He started the day with 37 big blinds, 20th of 30, and the chip leader had 113. Today the Brazilian is at the final table and the leader is not. Felipe Baraky is the only South American among the nine finalists of the WSOP Super Circuit Canada Main Event, the CA$5,000 tournament that drew 2,844 entries at Playground in Kahnawake, just outside Montreal, and built a CA$13,082,400 prize pool, well past the CA$10 million guarantee. It is the biggest live poker tournament ever held in Canada, and it ends today with CA$1,500,000 for the champion.
The facts: the final table, the stacks and what is already locked up
Day 5 began with 30 players and a long list of names. Daniel Negreanu and Michael Mizrachi had already fallen the day before, and the overnight leader was Paul Klann, the 2013 WPT L.A. Poker Classic champion, with 11,300,000. None of the three made the final. Chance Kornuth did, starting sixth and finishing second with 24,130,000, and so did local Mayukh Chakraborty, who went from 5,500,000 (12th) to the lead with 25,630,000.
Baraky bagged 17,000,000, fifth in the counts. The other Brazilian in the Day 5 field, Gualter Fortuna, was eliminated, as was Aaron Quon in 10th as the final-table bubble. Play resumes at level 35, blinds 150,000/300,000 with a 300,000 big blind ante: Baraky has about 57 big blinds, the leader 85, and the two shortest stacks, Parth Mansukh and Deven Lane, fewer than 21.
Every finalist has locked up CA$150,000. The jumps are steep: seventh pays CA$300,000, fourth CA$600,000, the runner-up CA$1,000,000 and the winner CA$1,500,000 plus the Circuit ring.
Final table (chips):
- Mayukh Chakraborty (Canada) – 25,630,000
- Chance Kornuth (United States) – 24,130,000
- Benjamin Veenstra (Canada) – 20,830,000
- Jonathan Bussieres (Canada) – 17,500,000
- Felipe Baraky (Brazil) – 17,000,000
- Robert Renaud (Canada) – 15,700,000
- Jack Salter (United Kingdom) – 9,300,000
- Parth Mansukh (Canada) – 6,270,000
- Deven Lane (Canada) – 5,800,000
Why it matters: the Day 5 leader is gone and the 20th stack is still here
First lesson: the start-of-day counts are a snapshot, not a forecast. Klann had 113 big blinds and Baraky 37; six levels later the first was out and the second had more than quadrupled. In a 2,844-entry field, variance does not vanish because 30 are left; it concentrates. What you do control is how often you put your tournament at risk as the underdog.
Second: 37 big blinds is not a short stack, it is a working stack. At that depth you can still open, steal blinds and fold without bleeding out; push-or-fold mode starts much lower, around 15. Baraky did not need miracles. He needed to avoid losing big pots without the best hand and to pick his spots.
Third: the pay jumps. From CA$150,000 to CA$1,500,000 is ten times the money, and that changes the math of every all-in. ICM, the model that converts chips into money according to the payout structure, says Mansukh and Lane, under 21 big blinds, have to move now; and that medium stacks like Baraky's should avoid confrontations with the two big stacks while the short ones are still alive. Outlasting two eliminations is worth an extra CA$150,000 at this table without winning a single hand.
Brazil reaches this final in the same week it added two WSOP Online bracelets, through João Hayashi and Bruno Ikeda. If you are preparing for your first big tournament, start with how many buy-ins you need and with understanding the bubble; in the community we break down final tables like this one every week. With 57 big blinds and two short stacks at the table, would you wait or attack the leader? Tell us.