Bodog Beat

Poker pro Gavin Smith leads the field of the WPT North American Poker Championships into Day 3 of the tournament. (Bodog Beat Image)

The World Poker Tour has taken its dog and pony show north of the border to the Fallsview Casino in Niagara Falls for the WPT North American Poker Championships, which enters Day 3 of the tournament today after three flights of Day 1 and a combined Day 2. Leading the field into the day with 99 players remaining is poker pro Gavin Smith.

Smith is coming off a disappointing summer in which he didn't rack up a single cash at the WSOP. A deep run at this tournament would definitely bolster his 2008 earnings, which include a WPT cash and a final table at the 2008 Canadian Open Poker Championships. Behind him are several of his fellow poker pros looking to juice their own bankrolls, including Vivek Rajkumar, Kathy Liebert, Sorel Mizzi, JC Tran, Erik Seidel and Joe Sebok to name a few.

The three flights of Day 1 drew in a total of 454 entrants, exactly 50 less than came out last year for this event. This continues the up and down trend for WPT event attendance this season, some of them have drawn more entrants (like the WPT Spanish Championship) and some are down from the previous year (like the WPT Bellagio Cup). With plenty more events on the schedule and the global economic bailout and bank recapitalization in full swing, WPT officials will be hoping that attendance climbs along with the economy.

Either way, the folks playing in this event will be looking to split the $3,848,870 prize pool and hopefully take down the $1,099,943 first-place prize for a little injection of capital of their own. Day 2 play gets underway in just a little while and they will play down through the money bubble, which bursts with 45 players left, and finish up when it makes sense to do so. We're so exact with this stuff.

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