Luiz Orrico Tops WPT Montreal Main Event Day 1B Field

Brazil’s Luiz Orrico came out on top of a 406-strong Day 1B field in the $3,200 WPT Montreal Main Event after turning his 200,000 starting stack into 4,066,132 chips. That mountain of betting tokens was enough to claim the Day 1B chip lead and place Orrico third overall.

WPT Montreal Main Event Day 1B Top 10 Chip Counts

Place | Player | Country | Chips
1 | Luiz Orrico | Brazil | 4,066,132
2 | Niklas Astedt | Sweden | 4,011,216
3 | Maksim Bukreev | Russia | 3,435,282
4 | Rayan Chamas | Canada | 3,297,877
5 | Jan-Eric Schwippert | Austria | 3,176,223
6 | Rui Ferreira | Netherlands | 2,779,138
7 | Marco Fontanella | Malta | 2,485,042
8 | Pierre Paul Paulir | Canada | 2,137,764
9 | Kenny Hallaert | United Kingdom | 2,103,966
10 | Konstantin Maslak | Russia | 2,065,856

The 406 Day 1B entrants plus the 482 who turned out for Day 1A ensured the $2 million guarantee was not only hit but surpassed by $664,000. A total of 133 players have made it through to Day 2 on January 25, each of them in the money.

Nobody will take home less than $6,393 for their efforts but this sum increases to $37,024 if they manage to make their way to the nine-handed final table. Four of those finalists will pad their bankrolls with six-figure prizes with the WPT Montreal Main Event champion scooping an impressive $447,859.

Orrico has done his chances of winning that massive prize no harm at all by starting his Main Event quest superbly. The Brazilian still has a lot of work ahead of him, but his he stack will help him weather the storm, so to speak.

Kenny Hallaert finished Day 1B with a top 10 stack

Swedish superstar Niklas Astedt narrowly missed out on the Day 1B chip lead. Astedt finished his flight with 4,011,216 chips, only 55,000 fewer than Orrico. A big-stacked Astedt spells bad news for the rest of the Day 2 field because the Swede certainly knows how to bully his opponents. It would take a brave person to bet against Astedt being there or thereabouts when the biggest prizes are dished out.

Several other household names punched their Day 2 tickets and did so with a top 10 stack. Jan-Eric Schwippert (3,176,223), Rui Ferreira (2,779,138), and Kenny Hallaert (2,103,966) have a history of spectacular results and are on course for yet more success.

Some of the other superstars to progress from Day 1B include Artur Martirosian (1,884,806), Daniel Dvoress (1,877,957), Team Online’s Jaime Staples (1,204,542), Dan Shak (849,478), Kahle Burns (799,294), Martin Jacobson (725,317), and Daniel Smyth (508,008).

Play resumes at 19:05 GMT on January 25 and only ends when the nine-handed final table is set.

Benjamin Rolle Leads Super High Roller Final 11

Mikita Badziakouski is 5/11 in the Super High Roller event

Sixty players bought into the $25,500 Super High Roller and only 11 of those high rollers remain. Benjamin Rolle is the man to catch when play resumes at 19:05 GMT on January 25, courtesy of being the only player to bag up a seven-figure stack.

Rolle returns to the action in the envious position of chip leader and by quite some margin. He has 1,498,924 chips in his stack with Justin Bonomo in second-place with 924,069 chips.

He may hold the chip lead right now but the chasing pack is an incredible bunch of players. We’ve already mentioned Bonomo but there are also the likes of Jon Van Fleet, Michael Addamo, and Team partypoker’s Mikita Badziakouski still in the hunt for what is a $450,076 first-place prize.

Matthias Eibinger, Eelis Parssinen, Rui Ferreira and Rok Gostisa may be much shorter than Rolle in terms of chips but they certainly know their way around a poker table and know they still have a chance of glory while they have even a single chip to play with.

WPT Montreal Super High Roller Final Table Chip Counts

Place | Player | Country | Chips
1 | Benjamin Rolle | Austria | 1,498,924
2 | Justin Bonomo | Canada | 924,069
3 | Jon Van Fleet | Canada | 607,469
4 | Michael Addamo | United Kingdom | 528,342
5 | Mikita Badziakouski | Slovenia | 511,825
6 | Matthias Eibinger | Austria | 497,289
7 | Jordi Urlings | Malta | 432,337
8 | Arnaud Enselme | United Kingdom | 381,600
9 | Eelis Parssinen | Finland | 344,343
10 | Rui Ferreira | Netherlands | 139,110
11 | Rok Gostisa | Slovenia | 134,692

You can watch the Super High Roller crown its champion from 19:30 GMT on our Twitch channel. The ball is firmly in Rolle’s court right now, but who do you think will walk away with the lion’s share of the prize money?

Mini and Micro Main Events Kick Off Today

Both the Mini and Micro WPT Montreal Main Events shuffle up and deal for the first time on January 25, doing so while the Main Event and Super High Roller play out their Day 2s.

The Mini costs $320 to enter and features a $200,000 guaranteed prize pool while the Micro Main Event’s buy-in weighs in at $33 and boasts of a $30,000 guarantee. Both kick-off at 19:05 GMT and both have a plethora of satellites feeding into them.

January 25 also sees the $1,600 Second Chance Turbo take place. This will be done and dusted in a single day after beginning at 21:15 GMT.