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October 26th 2006
WPT North American Poker Championship kicks off over Niagara Falls
Last week saw the newest addition to the World Poker Tour, the Festa al Lago tournament, take place from the familiar confines of the Bellagio’s poker room in Vegas. Though impressive, it has to be said the Bellagio pales in comparison to the location of the latest addition to the WPT: Fallsview, overlooking the spectacular Niagara Falls.
The North American Poker Championship (NAPC), the first ever WPT event to take place in Canada, kicked off yesterday after attracting an impressive 540 players, more than any of the last three WPT events.
The buy-in is the usual $10,000 but the tournament structure is different from any other on the WPT trail. Like the Festa al Lago the NAPC is a deep stack tournament so players start with $20,000 chips instead of $10,000. But the NAPC goes even further, starting the blinds at 25/25 instead of the 50/100 level common for deepstack tournaments. This meant patience was a key factor in success, and it took on even more importance given that iPods and other such equipment were banned from the tables.
A number of well known professionals turned out for the competition, with Canadians Gavin Smith, Daniel Negreanu and Isabelle Mercier flying the national colours. Negreanu, one of the most popular players on the tour, wrote in his blog that the tournament was one of the best organised events he had ever been to, clearly relieved that his country was doing poker proud.
Day One was split into two days, the first one of which saw John Juanda, one of the most successful players in the history of the WPT, take the chip lead with over $200,000 in chips. In second place, but some way back, is Steve Paul-Ambrose, winner of the WPT PokerStars’ Caribbean Poker Adventure in January this year, with $138,000. Of the other big names John D’Agostino, and Liz Lieu have over $70,000 in chips, while Eli Elezra, Dan Harrington, Isabelle Mercier, Amnon Filippi, Victor Ramdin, and Barry Greenstein are alive, though in the case of Greenstein and Ramdin, only just!
Day One B begins tomorrow at 12pm EST.
Submitted: 26/10/2006 11:22:47
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