Achille Voltolina Leads 68 Survivors on Day 1A; Sonny Franco With a Big Stack
Day 1A of the 2019 WSOP International Circuit Marrakech 15,000 MAD (€1,350) Main Event is in the books. A total of 194 entries were made on Day 1A in the beautiful Casino de Marrakech in the luxurious Es Saadi Resort - Palace and only 68 made it through to Day 2. Achille Voltolina ended the day with the chip lead in hand. He bagged a stack of 224,700 after all players started with only 30,000. He is closely followed by Renaud Blangiardi with 209,400 and Michiel Brosky with 179,200.
The day started slowly with just 34 entries on the clock. When the shuffle up and deal was announced only six tables started playing with three and four players on it. The tables filled up slowly and by the end of registration, there were 194 entries made. Twenty-four of those are reentries which makes it a total of 170 unique players. Last Year's Day 1A attracted 155 players and the event is set to be a big one.
The tournament staff paused the clock after the seventh level of the day to pay their respects to Jawad Bentahila. The Moroccan poker player passed away on December 31st, 2018. The showed his picture on all the screens in the tournament and spoke about him. Most of the players got out of their seats to pay their respects to Bentahila.
The 6,000 MAD (€550) WSOP Circuit Deepstack event needed an extra day to play down to a winner. Sonny Franco ended up taking third place for 260,000 MAD (approx. €24,000) and wasted no time jumping in the Main Event. Franco took his seat right next to Serdar Demircan. The two battled plenty in Prague and both cracked a smile when Franco sat down. Both ended up making Day 2. Franco bagged an impressive 173,500 while Demircan has to do with 90,000. The end-of-day average stack sits at about 85,000 and both players are above that.
Other players that made it through to Day 2 with a big stack include Kamal El Abadallaoui (164,900), Isabel Baltazar (147,000), Ringo Stimac (142,100), and Orey Canarinho (138,700).
Others were less fortunate and busted out on Day 1A. Barny Boatman fired three bullets and found his waterloo in the end-of-day chip leader Voltolina. Boatman moved his last chips to the middle holding nine-eight while the flop read king-ten-seven. Voltolina was also on a draw holding queen-jack, but he had the better hand. The turn and river were both bricks and Voltolina took the pot down with just queen high. Boubekeur Benhalima, Patrick Legrand, Henri Dupont, Lucien Cohen, and Wim Verhaegen also didn't find a bag at the end of Day 1A.
They still have the option to play Day 1B on January 18. Players have the option to register or reenter until the start of level 10. PokerNews will be on the tournament floor to provide updates from start to finish.