The first Day One of the World Poker Tour’s stop at the Playground Poker Club in Montreal, Canada, is in the books with a local man atop the standings and two former WPT champions hot on his heels.
The Playground was open for business on Friday and the players wasted little time in taking to the tournament floor. Naturally on their home turf, several popular Canadian players were a part of the Day 1A mix, including the defending champion of the tournament, Jonathan Roy, Shawn Buchanan, Will Molson, Charles Sylvestre, Erik Cajelais, 2013 World Series of Poker “November Niner” Marc-Etienne McLaughlin and former World Champion Jonathan Duhamel. These men were joined by a contingent of international pros that included Phillippe Ktorza, Kara Scott, Ludovic Lacay and Marvin Rettenmaier, while the U. S. was represented by Dan Kelly, Phil Laak and WPT Caribbean champion Tony Dunst (among others) as the cards hit the air on Friday.
With 30,000 chip stacks, the players were hesitant to get into any big clashes early on, but one stunning hand had the tournament room buzzing for quite some time. Doug Hartwick and Dean Murphy would get their chips to the center (with Hartwick at danger of elimination) after the board came monochrome with a 6♠ 7♠ 8♠. Murphy’s pocket eights looked good before Hartwick showed his 10♠ 9♠ for the flopped straight flush that had Murphy drawing dead. To make matters worse for Murphy, a six came on the turn to improve him to a boat and, on the river, the case eight would hit the felt to give him quads that were worthless. It was a hand that kept the Playground hopping as the early hours wore on.
By the time the late registration period had ended for Day1A, 215 players had laid down their $3500 entry fee for the action. Some of those slipping in before the late registration period ended were Vanessa Selbst, Marc Andre Ladouceur and current WPT Paris champion Mohsin Charania, who wasn’t exactly thrilled with his seat selection. “Just sat down at WPT Montreal,” he tweeted to his followers, “starting table is 10-handed with Eugene Katchalov and Antonio Esfandiari.” Charania might not have liked his table at that time, but he would actually do quite well through the run of the day.
Charania eliminated Esfandiari to almost double his initial stack, then would double that stack in taking down Yann Dion in a stunning hand. With both men in the blinds, Dion and Charania would min-raise back and forth before Dion finally got his chips to the center. Dion’s pocket Aces were in a dominant position over Charania’s pocket Queens and the J-9-J-K flop and turn provided some sweat equity for both players. The stunner was when the Queen came on the river, immediately rocketing Charania into the lead on the hand with a boat and knocking out Dion for the day.
Dion wasn’t lonely on the rail in Montreal as many other pros had taken the long walk prior to his dismissal. Kevin Stammen, Faraz Jaka, Mark Radoja, Guillaume Rivet, Jason Koon, Dan Cates, Shaun Deeb, Peter Jetten, Chris Moorman and Ladouceur all were knocked out during the Day 1A action, but they are probably going to take at least one more shot with the re-entry feature available for the WPT Montreal.
Charania held the lead for a bit before another WPT champion, Amir Babakhani, bypassed him later in the night (he was actually responsible for the elimination of Deeb). By the time the chips were bagged for the night, however, it was a local player who had rocketed ahead of them for the Day 1A chip lead.
1. Sebastien Drolet-Poitras, 270,800
2. Mohsin Charania, 186,300
3. Amir Babakhani, 185,100
4. Ryan Franklin, 155,000
5. Jason Bokor, 151,300
6. Daniel Dvoress, 148,400
7. Yannick Gauthier, 136,500
8. Marc-Oliver Carpentier-Perrault, 132,000
9. Ludovic Lacay, 129,800
10. Josue Sauvageau, 128,800
Day 1B is set to kick off this afternoon and it is expected that the field size will be nearly twice the size of the Day 1A combatants. Players are still flooding into Montreal for the tournament and there are rumblings that this event could break the all-time WPT record for largest tournament by entries by the time the late registration period closes during Sunday night’s Day 1C play.
Correction to the straight flush on Day 1A, the flop came 6d 7s 8s, I flopped a straight and Murphy flopped a set of sixes. All the money went in on the flop and the turn brought the 6 of spades giving Murphy quads and me the straight flush.