2025 WSOPC Calgary – Event #13: $250 Flip & Go

Darren Kennedy breezed through the final table tonight holding the chip lead through most of it. When play was three-handed, he had nearly 3/4 of the chips in play.

Heads up against the Aug 2024 winner Duff Charette was pretty quick, lasting only a few hands. Kennedy was up about 7:1 at that point, and he whittled Charette down until. In the final hand, Charette got it in with queen-nine suited but couldn’t get there against the king-high for Kennedy, who hit his deuce kicker on the river for good measure.

This is Kennedy’s first Circuit ring in poker, but he was using a very nice ring as his card capper tonight. He won that ring while playing for Team Canada in Roller Hockey so he now has a ring in two disciplines.

Kennedy also set up the Die Hard Poker League in BC a couple of decades ago after he caught the poker bug from a trip to the World Series in Vegas. He came back and started the league which has been running consistently and sending players to Vegas for the summer party every year. There are a bunch of DHPL regs here this week at Deerfoot, including Christopher Watson who was 7th in this event tonight.

See the full prizes under the Payouts tab with the final table prizes below.

Place	Player	Prize
1	Darren Kennedy	$18,268
2	Duff Charette	$12,179
3	Elizabeth Boles	$8,441
4	Garrett Birch	$5,963
5	Shariq Khan	$4,296
6	Kayvan Payman	$3,157
7	Christopher Watson	$2,367
8	Nader Aram	$1,812
9	Allan Alejandro	$1,417

Duff Charette was looking for his second straight ring in this event tonight, but he fell one place short. He was on an uphill climb against the big-stack Darren Kennedy, who had 3/4 of the chips in play when they were three-handed.

In the final hand, Kennedy raised enough to put Charette all in and he called it off, saying “Good enough” as he showed queen-nine suited. He needed to hit against king-deuce for Kennedy but the only board card that connected with anyone was the river deuce hitting Kennedy.

Elizabeth Boles had a great run to the final three tonight, but she just lost her stack to the August winner Duff Charette. I got to the table with the flop coming down 10♠Q♠3♣ and small blind Boles shoved her stack. Charette called from the big blind with the queen against her flush draw with eight-seven of spades. She bricked her draw and had to settle for 3rd tonight.

Darren Kennedy has a stranglehold on the final three right now with nearly 6 million in front of him and only 8.6 million in play.

They are down to 3 left after Garret Birch took 4th place tonight. I missed the action while trying to get the PLO Bounty Payouts updated.

Elizabeth Boles limped in under the gun, and Garrett Birch and Darren Kennedy both called from the blinds. They both check-called for 175k on the 9♥7♠10♥ flop, but they check-folded when she fired 500k on the 8♥ turn. When the hand was done she had a stack of blues bigger than 10, as well as some whites for more than 2 million total. Dareen Kennedy is still the leader with more than 3 million.

They are down to 4 now after Shariq Khan hit the payout desk for 5th. I missed the action while I was writing the previous hand.

They are down to five now, and previous winner Duff Charette is looking to repeat. He just sent Kayvan Payman home in 6th when he raised the small blind big enough to put Payman all in and Payman called. Payman was best with ace-nine, but the king-six for Charette got there with a king on the flop. Charette, who won this ring last August, is now over a million.

Elizabeth Boles was checking out the blue chips (100k) around the table after the chip-up from the break. She wanted 10, but only had 7 and was on the hunt to increase the count.

Darren Kennedy didn’t put one in when he raised from the button to 175k, but Boles called to see a flop of J♦3♦Q♣ She led for 125k and got a call from Kennedy that included a blue chip. Four more blues went in when she check-called a bet of 210k from Kennedy on the 6♣ turn. The both checked the 5♣ river.

“Ace-high,” Boles said, but Kennedy showed J♥10♠ for the win, taking some of Boles’ precious blues from her.

Chris Watson shoved under the gun for 55k and Die Hard Poker League founder Darren Kennedy raised the button to isolate against his fellow league member. Watson was best with ace-ten over ace-seven, but Kennedy spiked his seven on the flop and held for the win in the DHPL on DHPL violence.

It was blind on blind when Shariq Khan limped from the small and Garrett Birch checked in the big. Khan led for 60k on the 6♣4♠A♦ flop and Birch called. Khan check-called 80k on the 4♣ turn, and they both checked the 5♣ river. Khan showed ace-nine and took it down.

Nader Arum shoved a smaller stack from the small blind over a button raise from Elizabeth Boles. She called it off and had Arum pipped with ace-nine over ace-eight. She turned her nine to secure the win.

Allan Alejandro laddered up several spots tonight from the short stack, but his day just came to an end as the first player off the final table.

