What happened at Playground Poker Club, in order.
Dated facts, in order. First-person throughout. Direct quotes from operator personnel are attributed by role. Every sent email on this timeline links to its captured copy in the correspondence archive. Opinions, where offered, are flagged as opinion.
Timeline of events
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Foundational patron from day one
Playground Poker Club opens in Kahnawà:ke. I begin playing there shortly after opening. Over the fourteen years that follow, I log more than one hundred thousand Canadian dollars in documented combined poker buy-ins and slot-machine play across cash games, tournaments, and the slot floor — as a losing player overall. A long-standing Player Card on file at the venue throughout. The venue's own system had me in its VIP program and I was on friendly terms with the host team.
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The waitress incident, in the smoking room
I am in the smoking room, on the slot floor. A host from Playground's VIP program — a staff member I am on friendly terms with — has recommended a specific dish for me to try. A waitress tells me that the dish is not available. I say — calmly — that I will step out and clarify with the host who had just recommended it. She takes offense, asserts that she knows what is on the menu, and as she walks away, unprompted, says:
"You're a joke!"
Other patrons in the smoking room visibly react; several express that her conduct is out of line. I do not raise my voice at any point. I do not use profanity.
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First written outreach — the C-suite escalation request
Sunday afternoon. I email [email protected] under the subject "Urgent: Seeking Executive Intervention for Unresolved Concerns at Playground Poker." The body of the message requests, verbatim, that the matter be escalated to "the appropriate executive level, ideally including the CEO or a suitable senior leadership representative." This email is the documentary anchor of the entire escalation — the formal written request that everything else responds to or fails to respond to.
"I respectfully request that this message be escalated to the appropriate executive level, ideally including the CEO or a suitable senior leadership representative."
2024-03-24 · [email protected] -
The heated phone call with the poker manager on staff
[email protected] is monitored by Playground's poker room department. In practice, this means that a request for executive escalation sent to the venue's general customer-service address was routed — structurally — to the very department the complaint had no connection to. In response to that email, the poker manager on staff phones me. The call is heated. Her position throughout is that there is no escalation path beyond her, grounded in her years of tenure at the venue. I argue two things, in order. First, that no manager in any organization is structurally the final escalation point; every manager has a supervisor. Second, that a smoking-room food-service incident is not a poker matter, so her department is not the correct department to handle it in the first place. She holds her position. I do not use profanity at any point during the call.
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I keep playing. There is still no ban.
The heated phone call ends without resolution or escalation. I am still a patron. I continue to visit the venue normally in the days that follow. At no point am I told that my access is being suspended, placed under review, or otherwise affected.
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Escalation to four named executives, bypassing info@
Because the poker room's monitored inbox had answered my escalation request itself instead of forwarding it, I now write directly to named executives to bypass that inbox and reach senior leadership by name. Over four hours on a single Thursday afternoon, I send the same substantive request to Nick Montanaro + Andrea Read (17:53), Nicolas Quevillon (17:56), and Mackenzie Kirby (18:01). The last message is labeled "LAST WRITTEN" in my own subject line — at that point I still expected at least an acknowledgement.
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One unsolicited phone call, no extension
I receive a single phone call from Andrew Johnson of Playground. No extension is left for a callback. No written follow-up ever arrives. I email him the same day — "Attempted to Return Your Call" — noting that he did not leave me with an extension. No reply.
2024-03-29 · [email protected] -
"Critical Reflection on Organizational Direction and Culture"
I send a second substantive email to the executive team. I reference "direct confrontations by employees in front of patrons" — the contemporaneous characterization of the waitress's witnessed conduct, written in the moment. I draw a direct contrast between the access I once had to senior leadership at other organizations — including a two-hour conversation with Edward Joseph Shoen, then CEO of AMERCO — and Playground's executive team's apparent unwillingness to engage with a patron on a documented issue. No response on the merits follows.
2024-03-30 · Playground executive team -
I keep visiting. I keep playing. I am still a patron.
Through April and May 2024 I continue to visit Playground and play normally. My player card functions. Staff treat me as any other patron. None of the ten named executives respond in writing to the March campaign, but I have no way of knowing that their silence means anything — because from my position on the floor, nothing has changed.
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I stop attending the venue. No communication from Playground.
After my April / May 2024 visits I stop attending Playground for a period of several months, for personal scheduling reasons — not because Playground has communicated anything to me. During this period Playground makes no contact of any kind. No phone call. No letter. No email. No notice. And — crucially, as I only learn months later — at some point during this window a ban note is silently placed on my player card.
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I return to play poker. This is the morning I discover the ban.
I decide to return to Playground for a planned poker session. I drive approximately two hours from home, arriving at approximately 6 AM. As is typical for a regular patron arriving at the venue, the first thing I do is put my player card into a slot machine to check whether any freeplay credits have been loaded to my account since my last visit. The card will not read. I walk to the front desk. A clerk looks at her screen and, without sharing any information with me, summons a manager on duty. A male manager arrives — a familiar face, someone I have dealt with in the past and who has in the past extended me a goodwill gesture as a regular patron. He tells me my card is locked and that I am no longer welcome on the property. He escorts me from the premises courteously, but firmly. I press him for any information. After repeated pressing, the only piece of information he is willing to share with me is a brief note on my file, which he reads to me as:
"a note that a Poker Manager Placed the Note."
