Mike Leah Leads 159 Players into Day 3 of WPT Montreal

By Tim Duckworth

Day 2 of the Season XVIII WPT Montreal CA$3,300 Main Event featuring a CA$3 million guarantee has come to a conclusion at Playground in Kahnawake, Quebec. With registration open for four levels to start the day, a total of 1,109 entrants would be generated, and after over nine levels of play on Friday, just 159 players would remain with WPT Champions Club member Mike Leah (pictured above) holding the overall chip lead with 1,201,000.

Leah has over $7.8 million in lifetime earnings, and on the World Poker Tour he has amassed over $1.2 million of those. With 14 WPT cashes to his name, Leah has made two final tables with his victory coming in the Season XVI WPT Fallsview Poker Classic where he defeated Ryan Yu for the CA$451,821 first-place prize. Leah has taken some time off from the poker circuit after having a baby with his partner Christine Do – who is also still in with 344,000 in chips – and his choice to make a return to the felt is paying off for the Leah household.

“Pretty much everything went right today,” Leah said, “There were a lot of big stacks at the table all day long, and at one point I think we had four of the five biggest stacks in the tournament. A couple hands went my way and I had position on the other big stacks, so things were pretty favorable for me. And then the bubble was very profitable.”

“It would be cool to win both WPT events in Canada,” Leah said about potentially being the first player to win both WPT stops that are held in his home country of Canada. “My wife is still in as well with a good stack, so we have a chance to double final table, and that would be a lot of fun.”

With 145 players surviving at Playground on Day 2, they will be joined by the 14 players that surviving the 101-entrant online flight held on partypoker. Mike Watson bagged the chip lead with 660,000, while the likes of Duff Charette (248,000), Martin Raus (180,000), Manig Loeser (146,000), and WPT Player of the Year Mukul Pahuja (85,000) also earned themselves a Day 3 berth and a WPT cash.

Sitting in contention with Leah include Kelly Minkin (938,000), Michael Robar (896,000), James Hundt (864,000), and Thomas Reynolds (853,000). Also surviving into Day 3 are WPT Champions Club members James Romero, Demo Kiriopoulos, Jonathan Roy, Ema Zajmovic (pictured below), Donald Maloney, and Matt Salsberg. WPT500 Montreal champions Bradley Smith and Miguel Goncalo also survived into Day 3 along with Chairman of partypoker Mike Sexton, and partypoker pros Kristen Bicknell and Jeff Gross.

For Zajmovic, she collected her WPT title at Playground, and last year she finished in second-place to Patrick Serda. Sitting with 280,000 in chips, Zajmovic is in prime position to turn her fifth WPT cash at Playground into another special one. For the Season XVIII WPT Borgata Poker Open champion Maloney, he sits with 203,000 in chips and with this cash has already put himself into outright second place on the Hublot WPT Player of the Year leaderboard. With an 18th-place or better finish, Maloney will move ahead of Aaron Van Blarcum. Other players that can make significant moves on the leaderboard include Stephen Deutsch, Kitty Kuo, and Manig Loeser.

The WPT Montreal prize pool was announced just after dinner and with CA$3,327,000 up for grabs, the final 159 players will return on Day 3 all guaranteed a CA$6,000 payday. An appearance at the final table will see them score at least CA$110,000, while whoever is to climb the gauntlet and be the final player left standing, they will take home the CA$500,000 first-place prize along with a seat into the season-ending $15,000 buy-in WPT Tournament of Champions. The eventual WPT Montreal Champion will also have their name engraved on the WPT Champions Cup and be able to add the Playground Championship Belt to their trophy case.

To view the complete WPT Montreal payouts, click here.

Day 3 begins on Saturday, November 2, at 12 p.m. (ET), and players will be playing 60-minute levels with the schedule to reach the WPT Montreal final table of six players. However, Playground tournament staff and WPT Event Management have already indicated that this may change depending on the pace of play.

Stay tuned right here to WPT.com for the exclusive live coverage of the tournament from start to finish to see who becomes the WPT Montreal Champion, and wins his or her way to the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions.

Photography by Tomas Stacha / Poker-Photo

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