Event 10 Champion: Daniel Watton

Event 10 in the PokerStars Canada Cup was scheduled to be a 3-day affair, but by the time the scheduled conclusion of Day 2 arrived there were only 7 players remaining, and they chose to continue Day 2 until a champion emerged. A few hours later, the event wrapped up with its champion, Daniel Watton. Daniel was at or near the top of the leaderboard for almost all of Day 2 and while there was lots of movement in the counts behind him in the standings, it was clear that Daniel was in command for much of the event.

Congratulations on your victory Daniel!

Event 10 Champion: Daniel Watton, $35,000

Daniel Watton

Event 10 Champion: Daniel Watton

Event 10 Champion: Daniel Watton

9th place: Bill Kontaratos

  • Level: 21
  • Small Blind: 6K
  • Big Blind: 12K
  • Ante: 2K
  • Chip Average: 465.6K
  • Remaining: 8
  • Entries: 149


  • After losing over 400K with QQ versus Daniel Watton’s KK a few hands earlier, Bill Kontaratos was left with under 5BB to work with. He eventually got it in a few hands later, but his Ace of Spades 8 of Clubs failed to improve over the Queen of Hearts Queen of Clubs of Carlos Nini, ending his tournament short in 9th place.

    9th place: Bill Kontaratos, $3,500

    Bill Kontaratos

    Counts at the break

  • Level: 21
  • Small Blind: 6K
  • Big Blind: 12K
  • Ante: 2K
  • Chip Average: 413.9K
  • Remaining: 9
  • Entries: 149


  • The players have just completed a short break during which we updated the chip counts for the 9 players remaining in the event.

    1. Radu Pop Mircea – 154K
    2. Louis Boutin – 440K
    3. Alexander Livingston – 195K
    4. Jordan Westmorland – 555K
    5. Daniel Watton – 368K
    6. Carlo Nini – 475K
    7. Nicolas Aubin – 519K
    8. Seat Open
    9. Alek Stasiak – 435K
    10. Bill Kontaratos – 486K

    Salomon Ponte eliminated in 10th

    We have the first elimination from the final table of Event 10. Salomon Ponte got his last chips in from the big blind with very strong hole cards – King of Spades King of Hearts and was called by the initial raiser, Bill Kontaratos who held Ace of Diamonds Jack of Diamonds.

    The flop had a little something for everyone: Ace of Hearts King of Diamonds 7 of Diamonds – so Salomon hit his set but Bill picked up the flush draw. After the safe 4 of Spades came on the turn, the 6 of Diamonds spelled the end of Salomon’s tourney and Bill stacked the chips.

    10th place: Salomon Ponte, $2,700

    Salomon Ponte

    Event 10 final table set

  • Level: 19
  • Small Blind: 4K
  • Big Blind: 8K
  • Ante: 1K
  • Chip Average: 372.5K
  • Remaining: 10
  • Entries: 149


  • Event 10 started today with 36 players and is scheduled to play through 12 levels today. The play started at a fast pace and kept up that pace as there were redraws at 27 players, 18 players, and now at the 10-player final table. The next player to be paid gets $2,700 but they’re playing for $35K up top, so there’s still a lot to play for!

    1. Radu Pop Mircea – 73K
    2. Louis Boutin – 320K
    3. Alexander Livingston – 194K
    4. Jordan Westmorland – 350K
    5. Daniel Watton – 493K
    6. Carlo Nini – 453K
    7. Nicolas Aubin – 530K
    8. Salomon Ponte – 256K
    9. Alek Stasiak – 806K
    10. Bill Kontaratos – 196K

    Stasiak, Watton leading Event 10

  • Level: 16
  • Small Blind: 2K
  • Big Blind: 4K
  • Ante: 500
  • Chip Average: 169.3K
  • Remaining: 22
  • Entries: 149


  • Alek Stasiak and Daniel Watton, sitting side-by-side on table 62, are dominating Event 10 for the time being. They each have more than double the 3rd biggest stack, and are a comfortable 3+ times the average stack.

    Here is the leaderboard going into level 16:

    1. Alek Stasiak – 570K
    2. Daniel Watton – 494K
    3. Louis Boutin – 241K
    4. Bill Kontaratos – 211K
    5. Jordan Westmorland – 206K
    6. Mario Lim – 202K
    7. Chris McClung – 199K

    Event 10 is back

  • Level: 13
  • Small Blind: 1K
  • Big Blind: 2K
  • Ante: 300
  • Chip Average: 103.5K
  • Remaining: 36
  • Entries: 149


  • There are 36 players left in Event 10 and they have unbagged their chips and play has just resumed in the event.

