Forty Players Make Their Way to Day 2
The first starting flight for the 2019 SIGA Poker Championship is now done. After 16 full levels of play, just 40 of the original 146 entries still had chips in front of them. The player who collected the most through Day 1a was Josh Hopkins, bagging up a whopping 272,000 chips. Second place belonged to Dale Wasko with 225,500, and three other players, Joseph Dumas, Rod Deslauriers and Adrian Baran, bagging more than 200,000.
Action kicked off at noon on Friday, and it was well attended right from the start. More than 100 players took their seats to start the action, and by the end of late registration, a total of 143 entries were recorded. That was an increase over last year's Day 1a total of 134, and bodes well for the prize pool after Day 1b numbers are in.
As is usually the case, the room was full of familiar faces. Derek and Jared Klimosko made it out for the day, and while Jared couldn't quite manage to hold his stack, his brother Derek bagged a decent stack of 94,500. The same "split pot" was true for the Loudon's as well. Sandra Loudon was seen in late stage action on Day 1a, but failed to make it through the day, while her husband Jim finished with 137,000. Other familiar names to bag stacks at the end of the night included Shawn Leis, Antony Pinette, Jaymie Holland, Adrian Baran, 2017 Champion Trevor Norlander, Kyle Woloshyn, and last year's winner, Daniel Lefebvre.
Quite a few regulars took their shot today and just couldn't find a bag. Kimberly McClymont had her day end when Trevor Norlander called her ace-king with eights and held. Sy Clark was out shortly after dinner, and Brian Borsheim, who final tabled this event last year, nearly made it through, but ultimately fell in the last couple levels of the night.
Tomorrow, it all kicks off again at noon with Day 1b. One again, they'll play 16 levels before they finish for the day, and the payers with chips after that will join the 40 players from today's action in Sunday's Day 2. PokerNews Canada will be there throughout the day to bring you the news as it happens.