Omar Lakhdari Takes Down the Main Event to Win €94,000 and First WPTDS Title

By Lisa Yiasemides

Omar Lakhdari (pictured) is the latest WPTDS Champion after coming through a 433-strong field over four days of play here at Grand Casino Brussels Viage. He defeated Alexandre Reard in a heads-up battle and walks away with the trophy, title and €94,000* in prizes.

The two Frenchmen are both regulars on the WPTDS circuit and were each delighted with their results. Following his win, Lakhdari told WPT.com that he was “really happy” and that it meant a lot “to have beaten a big international field.”

Action of the day

Yesterday the Main Event was full of action from the off. Today it was more of the same, with three eliminations in less than twenty minutes and by the end of the first hour of play, that had increased to five.

There were 16 players who made it through to the final day. First to fall was Florian Duta after the Romanian pro was unable to spin up his stack, having started the day at the bottom of the counts. That was just a few minutes into the day and less than three and a half hours later, there were just nine left. Aurelio Martin Garcia fell in 9th place (€9,200), narrowly missing out on a seat at the final table.

Following a short break, play resumed. From then on, the money ladders increased for each elimination. With each of the finalists trying their best to stay in the game, it took almost an hour for the next player to bust and Ivan Fortu took 8th place for €11,800 after losing king-queen to Lakhdari’s ace-seven suited.

Jonathan Abdellatif busted next and netted €15,000 for 7th place. He came unstuck when he moved all in with ace-seven suited and ran into Reard’s (pictured) pocket-eights. Luc Boeckx (€19,000) joined him at the rail half an hour later when his ace-four suited was beaten by Lakhdari’s seven-four suited.

David Van Roosbroeck (€25,000) was the next to depart in 5th place. The Dutchman had nursed a short-stack through the final table, but his pocket-deuces were counterfeited by a double-paired board in a three-way all in. Reard took the pot with ace-five as Lakhdari was also counterfeit holding the other pair of deuces.

Four-handed, Lakhdari continued to be active and after he opened the cutoff, Pierre Frederic Claes ((€33,110) shipped his stack with ace-ten suited on the button. Reard woke up with kings in the blinds and the rest was history.

Paul van Oort had managed to survive the gauntlet up until this point, with his opponents responsible for every one of the final table eliminations. That was until his flip with pocket-fours lost to Lakhdari’s ace-five. van Oort goes home €45,000 better off for his result.

Lakhdari and Reard took a dinner break ahead of their heads-up match. When they returned, it was another two and a half hours before the Champion was decided. Though Reard started with a little more in chips, the lead changed hands several times. At one point, Lakhdari was down to 2.5 million but two double ups in close succession left Reard with less than ten percent of the chips in play.

Reard didn’t give up and remained calm and composed for another hour, until the last hand of the tournament, when he and Lakhdari clashed on an eight-high flop. Reard had ace-eight and Lakhdari had jack-eight with a flush draw. By the river, the Champion had made a flush and Reard takes €64,500 for second place.

Despite missing out on first place, Reard was “happy for his friend” but he promised to be back “next time” to try to win again.

Lakhdari plans to put his winnings to good use and spend it on “more tournaments and nice holidays”. He will be back in the WPTDS saddle when the tour comes to Paris, his home city, later this month.

Final table results

That’s a wrap for WPTDS Brussels. The next stop is WPT Germany, when the Main Event kicks off on February 18. The following week is WPTDS Paris and both festivals promise to be as full of fun, action and life-changing money as we have seen here in the beautiful city of Brussels.

WPTDS Brussels photos courtesy of Tomas Stacha.

*Includes a €2,000 package to the WPTDS European Championship in Deauville in April.