 51 - Seat 4	358,000
Alon	Messica	Table 51 - Seat 5	190,500
Shane	Brotherwood	Table 51 - Seat 6	443,500
Eric	Benhamron	Table 51 - Seat 7	53,500
Donald	Abdelhay	Table 52 - Seat 1	172,500
Pascal	Monarque	Table 52 - Seat 2	266,000
Joel	Giguere	Table 52 - Seat 3	388,500
Cristian	Muset	Table 52 - Seat 4	314,500
Brian Wayne Boyce	Smith	Table 52 - Seat 5	93,500
Marco	Caza	Table 52 - Seat 6	246,000
Armand	King	Table 52 - Seat 7	261,000
Pierre Olivier	Guay	Table 53 - Seat 1	206,000
Mathieu	Boulanger-Vaugeois	Table 53 - Seat 2	481,500
Ryan	Jensen	Table 53 - Seat 3	131,500
Carter	Swidler	Table 53 - Seat 5	175,500
Maximilian	Droege	Table 53 - Seat 6	183,500
Gheorghe	Priala	Table 53 - Seat 7	292,000
Fabio	Luongo	Table 54 - Seat 1	94,000
Richard	Paradis	Table 54 - Seat 2	450,000
Vsevolod	Malamud	Table 54 - Seat 3	180,500
Sebastien	Proulx	Table 54 - Seat 4	256,000
Keaton	Bast	Table 54 - Seat 5	308,500
Ha Van	Nguyen	Table 54 - Seat 6	198,000
Chanracy	Khun	Table 54 - Seat 7	65,500
Omid	Shahbazian	Table 55 - Seat 1	306,500
Marcello	Simonetti	Table 55 - Seat 2	65,500
Sergio	Reschetnikov	Table 55 - Seat 3	234,000
Mathieu	Major Fortier	Table 55 - Seat 4	238,500
Nicola	Basile	Table 55 - Seat 5	70,000
Daniel	Mackay	Table 55 - Seat 6	555,000
Darren	Keyes	Table 55 - Seat 7	283,000
Steven D	Whitehurst	Table 56 - Seat 1	100,000
Brigitte	Metivier	Table 56 - Seat 2	174,000
Eric	Schanck	Table 56 - Seat 3	211,000
Alan	Gafer	Table 56 - Seat 4	271,000
Mark	Guerbilsky	Table 56 - Seat 5	190,500
Jean-Philippe	Paquin	Table 56 - Seat 6	69,000
Michael	Lawson	Table 56 - Seat 7	150,500
Spencer	Mclean	Table 57 - Seat 1	100,000
Douglas	Best	Table 57 - Seat 2	48,500
Santiago	Plante	Table 57 - Seat 3	221,000
William	Blais	Table 57 - Seat 4	356,000
Jean-Philippe	Piquette	Table 57 - Seat 5	53,000
Jacques	Roy	Table 57 - Seat 6	409,000
Joseph	Kennedy	Table 57 - Seat 7	177,000
Noeung	Troeung	Table 58 - Seat 1	313,000
Jaered Daniel	Besse	Table 58 - Seat 2	349,000
David	Keyes	Table 58 - Seat 3	224,000
Adam	Hussen	Table 58 - Seat 5	42,000
Danny A	Ibrahim	Table 58 - Seat 6	50,500
Trevor	Delaney	Table 58 - Seat 7	311,000
Irvine E	Greer	Table 59 - Seat 1	156,500
Michael	Johnston	Table 59 - Seat 2	137,000
Arnold	Yaxley	Table 59 - Seat 3	119,000
Kieu Hoa	Lam	Table 59 - Seat 4	178,500
Seyed	Pishvai	Table 59 - Seat 5	265,500
Brenda Mary	Blackburn	Table 59 - Seat 6	174,000
David	Ho	Table 59 - Seat 7	211,500
Adam	Peltier	Table 60 - Seat 1	165,000
Todd	Pierce	Table 60 - Seat 2	76,500
Justin	Miller	Table 60 - Seat 3	155,000
Edouard	Dupuis	Table 60 - Seat 4	123,500
Grant	Ellis	Table 60 - Seat 5	247,500
Eric	Leblond	Table 60 - Seat 6	368,500
Ricky	Campanelli	Table 60 - Seat 7	125,000
Ruben	Perceval	Table 61 - Seat 1	156,000
David	Bolduc Hamel	Table 61 - Seat 2	201,000
