Poker News

It was a quick day at the World Poker Tour (WPT) Montreal Main Event Monday – an unusual occurrence in a major tournament – as the field was whittled down to just 18 players from the 49 that began Day 3. Jonathan Jaffe emerged as the chip leader with 2.5 million chips, one of four players to end the day with at least 2 million.

Jaffe had been doing well for a while, but was able to eliminate a couple opponents late to make his run to the top of the leaderboard. He picked up 169,000 from Danny Suied with A-Q over K-T all-in pre-flop and then in an unlikely hand, grabbed another 174,000 when he eliminated Jie Gao in 19th place. In that hand, Gao was all-in pre-flop with A-K, likely thrilled to see Jaffe turn over A♠-K after he called. Chopped pot, right? Wrong. The board ran out J♣-T♠-4♠-K♠-J♠ to give Jaffe the unexpected flush and send Gao to the rail in heart breaking fashion.

Jonathan Jaffe has never a major live tournament, but he has had plenty of success in them. Some of the highlights include a runner-up finish in the 2008 WPT World Poker Finals, a fourth place finish in the 2008 WSOP $10,000 Heads-Up No-Limit Hold’em event, and a 42nd place finish in last year’s World Series of Poker Main Event. One other accomplishment that may be interesting to note is that while these are not considered “major” events, Jaffe has won a preliminary event at the Foxwoods World Poker Finals in three of the past four years.

There are not a ton of “big names” left in the WPT Montreal Main Event (then again, with only 18 players remaining, there probably would not be), but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some interesting things going on. Maduka Meragal, the chip leader going into Day 3, is still lurking in fifth place and, according to TheHendonMob.com, has no live tournament cashes. He does now. Marc-Andre Ladouceur (third place) and Samuel Chartier (tenth) are both Montreal locals, so they should be in for some fun times the rest of the way. And Mukul Pahuja, currently sitting in sixth place, is looking to make the WPT Montreal Main Event final table for the second year in a row.

Play will resume at noon ET on Tuesday as the final three tables get narrowed to just one.

2014 World Poker Tour Montreal Main Event – Day 3 Chip Counts

1.    Jonathan Jaffe – 2,500,000
2.    Ratharam Sivagnanam – 2,380,000
3.    Marc-Andre Ladouceur – 2,066,000
4.    Guillaume Nolet – 2,000,000
5.    Maduka Meragal – 1,821,000
6.    Mukul Pahuja – 1,782,000
7.    Edward Hislop – 1,671,000
8.    Lonnie Hallett – 1,440,000
9.    Sheraz Nasir – 1,072,000
10.    Samuel Chartier – 863,000
11.    Jeffrey Mulder – 719,000
12.    Phillip Hui – 691,000
13.    Maurice Hawkins – 614,000
14.    Kevin MacPhee – 554,000
15.    Phong Truong – 492,000
16.    Edward Arnold – 470,000
17.    Alexandre Blanc – 367,000
18.    Jeremie Damret – 364,000

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