When the chips fell a final time Sunday, David had slain Goliath. Benjamin LaBlond, an amateur from Hull, Que., weaned on online poker, walked away with the$100,000 tax-free cash prize, besting runner-up Jeff Madsen, a World Series of Poker bracelet winner from Santa Barbara, Calif.

Their best-of-three heads-up match went the distance, with LaBlond coming from behind to take the second and third games Sunday evening.

"It's definitely different, playing against real players in-stead of sitting at a computer," LaBlond said. "My confidence has grown a lot because of this tournament."

LaBlond had been riding a hot hand all weekend, knocking off poker heavyweights Phil Hellmuth and Brad Booth on the way to his surprise appearance in the final. He said he planned on using his winnings as his entry fee for the annual World Series of Poker event in Las Vegas, where a buy-in costs $10,000.

"It's about reinvesting in the trade," he said with a smile.

His rival Madsen, the young-est-ever winner of a World Series of Poker bracelet, was gracious in defeat, though the $50,000 runner-up prize helped. "It's been a really good tournament, I feel good, I did well," he said. "I almost didn't come here because I was trying to rest myself for the World Series of Poker event in Las Vegas, but now I'm really glad I did."

There were five poker events contestants could have entered over the weekend--three No Limit Hold 'em events, a Pot Limit Omaha, and the main event, Heads Up, in which players faced each other in one-on-one elimination draws over four days. This was the real lure of the weekend, as amateurs could test their mettle against some of the world's greats, in a head-to-head battle of strategy, patience, intelligence and luck. The buy-in price for this was$5,000 a head, and with 93 players signed up, it brought the total prize pot to about $425,000.

Canadian Poker Tour president and CEO Kelly Kellner said the idea of going home with a year's salary for a week-end's worth of work brought them out in droves. "You'll never beat Tiger Woods at a round of golf,"he said. "But on any given day at a card table, if you play your hands right, you can change your life.

"With this particular tournament, we've managed to attract a lot of players from the U. S. because our cash prizes are tax-free, and we've attracted a lot of young Canadians, since you can play at 18. And we've heard really positive feedback, which is promising for the future of the event."

Among the poker pros anteing up for the weekend were 11-time WSOP winner Phil Hellmuth, 1996 World Champion Huckleberry Seed, 2006 Player of the Year Gavin Smith, 2008 Canadian Open runner-up Brad(Yukon)Booth and WPT title winner Antonio (The Magician) Esfandiari.

All five pros had been white-hatted in a special ceremony by Mayor Dave Bronconnier.

Early casualties in the week-end-long event included last year's $103,000 winner, Huckleberry Seed, toppled by local amateur Mark St. Pierre on Thursday, Gavin Smith, who was knocked out by Terrence Chan on Friday, and both Hellmuth and Booth, knocked out by LaBlond on Saturday.