Eric Afriat Goes For Another WPT Title, Leads with 16 Left

Heading into Tuesday’s WPT Montreal Main Event Day 3 restart, there were a few WPT Champions Club members that may have returned with plans to expand their trophy cases to include one of the poker world’s coolest trophies. When the dust settled though, there were only 16 players bagging chips for the event’s penultimate day and Eric Afriat, who was one of those few WPT Champions Club members, was atop the leader board.

Afriat is known for winning the largest event in World Poker Tour history, when he took down the Season XII WPT Seminole Hard Rock Poker Showdown for a $1.081 million score. The Canadian outlasted nearly 1,800 entrants in that historic event and after navigating his way through the majority of a 606-player field, he is just two days away from becoming the 29^th player in WPT history to win multiple WPT titles.

That will be easier said than done though, with some experienced players below Afriat on the leader board.

Curt Kohlberg, who boasts four WPT final table appearances on his lengthy tournament resume, heads into Day 4 with the second biggest stack, while reigning GPI Player of the Year David Peters returns with an above average stack.

Alex Keating, who final tabled the Season XIV WPT LA Poker Classic for a $423,890 result, and Justin Liberto, who won a WSOP bracelet in 2015 and has three WPT Main Tour and WPTDeepStacks final table finishes, are also still alive, although they are off the pace of the leaders.

The returning Day 4 field will play down to the final six, meaning that just ten eliminations separate the current field from the WPT Montreal final table. That final table will be live streamed on PokerGO on Thursday, but until then, live updates of the event can be found on WPT.com. Poker Central will provide daily recaps and more in-depth coverage of the WPT Montreal Main Event from the Playground Poker Club as the event gets closer to the final table.