Eric Souvay Leads After WPTDS Paris Day 1b, WPTDS Brussels champion Omar Lakhdari Bags Big

WPTDS Brussels champion Omar Lakhdari returns on Day 2b with a healthy stack of 130,000

By Frank Op de Woerd

After eleven levels of 40-minutes each on Day 1b, Eric Souvay leads the pack in the WPTDeepStacks Paris Main Event. The Frenchman turned his 30,000 starting stack into 268,300, more than anyone else in the beautiful Club Pierre Charron poker room in the Hyatt Regency Paris Étoile.

With 74 players surviving from a massive field of 205 entries, Day 1b transcended the standard set by Day 1a in every fashion as both more players entered and fewer survived.

“Omar comin’!” one might have heard as WPTDS Brussels Main Event winner Omar Lakhdari was the life of the party all day. The WPTDS title defender – he picked up €92,000 winning the Main Event in Belgium’s capital earlier this month – closed out the day with a stack of 130,000.

WPTDS Paris Day 1b Top 5 Chip Counts:

Day 1b of the WPTDS Paris Main Event got underway at 9 pm local time with over seventy players registered, far ahead of the pace set by the thirty that started Day 1a at 10 am. The number of entries snowballed with over a hundred players in their seats by the time the second level started.

Many familiar French poker players made their debut in Paris, with Antonin “The Pavarotti of Poker” Teisseire and Eric Sfez just two of the many longtime poker players showing up. Both those legendary players busted before the end of the day, with many more joining them before the day came to a close.

Erwann Pecheux, a bit younger than Teisseire and Sfez but just as recognizable, started strong but eventually found himself short. In one of the last levels of the day, he got it in with an open-ended against top-pair, and he failed to hit on the turn or river.

Maybe not as experienced but seemingly just as excited was Simon Touil. He doubled early with a lucky jack on the river saving his tournament life. While he started the day with good fortune, he suffered a beat later on and sat out for numerous levels. When he returned, he came to create order and quickly gained chips. The levels missed didn’t hurt him too much, and he returns for Day 2b with a slightly below average stack.

Antoine Labat busted late on Day 1b but can reenter on Day 1c or Day 1d if he so pleases

Antoine Labat, who made the final table of the world’s biggest poker tournament for a score of $1,000,000 back in 2018, didn’t have much luck today. He first got short, calling someone down in a three-bet pot. The remainder of his chips, Labat lost to Milad Oghabian, getting it in with deuces against pocket tens.

Oghabian did survive the day, albeit with a below-average stack of 65,600. Oghabian and the other 71 survivors return on Saturday, February 29th, at 8 pm local time for Day 2b, where the goal is to play down to the money.

But first Day 1c and Day 1d await, getting started on Friday, February 28 at 10 am and 9 pm, respectively. They are scheduled to do it all over again with another 11 levels of 40 minutes each awaiting those signing up. This event is held in a single reentry format so those who busted once on Day 1a or 1b, can try again on Day 1c or Day 1d.

Check back soon with the live updates on WPT.com as we see just how big this massive event gets. With 180 on Day 1a and 205 on Day 1b, things are off to an excellent start for the WPTDS Paris Main Event that returned to France’s capital after a seven-year hiatus!

Check out all the WPTDS Paris photos on Flickr. WPT Paris photos courtesy of Tomas Stacha.