Playground Poker Spring Classic: Duhamel, Ferguson, Pin-Disle Hoist Trophies

A busy Tuesday at the Playground Poker Spring Classic saw four different events spread across the tournament hall. The penultimate day of the 2017 festival featured the finale of the Second Chance Event, a large buy-in 50/50 Bounty, and a 5-Card PL Omaha title up for grabs.

When play resumed on Day 2 of Event #5: $2,500 NL Hold’em Second Chance, Martin Finger and local pro and 2010 World Series of Poker Main Event champ, Jonathan Duhamel, were in control. With just 16 players remaining, prizes were only available for the top 12.

In the end, and really, as expected, it came down to Duhamel and Finger, heads up for the title. As soon as Oren Haziza was eliminated in third place, Finger and Duhamel immediately worked out a deal and flipped for the trophy. Duhamel won the flip, earning the trophy and a top prize of $57,000.

Kicking off Tuesday morning was the ever-popular $1,100 NL Hold’em 50/50 Bounty. The seventh event of the festival featured $500 from each buy-in to the prize pool and $500 for each bounty. A guarantee was set at $60,000 and attracted 156 entries, easily surpassing the guarantee.

After almost 15 hours of play, just two players remained, Mitchael Ferguson and Harley Stoffmaker. The heads-up battle only lasted 15 minutes. Stoffmaker opened, Ferguson jammed, Stoffmaker snap-called and was in a great spot to take command. Stoffmaker was way ahead with pocket queens to Fergusons’ king-nine but as luck would have it, Ferguson flopped trip-kings and they held to earn the champion’s trophy, a first place prize of $17,800 and all the bounties he was able to collect.

Later on in the evening, Event #8: $330 5-Card PL Omaha Re-entry got underway, much to the delight of 51 players, 15 of which had to fire another bullet for a total of 65 entries.

Omaha has a strong following at Playground Poker Club with multiple cash game tables running daily. Adding a fifth card to the mix just boosted the chaos and raised the fun level in the atmosphere. Many familiar faces took part including Joey ‘Birdman’ Boczek, who was the third player eliminated, Brian Morgan, Andrej Markovinovic and Alex Fitzgerald, all of whom busted before the money.

With only seven prizes up for grabs, the race for the top was tight. Shawn Daigle, who has picked up multiple titles and deep runs over the last two years at Playground, grabbed the min-cash, just before Ivan Driard and Ben Menache joined him at the payout desk.

Simon Pin-Disle then took out the next two players, sending Ariel Hassan and Ryan Smith to the rail in a span of three hands. A Simon heads-up battle was set with Pin-Disle having a huge chip advantage over Simon Assouline. Just a few hands later, Pin-Disle put a pin in the match, getting Assouline all in, and making two pair to scoop the chips, the match, the champion’s trophy and a cash reward of $8,065.

The 2017 Playground Poker Spring Classic wraps up on Wednesday. The final event, and most fun, mostly due to the relaxed nature of the end of the grind but also because Playground staff who are not on shift get to join in, takes place at 7 p.m. As always, the last event of the series is always the $330 NL Hold’em Bounty with $100 bounties.

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.

_{Image courtesy of Playground Poker Club}

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