The total amount of players is up to 148 at the moment. 4 of them have already lost their 30,000-stack, so 144 remain as of now. Late registration and the option to reenter is open till the start of Level 9.
On the 5-handed table 18, the first player to act made it 400. His neighbor Alexandre Reard three-bet to 1,125 from the cutoff and Pierre Merlin in the small blind cold four-bet to 2,800. The big blind and initial-raiser both folded. Reard glanced at Merlin's stack, and moved all in. Merlin called for 8,775.
Pierre Merlin: 
Alexandre Reard: 
The board ran out 
and Merlin doubled up.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
25,450
-4,550
|
-4,550 |
|
||
|
17,700
8,925
|
8,925 |
Cheng-Wei Yin sat down and immediately lost some chips. After a player limped from early position, several players followed his example before action was on Cheng-Wei Yin in the big blind. He bumped it up to 850 and just the initial limper called.
Yin three-barreled on 
with the river bet being 5,000. His opponent called and Yin showed 
. The limper tabled 
and knocked down Yin in one of his first hands at the table.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
22,125
-7,875
|
-7,875 |
A 15-minute break for the players.
Level: 3
Blinds: 75/150
Ante: 25
Stephane Benadiba was first to act and raised to 375. From the hijack, Alain Ghozzi called before Cheng-Wei Yin squeezed to 1,250 from the cutoff. The button and both blinds folded, Benadiba and Ghozzi both called.
The two of them checked to Yin on 
and the Belgian player continuation bet 3,500. Benadiba instantly check-raised to 10,000 and Ghozzi called. Yin shoved for 10,850 total, both Benadiba and Ghozzi called.
The turn came the 
and Benadiba bet 10,000 into the empty side pot. Ghozzi called.
With the 
completing the board, Benadiba shoved all in for, what we believe was, 11,000 or so. Ghozzi called again.
Benadiba confidently showed 
. That prompted Yin to table . Ghozzi leaned back, raised his eyebrows, said something in French, and revealed 
for the winning hand. Two birds, one stone.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
110,000 | |
|
|
Busted | |
|
Busted |
Registration is open for quite some time, and we expect a lot more players to sign up. A lot of the events start later in the afternoon here in Marrakech, so we imagine quite a few players will sleep in a bit before coming in for poker action. Right now, 239 entries have been made of which 8 entries are players that have busted before and reentered. 226 players remain, making for an average stack of just under 32,000.
We have four more players we're sure to keep track of today, all French as the majority of the players here are from there.
| Player | Chips | Progress |
|---|---|---|
|
30,000 | |
|
30,000 | |
|
||
|
30,000 | |
|
30,000 | |
Level: 4
Blinds: 100/200
Ante: 25
