LIVE EVENTS

The WPT500 will crown a champion this afternoon. What began with 13 starting flights and 2,135 entries is now down to the final nine players. Yesterday’s Day 2 saw 303 players return from their respective starting flights for a day full of wild action that brought the field down to the final table.

As the players get set for today’s action, there are hundreds of thousands in cash on the line, as well as the elusive goal of becoming a WPT event champion. The remaining players each played world-class poker to make it this far and are sure to bring their A game this afternoon.

When the action resumes at 12:00pm, the players will be seated according to the following table. Good luck to all!

Day 2 in the WPT500 was a relatively quick affair, considering the field had to funnel from 303 Day 2 runners to the select club of final table participants. In just under 11 hours, the final table crowd was decided, and Day 2 survivors were placing their belongings in the bags.

Rodney Ramalho – one of two Day 3 qualifiers enjoying a 8-figure stack – is part of that crew, having ruled over his table during hand-for-hand play at 21 players, and pretty much every time the tables were getting short, prior to a table break. Stéphane Nadeau has the other 7-figure stack. He orchestrated a few of the last busts and passed Ramalho on the leaderboard in the last moments.

Day 3 will also see Shawn Buchanan come back to the tables. Buchanan is a vastly experienced player from Vancouver with almost $7M in lifetime earnings. He will surely be a force in tomorrow’s final day.

Alexandre Lajoie missed Day 3 by a single position. He went all-in with a rather short stack after Bradley Smith raised from the under-the-gun position. His could not overcome Bradley’s , and that hand sealed Day 2.

All remaining players have proved that they belong in tomorrow’s final act, which promises to be quite a show. Action resumes at 12:00pm sharp. We will be here to provide close coverage as the eliminations happen, all the way to the crowning of our 2019 WPT500 Montreal Champion!

Congratulations to all Day 3 qualifiers! Here is tomorrow’s seating assignment with counts, followed by all the qualifiers’ photos:

After hand-for-hand play was over, a few eliminations quickly led to the formation of the final two tables with a full redraw, allowing our players to stretch their legs. All will find a new dynamic and will need to reassess their approach. Here is the seating assignment:

Hand-for-hand play has been effective for 8 hands, which represent the last 16 minutes on the the tournament clock. Rodney Ramalho, a local player with a lot of experience and some real success in the last couple of years, took advantage of the big pay jump ahead and has been leaning on less wealthy opponents.

His lead is massive, and he can only hope that the field will remain 21-strong for a long time ahead. Here’s our current top 4:

*As we were writing these lines, two players busted on different tables on the first hand after the break. Congratulations to all 19 remaining players on their Main Event seat!

Eliminations happen at a frantic pace in Day 2 of the WPT500. The average stack, recently at about 20 big blinds, is now at about 27 big blinds after a flock of bust outs. Players that are on the lower end of the board have been taking chances in order to gain some momentum and recover their ability to play post-flop. In the last few minutes, the pace slowed way down, mainly because we are approaching the magic number of 20 players. Most players have on their mind the following particularity of the prize pool: the top 20, on top of their cash prize, win a $3,300 seat for the WPT Montreal Main Event!

Here is one of many recent showdowns, a hand that had Duff Charette and Robert Greenberg go to flop with opened hole cards.

Charette:
Greenberg:

Board:

Charette was at risk and immediately stood when the flop was revealed. Greenberg, who was already doing well, may very well be our new chip leader after orchestrating this elimination.

When the field drops to 21 players, the event will move to hand-for-hand play, which only makes sense considering that the pay jump at that point will be of $4,500.

Stéphane Nadeau, who started the day with 236,000 chips, was nowhere to be seen in any of our leaderboards so far, but the last stint has been amazing for him. How amazing? He is now comfortably sitting in the driver’s seat of the WPT500, the only player above the 5M mark. Alexandre Lajoie, who is also new at the top, follows as the clear second in chips.

Here the updated top 10:

Play has just resumed in level 24, following the latest break in the action. The fast pace to this flight has brought down the number of remaining players faster than anyone anticipated, leaving 92 players in contention from the 303 who started the day after nearly five hours of play.

The current chip leader is Michael Pitcher, who went on a tear in the lead up to the last break to bring his stack close to the 2-million mark, giving him roughly 76 big blinds. Former chip leader Jishant Sapra has continued his winning ways, nearly keeping pace with Pitcher, to now rank second on the leaderboard. The current chip average provides just over 28 big blinds.

As the timer winds down on level 23, roughly a third of the players who started the day are still in contention. It was a wild start this afternoon, as the players took a “boom-or-bust” approach to the early levels, having already secured a cash from this event. It was a trend that did not waiver, even after some small pay jumps. But now that the stacks are significantly deeper, expect a slower tournament grind from here until the end of play today.

Here is a look at the action from level 22:

Although everyone involved in this flight has made the money, rest assured that few will be satisfied short of a major score than only the final table can provide.

The prize pool for the WPT500 also includes $3,000 + $300 Main Event seats for the top 20 finishers. The cash payouts will be awarded according to the following table.

There was no shortage of action in the early levels, as the short stacks took their chances to try to set up a deep run. Many of the big stacks in the field capitalized on these dynamics to add even more chips to their already significant holdings.

Jishant Sapra emerged as the early chip leader. Sapra brought forward a lot of chips from his starting flight, but he was able to get out ahead of the pack thanks to a heroic call for his tournament life. Sapra tangled with Wai Kit Ngai, another player who brought forward a big stack from his starting flight, in a huge pot where Sapra found the nerve to call off his stack on the turn with third pair when facing an all-in raise from Ngai. Ngai had turned a flush draw, that bricked out, and Sapra’s third pair was good enough to take down the monster pot.

The remaining players in the WPT500 have already secured a cash from this event so it comes as no surprise that everyone came out firing this afternoon. Until the field gets down to double digits, the payout structure is relatively flat so all the players still in contention are taking a very aggressive approach in the early levels of play.

The frenetic pace will likely slow later this afternoon but until then the chips will continue to fly.

Here is a look at the action from level 18:

The WPT500, first event in the WPT Montreal festival, resumes today with all Day 2 qualifiers merging into a single huge field of 303 players, gathered from 13 starting flights including online and live. All these players will play a long day of poker as Day 2 will only come to a halt once the 9-handed final table is reached.

The field is led by Mathyeu Provost (pictured below) who ended Day 1A with a whopping 716,000 chips. All Day 2 participants will play 30-minute levels until they are left with no chips or make it to the final 9. Play resumes at blinds 2K/4K/a4K, which is the earliest ending time of all starting flights. We will post leaderboard updates, photos, and maybe an occasional hand… stay tuned!