Today’s daytime tournament was Event #23, a $1,000 + $100 NL Hold’em 6-Max tournament, and after 15 hours of tough tournament poker, Senthuran Vijayaratnam put his hands on the Champion’s Trophy.

Among other notables, Kristen Bicknell, Chance Kornuth, Marc Karam, and Eric Afriat participated in the Event. The 6-Max structure typically attracts tough aggressive players, and so do buy-ins upwards of $1,000, so this field was a hard one to traverse.

Senthuran was always healthy in chips, but it was his big hand against Chance Kornuth (flopped quads against a boat) that propelled him far ahead. After that, he kept the lead until the end, never looking back. He went on to orchestrate the first 4 busts of the final table, until Louis Boutin crippled Douglas Watson. Senthuran gave the final blow, making sure that only he eliminated finalists in this Event.

The heads-up match began with a 2 to 1 lead for Senthuran. He increased that lead, until Louis doubled up on a pre-flop all-in hand. Senthuran went right back to work, and brought it up again. When the final hand started, Senthuran had 1.1M and Louis 715K. Senthuran min-raised to 60K, and got raised to 145K by Louis. He went all-in and Louis called. against ! The board failed to hit the big slick, and the tournament was over.

Senthuran was very happy to pull off the win. He has been coming to Montreal for a few years with the goal of taking a big one down, patiently waiting for his time to bring a Champion’s Trophy back home. We had no doubt that his time was going to come soon. Wait no more Senthuran! Great work!

The $1,000 + $100 6-max Champion: Senthuran Vijayaratnam – $26,500 and the Champion’s Trophy

Runner-up: Louis Boutin – $15,000.00

Last hand of play:

The heads-up match between Senthuran Vijayaratnam and Louis Boutin has been tough, but slightly tilted Senthuran’s way. Louis’ stack was slowly shrinking, until he managed to get it in with an edge. His ace-ten held up against Senthuran’s king-queen, doubling his 490K to almost a million chips, leveling the odds in the process.

Both players now have about 900K, with blinds at 15K/30K/a5K, and $26,500 will be awarded to the winner.

 

Louis Boutin and Senthuran Vijayaratnam have been battling for more than 30 minutes, and this heads-up match is like trench warfare. Both parties are pushing hard. Santhuran’s 1.2M have gained a few blinds, but Louis is at 800K, and defends ferociously against Senthuran’s attacks.

The Champion’s Trophy was brought to the table, to add some excitement to the match.

Louis Boutin min-raised to 32K from the small blind, and Douglas Watson called from the big blind. The flop came . Louis placed a continuation bet of 20K, which was met by a fairly quick all-in bet from Douglas. Louis could not have called faster, and casually showed a flopped flush: . Douglas was drawing pretty slim with his , and dead on the turn.

Louis managed to double his stack that way, and was now at 640K, while Douglas had about 60K left. He went on to chop a 3-way limped pot, then took down another limped pot. In the end, his 109K were lost with to Senthuran’s , played pre-flop.

While he was trying to build back up, his friends came over for support, and sarcastically clapped after he had taken a small pot down. They all shared a laugh.

Douglas Watson gets the 3rd place money, $9,500. Great work!

Play had been pretty quiet for about half an hour, with stacks observing status quo, until Senthuran Vijayaratnam min-raised to 32K. Francis Parrot called from the small blind, and the flop appeared: . Both players checked it, then Francis went all-in on the . Senthuran called instantly, having flopped trips with . Francis opened for a flush draw, which the river did not complete.

Francis Parrott walked away in 4th place, worth $6,400. Great job!

Louis Boutin and Douglas Watson have both doubled up on Senthuran shortly after, proving that the leader is human after all! He is still very ahead though, with over a million in chips, while Douglas has about 400K and Louis 350K.

To say that Senthuran Vijayaratnam runs good would be an understatement, but he is also a very tough tournament player. In between the all-in hands that he wins, he also picks up a lot of pots, and was doing it even before his gargantuan stack allowed him to do it with eyes closed.

Players are taking a short break, and will resume soon. Here are the actual counts:

First Name | Prénom	Last Name | Nom	Seat | Siège	Stack | Tapis
Senthuran	Vijayaratnam	Table 70 - Seat 2	1,135,000
Louis	Boutin	Table 70 - Seat 4	229,000
Francis	Parrott	Table 70 - Seat 5	175,000
Douglas	Watson	Table 70 - Seat 7	285,000