Pascal Lefrancois Leads Day 1 Field of Event #22: $5,000 NL Hold'em High Roller
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A swift and wild Day 1 of the World Cup of Cards Event #22: $5400 NL Hold'em 8-Max has left just 12 players in the fight. The largest buy-in of the festival drew a total of 44 entries, building a prize pool of $213,400. Montreal Nationals star and World Series of Poker bracelet winner Pascal Lefrancois leads the remaining survivors into Day 2.
Lefrancois leaped into the chip lead on the very last hand of the night. Lefrancois got into a post-flop raise war with David Valcourt-Dube and Lefrancois' flopped set of eights faded Valcourt-Dube's top-pair and flush draw to bring the field down to 12. The hand left Lefrancois with 210,900, miles ahead of his closest competitor — Francois Goulet, with 148,700.
Domenic Triumbari ended play with the third best stack, sealing 144,400 in his bag. Almost wire-to-wire chip leader, Marc-Etienne McLaughlin lost a big hand to Goulet during the last level to end the day fourth in chips, bagging 139,000. Pierre-Paul Paulin rounds out the top five stacks with 121,600.
Originally scheduled to resume at 4 p.m. on Saturday, the players have decided to begin at 2 p.m. instead. The event is most likely to finish tomorrow as well, originally scheduled to play a third day. Another eight levels are currently on the slate but tournament staff will leave that decision in the player's hands.
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