There were 308 entries in Day 1b of the WPT Canadian Spring Championship. At the end of 13 levels of play, just 90 players remained in the event and have qualified to return for Day 2 on Sunday March 30th. Just one player managed to qualify from both Day 1a and Day 1b (Kevin MacDonald); the smaller of his two stacks will be removed from the tournament.

The total number of entries across both Day 1s held so far is 527 and of that number, 151 players are slated to return for Day 2.

Day 1c begins tomorrow (Saturday March 29) at 11am.

We have now entered the last level of play here in Day 1b of the WPT Canadian Spring Championship Main Event, which means that in 45 minutes, the remaining players will bag their chips for Day 2.

Tomorrow will be the last chance to play in this $1,000,000 guaranteed event, and for the moment it looks like there might be some overlay. Day 1c is scheduled for 11:00am tomorrow, so make sure you don’t miss your chance to win a share of that huge prizepool!

As a reminder for those who have survived one of the Day 1s, Day 2 will be played out on Sunday (march 30th) at 12:00pm.

With Day 1b nearing it’s end, these four players are leading the field:

1. Pascal Bibeau – 325K
2. Joseph Verdugo – 287K
3. Justin Miller – 225K
4. Harley Stoffmaker – 210K

Below is an album of some photographs from level 10:

Justin Miller has eliminated Eleuterio De Miranda Guedes, taking his last 52K in chips and growing his own stack to over 250K in the process. The chips went in preflop after Eleuterio shoved over Justin’s early position raise. Justin tanked for a few seconds and confirmed the amount before calling and turning over .

After he’d been called Eleuterio just said, “good call” and turned over . The community cards didn’t offer any assistance – .

Justin is now among the chip leaders of Day 1b going into the final 2 levels.

For the past few levels we’ve seen a few players build up some dominating stacks, but nothing like Joseph Verdugo has done since the last break. In just a level and a half he has gone from an already-leading 185K all the way to 325K as he looks to set himself up smartly for Day 2. There’s still long way to go today, however…

The players are on their third break of the day and we took the opportunity to count the large stacks in the tournament as well as note the chip counts for some of the other notable players in the field.

Chip leaders

• Joseph Verdugo – 185K
• David Szymanowicz – 177K
• Harley Stoffmaker – 172K
• Josh Kimmel, Michael Neuber, Michael Mallette, Ami Alibay – 130K

Some other notable players…

Gavin Smith and Antonio Esfandiari both busted during the last level or two, but there are still some other notable players in the field.

• Kara Scott – 65K
• Marc-Etienne McLaughlin – 13K
• Philippe Plouffe – 62K
• Mike Leah – 61K
• Laurence Grondin – 32K
• Jeff Gross – 40K

When we got to the table Gavin Smith showed off his small stack with the disclaimer that he had just run Kings into Aces… and then he got his last few thousand into the middle and was called by Dean Murphy, who showed . Gavin was holding .

The board ran out which didn’t give him the lift he needed and Gavin is out of Day 1b.

Late registration for Day 1b has closed and the final number of entries for today is 308, which is up a significant amount from the 219 total entries yesterday for Day 1b. That adds up to 527 total entries which means that there’s a chance that the event will have an overlay to the prize pool!

Of course this is great for players – an overlay amounts to free money, and definitely adds value to the tournament as a whole.

Needless to say, we’ll be keeping a close eye on registration numbers tomorrow!

We are back from the second break here in Day 1b of the WPT Canadian Spring Championship Main Event, and although many players have already doubled and tripled their starting stacks, only 3 players have breached the 100K mark, with Harley Stoffmaker well ahead of the field.

Here is an estimate of the top 5 chip stacks:

1. Harley Stoffmaker – 170K
2. Josh Kimmel – 123K
3. Ami Alibay – 107K
4. Fuad Nasser – 94K
5. Paul Basi – 90k

Josh Kimmel

Ami Alibay

Fuad Nasser

Paul Basi

Harley Stoffmaker