World Poker Tour (WPT) Montreal has reached the end of its three starting flights after Sylvian Siebert ended on top of a rather impressive Day 1C pile, but it’s Sebastien Drolet-Poitras who leads the tournament proper as the action moves into Day 2.
The creation of the re-entry format means that in modern poker tournaments the serious stuff doesn’t really begin until the starting flights have been banished into the memory banks of nobody who cares.
Three of those days have now been forgotten and the final excerpt saw 339 Day 1C entrants create a total field size of 862 players, and the local lad Sylvain Siebert ended the final starting flight as the chip leader bagging and tagging 230,500 chips.
The final field size is a lot lower than the 1,173 entrants that enjoyed this experience one year ago today, but remains one of the largest fields in the WPT Season XII calendar.
There were a lot of big names taking advantage of the re-entry clause and unfortunately, Day 2 will be a lot weaker as a result of a plethora of high profile eliminations.
LA Poker Classic winner Paul Klann was eliminated on a board of [Ks] [Qc] [Td] [8d] [Qs]. The action checked the to the LA Poker Classic winner who bet 1,650. His opponent check-raised to 3,300, Klann moved all-in for 13,650 and his opponent called. Klann flipped over [Ad] [Jd] for Broadway, but his opponent showed [Qh] [8h] for the full house.
Other WPT Champions Club member’s who failed to make the cut included Marvin Rettenmaier, Anthony Zinno, and Matt Giannetti. The most recent champion, Jared Jaffee, joined that group when he ran pocket kings into pocket aces in the sixth level of play.
Christian Harder exited in the exact same way in a hand against Michael Spano, and Trishelle Cannatella saw her aces cracked before losing a flip TT<AK to exit in the fourth level of play. Liv Boeree and Maria Ho two other high profile ladies to fail to make it through the day.
Shaun Deeb was ousted when his straight was pipped on the river by a full house, and the former WPT Ones to Watch Ebony Kenney lost her tournament life when AK failed to beat 44 when the baby pair held up. Current WPT Ones to Watch Danny Suied also failed to make the grade, although Aaron Massey did make it through with 58,100.
It was a bad day at the office for former WPT Players of the Year with Season VIII winner Faraz Jaka biting the dust, and Season IX winner Andy Frankenberger doing likewise KK<AQ and then exiting 99<JJ. WPT Ambassador Mike Sexton also failed to find his way through the throng.
Notable players who did it through to Day 2 included Lily Kiletto (196,400), last year’s runner-up Pascal LeFrancois (142,000) and WPT Champions Club members Mike Linster (100,700), Gavin Smith (66,400), Will Failla (62,500), Giacomo Fundaro (47,000) and Noah Schwartz (33,000).
Day Two will begin at Noon local time.
The Day 1A recap can be read right here.
The Day 1B recap can be read right here.
