Pure Poker Tour Series #6 – Event #8: $880 NLH 6-Max

It was a long bubble tonight as they played a couple of hands in Level 15, the entire Level 16, and part of Level 17 without losing a player. In the end, one of the bigger stacks at the start of hand-for-hand, Rhett Stensrud, was the bubble.

Garry Sandhu and Ali Razzaq are leading the way with more than 500k each. See below for the final 9 stacks in the money with players coming back to the same seats until the redraw for the final table at 7 players.

It’s definitely Sharma Time tonight. DJ Sharma just shoved the short stack under the gun and Ali Razzaq reshoved from the button. Sharma was live with six-four of clubs but needed to find outs against the ace-king for Razzaq. Most of the J♠8♠10♥4♠6♥ board was clean for Razzaq, but he sunk on the river to double Sharma up.

They are still hand-for-hand with 10 left after Michael “Berny” Bernstein survived by doubling through Rhett Stensrud. He shoved with king-ten of diamonds and Stensrud called with queen-jack off. Berny hit his king on the river and doubled.

Michael Bernstein survived and all-in shove from the small blind after a tank-fold from Rhett Stensrud in the big blind. On the other table, Mike Malm raised preflop to 17.5k and got a call from big blind Ali Razzaq. I missed the flop and turn action while watching Berny’s all in, but by the 8♠3♥2♣5♠2♦ Malm was twisting a bit as he faced a 35k bet from Razzaq.

“Can we get a different river?” he joked at one point during his tank before he finally called, showing ace-jack against Razzaq’s queen-jack.

Shortly after, DJ Sharma doubled up with ace-king over ace-queen against Ali Razzaq. They are now on the break.

Colten Yamagishi just put his life on the line with a shove for 102.5 from the big blind after Mike Malm opened 17.5k. Malm had the bigger stack and was in the tank for a couple of minutes before he finally folded.

As I was writing this, Shane Brotherwood exited the game in 11th place, so they are now hand-for-hand with 10 players left.

Malcolm Bolger was the first player off the final two tables when he ran a dominated ace into Garry Sandhu. On the other table, Daniel Lefebvre chipped up in a hand against Shane Brotherwood.

I picked up the action on the 6♣K♣Q♦ flop where Brotherwood check-called for 17k from the big blind. The 2♠ turn brought another check-call from Brotherwood for 21.5k. Brotherwood led for 40k, enough to put Lefebvre all in, on the 9♠ river and Lefebvre snapped called. His ace-king was well ahead of Brotherwood’s queen-three.

Ryan Smith was the most recent exit to bring them down to 12 players on the final two tables. The bags will come out when they hit 9.

They are down to 15 in the 6-Max now, five off the end of the day. Eric Wasylenko, Jason Heang, Preston Stevenson, and Weston Pring are the players who hit the rail in Level 13.

Shane Brotherwood is leading the way right now with 282.5k. Level 13 has just begun and they are 8 eliminations away from the end of Day 1.

They are now 10 players away from the end of the day with 19 remaining and it looks like Mike Kim and Mile Malm are leading the way right now. They are both playing around 200k while SHae Brotherwood and Daniel Lefebvre look to be on about 180k at the moment.

There are about 5 minutes to play in Level 11 with a break after Level 12. I’ll grab a full round of chip counts from the remaining players at the break.

The prizes are in and the numbers are confirmed with he official field at 73. That puts the prizes at $55,480 with 9 players getting a dip in the pool. None of those prizes will be awarded today — when they hit 9 players tonight they’ll bag up the chips and return to play it out tomorrow starting at 1 PM.

6-Max Payouts

Entries are now closed with players in their seats for Level 10. The final number on the board was 73, but I’m still waiting on confirmation of that when the prizes are complete. It looks like either 9 or 10 players will get bags later tonight and they’ll be fighting for more than $55k in prizes on Tuesday.

The 6-Max is on the dinner break now and entries will close when they sit down for Level 10 in about 25 minutes. The field is currently at 72 entries for prizes just shy of $55k but it’s likely we’ll see a few more entries before the end of dinner. With the current numbers, it looks like 9 players will find a bag tonight, but that may still change.

The prizes are more than $50k now with 68 entries on the board. There are 33 players still alive at the felt with more than an hour left to enter the game.