That is the entire cause-attribution I have ever received from Playground for my exclusion. No rule cited. No incident described. No documentation referenced. I drive approximately two hours back home. Within three hours of arriving home I have written to Playground (Fw: to [email protected] at 9:07 AM) and to the WPT executive team (Re: to Pliska, Polgreen, and Hael at 9:35 AM) describing the morning's events. Both of those preserved October 5, 2024 emails open with the phrase "I have recently been banned" — contemporaneous evidence that the ban discovery was the morning of October 5, 2024, not months earlier.
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Escalation to the World Poker Tour — "recently been banned"
I email Adam Pliska (President/CEO), David Polgreen, and Angelica Hael at WPT, CCing ten named Playground executives. I describe myself in the email as "recently been banned" — written the same morning, within three hours of arriving home from the venue. I reference the comparative standard for "rude behavior" in poker, specifically naming the publicly-documented outbursts of prominent professionals such as Phil Hellmuth, as an observation about consistency of enforcement at sanctioned partner venues.
2024-10-05 · [email protected] et al. -
Warren Woodall added; thread goes silent
The following morning I add Warren Woodall (VP of Partnerships at WPT) to the thread after realising the earlier oversight. This is the last email of the 2024 campaign. The WPT executives named on this thread do not acknowledge receipt.
2024-10-06 · WPT + Playground executives -
Silence. And continuing exclusion.
Through all of 2025, the ban remains in force. No contact from Playground. No contact from WPT. The WPT Global Summer Million runs at Playground Montréal in July–August 2025 — I am excluded from a major sanctioned event at the partner venue. The rudeban.com domain lapses during the year.
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WPT Global Winter Classic at Playground Montréal
Fifteen days of WPT-sanctioned events at Playground Poker Club, the venue from which I remain banned without written cause, nearly two years after the original incident. Excluded.
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Domain re-acquired. Site re-launched. Three final written requests sent.
I re-acquire rudeban.com, stand up the site, and send three substantive emails within a two-minute window on the same morning: (1) a final written request to Playground (Mackenzie Kirby and nine other named executives) with a 10-business-day response deadline; (2) a follow-up to the four named WPT executives referencing the October 2024 non-response and the accessibility implications of the upcoming WSOP Circuit at Playground; and (3) a formal complaint to the Kahnawà:ke Gaming Commission (see the glossary entry), invoking the continuing-harm doctrine to address the six-month filing window of the KGC complaint process and asking the Commission to review the absence of any written cause or review mechanism. All three are preserved as authoritative `.eml` exports from my Outlook Sent Items, readable in the correspondence archive.
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Response deadline for the final written request
Ten business days from 2026-04-14. The date passed with no written response on the merits from Playground. On the same day the Commission replied substantively, relaying the licensee's position that the access status was a temporary restriction to be resolved through a conversation.
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The licensee writes directly for the first time: a call is offered
Two days after the Commission relayed that my access was "temporarily restricted so they can speak with you and resolve the issue," Playground's Chief Compliance Officer wrote to acknowledge receipt and to propose a call. The reply did not address any of the items I had asked to have put in writing. I accepted a call in principle the same day and proposed three afternoon windows in the week of 5 to 8 May.
2026-04-30 · Playground Chief Compliance Officer → patron -
Formal written disclosure on the legal effect of the exclusion
Sent to the licensee with the Commission copied. It stated that the absence of a substantive response within ten business days would lead to formal recourse. No scheduling response arrived for any of the three proposed dates; the proposed week passed without a meeting; the ten-business-day period lapsed on or about 2026-05-15 with no substantive response.
2026-05-01 · patron → Playground, cc Kahnawà:ke Gaming Commission -
WSOP Circuit at Playground
Sixteen days of sanctioned World Series of Poker Circuit events at the venue, run with the restriction still in force and the offered conversation still unscheduled. Excluded throughout. The second sanctioned series at the venue I was excluded from in 2026.
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WSOP Super Circuit Canada at Playground
Eighteen days of World Series of Poker Super Circuit events at the venue, as published on the WSOP schedule. Four and a half months after the licensee told the Commission that the restriction was temporary and would be resolved through a conversation, no conversation had taken place. Excluded throughout. The third sanctioned series at the venue I was excluded from in 2026.
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Two letters: access request to the licensee, file update to the Commission
A request for access to the personal information held on my player account, addressed to the person Playground's privacy policy names as responsible for personal information, under the Quebec private-sector privacy act and PIPEDA, with a thirty-day statutory reply period. And an update to the Commission on the existing complaint file, the licensee copied: the conversation described on 2026-04-28 never took place; three questions under the Commission's Poker Room Regulations on whether the ban was reported and reviewed; a request for a written yes or no on access for the WSOP Circuit beginning 2 November 2026; and two proposed dates for the conversation, no conditions attached. Both preserved in the correspondence archive.
2026-09-13 · patron → Playground privacy officer; patron → Kahnawà:ke Gaming Commission, cc Playground -
Record verified: silence continues
As of this update, no communication of any kind has been received from the licensee, from the World Poker Tour, or from the Commission since the Commission's 2026-04-28 reply and the licensee's 2026-04-30 call offer. The single offer of a conversation was never followed by a scheduled conversation, by a written answer to any cause-related item, or by a documented review mechanism. Cause, scope, and process remain undocumented in writing.