Ivan Driard Wins Playground Poker Spring Classic PLO Bounty
Playground regular Ivan Driard scored the victory, taking home the champion’s trophy and a top prize of $3,223 after an even chop with heads-up opponent Steve Ulloa-Torres in the Playground Poker Spring Classic PLO Bounty.
With all the action of the Playground Poker Spring Classic focused on the Grand Prix Canada and the partypoker Live Million North America thus far, Tuesday evening brought the first side event into the mix.
Event #3: $220 PL Omaha 50/50 Bounty Re-entry kicked off at 7 p.m. local time attracting a field of 151 entries, 30 of which were additional bullets.
| Place | Name | Prize (CAD) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ivan Driard | $3,223 |
| 2 | Steve Ulloa-Torres | $2,924 |
| 3 | Brian Morgan | $2,000 |
| 4 | Manfred Gunther | $1,550 |
| 5 | Simon Pin-Disle | $1,200 |
| 6 | Alexandre Vendette | $900 |
| 7 | Leor Wasserman | $650 |
| 8 | Sako Marashlian | $500 |
| 9 | Issie Emin Yuzgulec | $400 |
Attracting Jean-Philippe Piquette, William Blais, Kim Kilroy, Bill Kontaratos, Jason Conforti, Andrej Markovinovic, Daune Fernandez and Joey ‘Birdman’ Boczek, the action quickly heated up and the bounty chips flew across the tables.
With only the top 13 places getting paid, once down to 14 players, hand-for-hand play lasted for nearly two levels. Boczek, who has been on fire recently at Playground, picked up a handful of bounties. His top-five stack ran into the larger stack of Manfred Gunther and lost a brutal beat to fall on the bubble.
The final table was soon formed after that with Gunther in the driver’s seat. Gunther quickly went to work, taking out Issie Emin Yuzgulec and cracking Yuzgulec’s pocket aces with pocket jacks. Ulloa-Torres busted the next player, rivering a nut-straight over Sako Marashlian’s two-pair.
Gunther and Brian Morgan shared eliminations sending Leor Wasserman out in seventh and Alexandre Vendette in sixth. Ulloa-Torres took a big lead when he knocked out Simon Pin-Disle in fifth, scooping a big pot that included a chunk of Gunther’s stack. Ulloa-Torres finished off Gunther a few hands later.
After doubling through Ulloa-Torres, a still short-stacked Morgan got it in against the chip leader but was not able to secure another double up, falling in third and giving Ulloa-Torres his 16th bounty of the event, a value of $1,600.
Ulloa-Torres started heads-up with a 3-1 chip advantage but Driard quickly closed the gap, and once back to even stacks, the two decided to chop up the remaining prize pool evenly and play for the trophy and an extra $300. In the final hand, Driard rivered quads on a 2♦2♣3♥2♦3♦ board and eliminated Ulloa-Torres to claim the title.
Another $550 Phase 1 to the partypoker Live Million North America begins at 11 a.m. Wednesday morning followed by Event #4: $330 NL Hold’em Survivor Wednesday evening. There will also be a Phase 1 on Thursday and the Day 1 of the partypoker Live $10,300 High Roller.
PokerNews will provide daily recaps throughout the festival along with live coverage of the $5,000,000 guaranteed partypoker Million North America.
For full festival details and live updates from the Playground blogging team check out the official blog here.
