The second starting flight of the World Poker Tour (WPT) Mazagan Main Event is in the books and with 166,800 chips, France’s Clement Beauvois stood alone not just as the day’s chip leader, but also as the overall chip leader heading into Day 2.
Some stops on the World Poker Tour, despite being genuine, full-fledged WPT events, are just small. There could be any number of reasons why – location, buy-in, unfortunate schedule placement, or lack of notoriety to name a few – but sometimes that’s just the way it is. Such is the case for WPT Mazagan, which will end up with the smallest player field since WPT Slovenia in July 2011. Just 66 players registered for Day 1A and we predicted that more people would play on Day 1B, especially since the tournament is a re-entry event. We were right, but only 80 players signed up for Wednesday’s action, putting the total field at 146. WPT Slovenia, for comparison, had 141 players.
WPT Mazagan probably suffers from a couple of the factors listed above. It doesn’t have the cache that other WPT stops have and is not being held at a particularly well-known venue in the poker world. It is also sandwiched right in between WPT Montreal, which ended the same day WPT Mazagan started, and both the always popular WPT Doyle Brunson Five Diamond World Poker Classic (December 4-9) and WPT Prague (December 3-9).
Thus, there were only 146 players in total for WPT Mazagan. The €3,200 buy-in created a prize pool of $577,387 (yeah, we know – the WPT only lists the prize info in U.S. dollars) with $168,207 going to the winner. Just 18 players will make the money, which starts at $7,216. The winner will be the only player making hitting the six-digit mark in U.S. dollar prize money, though second place will be so close, it could be up to currency fluctuations in the end.
The chip leader, Clement Beauvois, has just three cashes on his live tournament record, none for more than $3,000. Needless to say, if he can ride his successful Day 1 onwards and upwards, he stands to end up with his best result to date.
There are 81 players of the original 146 remaining going into the combined Day 2, which will begin at 1:00pm local time on Thursday. Our guess is that the tournament will play down to about three tables (27 players) before calling it a night and then come back Friday to determine the six-handed final table.
2012 World Poker Tour Mazagan Main Event – Day 1B Chip Leaders
1. Clement Beauvois – 166,800
2. Alain Roy – 153,100
3. Leonard Truche – 131,000
4. Sebastien Compte – 127,700
5. Pascal Hocquard – 108,800
6. Bruno Fitoussi – 107,700
7. Alexandra Petitjean – 105,200
8. Johan Guilbert – 97,100
9. Bruno Lopes – 89,400
10. Giacomo Fundaro – 85,900
2012 World Poker Tour Mazagan Main Event – Overall Day 1 Chip Leaders
1. Clement Beauvois – 166,800
2. Alain Roy – 153,100
3. Guillaume Darcourt – 134,800
4. Jeremie Sarda – 134,700
5. Leonard Truche – 131,000
6. Sebastien Compte – 127,700
7. Fabrice Soulier – 126,800
8. Aubin Cazals – 125,800
9. Sergei Vasilyev – 114,300
10. Pascal Hocquard – 108,800