My WPT Montreal TR (from the media side)

jontm

So, since I rarely play a hand at events as I am usually handling updates and blogging on the media end, I thought I would have write a WPT Montreal Trip Report from that side of the felt. Going to add a few photos later, and it will be TLTD for some, however, going to write it anyway…

The father in law and I arrived in Montreal on Thursday at 6 as there was to be a player’s “’kick-off” type party. Went to check into the hotel (flat rate $40 from airport to downtown) and checked in at Le Westin, where all the PartyPoker qualifiers were staying. 4 star affair and was quite impressed with the place, save the high restaurant prices. Regardless, they gave use free breakfast each morning with the room, which were excellent food and a great way to start each day.

We then hit a taxi at Valet to go to Playground, $45 trip though it was $30 flat coming back from the club if you left from there. Immediately upon walking into the door, I found Steve Kerr registering. I went to get set up with CanadaPoker and met the PartyPoker rep I was hired by. Great guy and I look forward to working more with them in 2013. From there had a bite with the boys, smoked beef to get that off the bucket list and yes I am a fan. Seen AceTenBomber and quickly hugged out our beef, doesn’t do anyone any good to have bad blood especially when we work with a lot of same people.

Found Steve again talking to Janine and Nadia of the WPT as Blue Sharks has a relationship with them. Everyone headed back to The Rail from there for the open bar. Surprisingly, more players were interested in playing than drinking; there had to be 1000 players either in the super sat or playing cash. I also met Jay Kastner & Justin Kelly of the Playground marketing team, who I’ve worked with on Developing their FB page & Twitter at launch, recently a little radio and many articles, but had never met in real life. Both were great guys and nice to put a face to the personalities.

As we expected a big day for 1a, everyone was shutting things down early and to save us some coin, the Party rep made room for Steve, me and pops on the small shuttle (seated 8) used for Media and VIP pick up; this just happened to be an important moment for the rest of the week to play out…

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We get on the shuttle and take the back seat and Angelique and Ivey introduce themselves; they had just been picked up from the airport and it takes Steve and I a good 15 minutes before it kicks in that they are the Royal Flush Girls.

http://www.canadapoker.com/2012-wpt-royal-flush-girls-ivy-teves-angelique-velez/

However, there are now like 6 ladies on the shuttle that know each other, so we just talked amongst ourselves and laughed. Upon getting to the Westin, a somewhat tipsy Steve and chatted a bit, before he GPSed his way back to his own nearby hotel.

Fast forward to 8:30 am (6:30 in my part of the country and it was back on the shuttle to prepare for Day 1a. I jumped to the far back, but pops sat in the middle; so did Angelique and Ivey, now all dressed up for the event, so needless to say Joe was more than content to shoot the breeze with a couple of pretty ladies on the trip back. Upon arriving, seen Eric who I had originally met at the 2010 November Nine Reunion at Foxwoods when he was with PokerNews but found out he is now with WPT. BJ Nemuth was also with him, who of course is probably one the best and most hired photographers in poker; had met him once before IRL at the WSOP. He was helpful in making sure our own WSOP-C ring owning Greg “Crazykoby” Hartwick was tracked on WPT.com during his deep Day 2 run.
From there it was game time and it took my seat with Peter and James of CanadaPoker to start tweeting and writing. I immediately started creating a twitter list of the players which was a hit, Warren Lush, head PR guy for the World Poker Tour complimented that, which was nice to hear from him and we started chatting throughout the event as he was on my right. Also met Tony “Bond18” Dunst and a few gentlemen from the Score.
We all watched as the numbers climbed to nearly 500 and at the point everybody on the organizational side was pretty pleased as we were clearly going to break the $1,000,000 estimate and surpass the “satisfactory” mark of 600 players.

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Actyper, Mark Martin, Mikelbyl , Slb69 and John Lamb I had chatted with all by then, while we all plugged away at the table or while running around the club. Also met Danni with Mark and seen T8urmoney multiple times. By the end of the day were told we might hit 1000 with all the registrations coming in! A few levels needed to be added to compensate for this, but in general, everybody playing seemed to understand and was equally excited about the growing prize-pool. At about 1:00 am it was back on the shuttle…enter David Williams, Antonio and his father.

I mostly just listened to David beam about fatherhood to Antonio and started talking to Mr. Esfandiari Senior about his bracelet; turns out it need some adjustments and due to the high end designer and 350k value, it’s currently still in Paris having that done. I have met and chatted with Antonio on several occasions, including writing his cover story in Canadian Poker Player Magazine and he was clearly bagged, so other than asking he do an interview with WPT Magazine later in the week, just let him be.

