As 2024 winds down, the Alberta poker scene is heating up with the final series of the Pure Poker Tour (PPT) season. The trophy events kick off at Pure Casino Yellowhead on November 21 with the Seniors First event, followed by 11 days of action-packed poker, and highlighted by the $1,100 Main Event starting on November 29.
Check out live updates and reporting from the 2024 Pure Poker Tour Series #6 by Lyle Bateman. Chose an event of your choice down below:
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Ed Tonnellier Out in 6th Place for $902
Level: 19 (6000/12000/12000) Entries: 6/99 Prizes: $18,810 
Ed Tonnellier They are down to 6 left after Ed Tonnellier followed Larry Quon and Shane Brotherwood to the exits. I missed the action as I was till writing up the Quon/Brotherwood bust.
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Larry Quon & Shane Brotherwood Out in 9th/8th Places
Level: 19 (6000/12000/12000) Entries: 7/99 Prizes: $18,810 
Shane Brotherwood 
Larry Quon It was a huge cooler when Shane Brotherwood potted to 42k from the middle. Branden Tremblay reraised to 100k from the cutoff before Larry Quon shoved 62k from the big blind.
Brotherwood had a bit more and reshoved himself with Tremblay making the call with the biggest stack. Tremblay had kings with a non-seven, Brotherwood was on queens with a ten-eight, and Quon had jacks with a king-nine. The kings held for Tremblay and Quon was out in 9th with Brotherwood out in 8th.
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Final Table Faces
Level: 18 (5000/10000/10000) Entries: 9/99 Prizes: $18,810 Below is a look at most of the final table. Holly Orleski requested that her picture not be taken so she is on the FT, but not pictured below.
Shane Brotherwood 
Nathan Masih 
Malcolm Bolger Larry Quon 
Justin Pennell 
Bruce Drake 
Branden Tremblay Ed Tonnellier -
Chung Leads Day 1a Stacks
Level: 15 (2500/5000/5000 – 25:31 Remaining) Entries: 8/66 Prizes: $37,620 Player Chips Steve Chung 385,500 Eric Wasylenko 367,500 Skyler York 301,000 Colten Yamagishi 192,000 Shawn Taghavi 175,000 Jimmy Lee 164,000 Matthew Ouellette 52,500 Deven Lane 12,000 -
Richardson Bubbles Day 2
Level: 15 (2500/5000/5000) 25:31 Remaining Entries: 8/66 Prizes: $37,620 Cody Richardson managed to survive an all in with fumes, but it wasn’t enough for him to survive the night. He was the bubble to Day 2 tonight with his chips going to Eric Wasylenko. The final 8 players are bagging up now — stay tuned for the chip counts.
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Money Bubble
Level: 17 (4000/8000/8000) Entries: 11/99 Prizes: $18,810 They are down to 11 left in the PLO Bounty game and the clock is paused for hand-for-hand play. Two minutes are coming off the clock manually for each hand until the next elimination puts them in the money.
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Richardson Doubles to Survive
Level: 15 (2500/5000/5000) Entries: 9/66 Prizes: $37,620 Eric Wasylenko raised early to 10k before Cody Richardson shoved 11k overtop of him. Steve Chung made it 35k to go from the middle, and when it folded back to Wasy, he got out of the way.
Chung had pocket kings while Richardson had an ace and an unknown card beneath it. Chung was happy to leave it in suspense as the board ran out 5♣3♥5♠9♥3♠. A player joked on the flop that Richardson must have cracked the kings with trip fives, but Richardson smiled and revealed his buried three. “No, I have trip threes. Sorry Deven.” Deven Lane is the other short stack at the table and was likely hoping for a bag after the hand.
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Taghavi Takes One
Level: 14 (2000/4000/4000) Entries: 9/66 Prizes: $37,620 Jimmy Lee raised the hijack to 10k and Shawn Taghavi called from the button. The action checked around on the Q♦10♣8♠ flop but Lee led for 7k on the 8♥ turn. Taghavi called to the 5♦ river but mucked when Lee fired 15k.
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End of Day Bubble on Final Table
Level: 14 (2000/4000/4000) Entries: 9/93 Prizes: $37,620 They are down to 9 players left in Day 1a with the action now on the end-of-day bubble. The players still in action, in seat order, are:
- Matthew Ouellette
- Jimmy Lee
- Deven Lane
- Skyler York
- Shawn Taghavi
- Eric Wasylenko
- Cody Richardson
- Colten Yamagishi
- Steve Chung
It looks like Wasy is still the chip leader, but he’s down a bit from the last count and Skyler York is sitting with a nice stack in front of him.
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Final Two Tables
Level: 14 (2000/4000/4000) Entries: 18/99 Prizes: $18,810 They are down to 18 players left in the PLO game now. That puts them 8 players off the money. Malcolm Bolger looks to be in the lead right now with more than 400k in front of him but Brandon Tremblay is also playing a big stack of about 260k.