The field is up to 60 entries with 34 players at the felt. That puts the prizes at $45,600 with Ryan Comely, DJ Sharma, Taran Parmar, Jimmy Lee, Shane Brotherwood, Eric Wasylenko, Ed Zurawell, Colten Yamagishi, Graham Lupton, and Daniel Lefebvre among the recent entries I’ve spotted.

Level 4 is about half complete with 42 entries on the board now. That puts the prizes at nearly $32k and climbing, with entries open for about 4 hours and 20 minutes from the time of this post.

The prize pool is over $20k now with 27 entries on the board. Among the new faces I’ve seen since my last update are Ali Khani, Preston Stevenson, Talal Shoush, Weston Pring, Ron Lauzon, Andy Truong, Alex Liu, Malcolm Bolger, and Michael “Berny” Bernstein.

Level 2 has just under 15 minutes remaining with the field up to 22 entries and 19 still in play. The pushes the current prizes to almost $17k with just under 6 hours left to enter this game. Entries for the 6-Max are et to close around 8pm according to the structure, but it looks like it might be a few minutes later than that based on the time remaining on the clock. I was late to the game today so I was here for the start of play, but it looks like they got the cards in the air a bit later than 1 pm, so that means entries will still be open a bit later than 8 pm.

Right now, it looks like entries will close about 8:10, but don’t push that too far as I don’t have a firm handle on the exact moment they’ll close the desk.

It’s a bit of a slow start for the 6-Max today with 16 players in the field as Level 1 draws to a close. There is still plenty of time to enter this one with more than 6 hours of entry remaining.

There are quite a few familiar faces in the small crowd, however. Thomas Taylor is here for his first event, as is his wife and PPT ambassador Haven Taylor. Stephen Dauphinais, Steve Chung, Tyler Panas, Mal Hagan, Michael St. Pierre-Porter, Ali Razzaq, Skyler York, Brett Worton, and Mike Kim are also among the players in this one early.

It’s time for the 6-Max game which is typically one of the more poplar games on the schedules here in Alberta. This is a two-day event that gets going at 1 pm on Monday and plays until 12.5% of the field remains. At that point, they’ll bag up all the chips and return in the money for Day 2 on Tuesday.

For their $880, players get 30k in chips to play 40-minute levels throughout the event. They’ll have 9 levels to enter the game, which should put the last buy-in at about 8 PM. There is no hard stop for Day 1 as they’ll play for as long as it takes to get down to 12.5%.

This should be my main focus for the early part of Monday at least, and I’ll be following it until the bag up at the end of the night.

Garry Sandhu was the chip leader for most of the final table tonight, though Ali Razzaq did take a lead during heads-up play. Sandhu and Razzaq were the two top stacks for most of the FT so it wasn’t much of a surprise that they got heads up tonight.

Sandhu survived an all-in when he flopped two pair and Razzaq turned an ace. The money went in on the river when Sandhu shoved, and after Razzaq called, he was down to about 350k. He fought back to about 600k with a double shortly after, but that was as close as he got. In the final hand, his pocket threes were racing against king-queen for Sandhu and the threes looked to be holding until Sandhu found a king on the river.

Final Results from 6-Max

Place	Player	Prize
1	Garry Sandhu	$17,757
2	Ali Razzaq	$11,650
3	Daniel Lefebvre	$7,767
4	Graham Lupton	$5,548
5	Stephen Dauphinais	$4,161
6	DJ Sharma	$2,995
7	Mike Malm	$2,330
8	Michael “Berny” Bernstein	$1,830
9	Colten Yamagishi	$1,442

The 6-Max is now over with Ali Razzaq taking the runner-up spot today. He was close to a double back to even but drowned on the river. The money went in preflop with Razzaq on pocket threes against the king-queen for Sandhu. The 10♥7♠J♥4♦K♠ board ran clean for Razzaq’s pair until the river king sunk him for second place.

Ali Razzaq just flushed to a double, giving him about 550k now. Garry Sandhu limped in, then snapped it off when Razzaq shoved for 245k. Sandhu was well ahead with ace-king of clubs against queen-nine of spades fro Razzaq. Sandhu turned his king on the board of 4♠9♥2♠K♠Q♥ but it was Razzaq’s flush card as well. Sandhu still has the lead by about 1.5m to 500k.

Ali Razzaq had chipped up into a slight lead but he’s down to about 350k now after a big hand. He opened to 50k and got the call from Garry Sandhu. Sandhu check-called for 40k on the 6♣K♣7♦ flop.

