The November Nine: Scott Montgomery

News / Chris Edwards / 18 July 2008 / Leave a comment

Chip Count: 19,690,000

Scott Montgomery grew up playing cards with his family in Perth, Canada and is 26 years of age. He studied Mathematics at the University of Waterloo before moving to Japan to teach English and it was around this time he began playing poker. He first started experimenting with play money to figure out how the game worked and as a means to pass his spare time, but soon switched to real money and quickly ran his account up to $50,000. He now plays in NL Hold'em games up to $5/$10 on various sites under the screen name r_a_y.

His fist major tournament cash was when he came 5th in the 2008 WPT LA Poker Classic, a finish worth $296,860. The tournament was eventually won by Phil Ivey. Having played in a WPT final table might give Scott an advantage over some of his competitors who have never played a major TV final table. Talking about his first TV table Scott described it as disconcerting and the combination of interviews, camera, microphones and screaming fans making him very nervous. It was not all bad for him though as he was paid $10,000 to wear a poker rooms logo for the table.

Scott has had a decent run at this years WSOP. He has cashed in three different No Limit Hold'em events. Event 2 ($1500 NLHE), 29th for $18,771, Event 7 ($2,000 NLHE), 17th for $18,833 and Event 25 ($10,000 HU NLHE), 16th for $36,096. He wasted no time getting back into the action after the main event, coming 4th in the $5000 NLHE event at the Bellagio Cup IV for $36,025.

Asked about what the biggest hand for him was in the tournament, he recalled one where he made an admittedly terrible play and got very lucky. His opponent raised to 300,000 from the button and Scott re-raised to 800,000. His opponent made the call and Scott bet 1.5m on a board of Jd Td 3h. His opponent raised to 3m and Scott moved all in for only 1.75m more. His opponent thought about it for a long time, but he really had no choice due to the pot odds he was getting. Tiffany Michelle then called the clock, which annoyed Montgomery as he feels this forced his opponent into calling. Scott showed As 4h for a stone cold bluff while his opponent showed Jh 7h for top pair. The turn of 8h meant that Scott could not win with the Ah, but a rivered Ad meant he survived and never looked back.