Jonathan	Bussieres	Table 61 - Seat 3	91,000
Nadir	Lalji	Table 61 - Seat 4	144,500
Oren	Haziza	Table 61 - Seat 5	264,000
Griffin	Benger	Table 61 - Seat 6	105,000
Scott	Diver	Table 61 - Seat 7	179,000
Levon	Dedeyan	Table 62 - Seat 1	205,000
Michael	Tessier-Strasbourg	Table 62 - Seat 2	131,000
Zheng-Yi	Xie	Table 62 - Seat 3	307,500
Jonathan	Donde	Table 62 - Seat 4	63,500
Rong	Xu	Table 62 - Seat 5	82,000
Joshua	Frazer James	Table 62 - Seat 6	408,500
George	Patsiopoulos	Table 62 - Seat 7	87,000
Terence	Caulcutt	Table 63 - Seat 1	261,500
Richard	Chang	Table 63 - Seat 2	108,500
Kimberley	Kilroy	Table 63 - Seat 3	191,000
Martin	Dej	Table 63 - Seat 4	127,000
Alain	Zarka	Table 63 - Seat 5	135,500
Francois	Goulet	Table 63 - Seat 6	74,500
Albert	Nguyen	Table 63 - Seat 7	118,000
Azim	Popatia	Table 64 - Seat 1	174,500
Luigi	Taddei	Table 64 - Seat 2	217,000
Francois	Sauve	Table 64 - Seat 3	83,000
Gaetano	Di Maria	Table 64 - Seat 5	116,000
Andre	Boyer	Table 64 - Seat 6	385,000
Daniel	Le	Table 64 - Seat 7	200,000
Christina	Knot	Table 65 - Seat 1	156,500
Maxime	Laberge	Table 65 - Seat 2	166,500
Aaron Roy	Parsons	Table 65 - Seat 3	123,500
Daune	Fernandez	Table 65 - Seat 4	361,000
Giovanni Vincenzo	Accurso	Table 65 - Seat 5	229,500
Andre	Bilodeau	Table 65 - Seat 6	82,500
Philippe	Oligny-Lauzon	Table 65 - Seat 7	91,500
Carla	Sabini	Table 66 - Seat 1	319,500
Edward	Hislop	Table 66 - Seat 2	355,000
Samuel	Chartier	Table 66 - Seat 3	149,000
Van Nghiem	Nguy	Table 66 - Seat 5	46,500
Alexander James	Allison	Table 66 - Seat 6	96,000
Michael	Braden	Table 66 - Seat 7	118,000
Charles	La Boissonniere	Table 67 - Seat 1	335,500
Christopher	Hudson	Table 67 - Seat 2	138,000
Said	Michailidis	Table 67 - Seat 3	417,500
James	Dickinson	Table 67 - Seat 4	152,500
Andre	Pelletier	Table 67 - Seat 5	343,000
Luciano	Iacovella	Table 67 - Seat 6	139,000
Alexandre	Henry	Table 67 - Seat 7	111,000
Ramesh	Puradchithasan	Table 68 - Seat 1	104,000
Ami	Alibay	Table 68 - Seat 2	425,500
Maxime	Marcouiller	Table 68 - Seat 3	410,000
Louis-Charles Junior	Levros	Table 68 - Seat 4	73,000
Jason	Morin	Table 68 - Seat 5	95,500
Patrick	Braga	Table 68 - Seat 6	242,000
Tam	Ho	Table 68 - Seat 7	439,500
Roger	Lamia	Table 69 - Seat 1	175,000
Brian	Morgan	Table 69 - Seat 2	115,500
Kevin James	Macdonald	Table 69 - Seat 3	193,000
Chris	Arvanitis	Table 69 - Seat 4	388,000
Mustafa	Hassanzada	Table 69 - Seat 5	73,000
Stephane	Gosselin	Table 69 - Seat 6	123,000
Raymond M	Glover	Table 69 - Seat 7	127,000
Shawn	Daigle	Table 70 - Seat 1	63,000
Anne Marie	Angelil	Table 70 - Seat 2	253,000
David	Sorgente	Table 70 - Seat 3	259,500
Pierre	Lamothe	Table 70 - Seat 4	52,500
Rabah Belal Ahin	Al-Nasseri	Table 70 - Seat 5	263,500
Charles	Desharnais	Table 70 - Seat 6	469,500
Michael	Khan	Table 70 - Seat 7	104,500