Get back the hotel and Dunst, Timex, Pratt and SirWatts are standing in the lobby. I had never met Watson or Pratt, so introduced myself and was invited for a beer. Hiked up a few blocks to a spot they had found and basically shot the shit about different events, WPT Montreal (how big this was getting and how much bigger it might next year) and we brought Tony up to speed on our scene. In the taxi back, had asked about the Lambo, which of course Corey worked into this interview on Day 3 here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PokfPeewAbo&feature=share&list=UUS_C_yXp8UbFHmplPRxgUTg

Crashed and a few hours later it was back for Day 1b. We started things off with a little promotional/media Playground Poker Hockey Challenge. Phil Kessel, MadMarvin (a WPT Champ), Guy Charbonneau and Carey Price and Negreanu all took part in taking shots on Phil Laak and Antonio who were suited up in pink goalie pads for a prop bet as to who could stop more pucks. I decided to take advantage of the press pass and video it from beside net, but here is the clip the WPT produced:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs0gsBh9BJQ&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I was introduced to Daniel Negreanu and I have a bad habit of telling people where I first met them, so did that, at which point he jokingly but good heartedly apologized with a big hug for not remembering. I was asked if there was anything fun to add to the interview Corey of CanadaPoker.com was about to do, so I gave Daniel a run down on a community legend and his anonymity. He improvised the scenario very well, here is the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrhIXEuRiPw&feature=share&list=UUS_C_yXp8UbFHmplPRxgUTg

As many will have heard by now, players were pouring in. It got a little tense on the industry side as everyone scrabbled to come up with the best plan for already more than 500 players, the board kept climbing and about 5 hours in we had nearly 700 players. It was time to shut it off at 1173 total and a prize-pool of about $3.4 million! Sadly, we could have had more with a 1c, but nobody, including the players ever dreamed this would get this big. It was the third biggest field ever for the WPT as is and a record for a Canadian field over $1000 buy-in.

I put together a “Faces in The Field” Article with some of the players I had met and talked to, though I didn’t talk to all of them. If you read, you’ll know which were which. (koby is one of the featured player btw). Sitting down with 2005 WSOP bracelet winner Andre Boyer was very interesting and the man has played a huge role in the Quebec poker scene. Story for another day though…
WPT Montreal Faces in the Field – sponsored by Party Poker | Canada Poker | Canadian Poker News

Rinse and repeat for Day 2, only I went over to table to see friend Ryan McClean after reading he had tripled up. We chatted a bit and he happened to be seated by Xuan Liu. I interviewed Xuan a few months ago but have been holding back until she was guaranteed a cover. She has the cover story for Poker Pro Canada for December. I asked if she was ok with photos used and she was so left it at that. John Young, the editor of WPT Magazine had also flown in from England and wanted to do a print cover story with her, I chatted a lot with him over each day on various things and they did get their photo shoot and interview in. CanadaPoker.com also did a video interview with her here:

Interview with Xuan Liu at the 2012 WPT Montreal - YouTube

That evening’s shuttle ride was with Gavin Smith and Bruce Buffer. Gavin seems to finally remember my name and he like David, talked mostly about his children. We talked about Infinity Poker and then chatted with Bruce a bit. My twenty year old daughter and her boyfriend are huge UFC fans and she wanted a special shout-out from Montreal, so I set up a tweet that tagged him and he happily replied to her. She was through the roof!
Day 3 seen a lot of my favorites in the final 45 come and go, but the most significant thing that happen for me was squashing another beef; my old boss from the CPT and I had slowly started acknowledging each other over the event and ended up sitting at the same table. We talked out a few things and while you won’t see me on his payroll in the future, he explained where some past issues were at and plans going forward. It sounds like things will be made right. Regardless, we work with many of the same people and agree it is in the best interest of Canadian poker and it’s growth not to be going at each other going forward. We were good friends at one time, so it was nice to clear the air. I also chatted a bunch with Chris Tessaro, who does “The Poker Show” on Sportsnet’s Fan590 and a regular poker column of in the Sun. (Also a PFC member). Again, nice to put a face to the name and leading in to the event he had me on his Greg Merson and Mike Sexton episode which was ultra cool of him.

I tweeted and FB away for Canada Poker until we had our final 6 and went to get counts and congratulate Gavin. I said my good-byes to most as I had some sightseeing planned for Tuesday before I returned home. Tapped out a final table pre-view and then headed to Notre Dame Basilica as it was the one place I wasn’t leaving with-out seeing. Breathtaking and beyond words (will upload a photo) dropped $200 buy-in the high res photo book and some other very nice souvenirs, then some other things for the kids from the shops around and it was back to the hotel for a few quick meetings. Everyone was ultra-pleased and it was off to the airport! I did miss Day 4, but was missing family and reality more.

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Cliffs: HAD A FANTASTIC TIME!

crazykoby

Awesome trip report!!! Also thanks for everything you did for me while in Montreal. Truly appreciate all of your support.

Now can I correct one thing.... It's "Crazykoby"

:) :)

jontm

crazykoby;340482 wroteAwesome trip report!!! Also thanks for everything you did for me while in Montreal. Truly appreciate all of your support.

Now can I correct one thing.... It's "Crazykoby"

:) :)

My brain does one thing and my fingers another when it comes to that nickname...can't explain it :)

westside8

Awesome TR - glad you had a blast

compuease

very nice trip report... Thanks...

SteveKerr

awesome report

BrianS

Very nice