It was another quick day of play during Day 4 of the World Poker Tour stop at the Playground Poker Club in Montreal yesterday as the field quickly whittled its way down from the final 18 to the official WPT six-handed final table.
At the start of play on Wednesday, Sylvain Siebert was atop the standings with his 2.947 million in chips, but the lead was a tenuous one. Derrick Rosenbarger was only about 75,000 chips behind him and, joining them in the two million chip club were Mukul Pahuja, Antoine Berube and Alexandre Lavigne. There were also some familiar faces such as Jonathan Little, Griffin Benger, Lily Kiletto and Ludovic Lacay still in contention for the championship.
Siebert would lose the lead within the first few hands of the day after clashing with Lavigne and not being able to top his four flush that Lavigne reached on the river. After chopping a hand with Little (with Little turning a straight before the river gave both players the same hand), Siebert would see more of his chips disappear into the stack of Berube after he couldn’t muster a river call of a Berube all-in. Down to around 1.3 million at this point, Siebert didn’t give up the fight, however.
Siebert would take down Little in 17th place when his K-J played over Little’s K-9 on an eight high board, then would double back through Berube in a hand that saw plenty of swings. After calling a Berube three-bet pre-flop, the 8-J-6 rainbow flop saw Siebert check-raise all in over Berube, who made the call and tabled an A-J for top pair to lead Siebert’s Q-10 (gut shot straight draw). A ten on the turn opened up a few more outs for Siebert, which stunningly came home with the Queen on the river. Nailing his runner-runner two pair, Siebert suddenly was healthy once again with 2.6 million chips and Berube dropped to 2.4 million.
As the sun began to descend on the Playground, Siebert would continue his rebirth to the top of the standings. After a flop of Q-8-7, Siebert bet out and Benger made the call, but Lavigne got out of the three way action. A five on the turn brought checks from both players and, after an Ace on the river, the fireworks started. Siebert bet 505K in chips and Benger immediately popped him back all in. Siebert calmly made the call and tabled his pocket Aces for a rivered set against Benger’s pocket sevens that had flopped a set. Benger, out in 11th place, headed for the exits quickly following that hand while Siebert and his 4.23 million chips were back in the lead.
The final ten players settled into a table to knock off four more players to reach the WPT final table and the pace slowed down a bit. It would take 34 hands before Pahuja knocked off Berube in tenth place to take over the chip lead but, five hands later, Siebert would fight back by eliminating Lacay in ninth and, once he sent Amir Babakhani home from the tournament in seventh place, the final table was set for today’s action.
1. Sylvain Siebert, 8.435 million
2. Serge Cantin, 6.96 million
3. Mukul Pahuja, 5.945 million
4. Alexandre Lavigne, 2.15 million
5. Derrick Rosenbarger, 1.985 million
6. Lily Kiletto, 370,000
It looks like there will be some quick action at this final table before it settles into a long grind in determining a champion. Even though she has some WPT final table experience under her belt, Kiletto is going to have to push almost immediately at the final table to try to build a viable stack. Rosenbarger and Lavigne also have their work cut out for them if they are to take this WPT crown. Siebert has had a great run over the past few days, but Cantin and Pahuja (also a former WPT final tablist) have been the steadiest players.
When the action resumes at 4PM (Eastern Time), the WPT cameras will be on hand to record the proceedings for broadcast in 2014. For those of us that can’t wait that long to see what happened, the WPT Live Stream will begin at 4:30PM with WPT Caribbean champion Tony Dunst and a host of top professionals providing the commentary.
