Who Will Win the 2018 WPTDeepStacks Marrakech Main Event?
Sep 30, 2018
Kalidou Sow (left) and Fabio Pinho Damaso (right) lead the last 16 into Day 3
After two Day 1s and almost 11 hour levels on Day 2, the 431-entry strong field of the WPTDeepStacks Marrakech Season 2018-2019 13,200 MAD Main Event (approximately 1,200 EUR) has been whittled down to the final 16 at the Casino de Marrakech and Es Saadi Resort.
The lion’s share of the juicy prize pool is still up for grabs and a payday of 1,000,000 Moroccan Dirhams (MAD), trophy and bragging rights await for the eventual champion. The first prize also includes a package worth 22,000 MAD (approximately 2,000 EUR) for the WPTDeepStacks season-ending event. Best positioned to become the next winner of the popular mid-stakes tour in Europe is Portugal’s Fabio Pinho Damaso with 2,295,000.
Second in chips is France’s Kalidou Sow with 1,400,000, who has been on somewhat of a heater in the last two years and scored five tournament wins and plenty of other deep runs. The latest victory of Sow came earlier this month at the WPTDeepstacks Portugal festival in Vilamoura , where he claimed the trophy in the €2,000 High Roller and it would certainly be no surprise to see him end up on top once more.
WPTDeepStacks Europe Season 2017/2018 Player of the Year Tobias Peters bagged up the third-biggest stack with 1,360,000 after taking dowm the Side Event the night before Day 2 of the Main Event and crawling into bed past 6 a.m. local time. Jaouad Abida (1,045,000) also claimed more than a million in chips to his name for the final day, other notables include Mathieu Papineau (800,000), Jean Montury (640,000), Day 1A chip leader Yves Rolland (550,000), David Pecheur (345,000) and Francois Tosques (315,000).
There are just under nine minutes left at blinds of 10,000/20,000 with a big blind ante of 20,000 and the cards will go back in the air in the stunning Casino de Marrakech at 2 p.m. local time.
Day 3 Seat Assignments
| Seat | Table 1 | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
| 1 | Jaouad Abida | Morocco | 1,045,000 | 52 |
| 2 | Miguel Couceiro | Portugal | 875,000 | 44 |
| 3 | Alex Sanchez | Spain | 770,000 | 39 |
| 4 | Abdullatif Attia | France | 595,000 | 30 |
| 5 | Yves Rolland | France | 550,000 | 28 |
| 6 | Kalidou Sow | France | 1,400,000 | 70 |
| 7 | Yassine Adib | Morocco | 210,000 | 11 |
| 8 | David Pecheur | France | 345,000 | 17 |
| Seat | Table 2 | Country | Chip Count | Big Blinds |
| 1 | Mathieu Chevalier | France | 275,000 | 14 |
| 2 | Mathieu Papineau | France | 800,000 | 40 |
| 3 | Jean Montury | France | 640,000 | 32 |
| 4 | Ramon Sol | Spain | 535,000 | 27 |
| 5 | Fabio Pinho Damaso | Portugal | 2,295,000 | 115 |
| 6 | Sebastien Boyard | France | 945,000 | 47 |
| 7 | Francois Tosques | France | 315,000 | 16 |
| 8 | Tobias Peters | Netherlands | 1,360,000 | 68 |
And here’s what they are still playing for in Moroccan Dirhams and the respective equivalent in USD and Euros.
| Place | Prize (in MAD) | Prize (~ in EUR) | Prize (~ in USD) |
| 1 | 1,000,000 | 91,411 | 106,095 |
| 2 | 700,000 | 63,988 | 74,267 |
| 3 | 440,000 | 40,221 | 46,682 |
| 4 | 315,000 | 28,795 | 33,420 |
| 5 | 240,000 | 21,939 | 25,463 |
| 6 | 195,000 | 17,825 | 20,689 |
| 7 | 156,000 | 14,260 | 16,551 |
| 8 | 130,000 | 11,883 | 13,792 |
| 9 | 108,100 | 9,882 | 11,469 |
| 10-11 | 90,000 | 8,227 | 9,549 |
| 12-13 | 75,000 | 6,856 | 7,957 |
| 14-15 | 62,000 | 5,668 | 6,578 |
| 16 | 50,000 | 4,571 | 5,305 |
Before the cards get underway, though, the sunny and warm weather invites for a dip in the pool to come into the final day of the tournament with an extra boost of motivation.
@WPT