It is shaping up to be a small but strong field for today's Day 1b. No tables appear bereft of tough players. Table 4 provides but one example, at which we find seated Thomas Bichon, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, and Davidi Katai. The latter two were just involved in a hand against one another.
Kitai had just opened a hand with a raise to 300 from early position, then a reraise behind forced him to fold. On the next hand, Kitai was raising to 300 again, this time from under the gun, and Grospellier called from the button. The big blind called as well, and the flop brought three baby cards -- . It checked to ElkY who bet 625, and only Kitai called. The made for an interesting turn card, the sight of which causing both players to check.
The river was the . This time Kitai led out with a bet of 700, and Grospellier considered for a moment before raising to 2,700. Kitai shuffled his chips, then pushed his cards away.
Grospellier moves to 33,000, while Kitai sits with 27,500.
With about 2,500 in the pot and the board reading , Antony Lellouche's river bet of 1,700 was called by Alexia Portal. Lellouche tabled and it was good, taking down the early pot.
Lellouche: Up to about 33,000
Portal: Down to roughly 26,000
We've noticed a few interesting table pairings in the field. With only eight tables going at the moment, no one is very far from each other, but we have to wonder how Alexia Portal feels about being directly to Antony Lellouche's left. Certainly she's happier than she'd be on his right. Portal and Guillaume De La Gorce left Team Winamax last month, while Lellouche remains the team's headliner. Interestingly, Portal is sporting a Full Tilt patch this afternoon.
A few tables over, it's team-on-team action, as Thomas Bichon has position on fellow PokerStars Team Pro Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier.
Out of the 68 players registered for Day 1b thus far, we've spotted Liz Lieu, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Ludovic Lacay, Antony Lellouche, Arnaud Mattern, Thomas Bichon, Guillaume de la Gorce, Sam Chartier, and Roger Hairabedian at the tables.
Welcome back to beautiful Marrakech, Morocco, where sunny skies greeted us this morning for our walk back over to the Casino de Marrakech for today's Day 1b of the WPT Marrakech Main Event presented by Chilipoker.
Yesterday saw 137 players turn out for the first of the two Day Ones, with only 51 of those surviving to return on Monday. Sebastian Homann of Germany ended with the most chips when play concluded late last night, the only one of the group to cross the 300,000-chip mark.
Expectations are we should be seeing a few more familiar faces in the field today. Among those expected to join the fray are David Benyamine, Carlos Mortensen, Ludovic Lacay, and Arnaud Mattern. We'll see if any of those or any of our other Day 1b combatants come close to challenging Homann for the overall Day 1 chip lead.
The plan today will once again be to play 11 one-hour levels, with the dinner break coming after Level 6. The first hands are scheduled to be dealt about a half-hour from now. See you back here then!
. It checked to ElkY who bet 625, and only Kitai called. The 
made for an interesting turn card, the sight of which causing both players to check.
. This time Kitai led out with a bet of 700, and Grospellier considered for a moment before raising to 2,700. Kitai shuffled his chips, then pushed his cards away.
, Antony Lellouche's river bet of 1,700 was called by Alexia Portal. Lellouche tabled 
and it was good, taking down the early pot.![[user140525]](/img/avatars/avatar.svg){kind=avatar}