by Mario Alfonsi | Published on May 24, 2024 | Updated on May 24, 2024
Summary:
- British Columbia native David Dongwoo Ko has won the WPT Montreal Championship.
- The Championship gathered 882 entrants who generated a CAD $2,822,400 prize pool.
- The 111 finishers shared the money, with Eric Afriat, Darryll Fish, Sam Chartier, Mike Leah, and Xuan Liu on the list.
Canadian Poker player David Dongwoo Ko from British Columbia has had a remarkable past year. After becoming a World Series of Poker (WSOP) Circuit ring winner last July, he scooped up another WSOPC title in Calgary at the start of 2024, in January.
His most recent accomplishment is the CAD 3,500 buy-in WPT Montreal Championship that he took down after being in the lead from start to finish.
Ko, who had already gathered close to half a million in live tournament earnings during his career, defeated 882 entrants who generated a CAD $2,822,400 prize pool shared between 11 money-makers and sat at the televised final table with 5 reputable opponents.
Final Table Action Breakdown
The final table was played six-handed. All eyes were on Dan Stavila, who had spent the previous day finishing fourth in the WPT Prime Montreal event.
Dongwoo Ko was in the lead after bagging up the chip lead on Day 1A, Day 2, as well as Day 3.
Two hours and 27 hands later, the first player exited the final table, followed by the consecutive bust of three other players.
Tommy Nguyen min-raised to 250,000 with pocket kings and Charles Kassin’s three-bet to 755,000 from the cutoff with pocket queens helped Nguyen make it 7,750,000 to go.
After Kassin called all-in, the community cards missed him and he was sent to rail in sixth place.
On the next hand, Ko raised to 300,000 from the cutoff with ace-king while Tamer Alkamli eventually snap-called for his 5,275,000 stack when Ko set him all in.
It took one king on the next turn to send Alkamli to the cashier’s and place Ko in the lead of the chip counts.
Ko took advantage of the new lead and extended the following hand after he helped himself to Rayan Chamas‘ stack.
The heated action continued until the 74th hand when the tournament was suddenly and indefinitely interrupted because of a storm that triggered a two-hour power outage.
The power resumed shortly after 8:00 p.m. PDT and the three-handed play lasted for another 100 hands before Ko going into a heads-up battle with Stavila who held a 67 to 43 big blind advantage.
It took Ko 21 more hands to win the trophy. Stavila eventually took home $280,000, followed by Tommy Nguyen in third position with $205,000, Rayan Chamas in fourth with $155,000, Tamer Alkamli in fifth with $117,000, and Charles Kassin in sixth with $89,000.
