For the past week, the World Poker Tour has ensconced itself in the pleasant climes of the Playground Poker Club in Montreal, Canada. But it has not been a pleasure trip, at least for the WPT and its staff, and the tournament players participating in their events also have been working hard. Day 1A of the WPT Montreal is in the books and, after ten levels of competition, 36 players remain that will move along to Day 2 this weekend.
$2 Million Guaranteed Prize Pool
The first of the three-Day Ones was on tap for participants at the Playground on Thursday. The $3500 buy-in event, with unlimited reentries for players, was looking to best the $2 million (Canadian, roughly $1.47 million U. S.) guarantee placed on the tournament by the Playground and WPT officials. The players were facing a long day as ten, sixty-minute levels were on tap for the players as they looked to build the prize pool.
In the tournament poker world, the first action of a multiple Day One schedule is the smallest as players tentatively test the waters. On Day 1A, 127 entries were taken in, a bit of a slow start but one which should increase as Days 1B and 1C play out on Friday and Saturday, respectively. These numbers were not a concern for runners on the felt Thursday as they were there to build a stack.
The players had 50K in chips to work with at the start, and several players put those chips to work quickly. Baseem Nseir was locked up with Hagop Ketendjian on a J-6-5-6 flop and turn with a growing pot between them. A King completed the board and Ketendjian checked his option to Nseir, who fired off a bet of 12,500. Ketendjian looked at the board, which also presented three clubs for a flush potential, and made the call, which turned out to be the wrong decision; Nseir, in the cutoff, turned up a surprising 6-3 for turned trips, and Ketendjian sent a sizeable chunk of his stack over to Nseir.
Dinnertime!
By the time the dinner bell rang, some players had made substantive moves towards being around for the final table next week. Anthony Piacquadio was one of those players, sitting as the only player over the 300K mark with his 324,800 in chips. There were a couple of other challengers in Spencer Grigull (272,700) and Spencer McLean (231,300), but the remainder of the field was under the 200K level.
You do not win a poker tournament on Day One, and you certainly do not win it before dinnertime. Piacquadio would clash with Kevin DiPasquale on a K-Q-2-A-5 board after DiPasquale moved all in on the river. Pondering his fate – a call was for all his chips – Piaquadio decided that DiPasquale was bluffing on the three-heart board and called the bet. Piaquadio left the Playground immediately after making the call once DiPasquale showed pocket Aces, leading all the way in the hand turning an unnecessary set to scoop the over 300K pot.
There was only one player who was able to top Dipasquale on the Day 1A leaderboard. Dongwoo Ko was able to navigate the stormy Playground waters to hold 456,500 in chips, good for the lead at this mark of the tournament. Two more Day Ones remain to add in, but here are the Top Five of the thirty-six players who were able to survive Day 1A:
1. Dongwoo Ko, 456,500
2. Kevin DiPasquale, 364,500
3. Choon Pyo Chun, 310,000
4. Travis Stams, 303,500
5. Ko Maddock, 284,000
These players are happy with their position and will move on to Day 2 on Sunday, but players lower in the standings maintain the option of abandoning their stacks and taking another shot. Day 1B begins at 11 AM on Friday (and will substantially add to the prize pool) before Day 1C’s flood of participants takes the floor on Saturday. By the close of the late registration period, which is the start of play on Day Two on Sunday, we should know whether the $2 million guarantee has been met and the WPT Montreal (the tournament has not been played since 2019, when it crushed its guarantee) will then kick into finding its next champion.
(Photo courtesy of World Poker Tour)
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