It’s down to the penultimate day of the 2013 World Poker Tour Canadian Spring Championship at the Playground Poker Club in Montreal, with the final six players set to square off this afternoon to determine the last title on the WPT circuit before they head to the WPT Championship next week.
2013 World Series of Poker Asia/Pacific bracelet winner Bryan Piccioli headed the final 18 men who stepped to the felt on Wednesday for action. Piccioli, holding over 3.4 million in chips, faced some difficult competition, however, with Amir Babakhani only about 100K in chips behind him. Christian Harder, Ronnie Bardah and a prior champion on the Season XI WPT schedule, Ravi Raghavan, all were looking to take down the WSOP bracelet winner as the cards hit the air.
As action began, two stacks that were hovering in the middle of the pack decided to square off, with one player walking away from the fight tremendously weakened. After a raise from Danny Suied, Jason Duval pushed out a three bet from his position in the small blind. Holding position on Duval, Suied made the call and saw a K♥ 3♥ 2♥ flop. Duval didn’t slow down, opening the action for 116K, and Suied continued his aggressive pace also, raising it up to 370K. Duval pondered for a moment before announcing all-in and Suied made the call.
Once the cards were on their backs, Suied saw what looked like a great flop for him become tragic. Suied’s J♥ 9♥ had flopped a flush, but Duval crushed that by holding the nut flush with his A♥ Q♥. Nothing would reverse the situation of Duval winning the hand (short of a meteorite hitting the Playground) and, after the turn and river were ceremoniously dealt, Duval moved close to the two million chip mark while Suied crashed down under 200K.
For his part, Suied did not give up. As the players moved the stakes up to 15K/30K (5K ante), Suied would double up twice to get his stack healthy again. Meanwhile, Barry Kruger rivered a four (with his A-4) against Piccioli’s Big Slick to cut the chip leader down under the three million mark. The players would also send Stephane Alarie (18th at the hands of Harder) and Jaspal Brar (17th against Duval) towards the exit of the Playground.
Suied continued his rampage back from the short stack in eliminating Bardah in 16th place, his A-Q getting an unnecessary Q-Q-8 flop to crush Bardah’s suited K-9 to jump back over the million chip mark. After the departure of David Kostandoff and Raghavan (in 15th and 14th places, respectively), the field was down to 13 players within a couple hours of the start of Wednesday’s play.
Piccioli never could recover from the earlier tough break against Kruger as he bled chips from his stack. He doubled up Jonathan Bardier twice to suddenly find himself with half the stack he had started the day with, but got some of those back with the elimination of Allen Butkovic in 13th place. Piccioli also stemmed the steamroller that was Sueid, four-betting all in to push Suied off his hand (and drop him to 725K) to get his stack back up to 2.775 million.
The WSOP APAC bracelet winner would eventually work back to the lead (with 3.4 million in chips) before Harder began to make his moves. Harder would reach the four million mark first in the tournament as he took over the chip lead and then would bring the players down to the unofficial final table after he eliminated Josh Field in 11th place.
Rather than wait for the shorter stacks to battle it out, the leaders decided to mix it up once the unofficial final table began. Piccioli took two of the first five pots, with Harder picking up one also. As the table wore on, a new contender was working his way up the ladder in Babakhani after he eliminated Brian Beggs in 10th place after his pocket sixes outpipped Beggs’ pocket fives. Suied also would meet his demise at this time, at the hands of Piccioli, as the final eight men worked down to the official six-handed WPT final table.
With two more men to knock out, Harder attempted to go on the attack but instead only succeeded in losing chips. He had to fold on several occasions to moves from other players, slowly seeing his chip stack drop out of the first place slot. Duval moved up at this point to take over the chip lead, but Babakhani would make the big moves to end the day atop the table.
Babakhani would eliminate Piccioli in eighth place when his King kicker played over Piccioli after both players flopped a pair of tens. Babakhani would then finish off the day’s play when his pocket Queens dominated Harder’s pocket nines on an eight high board to eliminate Harder in seventh place and rocket Babakhani to the lead.
1. Amir Babakhani, 6.635 million
2. Barry Kruger, 4.77 million
3. Jason Duval, 4.155 million
4. Tao Liang, 3.87 million
5. Jonathan Bardier, 1.47 million
6. Martin Leblanc, 1.14 million
The final table of the WPT Canadian Spring Championship will play out this afternoon at 3PM (Eastern Time) and will be live streamed over the WPT website with coverage from Tony Dunst and Darryll Fish. Up for grabs for the final six will be a seat at the WPT Championship next week as well as the first place prize of $422,248.
