Only 16 players remain in the Season XVI WPT Montreal Main Event from Playground Poker Club, and it’s WPT Champions Club member Eric Afriat (pictured) leading the way with his stack of 2.4 million in chips.
A Canadian player with more than $1.8 million in live tournament earnings, Afriat’s first big splash on the poker scene came several years ago in 2010 when he placed sixth in the Season IX WPT Bellagio Cup and earned $118,950. Fast forward a few years and Afriat found himself back at a World Poker Tour final table, this time in the largest WPT event in the tour’s history. Afriat emerged victorious in the Season XII WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown that attracted 1,795 entries and collected a payout worth $1.081 million.
Now, just 15 players stand between Afriat and a second WPT title.
“I’m waiting for that,” Afriat said of winning a second WPT title. “It slipped out of my hands in February. This time, if I have a chance, I’m planning to go all the way.
“What I want the most is the Hublot watch, because when I won their contract was signed for the following week. It was the last tournament that didn’t award the watch. They awarded it the following week, and I missed out on the watch. So the watch will be very important to me. Because a watch you can carry it around, you feel like you won something, but I can’t carry the big trophy.”
The reference to February came right here at Playground Poker Club, when Afriat reached the final table in the Season XV WPT Playground Main Event. He ultimately finished third in the event that saw Ema Zajmovic become the first female player to win an open WPT Main Tour event.
“It was fun, it was fun,” Afriat said of the WPT Playground event. “[Ema Zajmovic] deserved to win. It was her time. Everybody has their time. Believe it or not, I feel luckier now than in February. In February, I came in as a short stack, and I just kept on creeping up, creeping up, until I became one of the chip leaders. Today is different, final 16 having the chip lead with 2.4 million. The average stack to go to the final table is about three [million], so I can just maintain my stack, chip up a little, and just get to the final table with an average stack, and then we’ll see what happens.”
As for his day, Afriat didn’t give mention to any big hands, but rather said it was a bunch of little ones that added up.
“No, no, no,” Afriat said. “It was just little hands at a time. Chipping up, chipping up, chipping up. No big hands. I lost a big hand, with queens against jacks. He turned a jack for a set of jacks, and it cost me about 300,000 in chips, but that was the only hiccup of the night.”
Trailing Afriat as his closest competitor was Curt Kohlberg, who bagged a stack of 1.804 million, so the gap is fairly large between first and second on the leaderboard. Like Afriat, Kohlberg is a player with WPT final table experience. In fact, Kohlberg’s reached a WPT final table four different times prior to this event. His best finish was a runner-up result in the Season IX WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown for $586,109.
A few of the other notables players remaining in the final 16 were Derek Wolters (1.257 million), David Peters (1.216 million), Alex Keating (1.051 million), and Justin Liberto (451,000). Peters entered the day as the chip leader atop the final 43 players, but took a slide at the end of the day to finish eighth overall heading into Wednesday’s Day 4.
The final 16 players are guaranteed a minimum of C$21,390, but it’s the C$403,570 top prize they’re all truly playing for. The winner will also earn a $15,000 seat into the season-ending WPT Tournament of Champions, plus the luxurious Hublot Big Bang Steel watch that Afriat alluded to.
When Day 3 of the Season XVI WPT Montreal Main Event began, 43 players remained from the field of 606. The first player to bust was Shane Currey in 43rd place, and he was followed out the door by two WPT Champions Club members, Chanracy Khun (42nd) and Michael “The Grinder” Mizrachi (41st). Not too long after, Mike Leah fell in 39th, and then Dean Baranowski busted in 32nd and Ari Engel went out 29th.
Zachary Donovan, who placed second to Art Papazyan in the WPT Maryland Main Event, placed 25th, and later on Alex Fitzgerald was eliminated in 22nd place. The final player to bust on Day 3 was Yu Gao in 17th place when his 
lost to Keating’s 
.
Day 4 will have the players return to action at 12 p.m. ET at Playground Poker Club, and you can find all the coverage you can handle right here on WPT.com.
Photography by Joe Giron / PokerPhotoArchive.com
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