Beyer Surges to the Top After Another Hectic Day of Poker at SISMIX Main Event
It was another stunning day at the Casino de Marrakech as day 1b of the Winamax SISMIX Main Event drew a massive field of 369 runners to the felt.
After 13 levels of 40 minutes each, the massive day 1b field was reduced to 90 survivors, with Frenchman Christophe Beyer topping the standings by bagging and tagging 687,000 by the end of the night. Close behind him is countryman Jeremy Saderne, who managed to turn his starting stack of 50,000 to 623,000. Just two months ago Saderne bested a field of 1,399 players to be crowned the winner of the Winamax Poker Tour Final in Paris, good for a cool €100,000. He's done very well to put himself in a strong position to secure another deep run in this Winamax event as well.
Rounding out the all-French top-5 is Kamel Atoui (575,000), Jean-Pierre Besancon (485,000) and Bruno Soutavong (445,000), all way above the 205,000 chip average by the end of today's play.
The Winamax Pro Team was strongly represented today with no less than six runners, but one by one they fell, leaving only Michel Abecassis behind. Abecassis managed to end on a high note of 235,000 chips, while his colleagues Gaelle Baumann, Davidi Kitai, Aladin Reskallah, Pierre Calamusa and Sylvain Loosli all will have to come back tomorrow if they want to secure a spot on Saturday. The same goes for Leo Margets, who busted in quite the setup. Her flopped top and bottom pair were no good against the better two pair of Pierre Nieto, and the Spaniard exited with three levels left of the day.
French-Vietnamese actor and Winamax VIP Frederic Chau had quite the day at the felt. Early on he was seated with Spanish player Fernandez Francisco, and the two of them had some bloody battles early on. With just 50 minutes left on the tournament clock, Chau won a coinflip to boost his stack to 128,500, but sometime during the last level the VIP was sent packing, and he will have to visit the cashier if he wishes to continue his SISMIX Main Event journey.
On tomorrow's menu will be the third and final heat of the Main Event as Day 1c kicks off at midday, while the 1,600 MAD (€147) Le Totem tournament will commence at 5 pm and the 1,400 MAD HyperTurbo side event will set sail at 10 pm.
Tune back in tomorrow for more action, as the PokerNews live reporting team will be bringing you every bit of the action from warm and sunny Marrakech.
All photos courtesy of Winamax
flop, Meriguet made it 20,500 before Nieto three-bet to 57,000. Margets moved in for some additional chunk change (62,900 total), Meriguet made the call, and though Nieto was eager to get more chips in the pot, he was only allowed by the dealer to fold or call. He opted for the latter.
rolled off on the turn and Nieto instantly announced all-in for a total of 154,900, more than Meriguet was willing to invest, and he eventually made the fold.
for a flopped two pair, but Nieto just shook his head before revealing 
for the bigger two pair. The 
river was no good for Margets, and the Spanish pro quickly left the tournament area while Nieto was left with quite some stacking of chips to attend to.
, but Lamagnère wasn't going anywhere with his 
, and thus he was crowned the winner.
board he and his Spanish opponent Fernandez Francisco had only poured around 2,500 chips each into the pot, but on the river, Chau had bet out 5,250 only to face a shove of 36,000 from Francisco. That got the conversation going.
before mucking the other.