Preflop, Piotr Siwiec raised to 700, and Long Hoang Nguyen followed with a raise to 2,100. Adel Mansour then raised to 5,000, and when the betting returned to Piotr he went all in. Long paused and then proceed to push his entire stack into the pot. Adel shrugged and did the same.

Piotr:
Long:
Adel:

On the flop, the dealer flipped . Adel stood up as the dealer revealed the turn , and then he began to walk away as the river card was dealt: . Piotr shook his head and Long took the hand with Kings and sixes.

We joined the hand with the board showing .

Duhamel checked utg, prompting a bet of 2500 from Marc MacDonnell, a bet about the size of the pot. Duhamel was in no mood to be pressured out of the hand though, and four-bet his opponent with a 10,000 check-raise.

Whether it was his cards or Duhamel’s reputation is anyone’s guess, but MacDonnell folded without a second thought.

As we pass the 90-minute mark of the Main Event Day 1B, the list of players continues to grow. There are still 104 players sitting at the tables out of 105 who entered. Players are biding their time, waiting for the opportunity to strike. Some tables, however, are willing to wait a little longer than others.

Just now at table 21 we saw a relatively rare hand. The table was playing 8-handed, and all but one limped in to see the flop. Seven checks later the turn came down. It seemed no one had any desire to take any sort of a risk at all.

This trend continued, as there were seven more checks, which led to the river card. It was too much for the player in seat 8, who finally fired a 1000 chip bet. Unsurprisingly, this led to six folds, helping him take down the hand.

The first level at the WPT Main Event Day 1B has just wrapped up and level 2 is now underway. There are now 100 entries and late registration will continue for another 8 hours.

Here are some pics of the players.

The WPT Main Event has big prizes, which means that it draws some of the best of the poker world. Here at Playground Poker Club we have seen some of those big names take their seats, including 2010 WSOP Main Event Champion Jonathan Duhamel.

Other notables at the tables in the early going include Carter Swidler, a local pro and online beast. Just last month (September 2018) he final tabled a WSOP Circuit event, the $500 + $50 Pot Limit Omaha tournament.

At the table with him is Maria Konnikova, a Brooklyn native and a great player in her own right. She finished in the money on a half dozen tournaments this summer, and final tabled two tournaments in one week in Macau this March, coming in 2nd place in the Hong Kong $20,000 No Limit Hold’em event.

So if you want to test your mettle against the best in the business, come down to Playground and have at it. Pro or amateur, we wish good luck to all the players sitting at the tables today!

The WPT Montreal Event #2: $5,000 + $300 Main Event Day 1B is now under way.  Level 1 has just started and there are already 71 entries and the total prize pool is listed at 5,000,000.

Here are some photos of the players.