The inaugural Canadian Poker Championship passed its guarantee and ensured that 117 lucky individuals would be receiving a piece of the $1,055,000 prize pool. Over the past four days of registration, 1,057 entrants tried their hand to become the first ever international MSPT champion. Reflections of players' dreams disappeared in the trophy as the day progressed until an image of one stood crystal clear.
Coming into the day as one of the bigger stacks in the field, local tournament player Jinrong Zhang possessed one of the loudest and most vocally supportive rails of the entire week by the time the final table started. Zhang’s road to the end hit some bumps around two tables remaining, but he bounced back and continued to build his stacks until they were the only ones on the table.
“This is a really big score for sure,” the newly crowned winner said, moments after being swarmed by his rail as the final card gave him a straight to win the tournament. “It’s a very hard final table, because I know most of the players that were here.”
“They played really solid, but I tried my best. I did everything I could to find out how to outplay and compete against them. I had some troubles after I lost a big flip earlier. That was the first time I thought maybe I wasn’t going to win this tournament. But, we came back.”
Zhang had some more words to pass onto all players, past, present, and future.
“To all the players, hold onto your dreams. Do what you can do with your game and leave the rest to the poker gods.”
With his friends all by his side, Zhang headed out to party the night away with his trophy in hand.
Day 2 Action
The MSPT POY Race implications had ended early in the day as Jacob Long (102nd-$2,170) fell early in the day, with Josh Reichard (70th-$2,685) exiting a little later. It would also be clear that a new MSPT Main champion would be crowned as John “Farmboy” Kurfman (100th-$2,170) couldn’t add another title to his 2025 resume.
As the day marched onward, the final three tables became set with players who were short stack spinners and big stack dominators. Players like Pablo Mariz (26th-$5,890), Gabriel Croteau (23rd-$7,235), and Robert Pambianchi (21st-$8,580) all fell short of making the final two tables. Start of day chip leader Danesh Luthra (20th-$8,580) fell to Kevin Javier as his set shriveled up against Javier’s wheel.
Ghassan Menachi (18th-$10,125) laddered several times before ultimately falling to Sebastien Proul. He was followed by Ruoxiao Shi (17th-$10,125), Alexandre Fortin-Demers (16th-$10,125), and last woman standing Lily Lotfy (15th-$12,400). Aces being cracked became the crippling factor for Denis Quiron (14th-$12,400), as well as the final hands of both Theodore Giannikos (13th-$12,400) and Rodney Ramalho (12th-$14,675). After that it was DJ Sharma who bubbled the final table as he saw his nines run into Carter Swidler’s jacks. No help was brought to Sharma and he collected $14,675 for his eleventh place finish.
Final Table Action
Despite many stacks beginning at a very similar depth, the first three eliminations went relatively quickly. At first it was the shortest stack Alexandre Fournier who ended up all in with his ace-jack up against Scott Babbitt’s pocket nines. A runout where neither player improved left Babbitt’s nines as best and Fournier became the first casualty in tenth place for $14,675.
Just a few hands later was the clash between Pierre Alexandre Lessard and Jirong Zhang as Lessard’s pair of sixes got in against Zhang’s ace-queen. An ace-high board would see Zhang’s rail celebrating as the field got one shorter while Lessard collected $18,600 for his ninth place finish.
Rami Hammoud’s laddering journey came to an end after that as Sebastien Proulx jammed all in from the small blind with queen-nine suited up against Hammoud’s ace-eight. A nine appeared on the flop with nothing appearing on the following streets, leaving Proulx to take the pot and Hammoud to leave in eighth to take $22,730.
The next payout awarded was $29,965 and it was awarded to Adam Cader. Not much went Cader’s way at the final table as far as momentum was concerned. His downward trend continued until the very end as he got in his ace-king up against Swidler’s pair of queens and failed to improve. Swidler raked in a sizable pot while Cader finished his run in seventh place.
Despite that sizable pot going his direction, Swidler would be the next one to go after he doubled up Lyndon Webster. After that he would rip ace-three suited over Zhang’s open and Zhang snapped him with pocket queens. No change would occur on the runout and Zhang’s chip lead grew while Swidler finished in sixth place for $38,230.
Scott Babbitt had a strong start to the final table that included some flirtation with the chip lead, but that journey came to an end as he continued to get shorter five-handed. In the end he called off with ace-high on a jack-high paired board against Zhang’s underpair of twos. Despite the counterfeit and overcard outs, he was not able to improve and the Canadian ended his run in fifth place, good for $49,600.
Zhang held over half of the chips in play, but a couple of double ups for Webster and Proulx would see all three of them and Javier even out in the overall chip counts. After gaining a small chip lead over Javier, Proulx would call in the small blind then call a jam holding ace-ten to dominate Javier’s ace-eight. He would hold to draw near even in counts with Zhang while Javier was eliminated in fourth place for $65,095.
A deal was reached between the three players shortly after and they would agree to play for the trophy and an additional $39,000 to play for first place.
Play continued and as the dust settled at the end, Zhang would end up taking down the title and the additional money while Proulx would collect $118,610 for his efforts and Webster would take home $115,530 for his, career bests for each of them.
That will conclude the coverage of the inaugural Canadian Poker Championship at Playground Casino in Montreal. Thank you for reading along at MSPTPoker.com and be sure to check back in to see the updates from the ground of MSPT Riverside coming in just a week.
*indicates deal made