Montreal Nationals Win First GPL Championship ($100,000)

The Montreal Nationals are the first Global Poker League Champions and will take the $100,000 grand prize. The Nationals beat the Berlin Bears in 11 games to claim the inaugural GPL Championship title.

Pascal Lefrancois claimed the final victory, completing a magnificent run in the playoffs. He lost only one of his heads-up matches and was his team’s go-to pick for the deciding game against Berlin Bear Brian Rast.

Play started today with the Nationals as the favorite coming in as the overall points leader in either division, facing the Berlin Bears, who would not have had enough points to make the playoffs had they been in the Americas conference. That all went out the window when they went toe to toe with the would-be champions.

Things kicked off with Sorel Mizzi defeating Mike McDonald in Game #1. McDonald was on a great run, slowly siphoning Mizzi’s stack into his, but Mizzi would win the match when he rivered the nut flush and McDonald shoved into him.

Game #2 saw the undefeated Lefrancois beat Bill Perkins. Lefrancois was helped by two big hands. First, he rivered a Broadway straight and got paid off by Perkins after starting the hand with pocket aces, and then again on the final hand when Perkins got all in preflop with ace-jack against Lefrancois’ pocket kings.

Jason Lavallee made his first appearance of the GPL Playoffs, after being one of the better heads-up point getters all season. He handed Rast his first loss of the playoffs and gave the Nationals a 2-1 lead. By far one of the most entertaining single hands of the GPL Playoff occurred on hand #18 of this game.

Lavallee had pocket aces against the queen-seven of Rast. Lavallee shoved the river. Rast was sitting with 334,000 behind had a tough decision. This clip shows a perfect example of why the cube is so great. Rast talked through his decision and Lavallee offered some insight as well.

McDonald returned to the cube for Game #4. This time his opponent was Perkins. McDonald managed to overcome an early deficit thanks to some good luck. He hit a king when he got all in with king-jack against Perkins’ pocket queens and then flopped a set of nines to finish Perkins off and put the Nationals up 3-1.

Rast and Lavallee played the shortest match of the series when Rast flopped a set and managed to get called when he shoved the river for 100,000 more than a pot-sized shove. Lavallee talked himself into a call with pocket jacks and left himself very short. Rast …

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