The World Poker Tour joins forces with partypoker LIVE to present the Season XVII partypoker WPT Montreal festival from October 21-November 4. All the action takes place at the popular Playground Poker Club in Montreal and, for the first time, brings together all of the WPT tournament brands in a single stop.

Three Tours In One

There will be a lot of firsts taking place at the Montreal festival. The stop is the beginning of the new four-year partnership between the World Poker Tour and partypoker LIVE brands to co-produce live events in both Canada and Europe.

It’s also the first time that the World Poker Tour has brought all of their major tournament brands under the same roof at the same time. Players who travel to Montreal will have the ability to compete in a WPT500 event, a WPTDeepstacks tournament as well a WPT Main Tour championship event.

WPT500

The popular WPT500 tournament kicks off the festival on October 26. But not before players are able to participate in three starting flights that will take place on partypoker.  The online Day1’s run from October 21-23, one per day, with those who finish the day able to make their way to the Playground Poker Club for the live portion of the event.

Then five more live starting flights of the C$550 will take place at the Playground Poker Club. The WPT500 Montreal tournament carries a C$550 buy-in and a C$1 million guarantee. The final table is set to play out on October 30.

WPT Main Event

Right on the heels of the WPT500, the C$5,300 Main Event takes place. partypoker will again play host to an online starting flight which runs on Sunday, October 28.

Then players take their seats in the cardroom for one of three starting flights for the Main Event. The championship event guarantees C$5,000,000 and begins on October 29. The players who advanced both online will join those who advanced playing live and the two will play side-by-side as they combine the fields in the live arena on November 1.

From November 1-4, the WPTDeepstacks event begins with five starting flights. The C$1,650 buy-in provides a C$1million guarantee as well.

In addition to all three marquee events, the festival offers a Ladies Event, a $10K High Roller, a Pot Limit Omaha event and for the closer, a C$550 No Limit Hold’em Six Max Turbo

A Look Back

Season XVII marks the seventh season that the World Poker Tour has been visiting Montreal at this time of year.

The popularity of the poker room plus the prestige of the event has, in no small part, contributed to the long list of popular poker pros that have appeared at the final tables of Montreal. Past champions of the event include Canadian Jonathan Roy, who took down the initial WPT Montreal in 2012 for over $784,000. Two years later, Jonathan Jaffee bested a field of 732 for $463,432 at a final table that included back-to-back WPT Montreal final table participant Mukul Pahuja and WSOP Europe Main Event Champion Kevin McPhee.

In 2016, current partypoker Chairman, Mike Sexton, went on to win the event while still in his duties as co-commentator for the WPT television show. It was a performance that got him nominated for two American Poker Awards.

Then just last year, Canadian Maxime Heroux took down the event for $403,570. It was the first time a Canadian had won the tournament since Roy’s initial victory in 2012.

What To Watch For

With the ability to satellite into various events online plus play starting flights on partypoker, watch for an uptick in the number of players in the Main Event. The number of players has never drifted south of 600, but player turn out has continually decreased year over year since the beginning of WPT Montreal. The hope will be that the online presence plus bringing in all three WPT tournament banners for a single festival be just the shot in the arm that the festival is looking for in 2018.

In the short history of the event, the winner has always been from North America. In fact, only three players of the past six WPT Montreal final table has not been either American or Canadia. Rainer Kempe represented Germany in 2015, Ilan Boujenah from Israel in 2016 and Pat Quinn, who finished as the runner-up, in 2017. Perhaps with the ability to buy-in using partypoker LIVE dollars, the rare European, perhaps red-hot partypoker ambassador Anatoly Filatov, will arrive to take the Montreal title away from the North Americans.

Follow Along

Live updates for all of the major events will again be provided by the World Poker Tour on their website.

The final table of the Main Event will be livestreams and can be seen both from the WPT as well as partypoker on the My partypoker LIVE app.

partypoker WPT Montreal Schedule Of Events