Sandhu check-raised from 50k to 200k on the A♥ turn and Razzaq called. Sandhu put it all in on the 10♣ river and Razzaq hit the tank for about a minute before announcing “Call”. Sandhu’s king-seven for two pair was best against the ace0nine top pair for Razzaq and Sandhu doubled to a big lead and left Razzaq pretty short.

Garry Sandhu opened to 40k and Ali Razzaq called. The flop came K♥A♦A♥ and Razzaq check-called for 40k. The K♠ turn brought another check-call from Razzaq, this time for 100k. They both checked the 3♠ river, and the king-ten of diamonds for Razzaq was good with the turned boat.

They are heads up now between Garry Sandhu and Ali Razzaq after Daniel Lefebvre busted out in 3rd place. He was pre-registered in the High Roller for the reduced rake (along with about 14 others so far) so he won’t have long to wait to get back into the action.

Graham Lupton shoved under the gun for 105k and Gary Sandhu called him off from the small blind. Lupton had a pair of threes and was racing against ace-five for Sandhu. Sandhu smashed the flop on the A♣Q♥A♥10♥10♠ board to take the lead and hold for the win.

GRaham Lupton shoved his button after taking blinds and antes in a previous hand to get himself up to 70k. It folded to big blind Garry Sandhu and he decided to “give it a try.”

Sandhu has the offsuit eight-six against ace-jack off for Lupton, and Sandhu turned best before losing it on the river of the 5♣2♠2♣8♥J♦ board. Lupton is now back to about 170k while Sandhu is still the big stack at the table.

Graham Lupton raised to 30k under the gun and Daniel Lefebvre re-popped it to 120k from the button. Lupton made the call to the 5♦5♠5♥ flop where he shoved a covering stack. Lefebvre snapped it off with pocket sevens against the king-queen overs for Lupton. The A♣2♦ runout kept Lefebvre ahead to give him about 200k now while Lupton was left with just 40k behind.

They are down to four remaining now after Stephen Dauphinais busted out for 5th place today.

Ali Razzaq limped from the small blind, then called when big blind Graham Lupton raised to 42k. They checked it all the way to the river on a board of 7♦J♠10♦K♥3♠ where Razzaq led out for 30k. Lupton called, but mucked when Razzaq showed king-three for the turned top pair and rivered two pair.

Garry Sandhu has a pretty big lead on the first break of Day 2.

Final Table Stacks for 6-Max

It was the perfect flop for Garry Sandhu. DJ Sharma opened the action to 36k from the button, and Garry Sandhu, in the small blind, checked out Sharma’s stack, then shoved the covering stack.

Sharma called it off with jacks while Sandhu showed up with ace-jack. The A♥A♦J♦ was massive, giving both players the flopped boat, but Sandhu’s aces-full was best. The 7♦10♣ were irrelevant and Sharma hit the rail for 6th place tonight.

Garry Sandhu and Ali Razzaq are still the big stacks out there and they just got into a decent-sized confrontation. Razzaq raised to 20k under the gun and both DJ Sharma (small) and Garry Sandhu (big) called to see 3♥8♠8♦ on the flop. It checked to Razzaq who put out a bet of 25k.

Sharma got out of the way, but Sandhu smooth-called to the A♠ turn. Sandhu checked again but elected for the check-raise to 100k after Razzaq tossed in 35k. Razzaq thought about it for a minute or so before sliding his hand into the muck.

Sandhu has about 715k to Razzaq’s 660k after the hand.

Mike Malm was the first off the final table tonight. He shoved with ace-deuce and Stephen Dauphinais called with ace-five and the bigger stack. Malm flopped a deuce to take the lead but by the river, Dauphinais found himself on the wheel for the win.

Here is a look at the final seven players on the final table today.

They are down to 7 players at the final table now after Colten Yamagishi (9th) and Michael “Berny” Bernstein (8th) hit the cage for early payouts today. I’ll grab some FT pics shortly.

The final nine players are back in action in the 6-Max and they’ll be playing down to a winner today. Last night’s bubble was a true marathon with more than an hour of hand-for-hand play so there are some short stacks out there as a result so it should be a relatively quick trip to the final table of 7 players.

Day 2 is now set with Garry Sandhu leading with 569k and Ali Razzaq on his heels with 544k. They’ll return with 17 minutes remaining in Level 17 and all players in the money

Day 2 gets going at 1 pm and they’ll play until there’s a winner tomorrow.

Day 2 Chips & Seats

Day 2 Prizes