At the last break, Players Club member Jean-Philippe Piquette was among those players with stacks that could easily make a run at the chip lead – and in the last level and a half, JPP has done just that. He’s now up over 220K which puts him among the chip leaders in the flight.

The players have just returned from their third break of the day and during the break we found some of the largest stacks in the event so far.

• Pierre Guenette – 190K
• Sammy Chao – 185K
• James Northcliff – 177K
• Manuel Moffatt – 170K
• Azim Lavji – 150K

Although these players have taken a lead, none of them should feel comfortable yet with three and a half levels yet to go. There are a lot of players in the 110K – 140K range and any of these could easily take the lead by winning one decent pot.

Registration has closed on Day 1c of the $1000 + $100 WPT Canadian Spring Championship and the final tally of entrants today is 552! Added to the 219 entries from Day 1a and the 308 entries from yesterday’s Day 1b, the total number of entries in all three starting flights has climbed to 1079.

Tournament staff are working on finalizing the prize pool and payouts, and rest assured that we’ll be publishing that information as soon as it is available.

Day 1c has progressed mid-way through level 6 but even at this early stage there are some front-runners who have leapt to the head of the pack building up stacks of over 100K while the chip average is still under 37K.

• Mike Sexton
• Benjamin Beaulac
• Anthony Carbury
• Marcello Rosa
• Yanick Colpron
• Pierre Guenette

Though this time the result isn’t in the least bit romantic! When talented local regular Alan Yifan Dong was busted by Mike Sexton early in the tournament, who should take his empty seat to Mike’s left but Antonio Esfandiari!

Before

After

Players continue to join the tournament as alternates are being accepted and will continue to be added until the end of level 6. The players already seated are now on their first 15-minute break of the day.

Here are some photos of the early action today.

The ambiance in the Tournament Hall is always electric when it’s filled with this many players, and today is no exception. The tournament has just started the 3rd level to be played today and there are already 510 entries seated, which means that far from an overlay situation, the prize pool will now build upwards from $1,000,000!

Mike Sexton has declared “Shuffle up and deal” and with that Day 1b has begun! There are currently 416 players at their seats to try their chances in this third of three starting flights.

Play today will continue through 13 45-minute levels with breaks after every 3rd level.

Day 1c of the $1000 + $100 WPT Canadian Spring Championship is set to begin in just 15 minutes! It looks like people have gotten the message about the value in this fantastic event – there are already 394 seats sold for today’s starting flight with late registration open for another 5 hours after the event gets underway.

Good luck to all of the players today!