All of the Day 2 qualifiers will now be making their way to Playground Poker Club for the Day 2 restart in the 2017 WPT Montreal. There were 606 total entries and of those, 234 qualified for Day 2. The restart is set for 12:00pm – just about 15 minutes from now.
The top 20 by chip count going in to Day 2 can be divided into three groups. The first group is made up of household-name poker pros, and it’s a star-studded list of players. Third overall in chips with 246K is none other then Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi, and he’s followed closely by Brian Altman – a player that has had extraordinary success in the Montreal area over the past couple of years. Rounding out that list are the WPT’s own Tony Dunst and Ari Engel – perhaps the most well-traveled of all of the world-class players in the field.
The second group is made up of excellent players that have had tremendous success in events hosted here at Playground Poker Club but are not (yet) known internationally. Noeung Troeung leads this group and starts the day second in chips (280K), but it also includes Brady Hinnegan, Shaan Siddiqui, Darren Keyes, Jonathan Marrie and Andrew Dick – known as “Burr”. Each of these players has a big-event win at Playground Poker Club and has proven the quality of their play.
The third group would include relatively unknown players without a huge Hendon Mob resume – and overall chip leader Robert Rose leads the way for this group, followed by Day 1A leader Conray Watson.
Outside the top 20 to start the day the field is packed full of other landmines. The player most likely to give Ari Engel a run for his “most-well-traveled” award is Mike Leah – a stone poker killer in any tournament he enters. Further down the list? Christian Harder, Marc Andre Ladouceur, Joe Tehan, Anthony Zinno… the field is full of great players. And we can’t ignore our own Montreal-based players – Eric Afriat, Jean-Philippe Piquette, Philippe D’Auteuil, Rodney Ramalho… to name but a few.
All of this adds up to a recipe for a great day of poker today. Play is 9-handed and blinds will continue to be 60 minutes in length. Play is slated to continue for 9 leels with a dinner break following level 5. 76 places will pay in the event, so the money bubble should be reached sometime just after dinner tonight.
There are two more things players should be aware of today. Starting when 10 tables remain, the tournament will move to 8-handed play. In addition, when play is one table away from the money bubble, the WPT Action Clock will come into effect. We’ll describe that further in another post this morning.
Good luck to everyone today!