It’s a return trip to the Playground Poker Room for the World Poker Tour as the WPT brings a full-blown festival to Montreal for the second time this season. It’s not too often that WPT is back at a property so soon after the last time it visited, but by popular demand the players at Playground will have another opportunity (starting on October 14) to take home a title and possibly have their name etched onto the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup.
As WPT proved the last time around, this is no ordinary festival. At Playground, everything is on the table: from online Day 1s via WPT Global, to a meet and greet with a three-time Stanley Cup champion. Throw in another Meet Up Game headlined by WPT ambassador Brad Owen and a shot or two at winning a ClubWPT Gold Golden Passport and it’s clear that WPT Playground has pulled out all the stops for their players.
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So, whether you’re at the poker room or following the action from home via WPT Live Updates, here’s what to watch for during WPT Playground.
A Trio of Titles
Typically, when the World Poker Tour shows up for an event there’s a single title on the line, be it a spot on the Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup or a WPT Prime trophy. However, at Playground the WPT will be rolling out three chances to make your mark on the tour – each catering to a different section of the poker public. Of course, there’s the WPT Playground Championship. Running from October 24-30, the CAD $3,500 (~$2,545 USD) buy-in event is the big dog and comes with a CAD $1.5M guarantee. It’s the (second) chance for Playground players to have their name inscribed on Mike Sexton WPT Champions Cup just like Burnaby, BC (by way of South Korea) David Dongwoo Ko did back in May when he locked up a seat in the Champions Club by winning the WPT Montreal Championship for a career-high score of $319,216.
Prior to that, from October 20-25, is WPT Prime Playground. It’s CAD $1,150 buy-in (~ $835 USD) hits the sweet spot for players looking to turn a modest buy-in into a six-figure payday. Jikai Zhang did just last last time, taking home $120,744 with the victory as well as getting to tell the story that he outlasted WPT ambassador Brad Owen at the final table, in which Owen finished in third place for $64,369.
The final trophy is a little more scarce as WPT brings back its recreational-friendly WPT 500 for just the second time this year. Like it was back in May at Playground, the CAD $590 buy-in (~ $430 USD) is a favorite of Playground players and will likely bring out all the locals and create a massive field that will push the first-place prize into the high five figures.
With three titles up for grabs, be on the lookout for someone to go on a heater and make a deep run in multiple events. Dan Stavila did just that back in May when he marched to the final table of WPT Prime Montreal as the chip leader and also made the final table of the WPT Montreal Championship Event. Stavila ended up finishing fourth in WPT Prime Montreal and as the runner-up in the Championship event for a total haul of more than $250,000.
Both the WPT Prime Playground and WPT 500 event will have the option for online Day 1s via WPT Global. Survive the day online and show up in person for Day 2. Satellites for all three events are available online as well.
Phil Kessel
WPT Global recently announced the signing of three-time Stanley Cup champion, and avid poker player, Phil Kessel as a brand-new ambassador. Kessel, who was a part of the Pittsburgh Penguins’ back-to-back championship teams in 2016 and 2017, as well as the 2023 Las Vegas Golden Knights, is currently a free agent in hockey, but ready to get to work on the felt.
The first order of business for the NHL’s reigning Iron Man is a trip to WPT Playground where players will have the opportunity to both meet Kessel as well as play with him. Kessel doesn’t have a long list of tournament accomplishments, close to $19K in cashes, but he has fired in live WSOP events more than a handful of events since 2013, is highly competitive, and has always been vocal about his love of the game. Perhaps with his new deal, WPT Playground is where Kessel finds a new way to score.
Eric Afriat
In poker, one can never be completely certain that a player is going to show up for any particular event. Phil Hellmuth at the WSOP Main Event. Perhaps Chris Moneymaker on his namesake tour as well. But if you want another near-lock on that list you can add 3x WPT Champion Eric Afriat making his way to Playground Poker Room for a WPT event.
It’s no secret that Afriat loves the World Poker Tour, and being originally from Canada, he also loves Playground. And he’d really love nothing more than to win a record-tying fourth WPT title on his native soil. He’s cashed eight different WPT events at Playground, including two final tables – this is where he feels at home. This year, Afriat has shown up in nearly every WPT Championship event, collecting four cashes, including a runner-up finish to James Mackey in the WPT Choctaw Championship for $235,000.
Currently sitting fifth in WPT Player of the Year points, Afriat is not only looking to gain ground on Australia’s Travis Endersby, who holds the POY lead after his impressive WPT Australia performances, but Afriat can also reach another personal milestone as he is less than $5,000 shy of crossing $3.5 million in tournament earnings on the WPT alone.
Packed Houses
Something else you can count on is that the Playground players will show up in force. The fields in each of these three major events have the potential to be some of the largest events outside of the WPT World Championship at Wynn Las Vegas. Last May, all three events bested their posted guarantees by ~ 25% with both the WPT 500 and WPT Prime Montreal hovering around the 1,300 entry mark.
At 882 entries, WPT Montreal Championship is the second-largest WPT Championship field this year. With WPT Playground likely to be the last major festival on the schedule on the calendar for the poker room this year, expectations are high that players will once again come out in force to support a major event in Canada.
Perhaps…Something Unexpected
Playground has been the site of some of the most impactful pieces of WPT history. Specifically, in 2016, when beloved WPT announcer Mike Sexton entered the field of the WPT Playground Main Event and went on to win to take home the title and a $317K first-place prize. It was the event that allowed Sexton to have his name engraved, as a player, on the Champions Cup that would one day be named in his honor.
Later that same season, WPT was back when Ema Zajmovic became the first woman to win an open-field World Poker Tour event, topping a field of 380 runners for a $128,819 score and a spot on the Champions Cup. It was the biggest score of her career at the time, only to be eclipsed the very next year in the same venue when she finished as the runner-up to Patrick Serda for $424,511.
Both Sexton’s and Zajmovic’s victories at Playground remain some of the landmark moments for the WPT to this day. And perhaps that’s in the cards once again.