The PokerRoad is turning north this month towards the land of Gavin Smith, as top international players once again come together for the World Poker Tour North American Poker Championship at the Fallsview Casino Resort in majestic Niagara Falls, Canada.

The North American Poker Championship is a $10,000 + $300 buy-in tournament which will start players off with 30,000 in tournament chips. The blinds will be 90 minutes long and will begin at 50-100.

Last year’s WPT North American Poker Championship saw 504 players create a total prize pool worth $5,133,342. Many top pros made it deep in the tournament including Jean-Robert Bellande, Bill Edler, Lee Markholt, Dan Shak, Adam “Roothlus” Levy and Nick Schulman. The final table of the event was also full of big name players including PokerRoad’s own Barry Greenstein, Scott Clements, Jonathan Little, Jeff Garza, and Kofi Farkye. The event was taken down by Clements after an epic final table that, at the time, set the record for longest WPT final table ever. After defeating Jonathan Little heads-up, Scott Clements picked up a first place prize worth $1,456,585 (CAN).

The final table finish positions for the 2007 World Poker Tour North American Poker Championship were as follows:

The North American Poker Championship holds a special place in the hearts of many of us here at PokerRoad. Not only did “The Bear” make the final table last year in the main event, but the NAPC was also the first tournament covered by PokerRoad Radio. The inaugural PRR show featured “Cash Plays” Bart Hanson, Gavin Smith and Barry Greenstein, but was missing one Joseph Sebok, who was denied entry into Canada due to his criminal record. Of course the whole situation was a case of mistaken identity. Despite it not being at all Joe’s fault, he still has yet to live down this infamous Canadian border incident.

To hear all about this year’s WPT North American Poker Championship, stick with PokerRoad.com for blogs, videos, news and podcasts straight from the land of “eh.”