PokerShares’ founder and Canadian poker phenom Mike ‘Timex’ McDonald has taken down the $10,300 partypoker Live High Roller at the Playground Poker Spring Classic. Mike topped a field of 47 entries to capture the title and a first-place prize of $200,000.
Mike bested a final table that included fellow Canadians Sorel Mizzi, John Krpan, Benoit Galland, Ryan Yu and Marc-Olivier Carpentier-Perrault, who Mike beat heads-up for the win, partypoker Ambassador Roberto Romanello, and Jason Koon.
| Place | Name | Country | Prize |
| 1 | Mike McDonald | Canada | $200,000 |
| 2 | Marc-Olivier Carpentier-Perrault | Canada | $130,000 |
| 3 | Sorel Mizzi | Canada | $84,100 |
| 4 | Roberto Romanello | UK | $50,000 |
| 5 | Benoit Galland | Canada | $30,000 |
| 6 | Vishal Singh Maini | UK | $20,000 |
With just six spots making the money, play began at the final table with nine remaining and Marc-Olivier getting the action underway by eliminating Jason. Mike then took over sending John and Ryan to an early exit, cracking John’s pocket aces with two sevens, and busting Ryan on the money bubble with ace-king.
Toronto native, Sorel, scored the next elimination relieving Vishal of his chips before Mike took out Benoit in fifth. Pocket sevens then worked for Marc-Olivier, besting two over-cards from Roberto to bring the event down to three-handed.
After several battles with Sorel, Marc-Olivier was able to score the knockout setting up a heads-up battle with Mike. Slightly disadvantaged in the chip-count column, Mike battled back and drew even with Marc-Olivier, trading the chip lead back and forth until a sick cooler shut it all down. Mike flopped a set, eventually hitting a full house on the river, and caught Marc-Olivier with a small full house.
Fittingly, Mike picks up the title in the home province of his Global Poker League (GPL) team, the Montreal Nationals. Fresh off a championship in the inaugural season of the GPL, many of the team’s players took part, including Team Manager Marc-Andre Ladouceur. Ladouceur busted on Day 1 but Xuan Liu and Pascal Lefrancois made Day 2 ultimately, hitting the rail before the final table.
The win marks Mike’s fourth at Playground over the years and brings his lifetime recorded live-tournament earnings to over $13.3 million dollars.
Mike has spent the past months working towards a new site that launched recently called PokerShares.com. The virtual marketplace and betting platform website offers the ability to bet on any poker player, in any event, live or online.
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