Event #9 Champion: Ami Alibay

2018/01/25 - 1:53 by Jôle Simard

Event #9 served as a prelude to the Playground 1000, the Main Event of the Winter Festival 2018 that begins on Friday. The $550 Freeze was a 1-Day Event with a $500 + $50 buy-in, and lasted more than 14 hours.

The tournament attracted 115 players, among which a few pillars of the local poker scene were spotted – Patrick Braga, Charles La Boissonnière, Ruben Perceval and Shaan Siddiqui, to name a few, joined the Event with hopes of adding another trophy to their collection.

The prize pool was initially split into 12 payouts, but the last 14 decided to reduce some of the variance by paying 2 more spots, and took the money off the top 3 positions to do so.

Nick Nickoletopoulos (9th place) almost pulled a rabbit out of his hat. He was down to 6,500 chips, or less than a big blind, and in just 2 hands, went up to over 100K. Although he was one win short of truly coming back in the game, it did get him one extra pay jump.

After Nickoletopoulos’ elimination, things moved pretty fast. Bouchard was decimating anything that stood in his way. Ami Alibay, most likely the most experienced tournament player on the table, was the only one who could dodge Bouchard’s fury throughout the final, but got to the heads-up with about 650K to Bouchard’s 1.7M.

Soon enough though, Alibay’s deep run experience – this is his 6th trophy – started to pay off. The 2 finalists played small ball poker, trading small pots, with Alibay getting just a little bit more here and there. As the heads-up match advanced, Bouchard showed some signs of fatigue, mixed with some annoyance from the bad timing he had to deal with.

They took a break about midway through the duel, at which point they were about tied. This is when they re-arranged the prizes to reduce the variance. They secured $10,550 each, and were playing for an extra $1,600, plus the Champion’s Trophy.

After the break, Alibay put his foot on the pedal. He quickly took a lead and used it to lean on his opponent with a lot of weight, and eventually got a 3 to 1 lead. The last hand saw Bouchard go all-in from the small blind and Alibay make a call with a dominating hand. Although the flop presented great possibilities for Bouchard, the best hand held.

Congratulations to both!

Event 9 Champion: Ami Alibay – $12,150 and the Champion’s Trophy

Runner-up: Sylvain Bouchard: 10 550$

Last hand of play:

Event #7 Champion: Jonathan Marrie

2018/01/24 - 3:49 by Shawn McCrory

Jonathan Marrie is the champion of Event #7, the PL Omaha 50/50 bounty. Marrie bested Evangelos Nikolaidis in heads-up play to take home the trophy and $2,000. After eliminating several players on the final table, Marrie had a massive chip lead , and it only took two heads-up hands for Nikolaidis to put his bounty chip in play. Marrie quickly made the call and took down the tournament in the process.

Event #7 Champion: Jonathan Marrie, $2,000.00

2nd place: Envegelos Nikolaidis, $1,400.00

Last hand of play:

They survived

2018/01/24 - 3:08 by Shawn McCrory

Play has concluded in Event #8. The players at the final table made a deal that took money from each survivor to pay the tenth place finisher $500. The top nine players each took home $2,100.

Here are some of them:

Event #4 champion Sasan Mehrabian

2018/01/23 - 23:17 by Shawn McCrory

Sasan Mehrabian has been crowned champion of Event #4, the $250 Frenzy. Throughout Day 3 of the Frenzy, Mehrabian played consistent, mistake-free poker and capitalized on his opportunities to outlast 802 other players on his way to victory. The win earned Mehrabian $25,070 and the champion’s trophy.

At the final table, play loosened up after the players agreed to an ICM chop, and Mehrabian reaped the benefits as he won pot after pot. After eliminating the third and fourth place finishers, Mehrabian had a huge chip lead, covering his last opponent, Tanvir Ahmed, by more than a 3:1 margin. After a few folds back and forth, Mehrabian and Ahmed found a spot to go all in before the flop and play for all the chips.

Event #4 Champion: Sasan Mehrabian, $25,070.00

2nd place: Tanvir Ahmed, $21,350.00

Last hand of play