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Level: 2
Blinds: 50/100
Ante: 0
2009 WPT Marrakech
€4,500 Championship Main Event
Day: 1
Event Info
2009 WPT Marrakech
Final Results
Event Info
Level Info
Buy-in
€4,500
Total Entries
416
Level
29
Blinds
40,000 / 80,000
Ante
10,000
Players Left 1 / 416
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, Arnaud Mattern fired out 675 with Pascal Perrault check-calling. The river was the 
and Perrault checked again, but this time folded to a 1,675 that Mattern had carefully took his time over.
flop and only former EPT champion Jan Boubli made the call.The turn was the
and De La Gorce bet 750, Boubli quickly raised to 2,100 and De La Gorce folded equally fast.
As he approached Antonio Esfandiari's table, Esfandiari greeted him with "The Miz! Mizzarooski! Are you sitting here?"
"I wish" replied Mizzi.
, two players checked to Arnaud Mattern. He bet 475 and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier called on the button. The other two players folded as the
hit the turn. Both opted to check, and they did so again on the 
river. Mattern tabled
to take down the pot. Both players are still around the starting stack of 20,000.
He bet 1,500 on the river of a
board and was quickly called. Lellouche showed 
but had walked into 
.
We have the 1996 WSOP champion Huck Seed, and he's table mates with the 2007 WSOP-E champion, Annette Obrestad. Antonio Esfandiari is in the house, and he and Sorel Mizzi are bouncing back and forth between each other's table and their own.
The French are out in full force. Arnaud Mattern is sitting with the dangerous Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, and Nicolas Levi is at an adjacent table. Ludovic Lacay is here too, as are fellow-Frenchmen, Davidi Kitai, and Bruno Fitoussi, and Pascal Perrault. The Partouche group is well-represented as well, with Alain Roy, Stephan Bazin, and Antonin Teisseire among those sporting the team patches.
And then there's the Hendon Mob. Ross Boatman is playing the Main, fresh off his victory in the High Rollers event on Wednesday. Brother Barny has just taken his seat near the end of the first level, and Joe Beevers makes it three-out-of-four Hendon Mobbers in the house. There's no sign of Ram Vaswani, at least not so far.
They staff tells us they are taking alternates in order to accommodate more than 400 players, so we expect a few more notables to trickle in over the course of the next couple hours.
Level: 1
Blinds: 25/50
Ante: 0
The word on the street is that the Main Event has sold out, capped at 400 runners. Those already registered represent 32 countries, and there is a whole hoard of press here from around the world as well. Before the cards have even gone in the air, it's become evident that this area of the world is ready for serious tournament poker.
We're still just about an hour away from our scheduled starting time, and the staff is hard at work preparing the tournament room for play. The field will begin with 20,000 starting chips and we'll play 60-minute levels. In short, it's going to be a long three days.
Sit tight, we'll be back with the 'shuffle up and deal' shortly!
