Michael Wang Wins Playground Main Event for First WPT Title

Canada’s finest couldn’t stop American Michael Wang from becoming a World Poker Tour winner for the first time this week. The Playground Poker Club in Montreal has long been hailed as the favorite venue to play poker of legends such as Mike Sexton. Michael Wang got his name on the cup that beholds Sexton’s name as the newest member of the WPT Champions Club captured a top prize of $276,625.

*includes a seat in the WPT World Championships in December 2024.

Montreal Main Event Brings in the Players Again

With a massive attendance of 840 entries, this year’s WPT Montreal festival filled vast seats in the Main Event at the Playground Poker Club. A total prizepool of $1.93 million saw players battle to a six-handed final table in Montreal, with the home country hero Baron Ha beginning as chip leader with 11,625,000 chips, the equivalent of 78 big blinds.

Behind Ha, Jordan Grant was his closest challenger on 61 big blinds, with the eventual winner Michael Wang starting on 51 big blinds a little behind him. Zachary Fischer (38BB), Santiago Plante (31BB) and Amirpasha Emami (21BB) were all hoping to get off to good starts, but one of them was unable to do so.

After just three hands of the final table, hand four saw Amirpasha Emami push all of his chips over the line with pocket nines. Jordan Grant had a pretty simple call with pocket queens and after a flop of 7-4-2, a five on the turn was followed by a king on the river, leading to Emami’s elimination for $60,450 in sixth place. Canadian Santiago Plante confessed that he had folded ace-king and missed out on the chance to almost treble up in the hand.

“You had to fold,” said Baron Ha.  “You had no money in there.”

Grant Goes from Hero to Zero

A quick final might have seemed likely at that point but over a hundred hands later, there were still five players in the field. Zachary Fischer finally got his chips into the middle as an underdog in terms of chips but as a massive favorite in card terms, holding pocket aces. The best pre-flop hand in poker was way ahead of Jordan Grant’s pocket jacks, but after a flop of T-9-8, that had all changed. A seven on the turn fulfilled Grant’s open-ended straight draw and Fischer was out in fifth place for $79,900.

A short time later, Grant was on the rail himself, however, as his luck definitely ran out. All-in king-queen of diamonds, he lost to Michael Wang’s pocket nines as a board of A-5-5-9-Q gave the in-command Wang a full house on the turn, sending Grant home for a score of $105,100.

With just three players left, Wang (23 million had more chips on his own than both of his opponents combined. Santiago Plante (12 million) and Baron Ha (7.2 million) were both playing catch-up to the chip leader as the final stages were about to get underway and a champion was to be crowned.

Plante Can’t Grow

“I was playing with Darren Elias in this tournament, and he ran deep. Like, let someone else have it, buddy!”

Baron Ha went from chip leader to on the rail in third place for $141,100 as he lost his stack to the eventual winner. All-in pre-flop with king-seven, Ha was not laughing when Michael Wang turned over pocket sevens, leaving Ha hoping for a miracle. The overnight chip leader was drawing to three outs after the flop of Q-8-5 landed. A jack on the turn didn’t help Ha and a nine on the river ended his interest in the event as he just missed the heads-up battle.

Down to the final two, a deal was done to smooth out the last payjump and Wang it was who led the way by more than 3:1 in chips. Soon, he had improved that lead to 7:1 and when he shoved with jack-queen, Santiago Plante called off his stack – correctly – with king-deuce.

A board of Q-8-6-4-3 was good enough to make Michael Wang champion and upon victory, the American was overwhelmed at the achievement of getting his name on the Mike Sexton’s WPT Champions Cup.

“There are so many legends on this trophy,” he said. “I was playing with Darren Elias in this tournament, and he ran deep. He’s got his name on this [too many times]. Like, let someone else have it, buddy! So many legends. I’m so happy to add my name.”

The North American Poker Tour (NAPT) and WPT World Championship festivals are up next for the tireless Wang and he can’t wait.

“[There’s] no rest for the weary and it’s not a bad thing to strike while the iron is hot,” he said. “I saw the previous champion was [wearing his belt] and it actually looks pretty good on him. I was like, wow, that’s a cool look. So, I’m not ruling it out. That’s not usually my style, but he was rocking it!”