Daily Rewind: Poker player heist, WPT update, EPT hotel refund

Today we hear about a pro's $100,000 robbery, get the latest from WPT Montreal and issue an apology with PokerStars.

Pro's double bad beat

Follow that car!

Professional poker players Eric Riley found out that carrying your bankroll in a suitcase isn't a good idea after he was robbed not once but twice in Atlantic City.

After adding $20,000 to his $80,000 starting stake, Riley saw his $100,000 bankroll riding off in the boot of a car after an acquaintance wasn't quite as friendly as he seemed.

With his money trapped in the boot of a car, Riley paid a taxi driver $100 to chase the thief and after a momentary pause at a set of traffic lights he was able to reclaim his bag.

However, that wasn't the end of the pro's ordeal as he was then confronted by two men posing as undercover officers who pointed a gun at his chest and demanded his cash.

Not wanting to lose the bag again, Riley jumped from a moving car and was able to make off without suffering any further bad beats.

Masses flock to Montreal

Antonio in action

The final starting flight of this year's WPT Montreal Main Event came to a conclusion last night and after the initial 339 players had been trimmed to 138 live stacks, Sylvain Siebert was left atop of the chip counts.

Having bypassed the likes of Faraz Jaka, Shaun Deeb and Marvin 'xcrash154' Rettenmaier, Siebert was able to bag 230,500 chips ahead of Day 2.

As the lights dimmed and Siebert carefully bagged his stack ahead of today's session, some quick calculations behind-the-scenes showed that this year's event attracted 862 entries and of that number 357 made it through to Day 2.

Holding the overall lead as the action got underway today was Sebastian Drolet-Poitras with 270,800 chips. However, with a prizepool topping $3 million and a slew of pros, including: Antonio Esfandiari, Matt Salsberg and Scott Seiver, all still in contention, Drolet-Poitras' will have his work cut out as the session unfolds.

PokerStars issues refunds

Disappointing Hotel Russell

Following a wave of dissatisfaction from those staying at the Hotel Russell during this year's EPT London, PokerStars has decided to partially refund disappointed visitors.

Having reviewed the new venue, PokerStars Steve recently announced that EPT players will be refunded at a rate of £75 per night stayed and UKIPT players will receive £30 payments.

The decision to refund players was based on a disparity in booking rates, as well as a drop in standards compared to other EPT venues.

David Vamplew was just one of the pros that were quick to applaud the decision, writing: "Good, thank you. Convinced this was a one off anyway."

'Fake Love888' topped the latest high stakes chart after banking a relatively modest $75,154. Despite a bustling day of action, none of the grinders on display were able to breach the six-figure mark, leaving 'Fake Love888' and Kyle 'KPR16' Ray ($54,054) free to dominate the daily leaderboard.

At the other end of the spectrum, 'Katya_18' suffered the largest loss of the day after dropping $79,114. That deficit was enough to put the online pro ahead of the Sunday's other big losers: 'joiso' (-$56,716) and 'bajskorven' (-$54,120).

Say What?

In the spirit of procrastination we've decided to launch a new wordplay game that will test your poker knowledge as well as your captioning credentials (all in the name of fun).

For today's moment of fun we try a Blankety Blank-style "fill in the missing word" game where we want you to give us your funniest suggestions:

"If it wasn't for [XXXXXXX] then Phil Hellmuth would be the greatest player in the world."

Daily Signoff

Dave 'Devilfish' Ulliot is often in awkward situations, but few are as bad as this clip from the Ladbrokes Poker Cruise.