The new trend in World Poker Tour events is the triple buy in starting stack.  The standard had been starting chip stacks of double the buy in, but for season 7 many of the stops are increasing the starting chips by 50%, giving players triple their buy in.

For the North American Poker Championship, a $10,000 CAD buyin, the means everyone starts the day with 30,000 in chips and lots of play at the 50 / 100 starting blind level.

Even with the deep structure, Ryan “Gotskillz” Fisler was able to jump out to an early chip lead when he doubled up.  With a pile of chips in preflop the board came KK3 and the rest of the chips went in with Fisler sitting on the mere KK for quads and up against pocket aces that were all but drawing dead.  An ace on the turn put a little bit of drama into the hand, but with Shaun Deeb letting everyone know he had folded the case ace there was no chance of quads over quads on the river.

Fisler is up to around 60k and far and away the chip leader in the early going.

• October 10, 2008 -- Big Hands, Big Pots
• October 10, 2008 -- Fizzling Hot
• October 16, 2008 -- Fizzled: Fisler Out 4th
• October 16, 2008 -- Witmer On A Rush