Marmion Leads Day 2: WPT Marrakech

WPT Marrakech has served up a tasty tagine of poker delights in the Casino Es Saadi today. When the first card was dealt there were 147 bottoms firmly entrenched in their seats. By the time the last card had been passed back to the dealer only 50 remained.

The man who was leading the whole field was an Irishman who lives in Spain. Ian Marmion came into Day 2 second in chips and he was a thorn in everyone’s side all day long. Sam El Sayed told everyone that you just could not bluff Marmion, and one other player told us that Marmion was crazy. It seems his hyper-aggressive style works, because for the second day on the trot he has scorched through the field.

Marmion didn’t lead for the entire day and in fact the chip lead was passed around like a hot potato. Sam El Sayed grabbed it for the first few levels and then with three levels of play remaining Chris Lastiwka became our first player to hit 300,000 and with it take his turn as the chip leader.

(Interview with Lastiwka)

As Lastiwka rode away up front, people were falling off at the back. Barny Boatman, Roger Hairabedian and Lucien Cohen all failing to make it to the dinner break.

Then a hand that could prove to be pivotal in this tournament. David Sacksick handed Jonathan Duhamel 147,000 chips with a pre flop four-bet shove holding [Kx] [7x] offsuit. Duhamel was sat behind a pair of pocket kings, a huge smile and not long after, over 300,000 chips and the chip lead.

(The former world champion handed a 300,000 gift!)

Duhamel never dropped beyong 300,000 from that point on and was only surpassed by Ian Marmion and Fadhil Farag in the final two levels of play.

So 50 players will return on Saturday at 14.00 (GMT) where we will first play down to the final 33 (the money) and then onto the final table itself. As previously stated, Ian Marmion will start in front with 379,000 chips but lurking ominously in the background are Jonathan Duhamel with 364,500 chips and Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier with 293,500 chips.

Other notables left in the hunt for a WPT title are Sam El Sayed (246,000), Surinder Sunar (180,000) and Arnaud Mattern (131,000).

In the meantime here is our chip leader.