The players in the WPT Montreal have just returned from their first break, which gave us the opportunity to survey the room and find the current leaders in the field. Michael Mizrachi has leapt into first place by a wide margin – he’s already close to 500K in chips.

First Name | Prénom	Last Name | Nom	Stack | Tapis
Michael	Mizrachi	479,000
Robert	Rose	326,000
Darren	Keyes	305,000
Shane	Currey	289,000
Debra Ann	Holman	268,000
Noeung	Troeung	256,000
Masoud	Tavangari	252,000
Marc André	Ladouceur	222,100
Ari	Engel	215,000
Graham	Ivany	210,000
Antony	Pelletier	208,500
Charles	La Boissonnière	198,000

There are tough tables throughout the Tournament Hall, but a couple of these stand out.

The first is a table directly in front of the Tournament Desk – Table 51. In seat 2 is Dylan Wilkerson, and then in seats 6, 7, and 8 are found Jason Duval, Griffin Benger, and Anthony Zinno.

Then, on table 52 we find Dejuante “DJ” Alexander accompanied by Samuel Bisrat Tsehai, David Peters, and Philippe D’Auteuil – plus Darren Keyes, one of today’s starting chip leaders and runner-up in this past summer’s Canadian Poker Championships event.

We’ll be on the lookout for other “lucky draws” through the day – but with a field this stacked, almost every table qualifies as a tough table.

In an early Day 2 showdown between Champion’s Club members, Mike Sexton has eliminated David Ormsby from the tournament – in the process, Mike has built his stack to around 90K in chips – right about the current chip average.

Both players started the day on the short side, and in the end, David’s faced Mike’s with community cards reading .

The first group of eliminations today included Lucas Greenwood, Khaly Dang, and Demo Kiriopoulos. A total of 21 players have already hit the rail, and though the pace has settled down a little, it remains steady as the tournament moves forward.

Play has now resumed in Day 2 of the WPT Montreal, and as usual for a Day 2 restart, there has been a huge flurry of early eliminations – play seems to be settling in to a slower pace only now that the first half level is behind the players.

In addition to all of the notable players in the field in today’s introductory post, we also want to emphasize that there’s still a chance of a repeat winner in the event.

Mike Sexton ended Day 1C with 64,100 chips – just slightly under the chip average to start the day. Two other final tableists from last year are also still in the event – Ema Zajmovic started with 67,000 and Jake Schwartz started with 48,900.

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!