After thirteen hours of play on the final day, a winner has emerged in Event #2: $400 Monster Stack at the World Series of Poker Circuit Montreal at Playground Poker Club. Anthony Comand was the last player standing and took home $49,735 along with his first WSOPC circuit ring.
Immediately after the triumph, Comand shared his thoughts on Reddit’s r/poker under the screenname “kornylol”:
“I just bested 1,200 people in the $400 monster stack over two days at a playground in Montreal for my first-ever WSOP circuit ring.
Biggest single cash of my career to date, I cannot believe how good it feels to get this validation.
LETS F****** GO!!!”
WSOPC $400 Monster Stack Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Hometown | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Anthony Comand | Laval | $49,735* |
| 2 | Griffin Clifford | Caribou | $37,480* |
| 3 | Nicholas Doumkos | Gloucester | $35,695* |
| 4 | Joshua James | Missauga | $38,635* |
| 5 | Brian Bond | Hamilton | $16,000 |
| 6 | Boyan Shi | Burnaby | $13,000 |
| 7 | Wei Zhang (CA) | Lasalle | $10,750 |
| 8 | Wing Seto | Toronto | $8,700 |
| 9 | Sergey Hovakimyan | Toronto | $6,800 |
| 10 | Jordan Schneible | Binbrook | $4,900 |
Denotes a 4-way deal
Final Day Action
The second circuit event of the series attracted 1,174 entrants, generating a prize pool of $394,020 CAD, almost double the $200,000 guarantee.
Jordan Schneible enjoyed the chip lead for the first half of the day until a cooler from Sergey Hovakimyan brought him close to the middle of the pack. Despite the setback, Schneible was able to ride the momentum from his early success all the way to the final table, where he finished in tenth place for $4,900.
Joshua James flew under the radar until the tournament was down to two tables. From that point, James went on a heater, scoring four knockouts en route to entering the final table with the chip lead.
Following Schneible’s elimination, it would take nearly two hours for the next bust-out to occur. Several times shorter stacks were all in and at risk, only to double up over and over again. Hovakimyan would finally lose a flip to Nicholas Bouvkos and bow out in ninth place. Not long afterwards, Hovakimyan was followed out the door by Wing Seto, Wei Zhang and Boyan Shi in eighth, seventh and sixth place, respectively.
After Comand eliminated Brian Bond in fifth place, the remaining four players briefly paused to discuss an ICM chop. It did not take long for a deal to be reached, which guaranteed the four players a prize around the $35,000 mark., This left an additional $16,155 for the eventual winner.
Once a deal was reached, Comand and Clifford quickly began to accumulate chips while James and Doumkos saw their stacks steadily decrease. James eventually put Clifford on a difficult decision that saw the latter go into the tank for nearly five minutes facing a preflop shove from James. Clifford eventually called with a weak ace held out to KO James, which left him with a commanding chip lead going into three-handed play.
Doumkos found himself short-stacked several times throughout the day but consistently preserved his tournament life leading up to the final table. It seemed at first that the theme would continue during three-handed play, with Doumkos beginning as the short stack but quickly doubling up through Comand to stay in contention.
Comand got everything back shortly afterwards in a blind on blind confrontation that left Doumkos with less than five big blinds. Doumkos couldn’t recover and was eliminated in third place.
Clifford began heads-up play with roughly a 2:1 chip advantage over his opponent, but Comand quickly doubled up to take the chip lead.
A few hands later, Clifford got the last of his chips in the middle with king-five and was flipping against Comand’s pocket fours. Things looked good at first for Clifford with a five in the window, but Comand flopped a full house to take the final pot of the night, an invite to the Tournament of Champions in May, a WSOPC circuit ring and the top prize of $49,735.