Jonathan Roy Tops Field of 1,173, Wins WPT Montreal

Jonathan Roy wins massive WPT Montreal event (Photo: CanadaPoker.com)

It has been an historic couple of weeks for poker in Canada, with the World Series of Poker Circuit recently making its first ever stop in Vancouver and the World Poker Tour triumphantly returning to Canada for this week's WPT Montreal event. Both tournaments saw fields of more than 1,000 players participate, and in both cases local players took the titles, with John Crncic of Vancouver winning the WSOP-C event and Jonathan Roy of Boucherville (a Montreal suburb) winning WPT Montreal.

We reported on Crncic's victory here a couple of weeks ago in which he overcame a field of 1,032 at the River Rock Casino Resort in Vancouver to win a WSOP-C ring and $288,382 first prize in the $1,675 buy-in Main Event. Crncic also earned a spot in the 2012-13 WSOP National Championship that will take place at the conclusion of the current season in May 2013 at Harrah's New Orleans.

Whereas the WSOP-C event in Vancouver saw mostly Canadians take part -- and a final table comprised solely of Canadian players -- the WPT event in Montreal attracted many players from the United States and around the world.

It was the first time the WPT has visited Canada since 2008, and a whopping 1,173 players entered WPT Montreal at the Playground Poker Club in nearby Kahnawake, well exceeding expectations for the event. With a $3,000 buy-in (Canadian dollars, worth just slightly more than USD), the prize pool added up to $3,412,930 (C$), making the tournament one of the largest in WPT history and one of the biggest ever staged in Canada.

The top 117 finishers made the money, with several familiar names among those who did including Mark Radoja (111st, $5,420), Ken Aldridge (99th, $6,100), Xuan Liu (86th, $6,775), Marc-Andre Ladouceur (53rd, $10,840), Dan Smith (42nd, $12,535), Christian Harder (31st, $14,905), Mike McDonald (27th, $17,615), Timothy Adams (25th, $17,615), Jason Koon (22nd, $17,615), Bruce Buffer (19th, $17,615), Amanda Musumeci (14th, $25,070), and Ashton Griffin (13th, $25,070) (all c$).

After two Day 1 flights and two more days of poker, the fourth and final day began with the six-handed final table where Sylvain Siebert of Ontario began the day with the chip lead with more than 8.8 million followed closely by Jeff Gross of Michigan. Meanwhile, returning to the shortest stack among the final six was Gavin Smith, a native of Ontario currently living in Las Vegas, who began his fifth WPT final table with just over 1.6 million.

Also coming back to a short stack of about 2.4 million was Peter Kaemmerlen who would in fact commit all of those chips in the very first hand with Jd-Jh and find himself up against the Ah-10d of Gross. The flop and turn were safe for Kaemmerlen, coming nine-high, but the Ad on the river paired Gross and sent the New Yorker out in sixth place.

That hand catapulted Gross into the chip lead momentarily, but he was soon overtaken by Pascal Lefrancois of Sainte-Therese, Quebec when the latter scored a big double-up through leader Siebert. That hand crippled Siebert, and it wouldn't be long before he'd push all in from the small blind with 6c-5d, get called by Roy in the big blind with Qc-Qs, and after Seibert failed to improve he hit the rail in fifth.

Smith continued to battle with his short stack, doubling up once through Gross.  But eventually he was all in and at risk again with Ad-5s versus Roy's Kc-7s in another blind-vs.-blind battle. The 8d-8s-2c flop was okay for Smith, but the 7d on the turn put Roy ahead. The river was the 3c, and Smith finished fourth.

The remaining trio would battle for three more hours, with much of that time spent with Roy and Lefrancois battling for first position with big stacks of 14 million-plus while Gross endured in third. Then Gross scored a big double-up through Lefrancois when the pair got all of Gross's stack in on a Qc-Qs-7h flop and Gross had pocket sixes to Lefrancois pocket treys. Two cards later Gross still had the best hand and had moved into second position just ahead of Lefrancois.

Over the next hour Gross slipped back, however, and after a few more hands was open-pushing for just under 2.5 million from the button and getting called by Roy in the small blind. Gross had Kd-Qc and Roy As-Qs, and after the flop brought an ace Gross was already drawing dead by the turn to be eliminated in third.

Heads-up play began with Roy in front with just over 19.1 million while Lefrancois was just under 16 million. The two would play nearly 30 hands, with Lefrancois gradually edging out in front himself. Then came a huge preflop all-in confrontation that saw Lefrancois hoping his 6h-6c would hold versus Roy's Ks-Qc. But the flop brought a king and the turn a queen, and suddenly Roy had nearly all of the chips while Lefrancois had fallen below 1 million.

All in on the next hand with 8c-3h, Lefrancois saw Roy turn over Ks-Jh, and again the community cards were good for Roy, coming Kc-4d-Jc-Qd-9d to give Roy the hand and the title.

2012 WPT Montreal final table payouts (C$):
1.  Jonathan Roy -- $779,210
2.  Pascal Lefrancois -- $470,920
3.  Jeff Gross -- $317,450
4.  Gavin Smith -- $211,745
5.  Sylvain Siebert -- $146,360
6.  Peter Kaemmerlen -- $113,155

The win marks the biggest cash by far for Roy, a relative newcomer to the poker tourney scene whose first cashes came in 2011. That three-quarter million dollar payday is more than 10 times his previous best score for winning a preliminary event at EPT Monte Carlo in April of this year. For his win, Roy also earns a spot in the $25K WPT World Championship that will conclude Season XI in May 2013 at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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