Allan Alejandro is stil alive. He was back down to fumes when he shoved 35k after a limp from Elizabeth Boles. Duff Charette then shoved from the button with 565k and forced Bales out of the hand. Alejandro was on queens against king-eight for Charette and the queens held. That gave Alejandro about 180k with Charette still sitting on around the same stack after giving some to Alejandro, but picking some up from Boles.

They are on the final table bubble now with 10 players left in the game and 5 minutes to play in Level 13. Sam Raz and Andrew Fahey were the most recent busts from the game.

They are down to 12 left in the Flip & Go Day 2 with about 5 minutes to play in Level 12. Full prizes are under the Payouts tab, and recent payouts are below.

Place	Player	Prize
13	Matt Hall	$925
14	Mike Leah	$925

Allan Alejandro had one foot out the door when he was all in with ace-deuce against the eights of Darren Kennedy. Alejandro shoved under the gun for about 50k and Kennedy raised the cutoff to isolate. Alejandro missed pairing up but the Q♣J♥3♠10♠K♥ runout gave him Broadway for the double.

In the next hand, he was in the big blind and he called an under-the-gun raise to 45k from Duff Charette. The flop came 5♦6♥7♠ and Alejandro shoved. Charette called with pocket aces and was ahead, but the K♠4♦ runout gave Alejandro another straight for another double and he’s back up to around 300k.

Meanwhile, the field has dropped by two with the exits of Steven Barber and Deven Lane.

Place	Player	Prize
15	Deven Lane	$925
16	Steven Barber	$773

They are down to the final two tables now with 16 players left. Nadir Aram is the chip leader with a bit more than 1.2 million in front of him while Youssef Hmama looks to be second with just shy of 1 million.

Recent Payouts (Full Prizes under Payouts Tab)

Place	Player	Prize
17	George Mounsef	$773
18	Greg Liow	$773
19	Todd “The Rock”	$773
20	Mohammad Feizi	$773
21	Trevor Simpson	$773
22	Shane Brotherwood	$773
23	Chao Lu	$773
24	Bash Ramahi	$661

The Day 2 players are a couple of minutes away from returning from dinner with 18 players left in the action. They’ll break down to the final two tables at 16, and the final table tonight will be nine-handed.

They are down to the final three tables in Day 2 of the Flip & Go with 24 players left in action (this game plays 8-handed). They’ll take a 45-minute dinner break following Level 10.

Recent Cashes

Place	Player	Prize
25	Daniel Bong	$661
26	Xioyi Wang	$661

They are down to 26 players left in Day 2 of the Flip & Go now with about 15 minutes to play in Level 8. Full prizes so far are under the Payouts tab with recent cashers below.

Place	Player	Prize
27	Michael Malm	$661
28	Kali Shuali	$661
29	Collin Miller	$661
30	Manfred Gunther	$661
31	Dongwoo(David) Ko	$661
32	Nicholas Andreas	$630
33	Marcio Kondo	$630
34	Yiming Nie	$630
35	Dj Sharma	$630
36	Ryan Cairns	$630

There are 36 players left in the Go stage of Event #13 on the first break of the day. There are five more payouts at $630 before it jumps to 661.

Recent Flip & Go Payouts

Place	Player	Prize
37	Mark Inglis	$630
38	Jeffrey Cormier	$630
39	Vikram Gill	$630
40	Yiquan Zhong	$630
41	Lap Duong	$630
42	Behnam Esfahanizedeh	$630
43	Nickolas Stewart	$630
44	Steven Mager	$630
45	John Scalise	$630
46	Michael Khan	$630
47	Zhi Lin	$630

They are down to 47 players left in Day 2 of the Flip & Go with less than 5 minutes to play in Level 3. See below for the payouts so far, and I should be catching some of the action soon!

Place	Player	Prize
48	Kelly Becker	$630
49	Wesley Peters	$630
50	Joshua Frazer-James	$630
51	Srinivas Gottiparthi	$630
52	Steven Filipovic	$630

The prizes are in and the top twp players today will pocket 5-figure scores. Prizes will be posted in the backend shortly but the summary of prizes is below. Two players are bringing in a double stack today with the other 50 all playing a single stack of 160k.

Flip & Go Prizes

Four days of Flip flights are in the books now with 52 players bagging chips in one of the Flip rounds. Two of those players, Elizabeth Bales and Behnam Ezfahanizadeh, managed to find two flip wins so they’ll bring 320k into Day 2 compared to 160k for the remaining 50 players. There are a couple of previous winners of this ring in the field this series — Duff Charette won it in Aug 2024 while David Ko won it in May 2024.

The Go stage is regular poker with 25-minute blinds starting at 1k/2k/2k and they’ll play their way down to a winner. I don’t have eyes on the prize payouts or the seating assignments for this one as it wasn’t complete by the end of Thursday night, but that should all be in the Chrome Room for the start of action at 2 PM on Friday. I’ll be following this one as my main focus on Friday until the ring is awarded.

