After 3 long days of poker, Mark Wells managed to turn a 20,000 chip starting stack into 24 million tournament chips, in the meantime, turning his $135 (+ $25 charitable contribution) investment into a sweet $24,440 cash prize!

It wasn’t until 2 in the morning on Tuesday August 25th that the outcome of the Strike Out Cancer Charity Event was decided – a long journey that began on Friday August 21st. Participation in Day 1a was strong as 238 players joined us for that Friday afternoon heat – the start of a strong trend that would continue through Day 1d on Saturday evening.

During the event, players had the opportunity to see and play with some of the greatest stars from the poker and hockey worlds. Larry Robinson, Guy Carbonneau, Guy Lapointe, Jacques Demers, Karl Dykhuis, Eric Desjardins, and Antonio Esfandiari all played in the event.

Everyone – stars and all of the players in the event alike – were united in their support of the Jodi Taiger Lazarus Fund for Hereditary Breast Cancer Research. The full $25 tournament fee from each entry was given as a charitable donation. In total, the event raised $29,710!

The tournament was a huge success on the felt as well. From the initial 1186 entries who started on Day 1, 290 players qualified for Day 2. The eventual champion qualified through Day 1c, but his stack going into Day 2 didn’t predict his eventual success – he started on Sunday with just 97,100 chips (the leaders at the time had over 250K). By the time Day 3 started, however, Mark was in the top 5 chip leaders and he never really looked back.

Heads-up play with opponent Cherif Mohand was fairly brief, as fatigue seemed to have reduced Cherif’s level of patience. He began playing very aggressively, and it seemed to work at first, until he got caught in a hand that lead to his elimination. Cherif opened preflop to 700,000, and then raised all-in on the flop for nearly 10,000,000 after Mark lead out for 900,000. Mark made the call with bottom pair, and his held versus Cherif’s , as the running cards were .

With that pot, Mark emerged as the champion of Event 1 Strike Out Cancer Charity Event, and awarded him a stunning Montréal Poker Expo Champion’s Trophy along with his cash prize of $24,440.