It’s not like they haven’t been busy lately but, since a weekend is approaching, the World Poker Tour has decided it has to have a tournament running! The action this weekend is in Montreal, Canada, at the Playground Poker Club as the WPT National Canadian Spring Poker Championship completed its first of three Day Ones on Thursday.
With its $1000 (Canadian) buy in, this tournament is looking as though it will shatter its $1 million prize pool guarantee, which should bring out several top pros even though the WPT cameras will not be on hand to record the final table. Such Canadian pros as Mike Leah and Xuan Liu were on hand for the start of festivities and Poker Hall of Famer and WPT announcer Mike Sexton and WPT champion Tony Dunst carried the flag for the United States. Although 140 players were on hand for the first cards dealt, it was expected that the field would grow much bigger through late registration.
From the start of action, Liu looked to be in great form. Early in the afternoon, Liu would three bet an opponent and, after a call, saw a 9-9-4 flop. Liu would get check-called by her foe and a King came out on the turn. The opponent this time decided to fire in an attempt to force Liu off her hand but she instead simply made the call. A seven on the river bought another bet out of Liu’s opponent and Liu once again simply chose to call. It turned out to be the right move as Liu’s K-5 was ahead the entire way over her opponent’s complete air with a Q-J. That hand pushed her stack to more than double the 30K starting level.
By the time the late registration wrapped up at the conclusion of Level 6, 219 players had entered the Day 1A fray, but there wasn’t good news for several of the pros who decided to take their (likely) first shot. Jonathan Driscoll headed to the rail just more than two hours after the “shuffle up and deal” call and he was joined through the afternoon and evening by Jean-Sebastien Dubois, Antonio Esfandiari, Erik Cajelais, Gavin Smith, Sexton and Leah.
Making the most of his Day 1A efforts (and securing a couple of days off before playing Day 2) was Eric Davis, who flew under the radar for most of the day even with a mountainous chip stack. Davis would finish off play on Thursday night holding onto 276,300 in chips, good for the lead over the 62 players who survived the carnage. Davis wasn’t the only player over the 200K threshold, however; he was joined by Andre Turcotte (267,800), Boyd O’Neill (241,100), Mark Wilson and Nicholas Aubin (both holding 216,700 each). Dunst will be able to relax for a couple of days with his 155K in chips, while Liu may be taking another shot as she finished Thursday with roughly 87K in chips.
The WPT Canadian Spring Poker Championship could be one of the largest events ever in WPT history. With the three starting days, the opportunity for players who bust on a previous Day 1 to reenter on a subsequent Day 1 (or, if not happy with their chip stack, to enter again and try to build a bigger one…only a player’s largest stack would go on to Day 2) and its inexpensive buy-in, the numbers may top the 862 entries that came to the felt in November the last time the WPT visited Canada. It will have to go a long way to top the 1173 entries that the very first visit by the WPT to the Playground Poker Club brought, however, but the thirst by Canadians for poker should be slaked by the WPT Canadian Spring Poker Championship through the weekend.