Gavin Smith Wins 2011 Canadian Poker Tour Finals

The Canadian Poker Tour 2010 Point Leader Championship and Finals wrapped up last night at the Deerfoot Inn and Casino.  The series kicked of last Wednesday with a super satellite to the $2200 Main Event, which had a tiered buy-in for the Tours top points leaders, depending on their overall rank.  In addition, three other events were held around the championships, varying from $200 to $500.

Seventy of the CPT’s top players entered the starting field on Saturday for a very deep stacked competition with hour-long levels.  It took 12 hours to end Day 1, leaving around 20 tough players to battle it out on Day 2, including returning back to back champion Richard Webb, and Jody Fayant, both who had snagged sponsorship contracts in the finals last year.  They would have their work cut out for them, however, as World Series of Poker Bracelet winner Gavin Smith was also in the mix.  Play resumed Sunday until a final table was finally reached around supper time.  One by one, the field thinned, with Ron Campbell, the 2008 Player of the Year on the CPT being the first to make the money, collecting $2300 for his hard work.  Robert Nillson would be the last man to leave on the games second bubble, making some decent money, but missing the sponsorship contracts remaining for the final three spots.

With Gavin having about a 1,000,000 chips to the remaining players approximate 300k and 200k, a deal was struck between the exhausted trio.  Gavin, who had lead the leader board for a good portion of 2010, would get the much deserved title, top sponsorship contract of $25,000 in Canadian Poker Tour buy-ins and the $14,000 in first place prize money.  Todd Hunter with 2nd place chips then made a generous deal with the slightly smaller stack, they both would take $9000 in cash and split the remaining two contracts, leaving them both $12,500 in sponsorship monies.

Congrats boys! Well played!  Here are the first few events results while we wait for everybody to recuperate.