Now Boarding Second Flight to the Main Event

2025 Pure Poker Tour Series #3 – Event #14: $1,100 NLH Main Event Day 1B ($990 + $110)

The opening flight to the Main Event was huge, with 149 entries, the biggest Day 1a for the Main since last September’s series at Pure Casino Yellowhead. That means there’s already $140,135 in the prize pool and, with Day 1b numbers typically ~50% bigger than 1a, the final prize pool should cap $350k with the field pushing 400 entries.

The stack to beat for 1b players belongs to Matthew Ouellette with a whopping 737k for Day 2. Cameron Stewart is less than 100k behind, and DJ Sharma, who has already recorded three runner-up finishes this series, has the third stack with just under 500k.

The action on all days starts at noon, and players get 30k in chips for their $1,100. Blind levels will be 40 minutes long for Day 1 action, and will move to 60 minutes for Day 2. Note that heads-up play drops to 30-minute blinds

There are nine levels of poker with entries open on each Day 1 and, including breaks, that will put the final chance to enter each flight at about 7:15 PM. After that, the Day 1 action continues until 12.5% of the starting field remains, with those players bagging chips for Day 2. Note that players must bag chips to cash out of this game — if multiple bustouts happen on the Day 2 bubble such that fewer than 12.5% remain, only the players remaining alive with chips will make money.

Players should also note that they can play both Day 1 flights, whether they bagged a 1a stack or not. If players bag stacks on both days, they’ll play the bigger stack on Day 2, while the smaller stack gets awarded a min-cash at the start of the day and is then removed from play as if it busted on the first hand. Previous series have already seen double cashes like that, with Kris Steinbach as one example.

This game will be my main focus on Saturday, from cards in the air through the final hand.