There is a chance at history in Canada this afternoon. After a battle through a 648-entry field, Poker Hall of Famer and World Poker Tour announcer Mike Sexton will come to the final table of the partypoker.com WPT Montreal at the Playground Poker Club with the chip lead. Of the remaining five players, only Ema Zajmovic is within shooting distance of Sexton’s mountain of chips.
17 players came back for action on Wednesday in one of the most popular venues in Quebec if not Canada. The Playground Poker Club was teeming with action as partypoker qualifier Samuel Gagnon (3.35 million chips) held court over the Day 4 field. There was only one player within shouting distance of Gagnon at the start of the day, Benny Chen (2.065 million), and both of those men were bracketing the dealer on one table. On the second patch of felt, Zajmovic (2.14 million) was in command as Terry Schumacher (2.125 million) looked to keep her in check. For his part, the day didn’t look like it would be very lengthy for Sexton (530,000).
After simply surviving through the early part of the day, Sexton finally found a way to get back in the game. After a raise from Alex Keating to 65K in the hijack, Sexton popped him with an “all in over the top” raise for three-quarters of a million chips in the cutoff. After the rest of the field scattered, Keating made the call and tabled pocket tens, which held the preflop edge over Sexton’s Big Slick. The Ace came in the window, pushing Sexton to the lead, and once no ten appeared on the turn or river, the Poker Hall of Famer was up to 1.5 million.
This seemed to light a fire under the veteran professional as his stack only increased from that point onward. He dumped Martin Raus in 15th place, Keating in 13th place and Tam Ho in 12th place in making his way to the unofficial final table of 10 players with 2.875 million chips. It wasn’t Sexton who had the eyes of the railbirds on Wednesday afternoon, however.
About the same time Sexton was going on his run, Zajmovic was making some moves of her own. She decimated the stack of Robert McGhee when, on a J-10-2-5-5 board, she check-called her way to a monster pot when McGhee bluffed with a Q-3 against her 5-3 (trip fives). Now over three million in chips, Zajmovic continued to have fortune come her way when she went runner-runner to make a straight and eliminate Jason Mann after he flopped a set against her. By the time the unofficial final table was set, Zajmovic was on a 5.335 million stack and the chip leader in the event.
Both Zajmovic and Sexton would be formidable foes as the official six-handed WPT final table was determined. Although Zajmovic would maintain her stack while the field was cut from 10 to six (she was not afraid to put her chips into action, eliminating Antonin Duda in eighth place), Sexton was the beneficiary of a clash with Gagnon that would shoot him into the lead.
After Chen made a raise off the hijack, Gagnon moved his stack to the center off the button with only the blinds to get through. Sexton, however, simply called as he tried to entice Chen into the action. It didn’t work as Chen sent his cards to the muck and, after Gagnon and Sexton’s cards were on their backs, it was a definite cooler. Gagnon had a good hand in his pocket tens, but Sexton outpipped him with a pocket pair of Knaves (Jacks). Once the board came with neither of the two remaining tens, Sexton scooped up Gagnon’s chips, sending the partypoker qualifier to the rail as the television table “bubble boy” and ending the action for the night with Sexton in the lead.
Seat 1: Nadir Lalji, 1.52 million
Seat 2: Benny Chen, 2.48 million
Seat 3: Ilan Boujenah, 2.29 million
Seat 4: Mike Sexton, 6.215 million
Seat 5: Ema Zajmovic, 5.385 million
Seat 6: Jake Schwartz, 1.55 million
Although Sexton and Zajmovic have ample stacks, the challenges beneath them are many. Chen has shown himself to be quite difficult on the table and Schwartz just missed the final table at the WPT bestbet Jacksonville Bounty Scramble and ran deep at the WPT Maryland Live! Main Event in October. Boujenah, despite not having a major tournament championship, has over $1.5 million in career earnings since 2009 (thank you, Hendon Mob) and Lalji has cashes in tournaments from Hungary to Spain to Las Vegas.
The final table will start at 4PM and be taped for broadcast as a part of the Season XV schedule of the WPT on Fox Sports, but there will also be a live stream for those who can’t wait that long. The live stream will begin (on a 30-minute delay) at 4:30PM at WPT.com. Can Sexton capture a WPT title? Can Zajmovic make WPT history in becoming the first female champion on the Main Tour in the 15-year existence of the WPT? Or will there be another surprise from Montreal? All questions will be answered when it plays out this evening and a new champion is crowned in Quebec.