Day 2 Players for Flip & Go

Darren Kennedy breezed through the final table tonight holding the chip lead through most of it. When play was three-handed, he had nearly 3/4 of the chips in play.

Heads up against the Aug 2024 winner Duff Charette was pretty quick, lasting only a few hands. Kennedy was up about 7:1 at that point, and he whittled Charette down until. In the final hand, Charette got it in with queen-nine suited but couldn’t get there against the king-high for Kennedy, who hit his deuce kicker on the river for good measure.

This is Kennedy’s first Circuit ring in poker, but he was using a very nice ring as his card capper tonight. He won that ring while playing for Team Canada in Roller Hockey so he now has a ring in two disciplines.

Kennedy also set up the Die Hard Poker League in BC a couple of decades ago after he caught the poker bug from a trip to the World Series in Vegas. He came back and started the league which has been running consistently and sending players to Vegas for the summer party every year. There are a bunch of DHPL regs here this week at Deerfoot, including Christopher Watson who was 7th in this event tonight.

See the full prizes under the Payouts tab with the final table prizes below.

Place	Player	Prize
1	Darren Kennedy	$18,268
2	Duff Charette	$12,179
3	Elizabeth Boles	$8,441
4	Garrett Birch	$5,963
5	Shariq Khan	$4,296
6	Kayvan Payman	$3,157
7	Christopher Watson	$2,367
8	Nader Aram	$1,812
9	Allan Alejandro	$1,417

Duff Charette was looking for his second straight ring in this event tonight, but he fell one place short. He was on an uphill climb against the big-stack Darren Kennedy, who had 3/4 of the chips in play when they were three-handed.

In the final hand, Kennedy raised enough to put Charette all in and he called it off, saying “Good enough” as he showed queen-nine suited. He needed to hit against king-deuce for Kennedy but the only board card that connected with anyone was the river deuce hitting Kennedy.

Elizabeth Boles had a great run to the final three tonight, but she just lost her stack to the August winner Duff Charette. I got to the table with the flop coming down 10♠Q♠3♣ and small blind Boles shoved her stack. Charette called from the big blind with the queen against her flush draw with eight-seven of spades. She bricked her draw and had to settle for 3rd tonight.

Darren Kennedy has a stranglehold on the final three right now with nearly 6 million in front of him and only 8.6 million in play.

They are down to 3 left after Garret Birch took 4th place tonight. I missed the action while trying to get the PLO Bounty Payouts updated.

Elizabeth Boles limped in under the gun, and Garrett Birch and Darren Kennedy both called from the blinds. They both check-called for 175k on the 9♥7♠10♥ flop, but they check-folded when she fired 500k on the 8♥ turn. When the hand was done she had a stack of blues bigger than 10, as well as some whites for more than 2 million total. Dareen Kennedy is still the leader with more than 3 million.

They are down to 4 now after Shariq Khan hit the payout desk for 5th. I missed the action while I was writing the previous hand.

They are down to five now, and previous winner Duff Charette is looking to repeat. He just sent Kayvan Payman home in 6th when he raised the small blind big enough to put Payman all in and Payman called. Payman was best with ace-nine, but the king-six for Charette got there with a king on the flop. Charette, who won this ring last August, is now over a million.

Elizabeth Boles was checking out the blue chips (100k) around the table after the chip-up from the break. She wanted 10, but only had 7 and was on the hunt to increase the count.

Darren Kennedy didn’t put one in when he raised from the button to 175k, but Boles called to see a flop of J♦3♦Q♣ She led for 125k and got a call from Kennedy that included a blue chip. Four more blues went in when she check-called a bet of 210k from Kennedy on the 6♣ turn. The both checked the 5♣ river.

“Ace-high,” Boles said, but Kennedy showed J♥10♠ for the win, taking some of Boles’ precious blues from her.

Chris Watson shoved under the gun for 55k and Die Hard Poker League founder Darren Kennedy raised the button to isolate against his fellow league member. Watson was best with ace-ten over ace-seven, but Kennedy spiked his seven on the flop and held for the win in the DHPL on DHPL violence.

It was blind on blind when Shariq Khan limped from the small and Garrett Birch checked in the big. Khan led for 60k on the 6♣4♠A♦ flop and Birch called. Khan check-called 80k on the 4♣ turn, and they both checked the 5♣ river. Khan showed ace-nine and took it down.

Nader Arum shoved a smaller stack from the small blind over a button raise from Elizabeth Boles. She called it off and had Arum pipped with ace-nine over ace-eight. She turned her nine to secure the win.

Allan Alejandro laddered up several spots tonight from the short stack, but his day just came to an end as the first player off the final table.

