After an action packed day of poker, Day 2 of the WPT Montreal has come to a close with 43 players remaining. David Peters took over the chip lead in the final moments of play, chipping up to 1,614,000 and narrowly passing Feizal Satchu’s final count of 1,521,000. Other big stacks include Justin Liberto (875,000) and Duff Charette (798,000).

Once all stacks are accounted for, we will publish the full list of player-reported chip counts for Day 3, along with the new seating arrangements. Day 3 will begin at 12pm tomorrow, and will play through 5 levels of 90 minutes each before moving forward to Day 4.

Photographs from level 19:

Here are the first few players that have been eliminated in the money in the WPT Montreal.

$6,920.00

57. Rayan Chamas
58. Steven Tripp
59. Omkar Deshmukh
60. Daniel Piperni
61. Raymond Carter
62. Andrew Dick
63. Kevin Macphee

$5,910.00

64. Mark Ruzycky
65. Jamie Sequeira
66. Robert Rose
67. Graham Ivany
68. Masoud Tavangari
69. Yan Neiman
70. Samuel Louis Gagnon
71. George James
72. Spencer Mclean

$5,090

73. Marc Bedlington
74. Fabrice Sylla Victor Pastor
75. Jean-Philippe Piquette
76. Tony Hoang

The money-bubble burst a little less than a level ago here in the WPT Montreal, and since then we’ve seen 20 players hit the rail, including Day 2 chip-leader Robert Rose, Player’s Club Member Jean-Philippe Piquette and online sharp-shooter Rayan Chamas.

Feizal Satchu remains in the drivers seat heading into the final stint of the day, and currently holds around 1.4 million. Rounding the top 3 are David Peters (~850K) and Duff Charette (~800K), while other big stacks include Maxime Heroux, Ari Engel, Alexander Keating, Noeung Troeung, Senthuran Vijayaratnam and Brady Hinnegan, all sitting in the 500K-600K range.

Photographs from level 18:

Eric Danis (pictured below) and Fabrice Pastor were the two shortest stack during hand-for-hand play, and were side by side on table 69. Both players were only holding a few antes each, and with Fabrice holding the positional advantage, Eric knew he’d have to get his chips in before his neighbour if he wanted to avoid being blinded out.

Following an open to 13,000 from Mohammad Abu-Hadbah, Eric threw in his last 7,000 in chips in from middle position, and Lucas Drolet completed the bet from the big blind. Action checked around to the river of a and all three hands were tabled.

Eric, who won Event #6 a few days ago, made a pair with his , but was third-best as Mohammad showed down and Lucas tabled a winning .

With Eric’s elimination, the remaining 76 players are now in the money, taking a weight off the shoulders of the short-stacks.

Congratulations to those who have secured a payout in this edition of the WPT Montreal!

The WPT Montreal is on a short break with hand-for-hand underway. Feizal Satchu has chipped his way into a big lead, well surpassing the 1 million chip mark. Below are the top counts heading into level 18, and lower down is a collection of photographs taken leading up to the bubble.

Photographs from levels 16-17:

Play in the WPT Montreal has reached the point that the tournament is one elimination away from the money, and the tournament is therefore hand-for-hand.

Play was “stuck” for almost an entire level at 78 players, but even with the money bubble looming, the pace of play under the new system was noticeably quicker. Plus, almost no one is got up from their seat to walk around the room and survey the other stacks – people just continued to play their hands.

In any case, play will now continue one hand at a time on the 10 tables that remain until the bubble player is eliminated and the rest of the players are in the money.