    The remaining field is pretty impressive overall. There’s a November Niner still in the action (Marc-Etienne McLaughlin), several past Playground Poker side-event final table-ists (Alexender Wong, Geoffrey Robert McNeely, Bill Kontaratos, Jeff Cote), Players Club members Philippe Plouffe and Chris McClung, and talented Playground regulars like Carlo Nini, Steve Toulch (famous for his banter with Scotty Nguyen in the WSOP broadcasts a few years back) and quite a few more players who are a threat to go all the way.

    Good luck!

    PokerStars Canada Cup – Event 10 Day 2 seating chart & counts

    Event 10 is a $1,000 + $100 No Limit Hold’em Freezeout event in the PokerStars Canada Cup. 149 players started the event at 1:30pm today and 36 players will return tomorrow (Tuesday May 26) at 1pm for Day 2. The following table lists the redrawn seating for all players in the tournament plus the player-reported chip counts of each player who bagged chips at the end of Day 1.

    First Name Last Name Seat Chip Count
    Alek Stasiak Table 66 – Seat 6 332,500
    Alexander Livingston Table 61 – Seat 7 144,700
    Alexender Wong Table 61 – Seat 2 171,300
    Andre Vezina Table 65 – Seat 7 70,600
    Bill Kontaratos Table 65 – Seat 2 169,100
    Carlo Nini Table 65 – Seat 6 73,500
    Chris McClung Table 66 – Seat 8 162,600
    Christopher Clisby Table 62 – Seat 9 70,900
    Conrado Corpus Table 61 – Seat 6 98,100
    Costa Ziakoulis Table 66 – Seat 5 52,900
    Daniel Watton Table 65 – Seat 5 181,000
    David Barter Table 62 – Seat 4 83,400
    Dejan Kovinic Table 61 – Seat 4 56,800
    Edin Cekic Table 66 – Seat 1 139,900
    Frederic Tisseur Table 61 – Seat 1 45,100
    Geoffrey Robert McNeely Table 65 – Seat 8 50,200
    Jeff Cote Table 65 – Seat 1 77,100
    Jiachen Gong Table 66 – Seat 4 115,200
    Jordan Westmorland Table 65 – Seat 9 239,100
    Joseph Hanna Table 61 – Seat 3 36,900
    Louis Boutin Table 61 – Seat 9 79,800
    Marc Etienne Mclaughlin Table 62 – Seat 7 50,600
    Mario Lim Table 66 – Seat 3 119,400
    Mike Fraser Table 65 – Seat 3 97,700
    Nicolas Aubin Table 62 – Seat 1 81,100
    Philippe Plouffe Table 62 – Seat 2 66,500
    Pierre-Paul Paulin Table 62 – Seat 6 47,100
    Radu Pop Mircea Table 61 – Seat 8 70,200
    Rodney Lawrence Table 66 – Seat 7 45,700
    Salomon Ponte Table 66 – Seat 9 50,400
    Scott Shore Table 61 – Seat 5 109,900
    Shayam Srinivasan Table 65 – Seat 4 71,200
    Stephane Dallaire Table 66 – Seat 2 72,400
    Steve Toulch Table 62 – Seat 3 64,900
    Thanh Phu Table 62 – Seat 8 213,700
    Trung Hieu Hoang Table 62 – Seat 5 120,000

    A few more shots

  • Level: 7
  • Small Blind: 250
  • Big Blind: 500
  • Ante: 75
  • Chip Average: 43.3K
  • Remaining: 86
  • Entries: 149


  • Here’s another gallery of photos from Event 10, taken during level 7:

    Leaders after 6 levels

  • Level: 7
  • Small Blind: 250
  • Big Blind: 500
  • Ante: 75
  • Chip Average: 38.4K
  • Remaining: 97
  • Entries: 149


  • After the completion of 6 levels, the following players are currently leading Event 10 – $1,000 + $100 No Limit Hold’em – Day 1:

    1. Louis Boutin – 105K
    2. Stephane Dallaire – 104K
    3. Thanh Phu – 91K
    4. Salomon Ponte – 87K
    5. Huong Do – 84K
    6. Jiacheng Zhang – 83K
    7. Pinkesh Mehta – 83K
    8. Michael Noor – 78K
    9. Yannick Lamarre-Delooz – 77K