Made it through to Day 2 on Wednesday, but with a very short stack of 37K. It was kind of funny on my last table of the night - there was a player who joined the table who seemed like a reasonably good player - but who also seemed to think everyone else was a newbie. Meanwhile going around the table was Arthur, Trish Hill, Terry Flood, me, Jerry F, all of whom have played with each other countless times and all of whom are reasonably good tournament players. So this guy won a couple of pots (played well to win) but kind of seemed to be gloating a bit, and the rest of us were just kind of making eye contact as if to laugh and say "really??"

BBJ. Was hit at playground last night

So I took my 37K and built it up quickly and made the top 20 in the Montreal Party Poker Classic. Get a trip to Vegas for the final tournament among the 20 remaining. Min payout for the final is $1K US going up to $25K US plus top 10 get a ticket to the WPT Five Diamond Main Event.

A couple other Snakes and/or PG regs made it as well - Mike L, Arthur W, Louise L, Sid. Should be a super fun trip.

I saw Dan V and Arthur at The Rail last night and they told me you had made it - congrats bud!

I'm pretty sure the top prize of $25k includes the $10k buyin though, not on top of the $10k... Although if I am wrong that is even cooler.

Yeah I see that now, on the website it says, "includes a WPT seat". The 11th place bubble is looking better and better lol.

The end of March saw Playground permanently ban one of their regular winners for introducing chips into tournaments that this player had palmed in other tournaments. Good show Playground. No quarter should be given to cheats. Tournament players of this fine Poker Room were all ripped off by this person.

They also caught 2 people for using each others identity to play in tournaments. When the player busted, the player bought back in using the others identity. Talk about having an advantage. During a big pot the player can risk their stack knowing they can get back in using the others identity. Again good job Playground. Both players were taken off the TLB, but are still playing from what I saw.

I'm certain they will be under close surveillance.

Any new updates for when Stardust is opening? Been thinknig about driving down to MTL but havent heard that its opened yet..

Not open yet. I checked out the building today. The shutters were closed and there doesn't seem to be anything going on.

Looks like stardust is opening April 27th!!

Yes, the word is spreading very quickly. No news yet on opening week promos or freeroll tournaments or whatever, but it looks like they're finally ready to go.

http://www.stardustpokermansion.com/

Sick news!

woooo

What gives. The $275 deep stack tournament at SNAKES tomorrow which had a $30,000 Guaranteed prize pool has suddenly shrunk to a $20,000 Guarantee. That's as of 12:05 a.m. What will it be at 10:00 a.m.

KGC are you aware of this? A guarantee should not be a moving target!

Definition of Guarantee: A formal promise or assurance that certain conditions will be fullfilled.

A) Who cares? At that buyin the guarantee will probably be hit in either case regardless.

B) 99% sure that somewhere in the fine print Snakes has the same statement that every poker room and casino (and other venues) world-wide would have - "management reserves the right to change anything they feel like blah blah blah" - and the KGC would definitely back them up on it.

nit itt

Do you honestly expect differently from snakes?

Why would you say that? Have they messed with guarantees or other things like that in the past? Not that I have ever heard of...

As it is I find this issue a bit hard to believe as the only info I had seen on this tourney all said $20k guarantee anyway - only la_belle's word that it was ever listed as a $30k guarantee in the first place.

For the record I heard they had 106 players for the tourney anyway so they came pretty close to $30k regardless.

I do remember hearing 30k from word of mouth but I can't confirm if it ever was for sure. I do have a personal bias against snakes as I got into a little tussle with management.

However I haven't been there in forever so I shouldn't have made that type of comment.

so i'll be in montreal from apr 27-may 2, and kinda wanna play some poker. i used to play a ton at the casino, but figure i might want to check out playground this time around. i'll be staying in downtown montreal, what's the best way for me to get there without a car? one of my friends does have a car and could potentially drive me, but he's not a poker player, would there be anything for him to do while i'm there grinding (e.g. watch sports on TV, drink at the bar, etc) or is he gonna be bored out of his mind?


thanks!



edit: if this stardust thing that's opening the same weekend is supposed to be awesome, should i do that instead? is it close to where playground is?

I'd say he'll be pretty bored if he doesn't play. However if you are there for a short time the restaurant has pretty good food. there are tons of tv's and a smoke room. No place to watch tv unless you are playing however. If you are playing for a long time I'd take a cab. 30-40$ depending on where you are staying

Edit: I think it's worth that cab ride that weekend as stardust is opening and it's behind playground. It'll be worth checking out. Maybe some free stuff and random activities.

For what its worth, I live downtown and its an $18-20 cab ride (tip included) to the Montreal Casino. Wouldn't recommend bringing a friend since there's only a bar & restaurant with small TV's. Would be boring if he wasn't playing poker.

Never been to Playground though. Good luck.

The best non-car way to get to Playground is to take a metro to Angrignon station (the end of the Green line) and grab a cab from there. You can also get a bus from Angrignon that stops right at Playground but it runs pretty rarely. I'm not sure of the cost but I think it's around $25 or so, maybe $30.

Joseph is correct - Stardust is opening this weekend. There isn't a lot of information about opening promos yet but it should be good. It's just a 1 minute walk from Playground so if you go to one place you can check out both.

On Friday night Playground is having a "Freebuy" event which is usually pretty fun. $0 entry fee, unlimited $50 rebuys for the first 4 levels. A little crazy but fun, and after the rebuy period it's a regular tournament. And Saturday marks the beginning of the annual tournament series which kicks off with a $550 tournament at noon. It's close to sold out but they usually get a bunch of alternates in.

If cash games are your thing, the Casino is definitely the softest place to play but there will be a lot of action at Playground and (most likely) Stardust.

RDS article about stardust:

http://www.rds.ca/poker/chroniques/338682.html

While we were gone...

--Jean-Philippe Piquette aka JPP won the PG Classic $2200 Main Event. 85 players, $50K for the winner. Apparently he also won a seat in last night's $1K satty for the 10K that starts today.

--Stardust opened to great fanfare. They're having some growing pains but so far so good. There are lots of small problems but all in all I think they have a good shot.

--I've heard (and I'm pretty sure it has been announced publicly) that Snakes is expanding.

--BBJ was hit yet again at PG. After being re-seeded at $100K 4 times (for a total of $530K+ distributed) it was re-seeded at $75K.

I really don't think Stardust has a good shot of lasting long and competing with Playground Poker.

I went up yesterday to play their $60 tournament at 1pm, and when I got there, NO tables were going, cash or tournament. Desk said tournament was cancelled. So I walk one minute to Playground where their are 4 1/2 tables, 1 2/5 table, and a tournament that had 33 people start off. This is a bad sign for Stardust IMO. I went back over to Stardust later when they had a $200 MTT and Jonathan Duhamel their playing. Got 43 players, and 4 tables of 1/2 and 1 2/5 table on a Friday night by 9pm.

I just don't see Stardust getting the action that Playground usually gets. It's a beautiful room, but hate the wood railing and elevated felt, and limited menu. Not a ton of choices. They handed out fliers at Stardust at the tournament about promos they are doing for next week to get cash games going.

From the 14th-20th, from Noon-5pm, Rakeback on cash games, Double bonus for Quads, Str8 flush and Royal Flush, and splash pot promos. Will be interested to see if this can get some games going in the afternoon.