Allan Alejandro is stil alive. He was back down to fumes when he shoved 35k after a limp from Elizabeth Boles. Duff Charette then shoved from the button with 565k and forced Bales out of the hand. Alejandro was on queens against king-eight for Charette and the queens held. That gave Alejandro about 180k with Charette still sitting on around the same stack after giving some to Alejandro, but picking some up from Boles.

They are on the final table bubble now with 10 players left in the game and 5 minutes to play in Level 13. Sam Raz and Andrew Fahey were the most recent busts from the game.

They are down to 12 left in the Flip & Go Day 2 with about 5 minutes to play in Level 12. Full prizes are under the Payouts tab, and recent payouts are below.

Place	Player	Prize
13	Matt Hall	$925
14	Mike Leah	$925

Allan Alejandro had one foot out the door when he was all in with ace-deuce against the eights of Darren Kennedy. Alejandro shoved under the gun for about 50k and Kennedy raised the cutoff to isolate. Alejandro missed pairing up but the Q♣J♥3♠10♠K♥ runout gave him Broadway for the double.

In the next hand, he was in the big blind and he called an under-the-gun raise to 45k from Duff Charette. The flop came 5♦6♥7♠ and Alejandro shoved. Charette called with pocket aces and was ahead, but the K♠4♦ runout gave Alejandro another straight for another double and he’s back up to around 300k.

Meanwhile, the field has dropped by two with the exits of Steven Barber and Deven Lane.

Place	Player	Prize
15	Deven Lane	$925
16	Steven Barber	$773

They are down to the final two tables now with 16 players left. Nadir Aram is the chip leader with a bit more than 1.2 million in front of him while Youssef Hmama looks to be second with just shy of 1 million.

Recent Payouts (Full Prizes under Payouts Tab)

Place	Player	Prize
17	George Mounsef	$773
18	Greg Liow	$773
19	Todd “The Rock”	$773
20	Mohammad Feizi	$773
21	Trevor Simpson	$773
22	Shane Brotherwood	$773
23	Chao Lu	$773
24	Bash Ramahi	$661

The Day 2 players are a couple of minutes away from returning from dinner with 18 players left in the action. They’ll break down to the final two tables at 16, and the final table tonight will be nine-handed.

They are down to the final three tables in Day 2 of the Flip & Go with 24 players left in action (this game plays 8-handed). They’ll take a 45-minute dinner break following Level 10.

Recent Cashes

Place	Player	Prize
25	Daniel Bong	$661
26	Xioyi Wang	$661

They are down to 26 players left in Day 2 of the Flip & Go now with about 15 minutes to play in Level 8. Full prizes so far are under the Payouts tab with recent cashers below.

Place	Player	Prize
27	Michael Malm	$661
28	Kali Shuali	$661
29	Collin Miller	$661
30	Manfred Gunther	$661
31	Dongwoo(David) Ko	$661
32	Nicholas Andreas	$630
33	Marcio Kondo	$630
34	Yiming Nie	$630
35	Dj Sharma	$630
36	Ryan Cairns	$630

There are 36 players left in the Go stage of Event #13 on the first break of the day. There are five more payouts at $630 before it jumps to 661.

Recent Flip & Go Payouts

Place	Player	Prize
37	Mark Inglis	$630
38	Jeffrey Cormier	$630
39	Vikram Gill	$630
40	Yiquan Zhong	$630
41	Lap Duong	$630
42	Behnam Esfahanizedeh	$630
43	Nickolas Stewart	$630
44	Steven Mager	$630
45	John Scalise	$630
46	Michael Khan	$630
47	Zhi Lin	$630

They are down to 47 players left in Day 2 of the Flip & Go with less than 5 minutes to play in Level 3. See below for the payouts so far, and I should be catching some of the action soon!

Place	Player	Prize
48	Kelly Becker	$630
49	Wesley Peters	$630
50	Joshua Frazer-James	$630
51	Srinivas Gottiparthi	$630
52	Steven Filipovic	$630

The prizes are in and the top twp players today will pocket 5-figure scores. Prizes will be posted in the backend shortly but the summary of prizes is below. Two players are bringing in a double stack today with the other 50 all playing a single stack of 160k.

Flip & Go Prizes

Four days of Flip flights are in the books now with 52 players bagging chips in one of the Flip rounds. Two of those players, Elizabeth Bales and Behnam Ezfahanizadeh, managed to find two flip wins so they’ll bring 320k into Day 2 compared to 160k for the remaining 50 players. There are a couple of previous winners of this ring in the field this series — Duff Charette won it in Aug 2024 while David Ko won it in May 2024.

The Go stage is regular poker with 25-minute blinds starting at 1k/2k/2k and they’ll play their way down to a winner. I don’t have eyes on the prize payouts or the seating assignments for this one as it wasn’t complete by the end of Thursday night, but that should all be in the Chrome Room for the start of action at 2 PM on Friday. I’ll be following this one as my main focus on Friday until the ring is awarded.

Day 2 Players for Flip & Go