The World Poker Tour (WPT) is currently in Marrakech, Morocco, and the 222 who paid the €4,250+€750 entry fee to take part in this prestigious event have been whittled down to the final table of nine players.
In recent years, the WPT has seen a massive reduction in the number of people taking part in its tournaments and WPT Marrakech has been no different. Last year Frenchman Christophe Savary outlasted 415 opponents to get his hands on the €377,262 first place prize but this year the field has almost been halved. That said, there is still more than a quarter of a million Euros up for grabs by the winner.
A number of big name professional players took part but failed to make it deep, including 2001 World Series of Poker Main Event winner Carlos Mortensen, Bertrand "Elky" Grospellier, Arnaud Mattern and David Benyamine. Of the survival nine players, the young German Dominik Nitsche is probably the most recognisable player, a youngster who has only been playing live for two years but has already amassed close to $700,000 in live tournament winnings, including a 23rd place finish at the recent EPT Barcelona.
Nitsche found himself down to just 5,000 chips during Day 2 after he ended up all in against Erik Tamm on a flop reading 9s-3d-4d whilst holding Ad5d for the nut flush draw but if failed to hit and he lost to Qh9h. He doubled up the very next hand with Ah5h against Pierre Daw's AsKd when he spiked a five on the flop and ha snot looked back since. He even went as far as eliminating his nemesis Tamm from earlier with QsQh versus AsQ and then busted two players out once the money had been reached, despite being a massive underdog. First his pair of nines flopped a set against Charles de Haas' jacks and then he hit a set of queens on the river against Phu Troung's aces with just 11 players left. Nitsche ended the day second in chips with a monster stack of 1,479,000.
Play has resumed at the Casino De Marrakech in the Es Saadi Gardens & Resport, with each of the nine players guaranteed to walk away with no less than €20,754 and the winner taking home €254,745. The players are currently seated as follows:
Seat 1: Felix Oberauer (Austria) - 499,000
Seat 2: Dominik Nitsche (Germany) - 1,479,000
Seat 3: Patrick Muleta (France) - 244,000
Seat 4: Sebastien Homann (Germany) - 1,539,000
Seat 5: Sebastien Comte (France) - 529,000
Seat 6: Johan Williamsson (Sweden) - 693,000
Seat 7: Guillaume Cescut (France) - 956,000
Seat 8: Guillaume de la Gorce (France) - 516,000
Seat 9: Julien Labussiere (France) - 210,000
We want to share an important update with our Betfair Community users.
Over the coming months, the Betfair Community platform will be winding down. The final active day for the platform will be December 21st. From December 22nd, users will no longer be able to access the platform.
Your discussions, insights, engagement, and, most importantly, feedback have helped shape the platform and guided innovation. Your feedback continues to be important to us, and we will continue to listen via our dedicated feedback channels, as well as through product testing and innovations.
To share your feedback and experience, visit: https://support.betfair.com/app/home
20 people are following this blog
Yorkshire Pudding Poker Blog