As they head into their final few events on the 2012 calendar, the World Poker Tour has landed in Montreal, Quebec, and the Playground Poker Club to battle it out for the latest WPT championship.
Making its first visit back to Canada since 2008, the WPT looks to have chosen the right venue and the right setup to make this visit “North of the Border” a record breaking experience for everyone involved. The Playground Poker Club has become “the” place to play in Montreal in its short existence and, with seating available for 500 players, the decision by the WPT to have two Day Ones should create a large field. In addition, the $3300 (Canadian) buy in – and the ability to buy back in again on Day 1B tomorrow should a player bust or not be happy with their Day 1A stack – should send the prize pool potentially over the $3 million mark (1000 players).
When the cards hit the air at noon today, there were already a host of contenders looking to make the WPT Montreal their next championship victory. Within the first two levels, 465 players had turned out for Day 1A and were still filing in as the late registration process continued on. This guaranteed that the WPT Montreal will become the biggest ever WPT event in Canada (504 showed up in 2007 for the North American Poker Championship in Niagara Falls at the Fallsview Casino Resort) and, with a bigger Day 1B turnout, may challenge for the largest ever tournament in Canadian poker history (1032 players entered a World Series of Poker Circuit event this year in Vancouver).
Looking to take a title on their home turf, such Canadian notables as Peter Jetten, Michael “SirWatts” Watson, Erik Cajelais, Daniel Negreanu, Jonathan Duhamel and Xuan Liu were arranged around the room against the “invading horde” of international players that included defending WPT Player of the Year Joe Serock, WPT champions Dominik Nitsche and Marvin Rettenmaier, Phil Laak, Antonio Esfandiari and Amanda Musumeci. By the time late registration ended, 478 players had made their way to the felt and the action could begin.
Although the players had a nice starting stack to open the event, there were casualties in the early going. Negreanu was one of those early departures, Tweeting his demise to his fans. “AJcc vs T7cc…lost,” Negreanu chirped. “QQ vs TT river 10 lost…last 22K AA vs JJ river J! Amazing!” Needless to say, Negreanu will be back again tomorrow to take another shot at the crown along with other Canadian pros such as Ahn Van Nguyen, Cajelais and Duhamel, who joined Negreanu on the rail this afternoon.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t some players who have been making their moves. Canadians Andre Boyer and Liu have been able to push up over their starting stacks, with Boyer more than doubling his starting stack at 70K in chips. Jason Koon has also been active, currently sitting on a decent 47K stack, while other players such as Andy Frankenberger, Allen Kessler, Tom Marchese and hockey legend Guy Carbonneau are all getting their feet wet as they work into the evening with approximately 366 of the original 478 players who started.
The action will continue throughout the weekend at the Playground Poker Club as the WPT looks for its latest champion. Day 1B will take place around noon tomorrow morning, with the survivors coming back on Day 2 on Sunday with the Day 1A players. Tuesday evening, the field will have been whittled to the final six players with a shot at not only the championship of the WPT Montreal, they will also get their name etched into the WPT Champions’ Cup and earn a sizeable six-figure payday for their efforts.