Event #4 Champion: Joseph Roberts

It was a grueling day of poker today. The action was not always on full throttle, but it was definitely intense. The tournament started with only 50 or so entries, but within minutes, that number had doubled. And it doubled again before the end of the late registrations. No less than 191 entries made their way to the felts, including 33 re-entries.

The action came and went, and at no point was there a clear and massive chip leader. Early on, Carla Sabini jumped ahead of the pack, but was soon replaced by Lino Agostini, who was barely ahead of the rest of the players. At this point, the action froze as all the players were quickly realizing that the blinds were eating away at their stacks and they would have to make some bold moves, and soon.

Halfway through the tournament, a lucky hand propelled Ken Ransom to the top of the hill before Yanick Dupuis dethroned him to grab the top slot on the leader board. No sooner had the bubble burst that the eliminations started happening at a frantic pace. This lead to a quick and intense reduction of the field. Before long only two table were left and the pressure on the short stacks continued to climb.

The final table was set and after the elimination of René Gauvin, an ICM chop was agreed on. That’s where the action got crazy. One after the other, all the players fell within minutes of each other. During that time, Joseph Roberts was on a golden streak of poker, to say the least. In no time at all, Charles Gravel and Joseph Roberts, behind a monster-stack of epic proportions, found themselves heads up.

It lasted one hand. Gravel shoved, Roberts, holding about 90-95% of the chips, called, blind. Now Gravel had a great hand; and this was sure to be the beginning of a good thing: :Qdh. Roberts flipped over his hand: and Gravel was feeling pretty good. The flop fell in harmony to Roberts winning streak: . Roberts flopped a straight and the rest is history. The on the turn and the on the river were a formality. The tournament was over.