Day 1b Comes to a Close; Guillaume Darcourt Chip Leader
There was a bumper turn out for Day 1b of the 2016 World Series of Poker International Circuit Main Event in Morocco, with 298 players involved in 12 levels of play. It culminated in 114 joining the 55 survivors from Day 1a in Day 2, which starts tomorrow at the Casino de Marrakech.
The Day 1b chip leader is Guillaume Darcourt. Front-runners Gael Dirig (131,300) and Moad Nokra (114,400) fell back during the latter levels to leave Darcourt's chip count of 214,400 the biggest. He will be going up against Sofian Benaissa (248,300) and Loic Blarez (232,200), who topped the chip counts after Day 1a. Darcourt was no doubt helped by a crazy hand involving him cracking aces with 
.
In what was a four-bet pot preflop, Darcourt got into a raising war with his opponent on a board of 
, which left him pot committed. When the chips were in the middle, Darcourt hit a diamond on the turn to scoop a monster pot late on Day 1b.
The day had started slowly, but the number of entrants grew steadily, though it narrowly failed to top the 484 entries from the 2015 WSOP Circuit event. A total of 446 entrants played across the two starting flights, including 108 reentries.
Notable chip stacks in the field from Day 1b include Martial Blangenwitsch (81,000) and Natalia Breviglieri (128,900), as well as French pros Romain Paon (48,000) and Erwann Pecheux (100,500).
The prizepool and payouts aren't yet confirmed, but we'll get them to you just as soon as they become official. Stay tuned to PokerNews for full chip counts of the 114 remaining players.