We’ve just concluded the third and final flight to this Main Event of the Montréal Poker Expo, and of the 303 players that showed up for Day 1c, 86 have made it through to Day 2. The biggest stack of the night was bagged by Andre Dries, who will be returning tomorrow with 275,700. Other big stacks for tonight include Simon Quintal (266,200), Michael M (258,800), Francis Labonte (227,700), Tina S (225,300), Eric Benhamron (220,500), Steven Savard (215,400), Chanracy Khun (211,100) and Faisal Khan (208,400).

In a few moments we will be publishing the full list of player-reported chip counts from all three starting flights, as well as the seating assignments for tomorrow’s Day 2, which begins at 12:00pm sharp.

Combined with the two previous totals, we will have 170 players return tomorrow for Day 2 (unless there have been players who qualified twice, in which case only the larger stack will pass). Of these, 72 will be awarded a cash prize, with the eventual winner taking home a giant $118,610 prize, as well as the Montréal Poker Expo Main Event Champion’s Trophy!

Good luck to all those who qualified for Day 2, and see you tomorrow!

Photographs from level 13:

An unlikely hand just occurred on table 61.

Amir Babakhani was the initial raiser in the hand, making it 3,500 from middle position. He was 3bet by Nicolas Belcourt next to act, who made it 8,000, and this was followed by a 4bet from Sundiata DeVore from the button, who made it 26,000. When action came back around to Amir, he announced he was all-in for a total of 57,700, which was followed by an all-in from Nicolas (who had both opponents covered). Sundiata tanked for a moment, but couldn’t find the discipline to fold and joined the other two to make it a 3-way all-in.

Amir:
Nicolas:
Sundiata:

Amir spiked the card he was looking for for the triple up, as the dealer spun out a board of , while Nicolas took the small side pot.

The table broke the very next hand.

Only 2 levels remain in this final flight of the Main Event of the Montréal Poker Expo, and while the players were on a short break, we walked around the tournament hall and located the biggest stacks. Here is what we found:

Name	Chip Count
Michael M	279,000
Francis Labonte	185,000
Chanracy Khun	181,500
Eric Benhamron	170,000
Faisal Khan	167,000
Jonathan Schaler	162,000
Jonathan Brassard	161,000
Kieu Hoa Lam	161,000
Linda Huard	158,000
Steve Savard	158,000
Maxime Lefebvre	157,000
Alex Difelice	134,000

With the tournament on break, we took this time to update the current leaderboard. Player’s Club Member Chanracy Khun, who has just returned from the EPT in Barcelona, is now the chip leader entering level 10 of the final flight of the Main Event.

Here is a look at the other big stacks. It is worth noting that chipleader Chanracy and third in chips Sylvain Siebert are side-by-side, which could lead to some interesting scenarios!

Name	Chip Count
Chanracy Khun	196,000
Michael M	186,000
Sylvain Siebert	183,000
Pierre-Luc Michaud	157,000
Kieu Hoa Lam	144,000
Eric Benhamron	133,000
Nicolas Belcourt	131,000
Francis Labonte	130,000
Pierre-Paul Paulin	129,500
Simon Tremblay	126,000
Jonathan Brassard	124,000
Marcelo Guevara	113,000

Late registration is now closed in the final starting flight of the $1,000 + $100 Main Event of the Montréal Poker Expo and today there are 303 entries in the tournament, for a total of 647 entries across the three starting flights.

Sylvain Siebert has taken a wide lead on the field through the first 6 levels of play today, accumulating over 166K and Pierre-Paul Paulin – among the leaders all day, is keeping pace with 140K. There’s still more than half of the day to go, though, so there’s lots of time left for big stacks to grow or to fade as the case may be.

Name	Chip Count
Sylvain Siebert	166,100
Pierre-Paul Paulin	140,700
Chanracy Khun	95,700
Kieu Hoa Lam	93,300
Kathy Sawers	92,400
Riley Garneys	88,000
Sanjay Sivasundaram	88,000

We just witnessed a hand on table 54 that ran the entire gamut of emotions at the poker table. Both Gary Lucci and Tomislav Pavkovic were relatively short-stacked and both were all-in.

Gary:
Tomislav:

Gary went way out in front on the flop: – Gary flopped his set! But then came the turn and Tomislav let out a whoop as he hit his two-outer to re-take the lead… until the came on the river.

At first neither Gary nor Tomislav noticed that Gary had made a flush to win the hand and double up… But that didn’t last long, and Gary only got one step away from the table before he was informed of his victory in the hand and returned to stack the chips.

Two players have made it to the 100K mark in tournament chips in level 5 – Sylvain Siebert is now playing around 120K and Pierre-Paul Paulin has increased his total to over 100K.

They are certain to be joined by many more at that watermark near the next break!

Players are on their first break of the day and we were able to find 4 “rabbits” who have quickly moved to the front of the pack. Chief among these is Pierre-Paul Paulin, who has just a hair under 3x the starting stack after just 3 levels of play.

Name	Chip Count
Pierre-Paul Paulin	89,200
Nicolas Belcourt	73,100
Michael M	72,300
Chanracy Khun	71,700