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Gilbert Charles Wins First Ring as Keng Ho Leads Mini Main at WSOP Circuit Playground

2 hours ago

Bjorn Lindberg 2 hours ago

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Keng Ho leads Mini Main Event Day 1A with 678,000 chips.
18 players advance from a 171-entry field to the next stage.
Mini Main Event carries a C$500,000 guarantee.

The WSOP Circuit Playground November festival is underway in Kahnawake, with Gilbert Charles claiming the first completed ring event of the series and Keng Ho setting the pace in the opening flight of the C$400 Mini Main Event.

Two tournaments were on the schedule when the series opened on November 2 at Playground Poker Club. The Mini Main began its six-flight qualification stage at 11:00 a.m., while the C$400 Progressive Bounty started later in the day and produced the festival's first winner.

Charles finished first in the Progressive Bounty, while Ho bagged 678,000 chips to lead the 18 players who progressed from Mini Main Day 1A.

Keng Ho Leads 18 Survivors From Mini Main Day 1A

The C$400 Mini Main Event opened with 171 entries in Day 1A.

Twenty-six places were paid during the flight, with 18 players remaining when play concluded. Those 18 now move forward to the later stage of an event carrying a C$500,000 guarantee.

Keng Ho finished comfortably ahead of the field with 678,000 chips. Williams Carriere was his closest challenger with 537,000, while Tomas Larivee-Magni ended the night third on 455,000.

Uddin Md Saif bagged 376,000 and Patrick St-Onge finished with 363,000. Ryan Teixeira completed the top six with 315,000.

Place	Player	Chips
1	Keng Ho	678,000
2	Williams Carriere	537,000
3	Tomas Larivee-Magni	455,000
4	Uddin Md Saif	376,000
5	Patrick St-Onge	363,000
6	Ryan Teixeira	315,000
7	Malik Aboulkacem	311,000
8	Akshansh Jain	250,000
9	Linda Huard	238,000
10	Vadym Sienichkin	235,000

Canadian flags appeared beside 16 of the 18 surviving players in the official tournament display.

Tommy Dion advanced with 232,000, followed by John Homes on 218,000, Palmieri Mauro on 208,000 and Peter Balais with 198,000. Ryan Bell finished with 147,000, Ian Monahoyios and Adrian Brown both bagged 130,000, while James Cooke completed the surviving field with 108,000.

Players finishing from 19th through 26th each received C$800.

The Mini Main continues throughout the opening week, with six starting flights scheduled before Day 2 on November 8. The event is one of the major early tournaments on the final Canadian stop covered in our WSOP Circuit Canada guide.

Gilbert Charles Takes Opening Progressive Bounty

The first completed event of the festival was the C$400 Progressive Bounty.

Gilbert Charles finished at the top of the results and was listed with a C$8,000 tournament payout. Constantinos Zafiriou also received C$8,000 in second place.

Johan Levysson finished third for C$6,180, while Ryan Bell collected C$5,000 in fourth. Nicholas Belanger received C$4,000 for fifth and Wei Zhang took C$3,000 for sixth.

Place	Player	Prize
1	Gilbert Charles	C$8,000
2	Constantinos Zafiriou	C$8,000
3	Johan Levysson	C$6,180
4	Ryan Bell	C$5,000
5	Nicholas Belanger	C$4,000
6	Wei Zhang	C$3,000
7	Philippe Rich	C$2,000
8	Francois Tremblay	C$1,500
9	Marc-Andre Yelle	C$1,101
10	Babak Forozandeh	C$900

All prizes are show with bounties excluded

The Progressive Bounty carried a C$50,000 guarantee on the official festival schedule.

Mini Main Day 1B and Mystery Bounty Next

The action continues on November 3 with another two-event programme.

Mini Main Day 1B begins at 11:00 a.m., giving players another opportunity to qualify for Day 2. Event #3, a C$400 Mystery Bounty with a C$50,000 guarantee, starts at 5:00 p.m.

The November festival runs through November 17 and features 18 WSOP Circuit ring events. The centrepiece is the C$2,500 Main Event, which begins on November 12 and carries a C$2.5 million guarantee.

The full series is also included in our Canadian poker tournament calendar, while players unfamiliar with the format used in the opening events can review our Texas Hold'em rules.

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