The World Poker Tour Playground Championship got off to a rousing start. Just hours before the tournament officially began, someone hit a bad beat jackpot at Playground Poker Club near Montreal, which is becoming known for awarding bad beats.
The latest Bad Beat Jackpot at Playground paid out CAD $964,471 (approximately USD $694,192), just three weeks after the property awarded a staggering USD $1.63 million jackpot—the second-largest in its history.
The jackpot was claimed when Aymen Rhammaz won with a straight flush against Chad Whittaker's quad kings; and as bad beats go, Whittaker received the larger share of the jackpot as the "loser."
Playground posted a picture of Rhammaz and Whitaker, along with their dealer, on its X account.
📷 Jackpot Alert! 📷
Just after midnight, the Bad Beat Jackpot hit at a whopping $964,741! 📷 Aymen Rhammaz won the hand, but it was Chad Whittaker who took the lion’s share of the Jackpot after losing with quad kings.
Congratulations! 📷📷 pic.twitter.com/7cweDUmeR0— Playground Poker (@PlaygroundPoker) October 26, 2024
That’s a great way to start a weekend.
WPT Playground Championship Down to 53
As for the WPT Playground Championship, the official player count reached 840 across three flights. This created a prize pool of $1.935 million for the top 105 finishers.
The minimum payout is $4,607, with players reaching the final table securing at least $28,433. The champion will take home $296,779 and earn a seat in the WPT World Championship.
After 10 levels of play, 53 players remain in the tournament. Zhi Gang Yang leads the way with a stack of 2.15 million. Other players who made it through to day 3 include Michael Wang with 505,000 chips, Duff Charette with 490,000, Sethuran Vijayaratnam, who finished fifth in the WPT Playground Prime Championship, with 350,000, and Darren Elias, who has 365,000 chips and is aiming for his fifth WPT title.
Day 3 resumes today at 11:00 a.m. with a ten-hour schedule, similar to previous days. However, once the field narrows to 40 players, the level duration increases from 60 to 90 minutes, making the exact finishing time uncertain.
Bad Beat Jackpots are Tough to Hit at Playground
Winning the Bad Beat Jackpot (BBJ) at Playground is more challenging than in many other poker rooms, which often results in payouts that meet or surpass all-time records. To trigger the BBJ, a player must have four of a kind (quads) beaten by an even stronger hand, with each player using both of their hole cards.
The minimum qualifying hand changes weekly. After a bad beat jackpot is won, the next week's qualifying losing hand resets to quad aces. The qualifier then decreases by one rank each week until it reaches quad deuces. For detailed rules, you can visit Playground's website.
And if you’d like to test your poker skills online, check out the list of the best casinos for online poker, so you can start building your winning strategy.
