Samuel Chartier Takes Down MSPT Canadian Poker Championship at Playground

Four starting flights were needed to reduce the Main Event to its final 91 players.

Pascal Gregoire led that group with 1,183,000 chips, narrowly ahead of Guillaume Charbonneau's 1,172,000. Chartier was well down the standings with 271,000 after advancing through Day 1B.

The field had created or, more accurately, was playing for, the tournament's C$1 million guaranteed prize pool, with C$175,000 waiting for the winner and C$124,000 for second place. Chartier ultimately claimed the top prize, ahead of Adil Morkos and Mohamed Kechiche.

Chartier finished seventh in the C$2,200 Mega Stack High Roller for C$6,500 before turning his attention to the Main Event.

The title there went to Benjamin Chen, who defeated a 79-entry field to collect C$50,000. Santiago Plante took C$32,000 for second and Boyd Donald O'Neill earned C$21,000 in third.

The High Roller was one of the festival's more compact fields, but its top-heavy buy-in made it one of the most valuable titles outside the Main Event.

The biggest field of the festival actually arrived right at the beginning.

Event #1, the C$300 Mega Stack, attracted 1,080 entries. Tomas Larivee Magni eventually emerged from that field with the title and C$42,000, beating Marie-Josee Duguay heads-up. Duguay earned C$25,500, while Tariq Javed finished third for C$18,900.

The contrast between the opener and the Main Event is worth noting. The lower-priced Mega Stack passed the four-figure entry mark, while the C$1,150 championship event finished at 809 entries.