Welcome to the WPT Champions Club, Maxime Heroux!
Heroux topped a field of 606 entries in the Season XVI WPT Montreal Main Event from Playground Poker Club to win the C$403,570 top prize and his first World Poker Tour title. Heroux defeated Pat Quinn in heads-up play on the 112th hand of the televised final table.
On the final hand, Heroux and Quinn saw a flop of 
. Heroux checked, Quinn fired all in for 2.2 million, and Heroux made the call with the 
. Quinn tabled the 
, but the 
turn and 
river cards put the tournament in the books.
Quinn, a restauranteur, earned C$271,030 for his runner-up performance.
In addition to the C$403,570 first-place prize, Heroux earned a luxurious Hublot Big Bang Steel watch and 1,000 points in the Hublot WPT Player of the Year race for Season XVI. A $15,000 seat into the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions was included in Heroux’s winnings.
WPT Montreal Main Event Final Table Results
1st: Maxime Heroux – C$403,570*
2nd: Pat Quinn – C$271,030
3rd: Derek Wolters – C$173,220
4th: Brendan Baksh – C$124,310
5th: Eric Afriat – C$95,370
6th: David Peters – C$78,050
*Includes a $15,000 seat into the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions.
Entering the final table, Quinn was out in front, with Heroux second in chips. Although those two held the largest chips stacks amongst the final six, many were watching to see if Eric Afriat could win his second WPT title or if David Peters could win his first. As it turned out, Afriat and Peters were the first two players to bust.
After starting the final table third in chips, Peters got off to a rough start. Afriat doubled through him on the 13th hand of play, and Derek Wolters doubled through him on the 17th hand of play. Peters nursed his stack below 10 big blinds and even doubled up once through Heroux, but in the end, his tournament was done in when his 
couldn’t beat Quinn’s 
.
Peters’ elimination happened on the 40th hand of the final table, and it took another 18 hands before Afriat headed to the payout desk with a fifth-place ticket. Afriat was all in with the 
against the 
of Wolters, and Wolters made quads to eliminate the WPT Champions Club member.
Wolters also knocked out Brendan Baksh in fourth place before he himself fell in third place. Heroux was the one who sent Wolters to the rail, and that allowed Heroux to take a huge lead into heads-up play against Quinn.
When heads-up play began, Heroux had 14.6 million to Quinn’s 3.575 million. Quinn never saw his stack get back above 4 million, and the final duel was over in 17 hands.
Third WPT Cash in 2017 and 1,000 Hublot Player of the Year Points
The victory was the largest cash of Heroux’s career, to date. It was also the third time Heroux finished in the money in a WPT Main Tour event in Canada in 2017. During the second half of Season XV, Heroux finished 17th in the WPT Playground Main Event and 34th in the WPT Fallsview Poker Classic Main Event, collecting C$14,010 and C$13,259, respectively.
Heroux’s victory also earned him 1,000 points in the Hublot WPT Player of the Year race, and he now sits in 10th place on that leaderboard for Season XVI. Art Papazyan, the winner of two WPT events in Season XVI, is the current leader in the Hublot WPT Player of the Year race with 2,400 points. Through the first eight events of the season, Papazyan’s lead is double the rest of the field. Guo Liang Chen sits second with 1,200 points after his win in the Season XVI WPT Borgata Poker Open Championship.
WPT Five Diamond Up Next in Season XVI
Heroux became the seventh unique World Poker Tour champion from Season XVI of the WPT Main Tour, and he will join other WPT Champions Club members at the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions to be held at ARIA Resort & Casino in May 2018.
As for the next stop on the WPT Main Tour for Season XVI, the tour heads to another location in Las Vegas, as for the 16th consecutive year the iconic Bellagio hosts one of the world’s most prestigious poker tournaments with the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic coming to town. The full WPT Five Diamond festival begins Friday, November 24, and features two dozen events ranging in buy-ins from $560 to $25,000. The festival’s main attraction is the $10,400 Main Event, starting on Tuesday, December 5, and part of the televised Season XVI WPT schedule.
Bellagio is one of three charter members of the World Poker Tour, and the WPT Five Diamond World Poker Classic Main Event is coming off a record-setting affair from one season ago, when 791 entries generated a prize pool of more than $7.6 million. James Romero, the event’s winner, walked away with more than $1.9 million in first-place prize money.
Photography by Joe Giron / PokerPhotoArchive.com
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