The WPT Montreal this year was a bit of a first, in a number of different ways. For a start, the whole thing took place online, with the series hosted on the partypoker client. Usually, WPT would the Montreal leg at the Playground Poker Club. This makes it one of the bigger online series so far this year. As a result, the main event went to a player sitting not in Quebec but in the UK.
On February 1st, the first online Mike Sexton Classic — part of the Montreal series — finished with Daniel Dvoress in first. So, at least the Canadian event went to a Canadian.
125 players ponied up the $10k buy-in, making for a prize pool of $1.25 million. Of this a percentage was donated to Nevada Partnership Homeless Youth Charity in the name of the late Mike Sexton. In total the tournament raised $39,900 for charity.
The first prize of $294,346 probably matters less to Dvoress than the title. Dvoress has almost $16 million in live tournament cashes and is a regular on the circuit of high-roller events.
Two days, $1 million guaranteed
The event played out over two days. Day 1 concluded with the elimination of Sergei Reixach in 21st place.
The remaining 20 players returned the next day to duke it out in memory of one of poker's most beloved personalities.
Day two saw a number of big names sent to the rail. Adrian Mateos, Ali Imsirovic, Ami Barer, and Niklas Astedt were among those who fell before the bubble burst.
Despite being an eight max tourney, the final table was a seven-handed affair. In a moment that was to set the pattern for the final table, Dvoress knocked Aleksej Ponakovs and Nino Ullmann out on the FT bubble in the same hand. Dvoress held suited A-6 and flopped three aces to beat his opponents' pocket kings and nines.
Double, double, toil and trouble
Dvoress continued to run like a god. He knocked Anssi Kintalla out in 6th place with a pair of pocket jacks before moving on to his second double elimination of the evening.
Eelis Parssinen started the trouble with a shove from the button. His K-J was in bad shape against Johann Van Fleet's suited A-T. But Dvoress had them both dominated with the ace and queen of clubs.
Sealing Van Fleet and Parssinen's fate was a queen on the flop. No help came on the turn and river. And then there were three.
After that Dvoress's guardian-angel took a break and let Aram Zobian take a scalp. He sent Mike Watson to the wall in short order. That put Zobian in good shape going into heads-up play.
Heads up, man down
After that brief blackout, Dvoress's angel was back on his shoulder. After a few lucky hands, Dvoress's stack has crept back up to above Zobian's.
A few hands later he was looking down at 4s-3s on the button. He raised to 144k and called Zobian's three-bet to 607k. Zobian, sitting on two queens was thrilled by the jack-high flop. But two spades also gave Dvoress a draw. Zobian checked, giving Dvoress the turn for free.
A six on the turn gave Dvoress another draw and Zobian led out. Dvoress called. The pot was around 3.6 million.
The river completed Dvoress's straight with a red five, making the board J-x-x-6-5. Zobian shoved his remaining 2.3 million and Dvoress, unsurprisingly, snapped him off.
Zobian won $200,307 for his admirable but ultimately futile effort.
Final table results
1st – Daniel Dvoress – $294,346
2nd – Aram Zobian – $200,307
3rd – Mike Watson – $140,396
4th – Eelis Parssinen – $96,228
5th – Jon Van Fleet – $70,817
6th – Anssi Kintalla – $55,156
7th – Nino Ullmann – $44,616
Featured image source: Flickr