Final 18 Players in PLO
S Table 8 1 Josie Brown 2 Ron Lauzon 3 Mitch Heidt 4 Lucas Lacko 5 Justin Pennell 6 Shane Brotherwood 7 Paul Shakir 8 Bruce Drake 9 Larry Quon S Table 10 1 Nathan Masih 2 Malcolm Bolger 3 Holly Orleski 4 Mal Hagan 5 Ed Tonnellier 6 Brandon Tremblay 7 Lynn Norris 8 Daryl Salyn 9 Stefan Maloney -
Chips for the Final 14
Level: 13 (1500/3000/3000) Entries: 14/66 Prizes: $37,620 There are 14 players left alive with Eric Wasylenko in the lead as they start Level 13.
Chip Counts from Day 1a
Table 1 1 Deven Lane 63,500 2 Paul Belyea 86,000 3 John Donnelly 72,500 4 5 Matthew Ouellette 64,500 6 7 Cindy Grabia 42,000 8 Skyler York 169,000 9 Shawn Taghavi 235,000 Table 2 1 Mike X 96,500 2 Colten Yamagishi 152,500 3 Eric Wasylenko 243,000 4 Brett Worton 93,500 5 Cody Richards 53,500 6 Steve Chung 209,500 7 8 Jimmy Lee 133,000 9 -
Seven Off the Bags
Level: 12 (1500/2500/2500) Entries: 15/66 Prizes: $37,620 They are down to 15 players left in Day 1a with the day ending when they get down to 8 players.Deven Lane, Skyler York, Seniors winner John Donnelly, Seniors runner-up Brett Worton, Colten Yamagishi, Cundy Grabia, Eric Wasylenko, Mike X, and Jimmy Lee are among the players still looking for a bag tonight.
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99 Entries for PLO Turbo
Level: 10 (1000/1500/1500) Entries: 36/99 Prizes: $18,810 The numbers for the PLO Turbo are official with 99 entries in the prize pool of $18,810. 10 players will get a piece of that later tonight with the winner set to pocket just shy of $5.5k.
PLO Turbo Prizes
Place Prize 1 $5,458 2 $3,762 3 $2,445 4 $1,881 5 $1,448 6 $1,147 7 $902 8 $714 9 $583 10 $470 -
Entries Closed on 1a
Level: 10 (1000/1500/1500) Entries: 25/66 Prizes: $37,620 Registration for Day 1a ended with 66 entries on the board and 25 players still alive at the felt. The bags will come out when they hit 8 players later tonight with all players in the money for Day 2.
They’ll do this all over again tomorrow for Day 1b, and the expectation is that the field will be quite a bit bigger than today. With almost $40k in prizes from today’s flight, $100k in total by the time entries close tomorrow seems within expectations.
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More than 70 Entries
Level: 6 (300/600/600) Entries: 40/73 Prizes: $13,870 The PLO Turbo prizes are nearly up to $14k now with 73 entries on the board. Among the new faces I’ve spotted recently are Antoine Saddleback, Francis Fan, Shane Brotherwood, and Gerald Chung.
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More than $10k
Level: 4 (200/400/400) Entries: 41/56 Prizes: $10,640 The PLO Side game is up to 55 entries for prizes of more than $10k now. The action is in Level 4 with less than 5 minutes to play and they’ll take their first break of the day after Level 5.
Among the players in the game are Mike Malm, who is leading the API Player of the Year race right now, Martin Riley, Malcolm Bolger, Bash Ramahi, Nancy Kelln, Josie Brown, Glyn Gracias, and Ron Lauzon.
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Final Level of Entry
Level: 9 (600/1200/1200) Entries: 26/63 Prizes: $35,910 The prizes are now more than $35k with 63 entries on the board as Level 9 begins. This is the final level of entry for Day 1a with entries remaining open until the end of the dinner break that follows this level. A few of the newer entries I’ve seen today include Matthew Ouellette, Michael “Berny” Bernstein, PPT Player of the Year leader Eric Wasylenko, and Alex Liu, who had the biggest score of his career this summer after winning the August Main in Calgary.
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PLO Turbo is Underway
Level: 1 (100/100/100) Entries: 14/14 Prizes: $2,660 The PLO Turbo side game is now off and running with 14 players in their seats to start. Regular PLO player Stefan Maloney is among the people in the mix so far, as well as Daniel O’Leary, and the winner of last night’s Turbo game, Larry Quon.
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Up to 55 Entries
Level: 7 (400/800/800) Entries: 32/55 Prizes: $31,350 The prizes are over $31k now with 55 entries in the game for Day 1a. There are still about 2 hours left to enter this flight with another full flight running tomorrow, which I expect will get much better turnout.
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Nearly 50 Entries
Level: 7 (400/800/800) Entries: 29/49 Prizes: $27,930 The final three levels of entry are about to begin with the field at 49 entries for prizes of almost $28k. Entries for today’s flight will close in just under 3 hours.
