November Nine Player Focus: Scott Montgomery

If Scott Montgomery had glanced at a TV from the Main Event bubble table he would have seen himself on February’s WPT Championship highlights from the Commerce Casino.

The L.A. Poker Classic premiered on American television the same night as the 10 man ‘bubble’ was bursting for the November Nine and the fact that Montgomery was in both shows just the sort of year he is having.

The Canadian, from Perth, Ontario, was undoubtedly one of the form players of the year even before his Main Event exploits. He had already enjoyed a remarkable 2008 which had seen him cash for over $400,000 even before the life-changing publicity and sponsorship of the ME final table. The 26 year-old professional started out online and in December 2007 made a couple of major scores on UltimateBet, coming 6th in a $109 event (for $6,100) & 2nd in the $109 re-buys (for $15,701). After that, ‘r_a_y’ (his Pocket Fives alias) went on a sick live run, starting in February with the WPT L.A. Poker Classic. He finished 5th for a cool $296,860 on a final table that included Nam Le, Phil Hellmuth & eventual winner Phil Ivey. This earned him worldwide praise for going so deep in one of the toughest fields the World Poker Tour had ever seen. He was also one of the few November Nine used to sponsorship deals, as during the final table Ultimate Bet paid him $10,000 to wear their shirt throughout the session. (If he had been at the table for the final hand he would have received $40,000).

Montgomery has followed this up with a solid World Series, which started in Event #2 ($1,500 NLH) when he came in 29th for $18,771. A 17th in Event #7 ($2,000 NLH) for $18,333 followed shortly after and just to top it off he went deep in the Heads-Up World Championship (Event #25), eventually busting in 16th for another $36,096.

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He also found time to pop over to the Bellagio in early July and final table the $3,000 Cup, finishing 4th for a further $36,025.

This allowed him to buy into the ME with $10,000 in hard cash and it’s safe to say this is the reward for the greatest hot streak of his career.

He studied mathematics at the University of Waterloo but despite the success of online players with similar backgrounds he didn’t learn how to play poker until he went to Japan to teach English. One of the more stringent professionals around, he says his biggest purchase after winning close to $300k in February was a new phone and that he has locked most of the money into long-term investments. We wonder whether he honestly did the same after winning over $3million.