Moroccan Magic at WPT Marrakech: Mohamed Ali Houssam Victorious

After four days of mouth-watering and mesmeric moments in Morocco, Mohamed Ali Houssam has been crowned the king of the World Poker Tour (WPT) Marrakech. The Casino Es Saadi is a favourite stomping ground for a lot of people, but Houssam in particular loves plying his trade here. He won the Poker Open in May and he was also our chip leader with 186,700 chips at the end of day one. Just a few moments ago he placed the icing on the cake after disposing of fellow countryman Toufik Ourini, bagging 8,220,000 chips and taking home the coveted WPT title.

The day started with a provisional final table of nine players and all eyes were on the three starlets Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier, Jonathan Duhamel and Arnaud Mattern. After Sebastien Ta was eliminated in 9th place our first mega-star was heading out into the afternoon air. Maksims Martinov crippled Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier after running his [Ah] [Jc] into the Latvians [6c] [6h] on a flop of [Js] [9h] [6s]. This reduced ElkY to a shove and fold strategy and it was Toufik Ourini who eventually finished him off finding [Ac] [Kh] to call an ElkY shove when he was holding [Tc] [9h].

Jonathan Duhamel had scorched through Day 3 and a lot of people were touting him as the next WPT champion. Unfortunately, his poker timing seemed to be off-key today and he just didn’t get going. Maksims Martinov eliminating Duhamel in 7th place. Martinov raised on the button with pocket tens and Duhamel moved all-in for one million chips holding [Qd] [Tc], Martinov called, the board held and Duhamel was out.

After the elimination of Duhamel the WPT Marrakech final table was set and Martinov was the chip leader. The first player to leave the final table was Rodney Assous after losing a coin flip to Houssam and Hassan Fares followed in 5th after another flip, this time versus Ourini.

When we went fourhanded all of the experience was with Arnaud Mattern, but he also had the shortest stack. He moved all-in on three consecutive occasions before finally getting called by Martinov and the Latvian had disposed of yet another high quality player. Martinov’s pocket sevens standing strong against the [As] [8d] of Mattern.

The three-handed play was interesting with the two Moroccans battling it out against the might of Latvia. The action swayed in every possible direction and each player held the chip leader at various points in the hand. Then in a moment of sheer madness Ourini showed the world that you can be lucky – very lucky – and still win big in this game. The action was three-handed on a flop of [6s] [5c] [3s] when Ourini led for 300,000. Houssam folded and Martinov moved all-in for 950,000 total. Ourini made the call and turned over [Jh] [9c] for jack high! Martinov had [6c] [3c] for what seemed an inevitable victory until Ourini hit runner-runner [5s] & [9h] to eliminate Martinov and send the tournament area into rapture!

So we were heads up with the Moroccan pairing of Mohamed Ali Houssam and Toufik Ourini and they were neck and neck. After around 45-minutes of watching paint dry, Houssam had managed to pinch himself a small chip advantage when they played out the final hand of the tournament. The board was [Kc] [8d] [3s] [Qd] when all of the money went into the middle. Houssam held [8c] [8s] for the flopped set and Ourini held [Kc] [Jh] for the top pair. The river bricked for Ourini and Houssam became our new WPT Champion.