Before last week’s U.S. Presidential Election, there were some people in the States who said they would move to Canada if Donald Trump won. From the sounds of it, it seems that Trump himself kind of wants to run away, too, now that he realizes what the job entails. If some of those people who entertained thoughts of emigration were poker players, they have their chance to cross the border and stay this week, as the latest World Poker Tour Main Event, partypoker.net WPT Montreal, is well underway.
WPT Montreal had three Day 1 flights, starting on Friday. As expected, the flights sizes got progressively larger, with the total field finally topping out at 648 entries. Going into Monday’s Day 2, 274 players remain with Eric Afriat as the chip leader, holding 214,500 chips.
The buy-in for the Main Event was CAD $3,500 + 350 The winner will receive $317,896 and the top 81 players will make the money, the min-cash being $4,552. The prize pool is CAD $2,199,960, easily beating the $2,000,000 guarantee.
Perhaps interestingly, Afriat came out of Day 1A, smallest of the starting flights. Because there are more chips in play in larger flights, the early chip leaders often come from those flights, so Afriat bucked a trend. Afriat hails from Quebec and is currently 49th on the all-time Canadian live tournament money list with over $1.7 million in earnings, according to TheHendonMob.com. He is no stranger to life atop the World Poker tour leaderboard, as more than half of his winnings (about $1.1 million) came from a victory in the WPT Seminole Hard Rock Showdown championship event in 2014.
Day 2 is already underway at the Playground Poker Club in Montreal. The plan is to play nine one-hour levels before calling it a night.
2016 partypoker.net WPT Montreal – Day 1A Chip Leaders
1. Eric Afriat – 214,500
2. Thomas Boivin – 175,800
3. Richard Mask – 174,100
4. Daniel Le – 167,300
5. Francois Gobeil – 157,600
6. David Paredes – 151,000
7. Scott Montgomery – 149,000
8. Jeff Gross – 119,700
9. Andy Hwang – 106,700
10. Esther Taylor-Brady – 106,000
2016 partypoker.net WPT Montreal – Day 1B Chip Leaders
1. David Quang – 196,100
2. Mike Dentale – 187,300
3. Manig Loeser – 182,700
4. Senthuran Vijayaratnam – 182,100
5. Matt Salsberg – 174,400
6. Samuel Gagnon – 160,000
7. Adam Shannon – 160,000
8. Quy Dao – 148,900
9. Gennadiy Kostrov – 146,400
10. Ryan Rivers – 137,500
2016 partypoker.net WPT Montreal – Day 1C Chip Leaders
1. Daniel Maor – 179,700
2. Ivan Fazal Karim – 163,100
3. Matthew McDonough – 162,000
4. Shyam Srinivasan – 161,000
5. Dakota Vandine – 158,500
6. Jean-Philippe Binet – 158,300
7. Simon Charette – 157,300
8. Chris McClung – 156,900
9. Garrett Greer – 147,200
10. Brian Hastings – 141,700
2016 partypoker.net WPT Montreal – Combined Day 1 Chip Leaders
1. Eric Afriat – 214,500
2. David Quang – 196,100
3. Mike Dentale – 187,300
4. Manig Loeser – 182,700
5. Senthuran Vijayaratnam – 182,100
6. Daniel Maor – 179,700
7. Thomas Boivin – 175,800
8. Matt Salsberg – 174,400
9. Richard Mask – 174,100
10. Daniel Le – 167,300
