The beautiful Casino de Marrakech at the Es Saadi resort is ready for Day 1b of the WPTDeepStacks Main Event. After 213 players joined proceedings yesterday, plenty more will jump into the field to start their journey to become the latest WPTDS champion.
They'll all be wanting to bag plenty of chips ahead of Day 2, but Ismail Fath-Eddine is the man to catch after bagging up a mammoth 428,500 in chips from his 30,000 starting stack.
Players will have twelve 40-minute levels on Day 1b, with late registration open for ten of them. There will be 15-minute breaks after levels three and six, with a 75-minute dinner break after level nine.
Day 1 Blind Structure
Level
Small Blind
Big Blind
Ante
1
100
100
2
100
100
100
3
100
200
200
15-minute break
4
100
300
300
5
200
400
400
6
300
500
500
75-minute break
7
300
600
600
8
400
800
800
9
500
1000
1000
15-minute break
10
600
1200
1200
11
800
1600
1600
12
1000
2000
2000
Plenty of big names will be in the field after the conclusion of the High Roller yesterday, so stay tuned to PokerNews as we keep you up to date with all the action.
Back in May, Gregoire Ceran-Maillard finished second to Nathan Tetart in the WPTDeepStacks Deauville Main Event. After defending champion Francois Tosques advanced yesterday, can another former WPTDS final tablist join him in Day 2?
Yesterday saw 213 entries and the tournament clock currently shows 169 of 190 players remaining, meaning that the WPTDeepStacks Marrakech Main Event has surpassed the 400 player mark.
Now at the start of Level 5, there are six levels of late registration remaining for players to jump in or re-enter, meaning that the record of 433 from 2017 is well within reach.
Day 1b is in the books at the record-breaking WPTDeepStacks Marrakech, with the largest Main Event in the tournament's history. A total of 332 players entered today, and with the 213 from Day 1a they combined to create a field of 545, dwarfing the previous record of 433 from 2017.
Just 101 players survived, and they will join the 57 from Day 1a in the Day 2 field.
The stunning setting of the Es Saadi Resort and the Casino de Marrakech was practically buzzing with players throughout the day as they sought to become the latest in a long line of champions here at one of the hottest poker destinations on the continent.
With the High Roller heading to another day, and scheduled to resume at the end of Day 1b, players hopped in the Main Event hoping to run up a stack ahead of Day 2. They had the 428,500 of Ismail Fath-Eddine in their sights but no player topped 400,000 on Day 1b.
The nearest appeared to be Nabil Ben Azzouz (349,000), with former EPT Prague champion Paul Michaelis (308,000) not far behind him.
Other big stacks included Mohamed Mamouni (222,000) and Sairi Azzelarab (217,000) with anything over 200,000 good enough for around 100 big blinds when play resumes on Saturday at midday.
The day started with a bang with two eliminations in the first level, both at the hands of Bruno Caron. He flopped top set against bottom set and pocket aces and held to move up to 90,000 barely 30 minutes into the day.
He stuck around and eventually bagged 83,500, but he wasn't the only Frenchman to bag as a string of familiar faces including Alexandre Reard (27,000), Bernard Guigon (99,000), Pierre Antoine Quignard (46,000), Erwann Pecheux (67,000), Arthur Conan (120,000) and former Premier League footballer Jimmy Kebe (29,500) all bagged ahead of Day 2.
Other players who jumped into the tournament but were less lucky included Roger Tondeur, Said El Yousfi, and former WSOPC Marrakech champion Phillip Huxley.
Tomorrow there will be eleven levels, with blinds increasing to 60 minutes in length. The bubble is expected to burst and every player will be focused on making it through to the final day's play on Sunday.
Stay tuned to PokerNews for continued coverage of this massive WPTDeepStacks Main Event until we crown a winner!