Pinho Damaso Leads Sweet Sixteen After Day 2 in Marrakech; Peters, Sow and Montury in Contention

Fabio Pinho Damaso Leads Last 16 After Day 2

It was an action-filled day at the tables of the Casino de Marrakech Es Saadi as the WPTDeepStacks Marrakech 13,200 MAD (approximately 1,200 EUR) Main Event played down to the money and beyond. Out of a field of 431 entries, 147 players returned with hopes to take home a portion of the juicy prize pool and more than half of them left empty-handed without anything to show for.

After almost 11 levels of 60 minutes each, the remaining 16 players bagged up chips with Portugal’s Fabio Pinho Damaso at the top of the counts with 2,295,000. Kalidou Sow follows in second place with 1,400,000, closely followed by WPTDeepStacks Europe Season 2017/2018 Player of the Year Tobias Peters (1,360,00).

Jaouad Abida (1,045,000) is the only other chip millionaire of the semi-finalists, which also includes such big names as Mathieu Papineau (800,000), Jean Montury (640,000), Day 1A chip leader Yves Rolland (550,000), David Pecheur (345,000) and Francois Tosques (315,000). There are just under nine minutes left at blinds of 10,000/20,000 with a big blind ante of 20,000 when the action recommences as of 2 p.m. local time on Sunday, September 30th, 2018.

For Peters, that provides some additional time to catch up on vital sleep ahead of the final tournament day as the Dutchman went wire-to-wire in an 8-Max Side Event and claimed the victory in a field of 109 entries at 6 a.m. local time. Peters caught some three and a half hours sleep and managed to bag up the second-biggest stack for Day 3 of the Main Event.

No Sleep? No Problem for Tobias Peters

Of course there was also one other big story throughout the day: Who will make the cut and earn some money and who busts without anything to show for besides a bad beat story or a move gone wrong? Many notables were on the rail much sooner than they’d hoped for, as Andris Resevskis, Mohamed Ali Houssam, Said El Yousfi, High Roller champion Henrique Pinho and Muhyedine Fares were all ousted before the money.

Besides Houssam, one further WPT Champions Club member had made it through to Day 2 and Guillaume Darcourt ended up as the unfortunate bubble boy. Darcourt open-shoved pocket jacks and Jose Plaza looked him up out of the blinds with ade-king to spike a king on the flop and ace on the turn. Once the min-cash of 26,000 MAD was guaranteed, the flood gates opened and the all in announcements kept coming every other minute.

The Bubble Boy? WPT Champions Club Member Guillaume Darcourt

Manuel Sadornil, Marius Conan, Jeremy Saderne, Frederic Delval, start-of-the-day chip leader Kamel Atoui and Mehdi Hsissen were among those to cash but end up coming short of making the final day. Jimmy Livramento, who won the Main Event in Vilamoura, Portugal just a few weeks ago, had another strong showing and his bid for remarkable back-to-back victories in the same month ended in 21st place. After losing ace-queen to ace-king, the number one of Luxembourg’s all-time money list ran twice into aces and that sealed his fate.

Another Deep Run for Vilamoura Champion Jimmy Livramento

Pierrick Burban, Marco Hernandez, Ricardo Hewitt and Boubekeur Benhalima were the late casualties to reduce the field to the last two tables and let everyone bag and tag for the night. Benhalima’s move with pocket eights on a king-high flop back-fired as chip leader Fabio Pinho Damaso called with king-ten suited for top pair.

After a good night’s sleep, the remaining 16 will play down to a champion, who will walk home with the trophy, 1,000,000 Moroccan Dirhams and a package for the WPTDeepStacks season-ending event worth €2,000 . Tune back in to can follow the conclusion of the event right here on WPT.com.

Seat Assignments for the Final Day: