Star-Studded Final Table At WPT Marrakech

Poker News / Matthew Pitt / 27 November 2011 / Leave a Comment

Jonathan Duhamel (Photo credit: Francesco Rizzo / WPT.com)

Until this event Duhamel had never cashed in a WPT Main event and now he is a great position to add a WPT title to his historic WSOP win.

The Main Event of the Marrakech leg of the World Poker Tour has reached the unofficial nine-handed final table and amongst the last nine surviving players are three massive names in poker. Arnaud Mattern, Bertrand "ElkY" Grospellier and Jonathan Duhamel will all return to their seats today knowing they are only eight eliminations away from winning a coveted WPT title.

Best placed of the trio is Duhamel, the former World Series of Poker Main Event champion starts the day with 1,126,000 chips, enough to put him in second place. Until this event Duhamel had never cashed in a WPT Main event and now he is a great position to add a WPT title to his historic WSOP win.

Mattern is a regular on the European poker circuit, the Frenchman seems to be at every single European Poker Tour and WPT event! Prior to WPT Marrakech, Mattern's had cashed twice at the WPT, finishing seventh at the 2010 Grand Prix de Paris and more recently he came 14th in Amneville. Anyone who knows Mattern will know that he seems to run worse than anyone ever when deep in major events, hopefully this tournament will be different for the popular Frenchman.

The last of the trio, and certainly not least, is ElkY, the man who you may recall was knocked clean out earlier in the week after an organised kickboxing fight with Lex Veldhuis. Whilst the blows to the head may have damaged his ego it appears they have not dented his spirit or his poker ability and he will sit down armed with 904,000 chips. ElkY is the only man at the final table to be in possession of a WPT title having one the 2008 WPT Al Lago Classic, a result that netted him $1,411,015. ElkY completed the coveted Triple Crown of live titles this summer but that will not have satisfied his hunger for more titles and he will be bitterly disappointed if he does not pick up his second WPT gong by the time play draws to a close tonight.

The chip leader at the start of proceedings is local player Mohamed Ali Houssam (1,330,000 chips) and making up the final nine are Hassan Fares, Toufik Ourini, Rodney Assous, Maksim Martinov and Sebatein Ta and it should be an exciting affair to say the least.

WPT Marrakech Chips Counts

1st: Mohamed Ali Houssam - 1,330,000
2nd: Jonathan Duhamel - 1,126,000
3rd: Hassan Fares - 1,110,000
4th: Toufik Ourini - 1,054,000
5th: Arnaud Mattern - 952,000
6th: Bertrand Grospellier - 904,000
7th: Rodney Assous - 813,000
8th: Maksim Martinov - 646,000
9th: Sebatien Ta - 282,000

Join Betfair Poker Now