Kevin Rivest Wins the partypoker LIVE Canadian Poker Championships
That's a wrap! The 2017 Canadian Poker Championships as part of the World Cup of Cards is over and Kevin Rivest has taken it down for $336,325! This massive series was powered by partypoker and the ever-popular Playground Poker Club with over $6 million in guaranteed prizes.
Rivest defeated Daren Keyes in a heads-up match lasting about an hour. The two players chopped before heads-up play began, with Keyes locking up $303,675 and Rivest making $280,325. Add the $56,000 left for the winner and Rivest took home $336,325 in total for the win.
In the final hand, Rivest opened from the button and snap called a short-stacked shove from Keyes. Rivest was ahead with ace-ten against the queen-jack of Keyes and made a flush on the river to secure the chips, the title, the trophy, and the top prize.
This six-day event began with four starting flights and racked up a total of 792 entries between the online and live Phase One tournaments, and online and live starting flights. A total of 419 players moved on to Day 2, and another 107 entries piled in before late registration closed at the end of Level 12.
In the end, 162 players would eventually make the money for a min-cash of $2,000. The bubble burst in the last level of Day 2, with Leo Hackenbroch and James Rubin chopping the last payout spot for $1,000 each, eliminating the 'bubble' spot.
The Road to the Final Table
After the bubble burst, players bagged for the night and just 145 players came back for Day 3, all guaranteed $2,000. The real money was on top, so it was time for players to build or bust.
Along the way, one of the big stories was of Patrick Serda, who was fresh off of a $10K WCOOP High Roller win for $470K USD while multi-tabling Day 2 of this event. He spun his stack up from 8.8 million at the start of Day 3 into the chip lead with 90 million entering Day 4. In addition to Serda's momentous run, Ottawa's Richard Verdon was also running deep after running up a free $2.20 satellite ticket into a healthy Day 3 stack. Verdon freerolled his way to a 90th place finish for $4,000 in his first-ever live tournament cash. He said he couldn't wait to come back and play another tournament in the future.
Day 4 began with 21 runners with some big names still remaining in the field. Led by Serda, notable pros beginning the day included Sam Phillips, Kevin Rivest, Kyle Bowker, Duff Charette, Ema Zajmovic, Mike Leah and Chanracy Khun. Bowker bowed out early in the day, followed by Charette and then Khun. Phillips suffered a beat on the river when he flopped a set and got all of the chips in the middle on the turn, but Maurizio Lu Rosso rivered a straight to send the American pro packing. WPT winner Zajmovic almost made the final table but fell short (11th - $16,000), leading to Jean-Philippe Beaulieu busting in 10th place for $16,000 to bring the final nine player together.
Final Table Results
| Place | Player Name | Country | Prize (CAD)* |
| 1 | Kevin Rivest | Canada | $336,325* |
| 2 | Daren Keyes | Canada | $303,675* |
| 3 | Joel Giguere | Canada | $164,000 |
| 4 | Mike Leah | Canada | $110,000 |
| 5 | Maurizio Lo Russo | Canada | $75,000 |
| 6 | Sebastien Labbe | Canada | $50,000 |
| 7 | Patrick Serda | Canada | $35,000 |
| 8 | Sean Gomez | Canada | $26,000 |
| 9 | Julian Volpe | Canada | $20,000 |
* denotes a chop
Some of the notable players to make the money but fell short of the big scores include Ema Zajmovic (11th - $16,000), Sam Phillips (15th - $14,000), Duff Charette (16th - $14,000), Kyle Bowker (21st - $12,000), Alex Foxen (30th - $10,000), Pascal Lefrancois (32nd - $10,000), Ari Engel ($9,000), Charles La Boissonnier (40th - $9,000), Joe Tehan (68th - $5,000), Sam Chartier (71st - $5,000), Jonathan Duhamel (115th - $3,000), Chance Kornuth (127th - $2,000), Eric Afriat (128th - $2,000), and Guillaume Nolet (130th - $2,000).
While many tough players made it through, even more, didn't. Among the players to hit the rail before the money included partypoker Team Pros Kristen Bicknell and Natalia Breviglieri along with Carter Swidler, Stephan Tzoutzourakis, Francois Billard, Marc-Andre Ladouceur, Jason 'BebeChien' Duval, Laurence 'LadyLuckPoker' Grondin, Armand 'OysterKing' King, Rodney Ramalho, $10K High Roller champion Jeff Cormier, Will Failla, Nikolas Chinell, Wesley Wong, Mark Radoja, Griffin Benger, $5K High Roller champion Shaan Siddiqui, Marc-Olivier Carpentier-Perrault and Peter Chien.
Final Table Action
The final table kicked off with Patrick Serda leading the way when the last nine players came together. In the first hour, Mike Leah tripled up in a bizarre turn of events with two jacks. He got it in with two calls before the flop, with Sebastien Labbe and Julian Volpe giving action. Labbe bet Volpe's ace-king out on the flop and table eight-seven suited. Jacks held and a dangerous Leah had some chips to play with.
Volpe was the first to go in 9th place ($20,000) after getting his short stack in the middle with ace-jack suited, running into Labbe's queens. Soon after, Serda turned the nut straight and got Labbe, with the second-biggest stack, to ship all of this chips in the middle with the second-nut straight. Fortunately for him, the board improved to a chop for both players and Serda saw a quarter of a million chip pot slide through his fingertips.
About an hour later, Sean Gomez moved in from under the gun for less than five big blinds holding jack-nine but ran into Kevin Rivest's ace-king. The board ran out dry and Gomez earned himself $26,000 for his final table finish.
Seven-handed play lasted 90 minutes before start-of-day and start-of-final table chip leader Patrick Serda fell. He found himself short and jammed ace-jack into Rivests's ace-king to take 7th for $35,000. The Winnipeg native banked heaps of money this week after shipping the $10K WCOOP High Roller and now finishing deep in this event.
Six-handed play went on for almost just as long, lasting 80 minutes before Sebastien Labbe got his stack in the middle with a straight draw on the turn, up against Rivest's flopped two pair. He bricked the river and pocketed a nice payday worth $50,000 for 6th place in his biggest career cash since his total earnings were previously in the $300 range.
A full level went by before Maurizio Lo Russo finally picked a spot with king-queen and got it in against Keyes' ace-seven. Keyes made a flush on the turn and Lo Russo claimed 5th place ($75,000).
Play continued in a roller coaster of events with Giguere taking the lead for the first time calling a bluff from Keyes, and then Rivest becoming short but then finding numerous doubles to survive. Eventually, two hours passed and Canadian legend Mike Leah got his short stack in the middle with ace-nine, getting action from Rivest's king-jack. A jack hit the flop and the Ontarian took home $110,000 in another impressive performance on home soil.
The final three players paused the clock to discuss a deal but couldn't come to an agreement. This led to another hour or so of play before Giguere found himself short and ripped it in with king-high. Unfortunately for him, Rivest picked up ace-king yet again and held to take the young contender out in 3rd place for a whopping $164,000.
Rivest and Keyes agreed on a deal, with Keyes locking up $303,675 with his chip lead and Rivest earning $280,325 for better than second place money. They left $56,000 to play for and Rivest ended up earning the title.
As always, thank you for following along as the PokerNews live reporting team covered all of the major action for the 2017 World Cup of Cards.
