PokerStars Canada Cup Main Event Day 1b: Charles Sylvestre Leads Star-Studded Roster
The PokerStars Canada Cup $3,300 Main Event finished up its second of three Day 1s on Friday. The final chance to qualify for Day 2 is on Saturday in Day 1c.
One hundred and sixty one players came out to buy a seat on Friday for Day 1b in this next-day reentry tournament. Of those who bought a stack, just 62 players survived and had chips at the end of day to take forward to Day 2 on Sunday.
This event has a staggering $2 million guarantee on the prize pool and a total of 688 entries would need to pass through registration to avoid an overlay. With 129 players on Day 1a and the 161 on Day 1b, there is only a total of 290 entries in the event so far. Day 1c would need just under 400 players to meet the $2 million prize pool. Saturday will definitely be the busiest day of for starting flights of any event, and there were a heap of satellites offering seats right up until Friday night, so there will be a large field for Day 1c. But 400 is a big number.
When the tournament clock ticked down to the end of the last level of the day, a familiar face was on the top of the pile with the largest stack to bag and tag. French Canadian Charles "Chilax Chuck" Sylvestre ended the day with 222,200 in chips. Sylvestre doesn't have many live results on his Hendon Mob profile — just five — but the ones he has are impressive. Sylvestre won a bracelet at the World Series of Poker last summer and picked up nearly $500,000 for the win. We also saw Sylvestre at the WSOP Circuit event in Gatineau, Quebec late last year, which he also won for $122,000.
Jeremy Thompson from Day 1a still leads the total field overall with his bag of 260,000 chips that he will take to Day 2.
Coming in behind Sylvestre is the legend, Sylvain Siebert, with 174,800 chips. Siebert is virtually unknown outside of Eastern Canada, but he has a tremendous track record in events in his part of the country. We saw Siebert on the unofficial final table of the Main Event at the most recent series at Playground, the WPT Canadian Spring Championship, where he finished in eighth place. He also final-tabled the $2,500 event at WPT Fallsview a month earlier immediately after making a deep run in the $1,100 event. Siebert also final tabled the WPT Montreal Main Event last year for the second straight year. His consistency is incredible and nobody will be surprised to see him on the final table of this Main Event.
Also within the top stacks for the day are superstars like Antonio Esfandiari, Jonathan Duhamel, Kevin MacPhee, and Yann Dion. Here's the star-studded top 10 from Day 1b:
| Position | Player | Chips |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Charles Sylvestre | 222,200 |
| 2 | Sylvain Siebert | 174,800 |
| 3 | Francois Goulet | 169,000 |
| 4 | Louis Boutin | 167,900 |
| 5 | Antonio Esfandiari | 163,400 |
| 6 | Mathieu Boulanger-Vaugeois | 160,000 |
| 7 | Jonathan Duhamel | 157,900 |
| 8 | Micah Johnson | 144,500 |
| 9 | Kevin MacPhee | 141,800 |
| 10 | Yann Dion | 133,500 |
Other notable players to survive the day include Jason Comtois, fresh off his WPT Canadian Spring Championship Main Event win at this same poker room last month, Shayam Srinivasan, TJ Ulmer, Jason Duval, Eric Place, Russell Carson, and Ami Alibay who just finished runner-up in the High Roller event in this series.
Some recognizable faces that couldn't make it through the day include Timothy Adams, Eric Afriat, Samuel Chartier, Sam Greenwood, Ryan Hall, Steve Kerr, Chanracy Khun, Mike Leah, Mario Lim, Chris McClung, Mike Watson, Jordan Westmorland, and [Removed:17]. They will have one more chance to qualify for Day 2 by playing Day 1c on Saturday.
Check back in with PokerNews for a recap of the final Day 1 before Day 2 begins on Saturday. We may be reporting on a large overlay on the event.
Photos and data courtesy of the Playground Poker Club Blog.
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