Two new notable French players have joined the field. Erwann Pecheux finished second in a WSOP Bracelet event in 2015 and recently final-tabled a WPTDeepStack event in Cannes.
Also joining him in the Main Event field is Sonny Franco. Franco is a regular on the French poker circuit, playing extensively in his native France as well as Morocco. Franco has taken a knock to his stack early on, and sits with just over half starting stack.
Players are going on a 20-minute break. The tournament clock currently shows 262 players remaining from 298. When they return the blinds will be 250/500 with an ante of 75.
Kenji Amoretti still sits with a large stack after the earlier elimination of Alain Wamster. Also going well is defending champion Antonin Teisseire who is above starting stack.
On a river, and with 5,000 in the pot already, Remi Picart bet 3,000 and his opponent Stephane Camacho raised in position to 7,000.
On a scary four-flush board Picart thought about his decision before throwing in a chip to make the call.
Camacho fumbled with his cards, exposing the and the to reveal quads. Picart picked up his cards and hesitated slightly, perhaps in sheer disbelief, before flinging them into the muck.
We were told that defending champion Antonin Teisseire, who took down this tournament 12 months ago for €72,000, had registered for the Winamax Poker Open Main Event, and we were just waiting for him to take his seat.
When he did so, we headed over to see how he would approach his first hand.
Hand 1 - A player raised to 800 from under the gun and Teisseire, who was still sorting out his headphones, folded in the cutoff.
Hand 2 - Teisseire, now with headphones in, raised to 750 from under the gun. The button three-bet to 2,000 and Teisseire folded.
Hand 3 - The button raised to 800 and Teisseire defended his big blind. The flop came and both players checked.
The turn was the and Teisseire bet 1,025 and his opponent called. Teisseire checked the river and his opponent checked behind.
Teisseire showed for a flopped set of fives and took down the pot.
Hand 4 - Teisseire folded his small blind to a button open.
Hand 5 - Teisseire folded his button to and under the gun open.
Kenji Amoretti opened to 700 from the hijack and Alain Wamster three-bet to 2,100. Action folded back to Amoretti who four-bet to 4,500 and Wamster then five-bet to 13,000.
Amoretti six-bet jammed all in for around starting stack and Wamster called.
Kenji Amoretti:
Alain Wamster:
The board ran out and Amoretti's Kings held, eliminating Wamster.
Last year, a field of 978 generated a prizepool of €477,753 and already today the field is verging on the 200 mark. We heard yesterday that Day 1B is expected to be so big that there will be staggered dinner breaks, but there has been no formal confirmation just yet.
The plan for today is 14 40-minute levels, with a dinner break after level eight. Late registration and re-entry is open for ten levels and each player gets 50,000 in chips.