The 44 players left in the WPT Canadian Spring Championship are seated at their tables, they’ve stacked their chips and everyone is ready to go. The clock will start in a few minutes and we expect the action to heat up quickly. There’s a minimum prize for all remaining participants of $10,142.00 but no one left in the event will be satisfied with that – after all, the top prize is over $270K plus the one-of-a-kind Championship belt!

The tournament is scheduled to play down to 18 players today, but since there are only 44 players starting the day this schedule may be slightly modified – we’ll post word when we have a definitive answer. Blinds are 6K/12K/a2K and blind levels are now 90 minutes long.

When Event 8 got started at 7pm on Monday evening there were around 20 players who bought in immediately and were seated as level 1 began. There were a mix of players – well-known poker pros like Players Club members Gavin Smith and Phil Laak, local pros like Players Club member Christopher McClung and Pascal Lefrancois, and players who had been at the Spring Classic since the beginning and had played multiple events at various buy-in levels (i.e., Danny Boyaci and David Ormsby).

Throughout the evening players continued to jump in, joining the talented field and forcing some early table additions and a lot of “balancing up” as tables were added until eventually there were 52 total players representing a wide cross-section of poker talent. Players Club member and WPT Montreal third-place finisher Jeff Gross joined as soon as he was eliminated from the WPT Canadian Spring Championship, as did Shannon Shorr (who min-cashed the main event) and Tyler Reiman (the unfortunate bubble player in the WPT event).

Eventually the field reached 53 runners who played through 7 hour-long levels on Day 1. Of these 52, 29 remain in the tournament to return for Day 2 at 4pm today.

Day 2 of the WPT started at 295 and played down through the bubble all the way to 44 players remaining. Tomorrow action starts at 11am when the 44 who remain will play down to 18.

Here are the seating assignments and chip counts to start Day 3.

Some more players eliminated at the end of the day:

• 45th place: Ryan Echum, $10,142.00
• 46th place: Benoit Forcier $8,663.00
• 47th place: David Barter, $8,663.00
• 48th place: Armah Attoh, $8,663.00

The High Roller event (Event 8) is up to 50 players with three more levels of late registration still available. We just posted some photos on Facebook so go take a look!

The TD has just announced that all tables will play three more hands and then Day 2 of the WPT Canadian Spring Championship will be over.

Chip counts and table draws for Day 3 will be available here and elsewhere later tonight. Day 3 kicks off at 11am tomorrow.

As usual there was a flurry of players eliminated from the tournament soon after the bubble burst.

• 49th place: Michael Bartholomew, $8,663.00
• 50th place: Pierre Routhier, $8,663.00
• 51st place: Richard Geyer, $8,663.00
• 52nd place: Chanracy Khun, $8,663.00 (Players Club)
• 53rd place: Marcel Rosa, $8,663.00
• 54th place: Gabriel Frank, $8,663.00
• 55th place: William Molson, $7,184.00
• 56th place: Jacob Toole, $7,184.00
• 57th place: Michael Korovine, $7,184.00
• 58th place: Jakub Drag, $7,184.00
• 59th place: Sebastian Saffari, $7,184.00
• 60th place: Matthew Kay, $7,184.00
• 61st place: Upeshka Manishan De Silva, $7,184.00
• 62nd place: Mark Radoja, $7,184.00
• 63rd place: Vincent Lam, $7,184.00
• 64th place: Jason-Ray Paguandas, $6,127.00
• 65th place: Jeffrey Dale Gross, $6,127.00 (Players Club)
• 66th place: Bahbak Oboodi, $6,127.00
• 67th place: Dylan Wilkerson, $6,127.00
• 68th place: Jonathan Driscoll, $6,127.00 (Players Club)
• 69th place: Levon Dedeyan, $6,127.00
• 70th place: Eric Benhamron, $6,127.00
• 71st place: Shannon Shorr, $6,127.00
• 72nd place: Yannick Gauthier, $6,127.00

…the high roller tournament has grown to 46 players of whom 45 are still alive. They’ve been playing at the same time as the bubble came (and went) in the WPT Canadian Spring Championship so things have been a little frantic in the room, but it is much calmer now. Plus, now that people are collecting their vouchers and cash in the WPT, some of those players are moving over to play the High Roller so numbers should continue to grow.

Day 2 of the tournament has been moving at a quick pace since play started at 11 this morning, and the bubble didn’t slow things down that much. There were a few short stacks in the room and by the time the TD announced hand-for-hand play there were a few bubble boy candidates.

One of these – Armah Attoh – managed to more than double his 1 BB stack when he went all-in in early position with what turned out to be pocket jacks which held against 77.

Just two hands later Tyler Reiman shoved his small stack in holding TT – only to be called by pocket Kings, which held. So Tyler is the bubble boy and the rest of the players are in the money.

There are 73 players remaining and play is now hand-for-hand.