The WPT Heads to Niagara Falls Oct.
26th-Nov. 2nd, 2007

What does it take for a tournament to be memorable? Having a player win a title at the same venue for two years in a row? Having a player propel themselves into the upper echelon of multiple player of the year races and come close to locking up the World Poker Tour player of the year title? A diverse and star-studded final table with a variety of highly touted players from both the live and online realm along with the local amateur making a run?

All those storylines came from just the final 6 out of the 504 players that entered the North American Poker Championship at the Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls, Canada. Add in a day 1 chip leader who is currently getting a lot of TV time on Survivor and all the other interesting happenings from the first part of the tournament and you have something to talk about – and remember.

Scott Clements won last years World Poker Tour Canadian Poker Open which was a televised event held before the 2006 North American Poker Championship with the final table played out on the same set at the NAPC final table and both were filmed by the WPT crew. Scott’s victory in the Canadian Open brought him back to Niagara Falls this year as his prize included a seat in the 2007 NAPC.

The Canadian Poker Open seems to have been a one-time thing and there was no such event this year for Scott to defend his title in, so he had to use the NAPC as a substitute for a repeat victory. He did just that and banked $1,387,224 Canadian Dollars to go along with adding another victory to his growing resume. Scott said after the event that if he hadn’t won a seat he probably wouldn’t have made the trip to play in the NAPC this year, but that from now on he wouldn’t be missing any major events at the Fallsview Casino.

In heads up play Clements had to defeat one of the hottest players on the tournament circuit over the last year, Jonathan Little. Starting back in January with a final table appearance and a 5th place finish in the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure WPT event in the Bahamas Little has been on a tear and shows no signs of letting up. His crowning achievement so far is a title at the WPT event at the Mirage in May, and with his runner up finish in Niagara Falls, Little now has a huge lead in the WPT player of the year race and is the odds on favorite to win that title, along with the $680,862 (again Canadian Dollars so worth slightly more in US Dollars) he pockets for his finish in the NAPC.

Little and Clements came into the final table as the top two in chips, but didn’t stay at the top throughout. Both saw significant swings in their stack and both spent some time at the bottom of the chip counts during three handed play. By the time David Cloutier was eliminated in third place Clements had been able to accumulate enough chips to have a 2 to 1 chip advantage going into heads up play, and after whittling away at Little in the first few hands of heads up play Clements was able to flop trips, let Little catch a pair on the turn, and get all the chips in the middle to clench the title.

A local Canadian and admitted novice finished in the third spot, and gave the pros a run for their money. David Cloutier amassed a large chip lead during three handed play, at one point having over 6 million in chips while Clements and Little were both around the 2 million mark. The two pros danced around each other though and were able to chip away at David’s stack, with Scott getting most of them and then Jonathan dealing the final blow to bust the Canadian out of the tournament.

In a final table that had its fair share of known names, none were bigger than Barry Greenstein. Barry came into final play as a huge underdog in chips, with less than 500k while the player closest almost 3 times as many chips and the top stacks had over 5 times Barry’s stack.

The new approach to blinds during final table play made the Bear’s spot more bearable though, and with levels lasting 90 minutes and no huge jump in blinds Greenstein was able to play solid and put himself in a spot to be a contender. Barry was able to pick up chips to slightly build his stack and stay comfortably ahead of the blinds, and at one point was able to double through Clements to get to over 1 million chips.

When Barry moved all in over the top of a raise from Cloutier and was called it looked like the longtime pro was going to be right back in the mix battling for the title, but before Barry could set his sights on defeating Clements and Little he had to have his A9 of diamonds hold up against Cloutier’s K9 offsuit. The flop left Barry in the lead, but with a king on the turn David hit one of the cards he needed to take the lead in the hand. Barry blanked out on the river and the bad beat sent him to the rail in 4th place.

There are many players getting their start in the online realm that have been making successful transitions into live play, with Little and Clements both having significant online success they are prime examples. One of the most respected game theorists and tournament players in online poker was also at this final table, in the form of Jeffrey “ActionJeff” Garza.

At only 19 years of age, Garza has earned the reputation as one of the best minds in the game, and already has the results to back it up. He came into the final table play towards the bottom of the chip counts and ended up all in on an open-ended draw against Clements who had a flush draw and the best of it with ace high when the chips went in. Jeff didn’t hit any of his possible outs and quickly found himself on the rail as the first player eliminated from the final table, though his 6th place finish is still a major achievement and earned Garza $170,216.

While Garza was the first out at the final table, Kofi Farkye wasn’t far behind, finishing in 5th place. Clements did the dirty work in quick fashion early on, eliminating both Garza and Farkye, and doing it both times by getting the 19 year olds to commit chips on draws when Clements had the best hand after the flop.

Outside of the final table the presence of an always gregarious Jean-Robert Bellande was impossible to miss for the middle days of the tournament. Bellande is a large guy, and was never a player easy to miss at any tournament he was in, but Bobby garnered extra attention during this tournament due to good timing. Right now Survivor is being aired on network television and Bobby himself is one of the cast members. So take a super talkative and outgoing player that seems to know everyone anyway and splatter his face across TV and you have someone that almost everyone knows and is talking about. Then, have this player build up a massive day 1 chip lead and there is just no way to miss him.

Bobby played on the last of the three separate starting days, and when the chips were counted and bagged at the end of day 3 Bobby had accumulated over 200k chips and had a big lead over Little who was second in chips at that point after building up to 165k on day 1a. Not only had Bellande been able to accumulate 200k in chips he was also able to personally spread the word to every person he met, saw, or that happened to walk past that it would be “great for poker” if he made the final table. Even the slew of people in town for the marathon learned of the self proclaimed benefits of one Jean-Robert Bellande making a final table at the same time as the airing of Survivor: China.

No matter how good it might have been for the game, it didn’t happen, with Bellande flaming out just inside the money with a 39th place finish.

The NAPC earned the reputation as a tournament with a great structure last year, and tournament director Jason March continued to prove why he is considered one of the best in the industry by running another almost flawless tournament this year. If the folks up at Fallsview can figure out how to get the Canadian Gaming Commission off their backs and let them run a tournament without so many rules and restrictions (the three day 1’s, along with some other quirky things were all a result of regulations) Fallsview Casino could find itself the host to one of the largest WPT tournaments year after year for the foreseeable future.

While this year’s NAPC is in the books, there is plenty to talk about and keep the happenings of this tournament at the forefront of the poker world.