Ten Remain in WPTDS Paris Main Event, Sonny Franco Leads

Sonny Franco

By Frank Op de Woerd

After a long day on the green poker felt, just ten players remain in the World Poker Tour DeepStacks Paris Main Event from a total field of 853 entries. They’re guaranteed €16,500 but all vying for the €200,000 first-place prize.

Leading the pack is Frenchman Sonny Franco who bulldozed over the field the last few levels of Day 3. Also still in contention are start-of-day chip leader Ouassini Mansouri and WPT Prague winner Marcin Wydrowski.

WPT Prague champion Marcin Wydrowski still in contention for his first WPTDS title

Day 3 of the record-breaking WPTDS Paris Main Event got underway at 3 pm with the 107 players that all made the money on their respective Day 2’s. For the first time, the field was in one room and they didn’t sit still. From the start, it was a battlefield with players busting left and right. So many players had sneaked in the money short and now tried double or nothing. For numerous players, it became the former heading to the rail early on.

Remigiusz Wyrzykiewic was one of the first to go, but he wouldn’t be standing on the rail alone. He was soon joined by players like Kacper Pyzara (jack-ten versus king-seven,) Jazzar Maroun (ace-king versus ace-queen,) Franck Kalfon (queen-jack versus king-queen,) and Drice Hamza (ace-nine into quads kings.)

Legendary French poker player Bruno Fitoussi, too, exited well before the final few tables were formed. The partypoker-sponsored old school poker player lost the last of his chips with jacks to king-queen.

Not as legendary just yet, but just as colorful, Omar Lakhdari was next to go. The WPTDS Brussels winner got the majority of his chips in with pocket fives against ace-king and was leading till the river. Unfortunately for the amicable Lakhdari, his opponent hit an ace on the river. The remainder went in not much later where Lakhdari lost four-five to kings. The dream of going back-to-back was over.

It was around this time that start-of-day chipleader Ouassini Mansouri seemed to be losing grip. He suffered defeat in more and more small and medium-sized pots and his stack was dwindling. At the same time, his friend Sonny Franco was doing much better; growing his stack every orbit. The biggest increment came grom a four-bet pot against Mohamed Joudar where the latter eventually shoved with eights and Franco called with queens.

Ange Besnainou was keeping quiet most of the day, hovering around the stack he started the day with. In the end, it wasn’t enough as the blinds kept growing and his ability to maneuver disappeared. Sonny Franco would be his executioner. Besnainou got involved in a multi-way pot and overtook the initiative betting, but Franco was just waiting for him with his flopped straight. By the time the chips went in on the turn, Besnainou had only a few outs left and those were even for a chop and not a double. He didn’t hit and the longtime French poker player exited before the big cheques were being written out.

Legendary French poker player Ange Besnainou busted in 27th place

Like Franco, Florent Estegassy too was on a heater. He won seemingly every hand he got involved in, and he got in the mix more than his fair share. From a spot at the bottom, within an hour and a half Estegassy had worked his way up to the top of the chip counts with three tables left.

With the departure of David Hu (king-queen versus ace-ten,) Lucien Cohen (ace-jack versus ace-king,) and Francois Scapula (ace-three against ace-queen,) soon enough they were down to two tables. Things didn’t slow down there; Laurent Polito (aces against queens, 16th,) Clyde Tjauw Foe (ace-king versus aces, 15th,) Johnny Hansen (deuces versus queens, 14th,) and Julien Pieffet (ace-five against queen-jack, 13th) all went out in quick succession.

In the last two levels of the night, Mansouri found his flow again and won back a lot of chips and became a force to be reckoned with again.

Over on the feature table in the last level, a three-way all in resulted in two players heading to the payout desk. Lianmin Bai with ace-ten put both Ekrem Sanioglu with ace-nine and Alain Zeidan with ace-queen at risk in an all in pre-flop. The flop paired the ace for all three but Zeidan still led. The turn brought a nine to shift the lead to Sanioglu but the ten on the river gave Bai the winning hand, making for a double elimination.

Not much later, the day came to an end and the ten remaining players started the bagging and tagging process. Those ten players return to action in the Club Pierre Charron poker room at 4 pm on Monday, March 2nd. Blinds will be 40,000 and 80,000 with a live stream on half an hour security delay. You can follow the updates on WPT.com so check back soon for the conclusion of the record-breaking WPTDS Paris!

* Plus a €2,000 package to the WPTDeepStacks European Championship in Deauville

Ouassini Mansouri returns on Day 4

All photos by Tomas Stacha