Dino Marsani Finishes with Commanding Lead as Day 1b Concludes

By Lisa Yiasemides

Day 1b has come to an end, and after eight hours of poker, it is Dino Marsani (pictured with his son Djeremy) who bagged biggest, taking through an enormous 327,500 after a dramatic climax to the day’s proceedings here at the Grand Casino Brussels Viage.

Though none of Marsani’s fellow competitors managed to exceed the 300k mark, Ugo Faggioli was the one who came closest, his 267,000 chips good for second place. Both Marsani and Faggioli finished ahead of Hugues Mazerolle who was the chip leader at the end of Day 1a yesterday with 248,000.

A total of 235 runners (including re-entries) stumped up the €1,200 buy in – 100 more than played Day 1a. Of those, 83 progress to Day 2, joining the 41 who already secured themselves a spot, plus whoever makes it through from Day 1c.

Other big stacks include Tahar Said (200,000) in third place, and Zekeriya Akkaya (193,000) and Sabare Atmani (193,000) who tied for fourth place.

There will be fierce competition from the likes of Omar Lakhdari (189,000), Thierry Morel (163,000), Masatoshi Tanaka (140,000), Michel Leibgorin (122,000), Nikolaus Teichert (121,000), Nicolas Ribeiro (118,500) and Chris Da-Silva (106,000) who all take through six-figure stacks.

Paul Tedeschi (87,500), Champions Club Member Davidi Kitai (pictured) finished with 64,500, WPTDS Malta Champion Sandro Pitzanti (60,000), Kalidou Sow (55,000) and Bart Lybaert (18,000) are not to be discounted either, despite finishing below average.

Defending Champion Gregory Luttke-Grech, WPTDS Brussels 2019 Champion Mohamed Abdou and WPTDS Germany Champion Marc Goschel were unable to find a bag but still find a place through Day 1c, which is still in play at the time of going to press.

For now though, that wraps up the day’s action until tomorrow, when the WPT.com live updates team will be back to do it all again. Day 2 begins at 2 pm local time tomorrow, Saturday 8 February.

WPT UK photos courtesy of Tomas Stacha.